Coffee, would you care to join me?

  

   If you came over and had a cup of coffee with me, I'd first run around like mad and try to straighten up before you got here, because if you saw what my house looks like on a normal day it may scare you. Despite my best efforts it would probably still be messy when you got here because keeping it clean with young kids around is impossible, at least for me.
    When you ring the doorbell Liam and Declan would run to the door to greet you. After making it past them, which is no easy feat I would offer you some coffee and homemade treats because I love a good excuse to bake. If you had any little ones with you I would offer them chocolate milk and some goodies to go with it. Then hopefully we would be able to sit down for a minute and I'd ask you about what is going on in your life. After listening I'd tell you about mine.
    I'd tell you about how great it was to have my husband off from school and work for two weeks and how much I loved having dinner as a family every night and someone here to help with bedtime.  I'm going to be so sad when he starts school next week and he's gone all day and night:(, I'll miss having him around. I'd also tell you how I am secretly still disappointed about not being able to move, I'm trying to make the best of it but at times it's still hard. So I'm trying to make our home into something I love, hopefully that helps. I feel like since I always thought we would move in a couple years I never put as much effort as I would like into decorating, but now I am going to start and take you guys along with me.
     During this time we would be interrupted a million times by Liam showing us his cool superhero moves or maybe if you had a little one his age he would be playing and the interruptions would only be half a million. I would also probably be holding Rory who would be bouncing and laughing, while trying to grab my coffee. He's such a happy little guy. Declan would be trying to play with whatever Liam was or probably eating, one of his favorite past times.
    Then I'd tell you how I feel like time is going by too fast, it scares me to think in two years Liam will be in Kindergarten and I don't want him to be gone all day, I hope our school has a half day program I need to look in to it. I can't imagine what life will be like when they are all in school, I'll miss them like crazy. I'd talk about how I really need to start working out again, I've really been slacking over here for the past month or so, I need to get motivated. I'd probably tell you how one day I'm going to need to go back to work and I have no idea what I will do. Most of the things I would love to to do are hard fields to make a living at and that scares me. I would to tell you I dream of being a writer, but barely find the time to write except for here and even that's hard sometimes.
    When it was time for you to go I'd offer you some treats to take home, so I don't end up eating them all, and say I hope you come again soon and I'd really mean it. Thanks for joining, if you have any questions you'd like to ask me email me or comment and I will answer in a future post, feel free to ask anything:)

Bedroom Makeover

     After trying to sell our home last year, with no luck we decided to switch rooms with our sons because there was no way all three would fit in their old room. So we gave them the master and took the smaller one, which worked out fine but we left it the light green it was because we figured if we tried to move again soon what's the point in painting.
      I wasn't crazy about that color for our room and since moving doesn't look like it will be in the cards anytime soon, I wanted to like our room. After some convincing, my husband agreed and his parents took the kids Sunday so we could paint. I love it and can't wait to share it with you guys. I just need to finish painting the dresser for it and add a few finishing touches and I will let you guys see what it looks like soon, so stay tuned...

Exhausted

     I am utterly exhausted. I feel like the last few days have been an emotional roller coaster. Now  I feel drained. I haven't really been sharing much because I didn't want to say anything until we really knew what was going on. Before I posted about how we were hoping to move, you can read it here. So we made the decision to rent our place out and find a new place. Things seemed to be working out perfectly we talked to a mortgage broker and financially had things lined up and our neighbor whose lease was up in a couple months wanted to rent out place, so we felt good.
    We went out looking at homes and I loved the first one we saw, but I wanted to keep looking just to make sure. I kept thinking about that first house and knew it would be perfect for us. It was 4 bedrooms,  plus an office, 2 baths and about twice the size of our current home. I knew there were a couple things I would like it to have, but it didn't like central air and a larger space for eating, but these were all things I knew I could live with and I knew with our budget it was the perfect fit. From the moment I walked in I could picture raising our family there.
    After many talks with my husband we decided we were going to put an offer on it Saturday night.  I kept putting it off since I was nervous because it felt like such a big decision. Finally I made a few phone calls and found out some things changed and we were no longer going to be able to get a loan.  I was devastated to say the least. I was so excited and I couldn't believe how perfectly things were falling into place and then all of a sudden everything changed. So, I guess I've been mourning what could have been or what I thought was going to happen. We have been talking to our broker to see if there was a way we could still do it, but unfortunately it doesn't look like a possibility anymore.
     I know maybe it wasn't meant to be, but I really loved that house and thought we were going to be able to move. We had the preapproval and everything, but things change. So I'm trying my hardest to get out of this funk. I know I have been short with my kids and stressed due to this and I'm trying to get over it and just enjoy holidays.
     Usually I would have had my Christmas card done and all my gifts, but this has been consuming my brain so all those other things have been lacking. I am trying to get over this and get back on track. I finally made gifts for Liam's teachers just in the nick of time since his last day is tomorrow. I made hot cocoa mix in mason jars you can get the recipe here. I did it in pint size jars, so I just cut everything in half. I tried some and it's really delicious you won't be disappointed or be able to go back to the premade stuff after trying it. Maybe not the best picture, but I was in a hurry.

