Bye Butler

We turned in the keys today to our Butler home today.

 We've been living at our new place for a week. 

We lived here for two years. As this blog can tell you, this was a great home to us. It gave us summer days on the back porch and a yard to make snowmen in. Madeleine learned to walk here and all of us enjoyed the shade of the oak tree in the backyard.

Matt had me do the final walk through. When I opened the door for the last time, the house echoed. It was strangely empty. 

I thought I would be more sad about leaving, but I don't know if it was the tick that fell on me when I opened the door or the fact I already know where we living next, but I was okay with shutting that door one last time.

Bye 222E Halsey St., you were a good home. I wish another family got to live there after us, instead of being knocked down.

Moving

Guys we are moving between a week to two and half weeks. We still aren't sure the day and I'm feeling the stress. The actual moving thing isn't too stressful especially since it's only two blocks, but the expectations I'm putting myself are.

Goals

1) Minimalize as much as possible
2) Move for under $150
3) Keep it as zero-waste as possible
4) Pack, move, and unpack in 3 days

Matt and I snuck into new apartment earlier this week. Because there are a lot less windows it seems a lot more cramped. It has really motivated me get rid of more stuff and only bring the necessities. Also while I was in there, I saw my new washer and dryer. They are amazing. I'm so excited! (And I'm never excited about laundry)

Because we don't have a set move date, I don't have a firm timeline on moving so I feel a bit more disorganized. On top of that, Matt has a big presentation next week and is working on publishing his paper by the end of the month.

To do

1) Get rid of any excess paper floating around the house

2) Go through books

3) Go through my clothes (dreading this one) 

4) Sell TV

5) Get rid of rugs

6) Go through food

7) Go through toys
8) Madeleine' s clothes

9) Condense and reduce bathroom crap

10) Sell air conditioner

11) Get rid of extra furniture
12) Figure out a better way to organize sewing stuff

That's what I'll be up to for the next 8-20 days. I'll try to check in. :)

Runaway

This girl. She is my wild thing.

Today I made quesadillas with guacamole for lunch. Madeleine happily took her plate and was eating it on the porch. After a few minutes, she popped back in the house to tell me she needed more. I looked her in bowl and the quesadillas were there but the guacamole had been licked out. I told her she needed to at least take a few bites from the quesadillas before I'd give her more guacamole. 

Wrong answer.

She screamed and stomped around outside. Furious that I wouldn't budge.

After a while of this, she stopped crying.

"Bye Mommy. B's mommy, not you."

Then she ran off to my neighbor's home.

I could see her the whole way there.

I walked inside to grab my shoes before Baby X and I went off to get her.

When I got there, Madeleine was sitting on their lawn chairs eating her quesadillas.

"B gone."

I knew that they were at the park. I waited for her to finish eating, before asking her if she wanted to find "B and Dodger." She grabbed my hand and off we went to find our friends.

Easter

Easter was fun and simple this year.

 Matt is still pretty anti-prefilled Easter basket, so instead I just made Madeleine a little basket and a flower wreath. 

 We had a chick for breakfast with Madeleine's very favorite thing right now - orange juice.

I hid the Easter eggs and got her dressed before Matt and her went out to find them. I was thrilled with this dress too. I found it at the thrift store in perfect condition and it's oh so cute on her.

She found the first one by herself but she kept getting distracted by all the dirt to play in. Matt would point her towards another one and she get all excited, "Egg!!!" pick it up and ask, "More egg?" before wandering off towards a shovel. Matt ended up throwing his shoe about an inch from some of the eggs to try to help her. But no, our little shoe obsessed girl would run to the shoe and without looking up return it to him and try to put it on his foot. But eventually she did find all 10.

And had to have them opened. 

When we were on our trip a few weeks ago, I got the candy for her eggs. Most of the candy was little sour bunny gummys, but I also had got her some chocolate. They were shaped like animals and she was really excited by them. We found them at the oldest bookstore in the country The Moravian. They were bulk and so cute so I grabbed them for her Easter eggs.

After that we read a few books about chickens (we've been learning about eggs for the last 2 weeks) from the library.

And dressed her up to take some Easter photos.

Those were the best 2. I have to say taking photos of a toddler is hard even when your camera can keep up with them. Almost every photo she was making some type of face or eating candy. 

The worst one. Demon fairy child.

But in the end we got one or two for grandparents and our wall and called it good.

Matt and I headed in to get ready for the Sisters to come over but Madeleine surprised us and stayed outside sitting on her bench.

After 10 minutes or so I went out to check on her. She was eating her candy and watching the birds and airplanes. Not long after the bells from the campus cathedral rang and she was so excited. 

The rest of the day was pretty unexciting. We listened to church and talked to family, before going to bed at a reasonable time. 

Matt and I were happy with it. I was able to keep it inline with our zero-waste goals thanks to our wood Easter eggs and chocolate factory candy. She didn't get much so clean up was nonexistent. And as for the religious part of Easter, I decided it was pretty perfect. Christmas to me is all about the hope that Christ can bring, and Easter is all about the joy that the Atonement brings.

