Kids Live Here

I stumbled upon a photography project recently called "Kids Live Here."  As I was looking at other people's images of the little details that you often overlook as a parent, I found myself nodding in agreement.  Kids do crazy things.  Period.  But we never stop to take photos of all of the nuances of childhood.  Sure, we capture the birthday parties and Christmas...maybe even the occasional family picture - but what about the day to day stuff?

As a mostly organized mother, my blood pressure skyrockets when company is on the horizon.  Because we're busy, tidying up the house is usually at the bottom of our priority list because we are mostly just trying to SURVIVE THE WEEK!!

So I've been taking pictures of what a "normal" house might look like with kids scampering around.

Tiny chairs.

An old rusty swingset that provides hours and hours of fun.

A basketball that's been left outside for over a year has almost turned white from the sun damage.  

It's also flat.

Dinosaurs.  Just everywhere you turn.

A random horse parked in her stall (sandwiched between the dresser and the wall).

Piggy banks.  We've learned kids will do most anything for a penny.

Tears of frustration while learning a new sport.

Snuggling up with classic books.

Downloading the pictures from the camera to find Emma had been experimenting in the mirror.

Oh.  The constant mess.  Don't worry though - eventually you don't even notice it anymore.

Starting marshmallows on fire while making S'mores.

I'll never understand kids' obsession with straws.  But I'm adaptable - if they won't drink their milk, put a straw in it and I guarantee it will disappear.

Garden hoses provide lots of free entertainment.  Our kids like to put the attachment on "mist" and then they spray each other with it and call it sunscreen.

S'mores have to be one of the highlights of childhood (and adulthood).  I'd love to take a survey of how many people put peanut butter on their S'mores.  For the record, we do.

Morning hair.

Shoes EVERYWHERE!

This is Owen's outfit of choice in the summer.  Cowboy boots with shorts.  Classy.

Fresh out of the swimming pool.

Random arts and crafts projects on display.

Bathtub toys.

Full notebooks that have scribbles on EVERY SINGLE PAGE.

What crazy things do your kids' do that often get overlooked?

Kids Bedroom Makeover Part 1 - Paint

Thankfully, I had a three day weekend - because I needed every single second of it to get Emma and Owen's room back to a livable state.  I really, really, really wish I would have decided to paint their room BEFORE we moved the bunk beds in.  It wouldn't have been a big deal to move the beds out for the weekend if the frames fit through the bedroom door, but they don't, which means we would have had to spend a few extra hours taking them apart and relocating to the living room.  I knew we could work around them but it got preeeeetttttyyyy tight.

I went back and forth about whether or not to paint the ceiling...in the end, I knew I would kick myself for not doing it so I stopped pouting long enough to get it done.  And I never thought I would have such a tough time choosing a shade of white for this room!  Pinterest makes it way too easy to become indecisive.  Benjamin Moore White Dove seemed to be a no-fail white from the things I read, so ended up doing one coat of that color in a flat finish on the ceiling.  It was very apparent right away that it was the right decision.  You can see from the photo below how dingy the ceiling had become.

 The great part about Benjamin Moore White Dove is that it is also a great shade of white to use for trim and doors, so we also picked up a gallon of semi-gloss in White Dove.  Emma scrubbed all of the little cracks of the windows with an old toothbrush while we were painting.

 All of the trim and doors received two coats of semi-gloss.

 For the walls, I picked Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter.  It's the same color we have in the living room/dining room and adjoining hallway to the kids room.  I think its going to be a great backdrop for the other things we have planned for their room!

 It was a little tough to get a good photo of the room below...we can't put the bunk beds back into the recessed area yet because that wall will be getting some special treatment.  So just pretend that portion of the beds isn't blocking the view :)

 You can really tell in this next photo how crisp and clean the doors and trim feel with the new paint color.  There were a lot of little fingerprints on the old paint that momma couldn't scrub off anymore!

 The blue wall at the back of this photo is normally where the beds would scooch into - but we're not done back there yet so the beds have to stay in the middle of the room for another week.

