A Visit From The Cousins

Rosemary and Louis came to visit! With Mina, James, and Maureen, of course. Beatrice hadn't seen her cousins since January and of course they had never met Arthur, so all four of them enjoyed getting to know each other better. In particular, Beatrice and Rosemary had an absolutely wonderful time. Beatrice was so flattered by the attentions of an almost-four-year-old that she was more than willing to follow all of Rosemary's directions for how to play grocery shopping and airplane.

The girls drinking sparkling water out of doll cups



Playing "airplane" : Rosemary decided they were flying to Australia

The girls cracked each other up with private jokes - the hit of the weekend was "Too many corn!" Which may not seem that funny to an adult, but each time one of the girls said it it sent them both into hysterics. Too many corn!

The girls shared a bedroom and every night was a slumber party - we would hear them up after nine o' clock talking, laughing, and singing.

Maureen, Mina, Rosemary, and Beatrice making a peach cobbler

Louis spent some time joining in the girls' games, but he also enjoyed playing in the sandbox and feeding the dogs.

Meanwhile Arthur was fascinated by Louis and completely adored his aunts and uncle. He charmed everyone with his constant smiling, cooing, and babbling.

Arthur checks out Louis

We mostly played in the backyard where all three older kids could enjoy the playhouse, but we did also take a trip to Ventura Beach.



We were so sorry to see everyone go, but we're looking forward to seeing them again at Christmas.



There are a ton more (downloadable) photos on Flickr.

The cousins on a pony ride in Ventura Harbor



Rosemary and Beatrice's dinner table conversion



Rosemary and B discuss corn and Pasadena

Ventura on Dwellable

First Day of School

Today was Beatrice's first day* at St. Mark's Preschool!

And she arrived with quite the entourage: her aunts Mina and Maureen, her uncle James, and her cousins Rosemary and Louis all came to see her off, plus of course me, Dev, and Arthur.

When I dropped her off this morning, I was a little worried about how she would do on her first day alone at school. When I came back again to pick her up after lunch, I walked into the Red Room and announced "Mommy's here!" Beatrice didn't even look up from the play kitchen sink as she said, "I'm washing dishes in the sink!" Also she was completely covered in blue paint.

Beatrice's teachers told me that she loved preschool, participated enthusiastically in every activity, and never cried once. In fact, she refused to leave. I was only able to coax her into the car by promising her a First Day of School Victory Doughnut but since I can't give her doughnuts every day, I'm not quite sure how I'll get her to leave next time.

Beatrice takes off to explore on her own

Beatrice is in school Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:00am-1pm (though we may later switch to a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule). Every day they have free play time inside and out as well as songs, dancing, crafts, a circle time lesson, a snack, and lunch. Today on the way home Beatrice talked enthusiastically about the sandbox, painting, snack time, lunch, and her new friend Adeline (who, Beatrice reported, cried because she wanted to kiss her mommy).

Since she's too young to read notes in her lunchbox, I printed out a bunch of family photos to include instead. Beatrice's teacher said she was delighted with the photo of Shackleton in her lunch and showed it to all the other kids.

Beatrice's cubby

Beatrice enjoys a celebratory half-doughnut on the way home from school

*Well, her first official day. The preschool recommends new students come to school a few times first with their parents and so twice last month Dev and I sat in on her class, met her teachers, and observed a typical day. On Dev's visit they even got popsicles.

Painting the Dog Silhouettes

I had so much fun making Beatrice and Arthur's dog silhouette mural and it was also a very easy, inexpensive way to decorate their room - the whole thing took only four hours and cost less than $10.

After spending so much time painting and repairing the walls in this room I was a little hesitant to alter them, so I decided to paint on the back of the door. It's a cheap hollow-core door that we'll eventually want to replace with a nice hardwood door anyway, ideally just around the time the kids outgrow the mural.

I started by standing each dog in front of a blank white wall and taking their photograph in profile. This was, no joke, the hardest part of the whole thing. Cromwell, in particular, would not sit still, and it was nearly impossible to get a profile photo of Shackleton because he kept turning to look at the camera. Finally, finally, I got some photos I could use.

Shackleton posing for his portrait

Then I used GIMP (an open-source version of Photoshop) to reduce them to outlines.

Shackleton in outline

If you were better at freehand drawing on a computer than I am, you could then trace the outlines digitially using the pen tool, but I'm terrible at drawing with a mouse so I printed these out and traced them with a Sharpie.


Then I rotated them and touched them up a bit in GIMP and they were ready to go*.

I set up a digital projecter in the kids' room and projected the images onto the door.


I traced around the projected images in pencil.

Then it was just a matter of carefully filling them in with paint in Behr's Crisp Green and Electric Orange**.

