Tales of a Boy's Mom: A Bug's Life

One afternoon we found a roly poly and to Sullivan, it was the coolest thing he'd seen since he saw our dog eat cat poop. Gross but true. Boys are weird. 
Anyway back to the roly poly. While I am not a fan of most bugs (see here), I am cool with these little guys. They don't bite, they don't drop down from the ceiling when I'm in the shower (spiders, I'm looking at you) and they're, dare I say, kind of cute. 

So we spent a good 45 minutes playing with this roly poly. The one thing I am really trying to stress with Sullivan is that he doesn't need to completely destroy everything. His first instinct was to smash it to smithereens. I talked to him about how it was a living creature and we need to respect all living things. I'm not sure if it sank it or not but he stopped trying to squish it.






















































For five minutes he kept telling me how he was going to touch it only to get scared and run away. From a roly poly. That really happened. Then he finally got up the courage to....actually TOUCH the roly poly. My brave brave little man. You will jump off a ladder six feet of the ground laughing hysterically but when it comes to bugs the size of your fingernail, you run away. I am just going to savor this. It'll only be a matter of time before you will probably be bringing me all kinds of creepy crawlies. 



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By Jen | 9:49 PM
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Five Things I Wish I Knew Before We Built Our House



When we bought our first house seven years ago, it was a flash of "Oh holy crap, I'm an adult". Sure I was out of college, living with Mac, and we were even engaged but I remember that being such a milestone. Finally we didn't have to walk up three flights of stairs with arms full of groceries or listen to our trashy neighbors fight all the time then....uh...make up very loudly. We didn't have to call the cops on our upstairs neighbor for being an inconsiderate jerk. And we finally had more than one bathroom.

Three years after buying our first house we decided to build our current home. We were outgrowing our first house and ready for more space and something that was really our style. Building a home was equal parts awesome and frustrating. There are so many things I wish we had known ahead of time but that we learned along the way. Weird little things that you just never think of until after the fact.

My sister and her fiancé are going to build a house later this year and from all the text messages and phone calls back and forth with our advice, I put together a list of things for all you future house builders out there.

1. Get everything in writing. EVERY. LITTLE. DAMN. THING. From the time you sign your contract until the time you close on your house, anything that is discussed should be verified via email then saved. Even if you think your builder or the company is trust worthy and you don't need to, do it. We really liked our builder. He was really friendly and personable. Then he tried to screw us multiple times and our emails were what saved us.

2. Think about the little things. We wanted our walls to be painted bright white, not the antique white that was their standard. It was too cream for us and looked dirty. What color are the hinges and door handles? How tall are your vanities? Adult height? Standard height is shorter. How many outlets are there in every room? Are they in convenient places for Christmas trees, tables, etc? If you're getting an island, put an outlet at the end. My mom told me that and it really comes in handy with the crockpot or giant Kitchen Aid mixer.



3. See if the room placements make sense and don't be afraid to see if you can move stuff around. We changed quite a bit on our layout. The planned downstairs bathroom was also where the washer and dryer were located. It was also inconveniently place just inside the door to the garage and across from the door to the basement. This was a problem for several reasons. First, it really made it difficult to get big items down into the basement due to the close proximity to the bathroom door. Second, I really didn't want the washer and dryer right next to the living room.

So we looked at the rest of the floor plan and moved some stuff around. We didn't need two coat closets so we made that space the powder room. It works perfectly. As for the washer and dryer, we took some space out of an upstairs bedroom and made a laundry room there. The bedroom is still large enough for a full bed set and the laundry room is conveniently down the hall from our bedroom (which I love!). It's so much easier to do the piles and piles of laundry I have when I don't have to climb stairs with precariously balanced baskets.

One thing I wish we had foreseen was how our bathroom shares a wall with Sullivan's room. We obviously knew it but didn't realize how loud it was when we ran the water or I used my hair dryer. Luckily this is easily fixed by a white noise machine. The poor kid's bedroom is also above our living room that has surround sound speakers in the ceiling so the white noise is helpful there as well.

4. Go and talk to your neighbors. Not the ones your builder may take you around to see to make them look good. Go knock on doors or talk to people who are hanging out outside and ask them what their experience was like and how they like the neighborhood. I would have loved knowing ahead of time that the neighborhood behind our house shoots off fireworks not only until 4am every night the weeks around Fourth of July but randomly throughout the year as well. It's bad enough that I probably would have not built there. Seriously.