Next, we'll be addressing the biggest problem of this bedroom - the lack of lighting.  We went back and forth with several different options to add lighting and we think we've come up with a great solution.  Hopefully we'll have that done by next Monday!  At this point, I'm just relieved the kids can sleep in their own beds again tonight.  All weekend they have been sleeping on a second bed we have upstairs in our master bedroom while we were painting.  I know it was fun for Emma and Owen because it has felt like a big sleepover - but mom and dad are ready to move them out :)

Movin' On Up

I get bored.  Easily.  Which is why I'm always making things, building things, painting things and daydreaming about things.  If I don't have a project that I'm working on or towards, you can't tell the difference between me and a lazy sloth.  Of course there are always chores to do, but unless I have a reason to hurry through the chores to get to something better, my motivation sinks like a rock in a bucket.  On a recent snow day, I was home with the kids since school got canceled.  At one point, I was so bored that I dumped out a clean pile of laundry on our bed, with the best intentions of folding it - but instead I climbed on that warm fluffy pile and took a nap on it.  Like a cat.

Not my proudest moment, but it was then that I really started pressuring Brent into letting us get the gears in motion to dive into a project.  Money is a little tight around the Kruse house right now, we are paying for some hefty medical bills for Owen and we are also trying to ramp up our vehicle savings account since Brent's minivan could go at any moment.  This means we can't do anything major like a bathroom remodel or attic renovation.

But what we can do is increase our home's square footage by about 500 square feet.  Let me explain...we have two bedrooms on our main floor, Brent and I have one and Emma and Owen share the other one (with bunk beds).  The whole second floor of our house is one gigantic room, which is technically Emma's room, that has been acting as a playroom for the last 5 years.  Click here to view a tour of the second floor of our house.  The kids mostly only go up there when a friend comes over to play.  Emma's clothes remain up there in a fairly large closet because the closet in Owen's room isn't large enough for both of their things.  So each morning, Emma puts on her thick fleece robe and slippers to run up there to pick out an outfit - that's the fastest I ever see that girl move because IT IS CHILLY UP THERE!  It's not uncommon for her clean laundry to just get stacked on her stairs because no one wants to make the trip up into the arctic air.

This arrangement has worked ok for us for the past 5 years but we are all ready for a change.  Brent and I could barely squeeze our clothing into the tiny closet in our master bedroom and we were ready for extra breathing room since our new California King bed was taking up most of the floor space.  Click here to view a tour of our original master bedroom and kids room.  It's time to move our master bedroom to the second floor and create a little retreat.

With our main floor bedroom empty, it was a perfect opportunity to move the kids' bunk beds into our old bedroom.  It's larger than their current room, there's plenty of room for both of their clothing to fit in the dressers and the closet.  Plus, it's much warmer than their old bedroom, which was drafty from all the windows.

But it turns out, moving the bedrooms around wasn't enough to satisfy my overly bored brain, so I decided I may as well spend the next few weeks/months fixing up their new room for them.  The color on the walls was great for Brent and I's room, it made it feel dark and moody and relaxing.  But for the kids, I want something light and bright with storage for their toys and books.

Here's what we're starting with - I was too tired to bother picking up toys and making the beds before I took these pictures - I'm sure many of you moms can relate :)

Painting trim/doors and walls begins tomorrow night!  And over the next few weeks and possibly months, we've got lots of other fun projects in store to make this room functional and comfortable for the kids.

5 Vacation Travel Tips

Well, the yoga sessions have increased in frequency and intensity, the fruits and vegetables have come out and the cupcakes have been put away (just kidding on that last one – I can’t banish cupcakes from our house for ANY reason), which can mean only one thing…SUMMER VACATION IS ONLY A FEW DAYS AWAY!

Our destination again this year is the Wisconsin Dells...where we'll be staying at not just one, but TWO different resorts.  Two nights at the Great Wolf Lodge and then two nights at The Wilderness.

This is the one big thing we look forward to all year long, so it would make sense that we spend lots of time preparing for it.  Here are some of the Kruse's vacation tips:

#1  Set a Vacation Budget

Booorrrriinnngggg – I can already hear your whispers.  Look, vacations are expensive, whether it’s just a little out of town weekend trip or a 2 week hike through Europe.  I’ve found that if I come to grips with how much the WHOLE thing is going to cost in advance, we can adequately save for it all year and then not feel guilty or overwhelmed when the vacay expenses start adding up.  Not even kidding here, I actually figure out on paper how much all of our expenses will cost.