Madeleine will learn about the Atonement and Crucifixion when she gets older. She'll understand pain and guilt better and hopefully understand that we believe Christ can help take those feelings away. Right now, Easter is just focusing on the joy and happiness.

Spring

Spring is here and we are in heaven!

Madeleine woke up this morning and ran to the back door asking to go out. She ate her pancakes on the porch before taking off to play with her little neighborhood friends. Even Baby X tried to follow her down the stairs. He is getting pretty good at going up but is too nervous to try going downstairs. He just sits and watches Madeleine play until I can move him down. 

(Bye Mom! I don't need you! I'm going to see B.)

Madeleine and Baby X played barefoot in the mud all afternoon until his mom came to get him. Then his older sister joined in on the fun. Madeleine's choices of pretend mud food were cracking me up - eggs and salad. :) The eggs were made by flipping over the colander and the salad was grass and flowers she put in it.

She was a royal mess by the end of it. She had a runny nose and chocolate batter all over her from making brownies earlier. Add that to the mud, she was more dirt than human. She loved it though. She has a little cupboard (actually the little wood thing next to the door in the above photo.) It is full of all of the kitchen stuff she's allowed to play with. She kept running in for more tools and at the end she put her muddy dishes in the sink. haha. 

The brownies we made were actually pretty gross. But Madeleine was so excited. She's getting pretty good at baking and Baby X is now getting old enough that he is helping! He helped put the chocolate chips into the batter and turned on the mixer. Here is her big cheesy grin when I gave her her brownie that she of course had to eat outside.

You know, I like blogging more when it's not winter. We do more things. More people come visit us. I'm less stressed from trying to keep our home in one piece as they go stir crazy. Yesterday we visited our favorite farm. We couldn't pick anything yet, but I'm getting excited for those days coming up. 

I'm getting ready to switch out our winter boots to rain boots and officially decide Spring is here to stay. 

Spruced up bathroom

A few weeks ago, I read on Holly's blog about how she fixes up her home even if she is in a rental. 

"I’m also not one to wait until I own my home before I properly decorate it. Never have been. I remember gut renovating my first apartment when I was 22 years old living on my own in Boston. "

I'm not as brave as her. I usually keep my apartments in pretty much the shape they were in when I got there, but this apartment is a bit different. For one, they are tearing it down in the next year. I'm 99.9% sure we'll be the last ones to ever live in it, so Princeton doesn't really care what we do to it. The other thing is we are getting to the point that our home is actually pretty clean most of the time. By pretty clean, I mean minus the dishes it takes under an hour to clean the whole house. Lately, it's been closer to 45 minutes. 

It's weird how having a clean house gives my brain room to think about my home in a different way. Suddenly, I have time to think about functions of a space and how I feel when I'm in the room. One of the rooms that I really hated in our home is the bathroom. It always feels dirty, smelly, and damp. There is no window in the bathroom, and it's tiny. I think it's 5'x 6.5' totaling just under 33 sq ft. 

So this week my goal was to make it a more functional space.

My objectives

- organize closet

- get rid of both towel racks so our towels wouldn't be bundled up on top of them

- get the bathroom door to open all the way 

- try to make it prettier

First thing I did was go through the closet in the bathroom. There is a picture of it when we first moved in, in this blog post. I got rid of any unopened lotion, perfume, and shampoo and had it donated to a women's shelter. The other things that I used once or twice I put up on freecycle. A cute teenage girl picked it up.

 After that I took down both towel racks earlier this week and replaced them with hooks. This helped so much with the dampness of the bathroom. The towels dry so much faster now.

Then all I had left was to put up "art".

It should have been pretty easy, but everything went wrong. One of the frames, we bought broke, so we had to get super glue. Then we ran out of dry wall anchors, and then we ran out of spackling. Then finally when we thought everything was hung, the door kept hitting the shadow box! We were finally able to call the project done yesterday morning.

It's been almost a week since I put the hooks up, and I am going to do that in each apartment we live in for now on. It looks better, smells better, and it's so much easier to keep clean. I haven't had to run and check on the bathroom every time someone comes over.

It's really nice change. I know it's not at all like the designer blogs, but it's way better than it was before. Hopefully it will stay clean, so I can avoid explaining to five year olds why women wear bras in the future. 

All of Madeleine's Toys

I'm currently obsessed with photography collections that highlight how people's homes work.

Here's my list of what I have found so far so you can get a better sense of what I'm talking about.

Weeks worth of trash

What people eat in a day

Groceries for a family for a week

Food that was found dumpster diving

Where kids sleep around the world

Children's prized possessions from around the world

Buried Alive - Homes of families in LA

And my very favorite the book Material World that takes photos of family's possessions from around the world.

I'm hoping to have my own versions of some of these projects down the road, but today I made up my own and took a picture of all the toys that Madeleine currently has in her toy rotation.

