moms and floors

 

I've got some pictures from mother's day, which wasn't heavily photographed just because we went to an antique store, and really we needed all of our hands to keep our kids from demonstrating the "you break it you bought it" principle. 

we headed out to the Lucketts antique store to look for some old buttons and anything else that might catch my eye. Unfortunately I didn't find the room with the sewing stuff, clothes, linens and vintage sewing patterns until the end, when our kids had gone completely crazed from lack of sleep, heat, and being told to stop touching things. But I did come away with a few bags of buttons! My mom was really sweet and sent me some cute vintage buttons for mother's day too. Now it's time to make some things that need fastening! 

 

this kid looks crazy when her ponytail band comes out. 

 

ha....this one makes me laugh. I saw the mirror and decided it was probably the only way any pictures were getting taken of me with my kids on mother's day. 

 

we did Mother's day dinner out on Saturday night because my oven had been ripped out of the wall all day. I requested Fire Works pizza in Leesburg because they have really yummy gourmet, locavore pizza with woodfired thin crust, and an impressive microbrew menu. If I may have a real mom moment here, when we got to the restaurant, I began to rethink my hopes of dining in. 

Violet was so tired and grumpy, and way too much work to deal with. I was worn out and frustrated within 5 minutes of being there. She is a very active (slightly feral) person who never stops moving or grabbing at things. We had things flying off of our table, escape attempts, crying, and her obsession with my lip balm fully manifested in a big freakout because (gasp) I refused to let her sit there and eat it for dinner. I just wanted a break and I wasn't getting it. It's supposed to be less work to be served food, not more. I kind of wanted to cry a little....but eventually my expectations got beaten down far enough, and Violet calmed down slightly. 

Clover was a great dining companion though, and we were really proud of her for how she did. the food was delicious too, and the belgian ale I ordered was also delicious (and perhaps partially to thank for helping to calm my frustration with Violet and roll with it?....hmmm)

 

this new face that Clover makes when I tell her to smile is pretty hilarious. 

 

This is where things got amusing. Tim gives Clover his glasses. Clover puts them on and pulls out her inner comedian. And I've gotta say, as I look at the above picture I am freshly aware of how much my handsome husband floats my boat. ^_^

 

the money shot. for the record, all I said was "smile!". LOL.

and now the kitchen floor....Tim nailed down the last boards on Sunday...

 

this is one crazy happy little elf who is plotting terrible things to do on the new floor. 

the kids went crazy when we opened up the gate and let them on the floor to play. it was mayhem, I tell you. they were stampeding around, screaming and squealing. there are still tools, boxes of flooring, and various other things still present in the kitchen, so it's not completely clear, and the new molding and quarter round needs to be installed.....

but it looks beautiful. so beautiful. I love the colors in the wood. and the patterns. all the irregularities. I'll get some better shots of it when the room is more done, but I was excited to share some progress.

the color balance is way off in these next shots, and I couldn't get things evened out in a way that represented what the wood really looks like (at least not without loading into photoshop instead of being lazy and using iphoto). it's far too pink here. the floor is actually pretty neutral. 

 

Tim made a nice brown section over by my cooking area since it's so dirty all of the time. lol. 

 

there's my crazy little girl, perched atop the stool, reveling in the new "ballet floor", ponytail coming out again, sweaty from tearing through the kitchen with her fluffy little companion. 

 

Ha. This picture is so cute