Other than the dresser, which hubbs splurged on (Ikea, $249, I think), the rest of the room was my thrift shopping.

5′ x 8′ rug: $49 at Old Time Pottery

Comforter with 2 matching shams: $13 at Salvation Army

2 coordinating shams: $0.79 at Value Village (thrift)

Coordinating throw pillow: $1.49 at Park Avenue Thrift

Remnant upholstery fabric for headboard: $4.50 at Old Time Pottery (and I have enough for valences! – later )

Foam mattress topper for headboard: found it in the basement – used to be on one of the kids’ beds.

Button covering kit for headbard tufting: $8.00 at Hancock Fabric

Quote above the headboard: $14.99 at Old Time Pottery

Total: $78.77, plus hubby’s dresser

I no longer cringe walking into my room. I think it’ll need some color on the walls at some point, and I’ll install a closet organizing system at some point. But for now, I’m pretty happy with my <$80 redecoration!

Anyhow, everyone in the nursing program at my school is required to buy a black backpack filled with nursing lab supplies – gauze, saline solution, syringes, catheters, etc… So, you have 150+ people in the same classes carrying the same bag. I needed something to make mine stand out. (And I needed a justifiable reason to not make my head spin with pathophysiology).

So, my black backpack got ‘pimped’ with my own DIY owl applique! I used a template for the owl, picked up coordinating fat quarters in black and yellow (my school colors) from Hancock Fabric, and used a tutorial on embroidery stitches to master the blanket stitch around the edges of each layer. I pulled some similar-ish buttons out of my giant bowl-o-buttons for the eyes, and finished the whole thing in an afternoon today. While not studying.

If I’d been planning ahead, I would have taken step by step pictures. But I wasn’t planning ahead – just procrastinating. And so you only get a couple shots (below) of the final product. I can tell you what I did though. I used the template as a pattern to cut out the pieces to make the owl. Then I used Hollywood Fashion Tape to secure the belly and eye pieces to the main owl cutout. I blanket stitched those into place with embroidery thread. Then I used the same method to stitch all of that to the backpack. Added the wings (with the fashion tape, then blanket stitch), and finished by sewing on the button eyes. I probably should have sewn those on with black threat (to look like pupils) or small black buttons, but as mentioned earlier, the planning ahead phase wasn’t part of my process. I’m thinking about using an embroider stitch with contrasting fabric to give “Lucky” a stethoscope…

Here are 2 pics of the ever-so-cute backpack:

Isn’t it cute? My kids have named the owl Lucky. Maybe he’ll bring me luck when it’s exam time?

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have about 3 gagillion pages to read and commit to memory. (Seeing as how I was too busy to do that earlier in the day…)

Toys everywhere. Nothing had a home. The truth is, very few things had found a home even before Christmas, but once all the new Christmas stuff arrived, the situation was, well, disastrous. As you can see. So, hubbs and I sent the boys downstairs to play. See, when there aren’t any children around we can easily dump things into the trash… Sneaky? Perhaps. But efficient. In the end, there were 2 large bags of trash and 3 boxes for Goodwill.

Now, all their toys have their own home. Everything is put away, and most of it is labeled. Because I love labels. We’ll see how long things stay put away, but for now, the post-Christmas explosion has been dealt with.

Whitewashed Fireplace from theyellowcapecod.com

To start with, this was my fireplace:

Plenty of character, but with the nice hardwoods and the large oak built-ins on the wall, it made the room look dark and dingy. So, I followed the instructions from The Yellow Cape Cod, mixing my paint with water, and brushing on. But, seeing as how the prednisone had me going a mile a minute, I didn’t take time to do it slowly and check my progress. So I ended up with a white fireplace. Much whiter than I wanted. Boo.

So, back to Pinterest I went. How do you un-whitewash a fireplace? Pinterest was no help. Neither was google or a handful of do it yourself sites. The best advice I found was to repaint it another color. Yikes! Could I really have ruined my fireplace? A little more research, and I found that I could pick up some denatured alcohol or paint stripper at the hardware store and remove some of the paint. And, a bottle of Motsenbocker LiftOff and some old towels did the trick. Spray on, leave for 1 minute, then rub with a towel. Here’s the finished fireplace:

The natural patina of the brick is back, but the lighter finish really brightens the room. I may go back over it in a few places with the LiftOff to bring out the natural brick tones just a bit more, but for now, I’m quite happy with it.

Dragon Box

Dragon Box: Aimed for ages 8 and up, my 4 and 6 year olds love it too. It’s an intuitive game that separates the screen in half, and the goal is to isolate the “dragon box” on one half of the screen. But whatever you do to one half, you have to do to the other half of the screen too. It teaches algebra skills without any numbers! That’s right – they’re getting ready for algebra and they don’t even know it!

Cash Cow: cool little game with neat cartoony graphics – teaches math and money skills

Presidents vs. Aliens: Bean and I compete with each other in this one, and I’m afraid to say her presidential trivia skills beat mine. Answering questions correctly gives you the opportunity to shoot aliens out of the sky. Cool? Yes.

Mathmateer: Kids get to build a rocket and then use it doing basic math. You can set the level and skills (number recognition, addition, subtraction, multiplication, etc.). Super fun.

Stack the States: By the same developer as Presidents vs. Aliens, this one uses trivia about the US states. There’s another version about countries in the world that’s cool too.

It’s been a constant hassle – sweeping up stray legos, stepping on matchbox cars (or vice versa). So we had this great idea that instead of returning their toys to their rooms when we find them, we’ll put them in a clear container that they can see but not touch.

