Then:
Now:
Once upon a time, there was a beautiful little girl named Noelle born. She stayed home with her mom and was nice and polite, did as she was told and didn't talk back. Then one day, Noelle started school. At first, nothing really changed and then BOOM she was 10!!
I don't know if we will all survive this. There is so much drama around EVERYTHING. We're not fair, we like Michale better, so & so's mom/dad lets her have one. We have good days and bad days. I was talking to my dad the other night about this and he just laughed and said "oh, sometimes it works, you got one just like you".
This could not be farther from the truth! I was always polite and well behaved. I'm sure I never talked back, yelled or had any kind of a temper tantrum. My room was clean and always did what I was told with a smile on my face. I never tattled or fought with my sister. I guess we just have a little "hiccup" right now. It should be smooth sailing from here on out~right.
It is possible that we have two of the pickiest eaters there are. I have been bad as far as if they didn't like what we had, they could fix something else, I wasn't going to. WELL, not long ago, that rule went out the window. The kids have to try everything we are having. If they don't like it, there is always breakfast in the morning.
I thought that if they helped make dinner, they would appreciate it more. Well, what do you know, it worked! For me to even have them help is a big step. I constantly find myself wanting to say "wait, do it like this" or "you need to do it like that". They are not the neatest cooks there are, but it is fun quality time in the kitchen.
We make our own salad dressing that is pretty easy to make, so I ask the kids "who wants to help make the dressing"? Who ever answers first gets to help that night. They both like to set the table as well. Michael takes great pride in setting the table. He even wraps up the silverware with the napkins! The first night we had salad, you would have thought the world was coming to an end. They each only had to eat a little bit that was put in a custard dish. You can't get a much smaller helping than that. Noelle was just slightly dramatic, (unusual for her~not) and was "going to get sick" if she ate any more. This CRUSHED Michael as HE was the one who made the dressing. Now on his second bowl of salad, he told her "that's RUDE Noelle".
The next time, Noelle made the dressing and there was no feeling of "getting sick". Michael is now using a regular sized salad bowl and Noelle is still using the custard. There are still a few things that they don't like and hopefully, like with the salad, that will change. However, there are some things, like bologna, that just aren't worth a second try.
Let me start by saying, I love to wallpaper! For me, it is kind of like therapy. I don't mind taking it off or putting it up. I first fell in love wallpapering when we (read I) decided to change our previous house. For those who don't know, the main level, (kitchen, dining room, living room) as well as the upstairs hall was all kind of a baby blue. Not only was it this awful color, it had some very, VERY ugly wallpaper. Wanting to change it but not really knowing how, I took an afternoon wallpaper class at Home Depot.
To be fair, the whole change came about because one of my friends, seeing our furniture, said "this room would look really nice in a shade of green to go with the couch". I bought some "Berlin Green" paint and painted the living room. Well, this shade of green and baby blue together was worse than the wallpaper everywhere else. Me, being just slightly anal, could not have this and went to the class. When removing the wallpaper, I came across my first "stupid people take short cuts" experience. Apparently, removing all the wallpaper was just too much so they removed some of it and painted over some of it. Long story short, the air turned a dark shade of blue. Anyway, I wallpapered the dining room, kitchen, upstairs hall and then both kids rooms. Seeing how talented I was, soon others were wanting me to wallpaper for them!! (actually just mom, dad & Amy)
When we moved into this house, I did both the kids rooms and that was it. Until a couple of weeks ago. It all started because I wanted to wash the downstairs windows and blinds. I successfully washed the windows and took the blinds to the car wash as I have before with other blinds. Well as luck would have it, these were metal blinds painted white and when they dried, some slats were stuck together thus peeling off paint! We put the blinds back up in the living room only for the night and the next day went shopping for blinds. Knowing I didn't want the same kind of blinds, but needing seven blinds, we decided, (because I am spoiled), that we should get wood blinds to update the house. We bought two for the front and will get the rest as we can.
WELL, since I was going to have new blinds, eventually, in the kitchen, I threw out the curtains and started to peel the wallpaper. This gave me my second "stupid people take short cuts" experience. The walls were NEVER PAINTED!!! The wallpaper was just put up over the drywall. We started in one corner and everything was not going to bad. When we turned the corner, it really turned! The wallpaper was coming off and as an added bonus it decided to bring some drywall with it. We bought a Tiger Paw, (a wallpaper removal must have) and some DIF that you mix with water. We "pawed" the wall and sprayed it down. Scrapers in hand we hit the wall only to have the same problem only now it was wet and goopy. I called Home Depot and asked what we should do. Tom said the only thing we can do is steam it and "hope for the best". I thanked him for his help to which he replied "have fun". We can't wait to start mudding to fix it!!
<-----Part of the wall after trying everything by steaming.
Well, I'm attempting to follow in the footsteps of my "little" sister. I did web pages before on Yahoo, but never anything like this. We'll see if I can figure this out. What is scary here is that I called HER to ask how to do this when it is usually the other way around.
I have been busting my rear to get the house in order before I start school. Everything is coming together. I only have the spare bedroom, (which is more like one large dirty clothes basket) and the garage. The kids are going to have a list of chores~oh the horror! They have been doing really well keeping things picked up. We have to remind them sometimes, but for the most part, they are doing a great job. Sean has tried to help with endeavor, however, I have the "you can do it, but I'll just come behind you and redo it" disease. I'm hoping to find a cure soon.
I have been throwing stuff out left and right. There are things that I have no idea why I kept them. After losing some weight, several clothes no longer fit so I bagged those up, along with some of the kids clothes and some of the clothes that I wore in high school. That's right, I said high school. I still wore some of them and kept a couple of sweaters. Needless to say, I had 22 black trash bags full of clothes that will now be worn by those who need them. I wonder if any of them will say "I had this same shirt in high school"?