     Now after finishing that and spending almost an hour looking for my lost phone my house is a disaster, which I would usually try to clean because I hate waking up to a dirty house. I decided not to tonight though, I am off to relax for a bit before I go to bed and enjoy another cup of hot cocoa. Goodnight!

  


And here's one of the kids to enjoy:)

 

What's small to you?

     I love discovering new blogs and usually end up staying up way too late reading them, since there are so many good ones out there. Last week I was looking at some blogs about how to make your space feel bigger and what to do with a small home so it doesn't feel so small. The blogger went on to say if she can host a large family party at her house then anyone can and also talked about how at times she felt embarrassed about her small home. I kept reading most of the tips she gave were decent, but not for us since most involved major construction.  Then at one point she mentioned the size of her home, 1800sq ft and I was in shock. Is it just me, but that does not constitute a small home.  I would say an average size home by us is 1400sq ft or so. Maybe it just depends on where you live, I'm not sure really but where we live 1800sq ft would be considered a good size, maybe even large.  I guess in the end I was just annoyed because I wasn't sure how she could have a whole blog about small living when her house was that size some people even made comments about that, so I know I'm not alone but I didn't want to leave anything negative, so at that point I just stopped reading it. Who knows, maybe where she is from that is small. When I talk about our house being small I feel it truly is at 968sq ft. I guess I was just wondering in other areas what is an average size home or what do you consider small?

Sometimes when it rains it pours

 

   It seems to be constantly raining these last few days in Chicago, in more ways the one.  The other day when I went to start my van it just wouldn't start, my husband tried to jump it but no luck. So in the morning we had it towed and found out the battery was dead, so we had it replaced. Then that same night Jack's car wouldn't start after work, he finally got it started but now the power steering is out. So basically we got our van back and then had to take his car in to the shop. Hopefully we can get his car back by tomorrow and  it won't be too expensive since we just had to pay for a new battery. Now we are going another day without a car, which I really wouldn't mind if it wasn't raining all day here. Liam's school is only a few blocks away, but I really don't want to walk with the little ones in the rain. I should look into getting a rain cover for the stroller so they won't get wet. I know things could be worse, I guess at least they didn't both break down at the same time:) I hope everyone else is having a better week then we are here.

Getting out of a Funk

   


     Yesterday if you stopped by, you probably read I was feeling kind of crabby. Today I've been feeling a bit better, and after spending some time at the park with the kids and having a chance to vent to one of my favorite mommas I now feel much better. Then I thought if I share with you guys I will probably feel even better then I do now.
     Yesterday when we got home I was fine, but then I had some errands to run (that ended up being useless) in the pouring rain and just got into a funk from there. I came home and looked in our living room with all the piles of clothes and stuff from our trip and just started getting irritated as I tripped over toys and bags. Our house is tiny and when it is cluttered I realized it stresses me out, so I try to keep it organized for the most part, but sometimes with 3 kids and when you just come home from vacation that just doesn't happen.
     I think I mentioned that about a year ago we had our house on the market, but no one was even looking at it and our realtor wanted us to just keep lowering the price. Unfortunately there was only so low we could go. After a while we just felt it wasn't worth the stress to keep it on the market. Our neighbors was for 2 years and they just ended up renting it a month ago. So when we first realized we were going to have to stay here for a while, maybe a long while I was upset, this was just suppose to be our starter home. I eventually got over it and tried to make the most of things, but I still have moments where it bothers me.
    Trust me I know many people are in similar situations or even worse and I don't have much to really complain about, but sometimes it's just nice to vent. Plus with my period coming I know I am super emotional. I went two years straight without my period, since I never had one between Declan and Rory now they just seem much worse then I remember.
     Now I am just trying to remember all the wonderful things I have to be thankful for and focus on that because I know in the grand scheme of things the size of our house really doesn't matter it's the people in it. 

What a crappy morning

 

 So I mentioned we had a great night last night and even though I didn't get much sleep I was in a great mood.  That was until I checked our basement where we just had a playroom finished for the boys about six months ago. I saw it flooded again, which is the second time in two months. We only finished half of it and in years that side of the basement only flooded once.  Now it's already been twice in such a short time. So I spent my morning cleaning and throwing away books and toys that got ruined :( Let's hope it doesn't happen again tonight .