When they want something back, they have to buy it back with a task from the buy-back jar. Here’s our list of tasks – some are easier than others.

Practice karate for 20 minutes
Play outside for 20 minutes
Make your bed
Fold laundry
Vacuum 1 room
Sweep the kitchen
Clean up all the toys in your room
Find toys and books downstairs and put them away
Sweep the hallway
Clean downstairs surfaces (light switches, door handles, window sills) with a wet wipe
Clean the bathroom counter (upstairs) with a wet wipe
Clean one toilet
Sharpen pencils
Clean up someone else’s room
Read a book to Bruiser
Do 20 minutes on IXL (math practice website)

A couple of things to note: we keep non-toxic Seventh Generation all purpose wipes on hand, so I’m not putting a bleach- or ammonia- based cloth in their hands. Bruiser can’t do quite all of these, but he can do most. I put a little red dot on all the things he can do, so when he needs a task I make sure I pull out one with a red dot.

31.  The world isn’t all there is.  Rely on God more than you rely on anything else, including yourself.

Get it? Make space. Get rid of clutter. And he got the kids on board. Because if they want 2012 to be as awesome as 2011 was, they need to have space for it! So we spent the morning cleaning out Little Man’s room. And the afternoon was spent cleaning out Bean’s room. Of the two, Bean’s was much harder. While on first glance it seemed like the cleaner of the two rooms, Bean has a knack for turning other people’s trash into her treasure. And hiding it.

One conversation with her went like this:

Hubbs: “How about this Burger King crown. Why don’t you wear it more often?”

Bean: “Because, um, it’s cardboard. And it’s not pretty.”

Hubbs: “So, maybe you can throw it away now?”

Bean (as she puts the cardboard not pretty crown on): “NO!!!”

The crown eventually did make it to the trash today, along with a very great deal of the rest of her “treasures”. The good news is that Bruiser is only attached to a few things, so tomorrow will likely be an easier day.

Loving our brand new tradition! I think it’ll be back every year.

Little Man is truly a gift – he lights up a room by walking into it. He can befriend anybody in no time flat. He knows everything there is to know about dinosaurs, planets, Lego Ninjago, and Star Wars. He’s an awesome brother. He’ll earn his green belt in Tae Kwan Do this week. He wears his heart on his sleeve – he’s not afraid to tell you how much he likes you, how pretty you are, or how glad he is to be spending time with you (watch out, ladies!). When we’re sitting at bedtime reading a story, he likes to run his little fingers through my hair.  And the things that come out of his mouth are priceless. Just today:

“My 3 favorite things are God, Jesus, and Legos.” (That’s the trinity, right? Father, Son, and Holy Bricks?)

He came home today wearing a paper “Happy Birthday” crown that his teacher made for him, and all the kids in his kindergarten class signed. Love that. Instead of a birthday party with friends, the whole family went out to see The Muppets at the Studio Movie Grill – it’s a restaurant-movie theater, where every seat is at a table facing the screen, and waiters come to take your order. There’s a full menu, complete with strawberry lemonade, chicken nachos, milkshakes… Between the movie and the experience of dinner at the ‘theatre’ it was an awesome day.

Little Man went to bed tonight with only a little regret. “Tomorrow it won’t be my birthday anymore.” But he sure did have a great day today.

Let’s just say it was the perfect way to try out my brand spankin new stand mixer. The best birth-mas gift ever (that means, birthday/Christmas combined gift, in case you were wondering)! (Thanks, mom and dad!)

They’re super simple and a huge hit with kids and grown-ups.

Snow Peaks recipe

4 large egg whites

1 tsp cream of tartar

1 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla

5 oz Ghiradelli bittersweet chocolate chips

3+ candy canes

Preheat oven to 225 and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper (or silicone baking sheet). After separating the eggs beat the egg whites on medium low speed till foamy (1-2 minutes). Add cream of tartar and beat at medium till the egg whites are fluffy. Add sugar slowly and increase speed to medium high, then add vanilla. Keep it going for 5-7 minutes, until the egg whites are stiff, glossy, and look like this:

Spoon it into a ziplock bag, squeeze as much air out as possible, and snip the corner off. Pipe it into bite-size peaks and bake for an hour.

Turn the oven off and let them sit there to dry out overnight, or for 6-8 hours. Then melt chocolate in a double boiler (or bowl stacked on top of a pot). Keep in mind, the bottom part needs a couple inches of water in the bottom, but the bowl on top can’t touch the water, or your chocolate will scald and get all clumpy, dry, and gross.While the chocolate is melting, put candy canes in a thick ziplock baggie, and use a rolling pin to crush them. Spread the candy cane crumbs and chunks in a thin layer on a cookie sheet.

Dip the peaks into the chocolate and then set them on the candy-caned cookie sheet.

The chocolate will harden and dry at room temp in an hour or two, or you can pop them into the fridge to speed it up. Store in an air-tight container – they don’t need to be refrigerated. They taste a lot like peppermint bark, but with the extra light crunch of meringue.

I’m thinking next time I’ll add red food coloring – the paste kind that doesn’t turn pink – and use white chocolate to dip them in. Then they’ll be Santa Hats! I was also thinking about substituting orange extract for the vanilla and skipping the candy cane, for chocolate-dipped orange peaks. Keep in mind, a lot of the flavor comes from the chocolate, so don’t skimp on that. Use the good stuff!