Since we do have a toy rotation, a lot of people that come over offer to give us toys, because her room looks empty. In realty though, Madeleine has plenty to play with. She plays with all the toys about every 3-4 days. The stuffed animals, dolls, blocks, and the legos are always out. The rest I rotate out in the afternoon after nap time.

List of Madeleine's toys

1. Sophie

2. Two small corolle dolls

3. Two small target dolls

4. Waldorf doll

5. Itty bitty baby

6. Bigger Corolle doll 

7. Some of our old stuffed animals

8. Baby Dino

9. Crocheted Noah's arch toys

10. Two Under the Nile Dolls

11. Tickle Sloth

12. Chile doll

13. Two handmade bears

14. Red car

15. Three wooden trucks and cars

16. Three hotwheel cars

17. Rubix cube

18. Lots of duplos

19. Rody

20. Doll Stroller

21. Train Set

22. Freaky monkey (she loves this thing)

23. Mooska fairy

24. Small set of old fisher price people

25. Felt Nativity set

26. Three tolo animals

27. Tow Mater Truck

28. Rubber penguin

29. Rainbow blocks

30. Chemistry blocks

31. Dress up wood bear

32. Wool ball

33. Spiky ball

34. Tennis ball

35. Castle set

36. Musical instruments

37. Song flute

38. Puzzles

39. Melissa and Doug puzzle train

40. Bead rollercoaster

41. Bangles

42. Princeton bracelet

43. Magnetic drawing board

Not shown is her play kitchen and doll house. Everything else is here. 

So with the toy rotation the way I have it set up, everything gets played with. Her favorites of course are her dolls. She usually has two or three close to her at all times. I actually am pretty happy with the number of toys we have at the moment, so we aren't planning on buying her any for her birthday or Christmas. We got her some activities to do with us instead. We are really excited.

Another bonus of doing this was I got to check to make sure that everything had it's pieces, and they did! I'm thrilled. I love her room has things that has only things she loves in it.

This is what it looks like normally.

I'm hoping the rest of the house is like that soon. We really love her room.

Halloween

I seriously love Halloween. We had a really fun day, so here are a few photos from it.

I usually make cupcakes for Halloween, but with the small people being, well, normal small people, I thought that was a bit too ambitious. Instead, we got a dozen of donuts and picked out some costumes for them at Party City. Their eyes were just little white m&ms with black frosting. Madeleine loved picking out the different costumes. My favorite were the funny glasses. We then walked up to campus in costumes to drop them off to Matt's lab. 

Fast forward to after nap time, all the kids in the neighborhood got dressed up and played outside. It was so cute watching King Author take on Spider man and a tiny jedi fairy. My friend Rachel and I took photos of Madeleine and her little best friend. They are so silly.

They kept making each other giggle (and us) so we could not get too many photos with them looking the right way. Half way through they started playing peek-a-boo. It was just too much cuteness.

Beatrice was a cute little butterfly, and Madeleine just got a "new" princess dress from Gamma. Madeleine didn't really care about it, but Beatrice loved it. :) It was Mollie's fairy princess dress that my mom made when Mollie was a little younger than Madeleine. 

After that we went trick-or-treating around the neighborhood with some friends from church. It was wonderful and Madeleine quickly caught on to the whole thing. She would walk up all by herself and knock on the door. At the beginning she would give the candy right back to me, but eventually she started keeping it for herself. Our neighborhood is seriously the perfect place to trick-or-treat and we had so much fun with the other students. The best thing Madeleine got was a llama cookie cutter.

We switched back to the dragon cape when she got cold. Then we went home and got some spicy wings before curling up in bed and watching Merlin. (We aren't sure if we like it.)

Anyway, Happy Halloween!

Morning Photos

I'm kind of a brat when it comes to family photos. I insist on them at least twice a year if not more. This fall has been a bit of doozy though, since I waited to late too book most of my favorite local photographers. I'm still trying to get a professional photographer, but that didn't stop me from waking my family up at sunrise (7:11 is not that early) and dragging them to our backyard for practice photos. 

I took just over 100 photos...and we got 6 that kind of turned out. :) Posing a family is hard stuff when you're not behind the camera! I should have taken a picture of all the things we needed to keep Madeleine looking the right way. It helped that we were looking toward her best friend's house. So all we had to say was "Where is B's house?" for the first twenty photos or so.

The lighting was beautiful. Did I mention I love living here?

So yeah, hopefully we can get a few more pretty photos before Fall is over. I would love to get some done on campus.

General Conference, Starbucks, and Leaves

It's Fall! 

Yesterday was basically the most perfect day ever (minus the fact Matt is sick.)

We woke up and played.

Madeleine had boxed mac n' cheese for the first time in her life.

We played outside, while listening to Conference.

Afterwards we went to the bookstore and got Starbucks.

And Matt and I even got a photo together!

Madeleine tried to get in on it too.

Today has already kicked off with cinnamon rolls and bubble baths.

:) 

Hope your weekend is awesome too.