We don’t make enough money throughout the year to throw caution to the wind and enjoy a $10,000 vacation, so for us, to make a summer vacation work, we still have to manage our dolla’s.  My list includes hotel, gasoline, food and fun money.  Before our trip, I fill 2 envelopes with cash – a food envelope and a fun money envelope and throughout our vacation, it’s easy to see how much we’ve spent and how much we’ve got left to blow.  There’s nothing worse than coming home from a relaxing vacation and feeling terrified to pull up your online banking account to assess the damage.  Just thinking about it makes me a little lightheaded!

#2  Pack Healthy Snacks 

Vacations are meant for splurges – so for each family this is going to be different.  Eating out at restaurants is not a splurge for us but riding go-carts, going to the movies, and walking to the ice-cream store for a treat are.  Spending $50 for a meal we could have prepared at home isn’t worth it to us.  Plus, let’s be honest – if we do go out to a restaurant, the kids just order chicken strips.  Not exactly gourmet fare.  So to save our bucks for entertainment, we pack most of our meals and snacks.  Here are some samples of our vacation stash: String cheese, individual yogurts, trail mixes, sliced cheeses, peanut butter, fruit, veggies, homemade hummus, greek yogurt dip & bottled water.

If it isn't obvious...we REALLY like nuts.  

This granola is incredible - plus no high fructose corn syrup!  It's great mixed into trail mix, sprinkled onto yogurt or as a breakfast cereal.

Overall, our main goal is to give the kids high protein snacks to hold them over between meals, since the waterparks require so much energy.  When we do eat at a restaurant, Emma and Owen will share a meal and Brent and I share a meal – that way we aren’t trying to bring left-overs back to the hotel where they are most likely not going to get eaten.  Plus, if you don’t stuff yourself like a turkey at dinner, there’s room for ice cream or some other dessert afterwords!

#3  Get in Shape! 

Since our vacation revolves around waterparks, the thought of spending 7 solid days in a bikini (no, not Brent) is a huge motivator to undo the damage that was done over the winter.  Our weight doesn’t fluctuate much, but its easy to get a little, shall we say, softer, over the winter.  During football season, cream cheese and sausage make up the bulk of our diet, which doesn’t exactly make for a svelte physique.  And so enters our Summer Slimdown in late March to shape up for swimsuit season.  No, it’s not a diet, we just try to increase the amount of fruits, veggies, lean protein, nuts & water while cutting back on the desserts and starches.
Nothing crazy, but we found if we consistently do this for about 2 months before summer, we can slowly but surely squeeze back into our Speedos.

Incorporating some serious yoga has been our other secret weapon.  Brent started hearing rumblings about a yoga program with a nod towards the gentleman in the household.  Commonly referred to “Bro-Yoga”, “YRG – Yoga for Regular Guys” and the official tag line – “This ain’t yo mama’s yoga!”  I would describe it as yoga on steroids.

Totally for women as well as men, but I’ve found that Brent really relates to it since it’s former wrestler Diamond Dallas Page that created the program.

#4  Check In With the Chamber of Commerce

Before your trip, check out the websites for the Chamber of Commerce and the Visitor & Convention Bureau.  They will mail you a vacation guide full of area attractions and coupons to use when you visit.  Last year, we were mailed 4 free passes to a waterpark that would have cost us $120 to purchase - that was an amazing value that we definitely weren't expecting!

#5  Enjoy the Drive 

Luckily, we only have a 4.5 – 5 hour drive, which is incredibly manageable.  Even for someone like me that doesn’t enjoy long car rides.  Our best tip here is to take advantage of REDBOX!  As a treat, we check out a few new movies for the kids at the REDBOX kiosk near our house and as we’re chugging along the interstate, we’ll stop and return them at another kiosk when they’re done watching them.  Sometimes we pick up another one, sometimes they are sick of watching tv so we’ll give them other activities.
***Important Irrelevant Side Note - the kids didn't even flinch when we marched them up to Wal-Greens to have their photo taken next to the REDBOX machines.  All of these odd picture requests are becoming a normal part of their childhood.  Fail or Win?

These Elephant and Piggie books are the best for our family right now because Owen thinks they are super funny and Emma enjoys reading to her brother in the backseat.

Brent and I pass the time by listening to podcasts.  Some of our favorites are Dave Ramsey, Jillian Michaels, Dan Miller & Andy Stanley - I guess they sort of cover every aspect of our lives...Finances, Health, Career & Faith/Family.