After driving myself insane trying to get rid of all the visible brushstrokes left over from the combination of three different brushes and a roller, I told myself that the brushstrokes were an "effect" that gave the mural more "depth and dimension."

Conveniently, Beatrice was out of town for the weekend so I could do all the drawing and painting while she was gone and surprise her with her very own dog portrait when she got back.

*We made Cromwell bigger than life-size because Dev thought it looked better that way, and we actually made him less fluffy than he is in real life because his ultra-fluffy outline looked sort of fake.

**On the same paint chip card as Crisp Green there is also "Carolina Parakeet."

Before and After #3: Children's Room

Ta da! I'm delighted to say we've finished the first room in our house remodel. The children's shared bedroom was a top priority because I wanted Beatrice to have a safe place to play while other parts of the house were under construction - and I wanted a nice space to welcome Arthur when he moves into this room to join his sister soon. I think they're really going to like what we came up with.

BEFORE


AFTER




We began by tearing out the carpet and one of the room's two built-in cabinets right after we moved in. This bedroom (like the guest bedroom) is from the original 1941 house and still had the original oak floors underneath the carpet. Overall they were in good shape, though with a lot of paint splatters in some areas. We'll refinish them eventually, but they're fine for now.

The built-in we decided to remove from this room was massive - it took up about 18 square feet of floor space and rendered at least 18 more effectively unusable - and it was cobbled together out of a curious mixture of plywood, chipboard, cork, and plaster. Removing it opened up so much more space, it felt like the room nearly doubled in size.


It also gave Dev an excuse to use a sledgehammer.

After tearing out the built-in, we discoverd that the walls were a modge-podge of dry wall, plaster, and cork, so with help from a crew of handymen we re-drywalled the room.

We also removed the terrible "popcorn" acoustic ceiling.

We added new door trim and crown and base moulding - I have to say, I think there's no easier or cheaper way to improve a room than to add trim.


Then we painted everything a clean, cool white that reflects a lot of light (Valspar's Subway Tile, if you're interested). This was particularly important because this is the only room in the house that has no windows.

We removed the overhead fluorescent light fixture and replaced it with a pendant light from IKEA.

The old fixture

And of course Dev's mother Suzan painstakingly painted the remaining built-in cabinet the same shade of white as the walls, to better integrate it into the room and to brighten up the space.

We also did a lot of minor touch-ups, like replacing all the switchplate and outlet covers.

Then came the fun part - decorating. Virtually everything in the new room is stuff we already had from the old house but I still had fun rearranging it.

We hung up photo ledges that allow us to easily switch out art as we choose. The four framed prints I wanted to put here are currently lost somewhere in the garage, but until I find them Beatrice is really into these animal flashcards from the $1 bin at Target.

We also framed and matted these two beautiful prints we got as gifts, one from Lucas and one from Summer.

I had so many ideas for wall art (collages, decals, a family tree, a chalkboard wall, a magnetic wall, a city skyline, a forest, etc., etc.) that I had a really hard time choosing one, but finally I decided that the one "theme" that would appeal the most to Beatrice (and hopefully to Arthur) was dogs, so I this weekend I painted life-size silhouettes of Shackleton and Cromwell.

A few months ago Beatrice graduated to a toddler bed, leaving the crib for Arthur. I sewed the bedding for her new "big girl' bed and matching bedding for her doll bed.

Beatrice's new duvet cover

And a matching cover for her doll's bed

Above Beatrice's bed we hung the white eyelet paper lanterns from Beatrice's second birthday party.

We also added some low, outward-facing racks to display favorite books more easily (they are actually spice racks from IKEA), and toddler-height coat hooks that will allow Beatrice to get used to hanging up her own sweaters and jackets.

Most of Arthur's toys and clothes are hand-me-downs, of course, but this handmade mobile is all his own, made by my friends for his shower. And I can honestly say, the mobile is his very favorite thing in the whole world. He's not sleeping in the crib yet (he's still in a co-sleeper in our room) but every evening I set him in the crib to watch the mobile while I get Beatrice ready for bed.
All of Beatrice's toy bins are labeled with pictures instead of words which makes it easier for her to put her own things away.



Best of all, I made this great teepee for Beatrice and Arthur. Beatrice loves it so much that it was worth the fact that I had to get rid of the changing table to make room for it. The only downside is that now every night she asks to sleep in the teepee instead of in her bed.

And we filled the room with gifts from all their friends and relatives.

We tried to keep the space very flexible because Beatrice and her brother are growing and changing so fast, but I think this room can continue to accomodate them for at least a few years to come. I already have a wish list of things to do when the children are old enough for bunk beds(and therefore we have more floor space for desks, an art station, a train table - etc., etc.) but I'm very happy with this for now. And so are they.