 5. Planning for the future. With the way cars are evolving, you might want to install special outlets in the garage for electric cars. Plan on at least a 220v but more likely a 440v. We have one in our garage already and Mac can use it for his air compressor and larger tools. 

Also think about if you want a wired home network. If so, you're going to want to run a cat6 cable. Wireless is great for a lot of things but wired is more reliable and secure for many applications. We use ours mostly for streaming media and also for the receiver in the living room. 

And the final bonus tip I have is a bit ridiculous but I have good reason for suggesting it. If you are getting any part of your closing costs paid for, make sure it clearly states that they are paid AT CLOSING. Yes. That was a problem. Our contract stated our builder would pay our closing costs. On moving day, as we were driving to the office to sign the damn papers, they call us and say that "Oh the closing costs were worked into your discount of the final house price." Huh? What good would that do me? After lots of fighting we ended up paying half anyway. Quite frankly, we needed the keys. The people who bought our old house were moving in the next day and we had nowhere else to go. 

So while I try not to be bitter that my sister and B aren't moving anywhere closer to us, I hope this has helped give you a few things to think about. Oh and if you could make my bedroom at your house a nice large one with a lovely ensuite bathroom, I would really appreciate it. And your nephew just wants some Cars or Buzz. Or the Little Mermaid, randomly enough. Go figure.

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The Sunday Sprinkler

Dude it's hot here. Like seriously hot. I'm not quite ready for the heat and humidity of a St. Louis summer just yet. But alas, here it is. Since we're outside all the freaking time, I need to keep my Little Man cool and this $9 sprinkler is just the thing.
























Once Daddy was done playing in the dirt, he joined in. You can see him planning his path through the chaos here.



"I chop you water!"



Then they spent the rest of the time doing what guys do: having a sprinkler war. It was messy and wet and I threatened them both with bodily harm if they tried to spray me.







Happy Sunday!



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Rainy Day


Like most toddlers, my Little Man has endless energy. He wakes up running and takes a flying leap into bed at the end of the day. Rainy days make me curse the air blue....in my head anyway. This kid loves to run. Run and climb and yell and get covered in dirt and snot. Boy crap. Trying to keep him entertained inside on a rainy day is just about enough to drive me insane so outside we went!

Puddles and Sullivan go together like Jen and cupcakes. It's just meant to be and we cannot say no! Wherever we are, whatever we're doing, if he sees a puddle, he must jump in it. In his mind, it's a shame to waste a perfectly good puddle.







"Mommy! My shoes are wet! Too much water in there! Get it out!"



We dumped the water, he yells "Thank you, Mommy!".......



......then this happened again.



Any time buddy, any time.





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By Jen | 8:06 PM
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Happy Mother's Day




To all you wonderful women out there. Whether I've known you my whole life or just on Instagram, you've helped me when I needed you. You told me I wasn't crazy, my son wasn't crazy, and that I wasn't alone. So here's to you! I hope you all had a wonderful day of getting spoiled and pampered and not a temper tantrum in sight. I laughed out loud at that last part. Sullivan must have been thinking that I'm just THAT awesome that I needed to watch him completely lose his mind about wearing blue shorts. Hopefully you had better luck.


Hugs!

Jen

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Sorta Wordless Wednesday: Fun With My Macro Lens















I'm so happy spring is finally here but now if it would only stop raining. I did take advantage of a break in the downpour to bust out my macro lens and take some pictures of our new blooms. Everything is shot on my Sony a55 DSLR with the 30mm f/2.8 lens.


Happy Wednesday!

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By Jen | 10:27 PM
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Weird Shopping Find of the Day: Linens & Things





Mac and I come across a lot of weird crap in our perusal of the internet. And a lot of that crap is for sale. And people buy that crap so even more is made. It's a vicious circle.


Today's weirdness comes from Linens & Things. Here I am, searching through new serving pieces (which I so do not need) and pillows (which I should have probably bought six months ago but keep putting it off) when I come across this classy piece of art. Now, get your credit cards ready because this is a keeper. It's a show piece, really. Could go right on the wall next to your family's portraits. Or perhaps in your bedroom by the stripper pole. I'm not judging.



Even better was the suggested pairing with another product. Things made a lot more sense when I saw this.






Yup. Classy all the way. Add this to my Christmas list.

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