So we'll be checking back in next weekend with some preliminary vacation photos.  Where are you going on vacation this year?

Before we visited the Dells last year, we exposed the true cost of our vacation after we returned.  If you're curious...check this out!

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From Trash to Two-Tone Treasure

Many moons ago, October to be exact, Brent and I had the official pleasure of loading this sweet treat into our van.  A friend had a wall full of built in cabinetry that needed to be removed and this desk was part of that cabinetry.  I knew we could do something with it to give it some more life, I just wasn't sure when we were going to have the time.  For 4 months, it sat in our laundry room, acting as a craft table and assembly station for other projects.

I was really stuck on how to finish this desk.  Should it be for a boy or a girl - should it be painted or stained?  Combing through Pinterest for inspiration, I settled on a gender neutral color for the base and the top would be stained.  The top had been neglected...by me.  You can see pink paint, stain and scratches all over it.

Using an orbital sander, I sanded off the paint.  Note to self...next time, Heidi, don't sand things in the house.  Dust.  Everywhere.  It's too darn cold to go outside though, so where in the heck am I supposed to get any work done??!!  We just bought a wood burning stove for our workshop but I'm afraid it will be spring until we have time to install it.

Sanding the paint off was easy but the scratch marks I had put in while cutting through some screen material were deep wounds.  Deep emotional wounds.  Using wood filler and a putty knife, I filled all of the scratches.

While that was drying, the drawers came out to be primed.  

It was at this point that I decided to completely nix the drawer above the chair area.  The drawer was so deep, like heighthwise, that you would have to have an unnaturally low chair so your legs could fit underneath the drawer.  Then you would end up sitting so low at the desk that the desktop would be at your chest.  So I removed the hardware for that drawer completely.

I made Owen sit on the stool to demonstrate how that top drawer was going to be too big.  He is only 4 years old and skinny as a rail - and his little thighs are just barely going to squeeze in there.  Oh yeah, and the desk is even elevated another 3/4 of an inch because it is up on some supports for painting, so Owen would have had even LESS clearance!

Everything got a coat of primer.

Here's my top in all of it's sanded glory (that's actually not the first time I've said that!).

A coat of walnut stain later and we have this.  FAIL FAIL FAIL!  You can't see it very well in the photo, but the parts where I used wood filler were super obvious and weren't covered up by the stain as I had hoped.  So then I did what any woman would do - I added another layer to try and cover it up.  And by layer, I mean dark coffee glaze.

Another FAIL!  It ended up looking black.  And sparkly.  And it still just looked like a piece of plywood, not the shiny finished wood top I was hoping for.  After whining to Brent for a bit and convincing him the project was ruined and just a big waste of time, he told me he could make a new custom top for it.  Thanks sweetheart!

I moved onto painting in the mean time.  There was a quart of flat paint that I had gotten for FREE from Ace Hardware last fall when testing colors for our workshop.  Suprise - another shade of turquoise!

Brent came home with the new top he had made, it fit right over the top of the old one and gets screwed to the desk from below so you don't see any screw holes.

After a coat of stain...

I put two coats of this poly on the wood top and used the sheep's wool pad next to it to apply the poly.

Now we move onto the stool that was to go with the desk.  This stool showed up at our house one day and I honestly have no idea where it came from.

I'm not super smart, which I can prove if you would have been at parent-teacher conferences when I told Emma's teacher that 11 minus 7 equals 5.  But I am smart enough to know that these points on the four corners of the stool couldn't stay.

Brent took them off with a saws-all.

The existing on the stool could only be described as "shiny".  A lot of high gloss laquer went on that thing!  And I was determined to take it off.  I sanded most of it with the orbital sander and used a palm sander for the rest.  Then I stained it and added some poly to match the desk top.

Here are the final project pictures:

The funny part about this desk is that neither of my children can use it!  Emma already has a beautiful desk that my dad built for me and Owen's bedroom is too tiny to fit a desk.  It would be a great desk for an adult, I sat at it comfortably, and it would hold a laptop perfectly.  For fun, I asked Brent to sit at it - he fit, but he looked like a giant!
Since our children don't have a use for it, we have a special little friend that can hopefully get some use out of it for a few years - and she is most likely becoming a big sister today!!!