We've managed to squeeze in 5 or 6 beach days over the past few weeks. Being near the ocean and listening to the waves is so soothing to me and helps me instantly relax and re-evaluate before getting sucked back into remodeling/decorating/moving in. And it's definitely Parker's favorite place to be. The water has warmed up a lot, causing him to be a little too brave. I have to watch him closer, but he's getting pretty good at "surfing". (what he calls boogie boarding).

When Miles saw these pictures of himself, he pointed at every pic and said "paw-purr!" Even he can't tell the difference between him and parker.

Yesterday I finished (started late late Friday night with Brit's help) re-covering these chairs (they just had the same cream fabric on them as when I bought them at the pottery barn outlet during the Black Friday Sale and I was ready for a change) while Parker rolled out the red carpet for any visitors. After posting about that Ikea fabric I may have gone back and bought 2(!) more bolts for a total of 90 yards-at 60" with....that's a lot of upholstery fabric....but I'm splitting them with a friend. I promise craig. and I already used so much of 2 of the paterns for my tablecloth and drapes.

I've been sewing so much lately that I'm always keeping an eye out for good fabrics. I'm getting a little nervous that I'm going to become one of those crazy sewers lady that buys room fulls of fabric just because.

because a family photo shoot is such a relaxing event, I thought I should squeeze it in right between the new counter top and carpet going in and packing up our entire life.

My friend Julia took these a few days ago and the miraculous part of it all was not that we are all wearing clothes that somewhat go together, but the fact that we all are even wearing clothes and shoes at all. And that is only a result of me, driving back and forth between our 2 houses (the rental and our new one) 3 times between 11pm and 1am the night before the shoot, gathering the other half of shoes, belts, shirts and pants. We were still in our rental at this point, but had moved a lot of our stuff (and craig moved the closets). fun, fun. But I'm so happy we did it and I love how they turned out. She is the best photographer. I'll put up some more when I get them.

ok. actually they are drapes on a rope. I decided to turn the "formal front room" into a playroom for now for 3 reasons...1-I don't have any furniture to go in there at this point (or really anywhere else for that matter), 2- it's not really at the front of the house so it's not the first thing you see when you walk in, and 3- i will still keep a lot of the toys in the loft space upstairs, but I wanted the boys to have a space closer to me downstairs and Craig and I promptly claimed all other usable areas.

It's far from done, but my first big goal was to find a way to seperate the dining room from this space and give it more a whimsical feel. All of the drapes I sewed are 2 sided...fun prints on one side and fancier prints on the other-kinda like a bullet-business in front party in back. (did i really just say that?). since this room may change functions at some point, I didn't want to have to buy and hang rods, so I bought some big eye hooks with some screw on wire clamps (?), ...not really sure what they are called. I just walked the isles of Lowe's until I saw something that i thought could hold my rope tight enough to keep it taut.

I plan to cover the fireplace with a huge chalkboard and put a TeePee in the corner.


here's a few of miles' room with his walls painted and his chair rail up.

Sewing drapes for the new playroom while the boys played in the hose out back in underwear and a diaper. I'm pretty sure miles just had pirates booty and an otter pop for breakfast.

Not all are things for the house....just things I've seen in the past few weeks. Of the hundreds of retail stores I've been in lately---paint, carpet, tile, wood, etc.-my favorite, by far, has been the 7 slab yards that I browsed. I could look at all those beautiful pieces of marble, granite and onyx all day long. (though not while wrestling a 1 1/2 yr old who is supposed to stay in my arms while in the yard.)

Fortunately, he was only with me at one, as my children now live at Laurie's house. They may start calling her mom. I told her the other day, I don't think that I've eaten a meal that has not come from her kitchen in at least 10 days. She is amazing! I'm not sure how I could do this without her or all the friends that have helped out with the little men of my life.

One more week till we move out....still cranking away.

Deal of the day- 27 yards of this fabric for $25. You won't appreciate this if you don't sew, but this is an upholstery fabric (kinda feels like nice canvas) which would normally be at least $12 a yard, $6.99 a yd from Ikea, but since the line was discontinued, it was down to $2.99 a yd. I wanted the whole bolt, so I kept asking till I someone in AS IS told me they could sell it for $25... 92 cents a yd. SOLD!!

I was so happy, I was thinking up projects the whole way home. For my first project I sewed a long table cloth to cover up my plastic dining room table.
First, I surged together 4- 5x5 ft squares of fabric. (that's a lot of fabric).

Then I made a compass with my piano bench and some string, cut along the curved line and *just hemmed the bottom.

I have a table cloth that will be the topper for this. And I still have plenty of fabric for all the other things I'm dreaming up. 

*just...there was over 31 feet of fabric to hem. at a curve. took me forever. (about 15 mins-which is forever to me.)

In other news, this morning Parker prayed "bless that Miles will stop distracting us." Over the past week, he's also prayed that "Miles will stop drooling" and that "Miles will stop biting us". These are not things he's repeating from our prayers, for the record.

Over the past few weeks while doing renovations I've learned that there are a lot of things you can do yourself, some things you can't do yourself, and some things that you could probably do, but it may not be worth it--as it would take so much time and not turn out that well.

(as I typed "some things you can't do yourself" all I was thinking is..."i could learn to lay carpet. I could cut marble. I could put in sprinklers....."). :)

anyhow, a perfect example of this is when I was painting parker's walls the other day. My awesome painter who is painting my kitchen cabinets (something I could do myself, but not well, and too time consuming-plus, it would probably have to be re-done in 2 years), said, "Do you want me to paint this room?" I said, "No, it's ok. I can paint a wall." Since it is dark gray and the edges will really show i said, "I may pay you to come and touch up my edges."

He laughed and said, "mary, I could paint this whole room in less than 1 hour, but if i have to come back and fix your mistakes, it will take me 2 hours." I handed him the brush and walked out of the room. (especially since for bedrooms he was only charging $18 an hour).

My dad heard we were moving so he threw all his saws and tools in the car and drove over to help us out. The greatest thing about him is that he just says, "what do you want me to do?" When I say I want to put wainscoting up on the walls in the boys rooms and install wood floors-1x8 pine planks that I plan to paint white- he doesn't say---"why do want wainscoting?" or "you can't paint wood-especially on the floor" or "you can't use pine for flooring" or "do you know how much wood cost?" He didn't even say that he'd never done either, even though he hadn't. He just says, "OK. Let's do it" and pulls out his tape measure. Like I said, he's awesome.

I have painted these rooms since these pics...not the floors yet,  just the walls.

here's where i'm headed with the floors (though I don't mind the gaps in the pictures below, my planks are closer together than the ones shown).

I only look so crazy/happy in this picture because I was 1/2 mile from the finish. And i was so excited to see my little cheering section.
san diego rock n' roll marathon. 26.2 miles is far. Really, really far. But I ran it all in 4 hours, which was my goal. Erin was an awesome running partner/coach. I somehow kept up with her for the first 16 miles on pace for a 3:35 marathon time (8 - 8:20 min. miles). Something I did not train for. At mile 16 I told her I was out, but that she should keep hauling cause she was doing great. I slowed a little, waiting for her to turn a corner so she couldn't see me and came to a dead stop. I caught my breath for a sec, slowly walked for half a block, then started a slow jog that carried me nicely through the next 10 miles. When I think back on it, it wasn't so bad. Kinda fun. And I'm glad I finished, but mostly, I'm proud of myself for how fast I ran those 16 miles.

Craig was a trooper, hauling the kids to different spots on the course to cheer me on. Though he was so exhausted from his morning with the kids that he got a post-marathon massage, too. Pretty funny.