Cough, cough, cough

Tree!

My kids have coughed all day long. I’m so sick of having sick children! Booooo! They’ve already missed school on Friday, Monday, and now today. And tomorrow’s not looking great, I’ve gotta say. They’re all still whiny and tired and coughing their heads off. But…but…but…this was my last week! The kids have their class parties for Christmas on Friday afternoon, and then they’re home with me until ::gulp:: January 24th. I was going to use these last few days without children to wrap presents, get a pedicure, and try to stock up my inner stores of solitude and peacefulness. I’m going to need something to get me through this long winter break! So, yeah. I’m supposed to be at that autism insurance seminar I posted about, but I’m home with four sick children (and I’m sick myself, as well.) Mister Pauly is going instead, so I’m sure he’ll take lots of notes and let me know what I need to read up on. And little Pablo is missing Zoo Lights with his Cub Scout group, which kind of sucks for him. Stupid long-lasting colds!

In other news, our elementary school has officially announced that they are changing to a traditional calendar after this school year instead of the 4-track year round calendar we currently follow. I could not be more pleased. I’m sure I’ll miss the awesome fall track-off that occurs in late September/early October, but that’s pretty much it. I don’t like having a five week summer vacation. I don’t like my kids heading to school at the end of July when the other kids are at the pool. And I sure as hell don’t like having my children cooped up in the house for five weeks in the dead of winter, when it’s freezing outside and everyone is always sick! My dear friend Arin’s children go to a school which is on a modified traditional schedule, and to me, that sounds like the best of both worlds. They have two weeks off in the fall, at Christmas, and in the spring, and a *slightly* shorter summer vacation. Doesn’t that sound nice? I’ll be interested to see what our breaks look like next year. For now, I’m like, YEAH! This will be our LAST January track-off. With that in mind, it’s not really killing me as much as usual knowing that my kids are blowing through their last week of school by being NOT at school.

While they’ve been home, we made an awesome Christmas present for their daddy! Paul’s working out of a field office near his latest construction project, which is right near Sports Authority Field at Mile High (which will always be Mile High Stadium, as far as this Denver native is concerned.) He moved into his office in the fall, but has nothing on the walls. The kids and I made him an awesome painting that I hope he will like. He hits up my blog about once a year, so I doubt my posting this will ruin the surprise. It came out pretty cute, huh? I painted the (admittedly jacked-up looking) tree and sky, and the kids added the leaves with their fingerprints.

That rocks.

That’s right, Supermom comes up with RAINY DAY FUN. We’ll dig rocks out of the dirt and then paint them!

I am a giant whiner.

This is where I have been. I mean, I know I’ve been here, too, sporadically. I’m annoyed with myself, though, that I haven’t kept up my 365 photo project. Pissin’ me off, man! I have the pictures. I just haven’t edited them and they’re probably not gonna get posted, at least not in nice, neat chronological order. Because I’ve been painting my ass off! Yeah, this isn’t me in the picture, it’s Kayley. She decided to help me paint, and by help, I mean pick up the roller for five minutes and bitch about how bored she was for the next twenty.

Paul and I have been doing some remodeling in the theater room in our basement, and we’ve been repainting everything down there. It looks spectacular. I will post a plethora of pictures, as soon as he gets all that pesky wiring done and puts all the furniture back. Details, details. While we were in Paint Mode, I decided to do some painting upstairs, too. It came out LESS spectacular. I painted the bit of wall between the fireplace and the mantle. I also painted one wall of our kitchen…uh, wall. The half wall that’s sort of the bar area, I guess you’d call it. It could not have come out shittier. Builder-grade flat white paint, I now realize, absorbs paint like crazy, even when you buy the expensive fancy kind with the primer built right in. And I decided to paint it bright-ass red. Actually, the mantel area looks pretty good. The wall looks like crap, though. Paul encouraged me to paint over that vent thingy. It looks horrific. It looks like I finger-painted it with blood. It looks like it’s part of a crime scene. Also, my cutting-in skills seemed to take a nose-dive between painting the basement and painting the kitchen. Yesterday, after I painted for about five freakin’ hours (yeah! I painted and painted and painted, TWO TINY LITTLE AREAS and it took me FOREVER) I was so discouraged, I cleaned my brushes and threw the roller away and pounded the lid on the can and said TO HELL WITH YOU, STUPID ASSHOLE RED PAINT. Another day this week, I will re-tape baseboards and put on a thirty-seventh coat, and hope it starts to look good. It looks FABULOUS from a distance. It looks horrid up close. Details.

Anyway! I know I mentioned on Facebook that I was painting, and I wanted to state the reason that I have not been forthcoming with PICTURES. Because it looks like crap. Wah.

It’s Plex!

Lookie! I painted another character in the kids’ bathroom. The Yo Gabba Gabba bathroom is coming along nicely. So far, we’ve got Brobee, Muno, Foofa, and now…

Plex!

Plex, up close

I still have another couple of walls, and I think I’m going to do Toodee on one wall and DJ Lance on another. I’m also pretty certain the boombox is going to go somewhere. I’m still regretting painting Foofa gigantic when I did the rest of them smaller, but the kids all like her so much, she needed to be BIG. Anyway. It’s coming along and looking good, even if I did intend to have it all done a couple of weeks ago.

Want to see the rest? They’re on Flick right here.

Here’s Foofa!

She’s the favorite of most of my children (Pablo included) so I made her a bit bigger. This one is in the other part of the bathroom where the toilet and bathtub is.

Pablo's favorite: Foofa!

Soooo…I have three of the Yo Gabba Gabba characters finished, and I’m pretty sure I’m also going to paint the other two. Not sure yet if I’m going to paint DJ Lance again. He turned out to be the cutest when I finished the mural in the old house, but he’s also got the most detail and took me by far the longest to paint – not sure if I want to do all that again! We’ll see.

I’ve got a set on Flickr that shows the progression, if you’re interested. It’s right here: Yo Gabba Gabba Bathroom!

First character complete…it’s Muno!

I finally finished painting the walls in the kids’ bathroom yesterday, and finished one of the Yo Gabba Gabba characters, too. I think he came out cute! I think Brobee’s going to be below him, catching the toothpaste on his toothbrush. The kids are pleased!

I’m doing these MUCH, much smaller than the ones I did at the old house. This is like…12 to 18 inches high, maybe. Maybe not even that big. The scale will be more evident when I finish, and you can see the sink next to it. Fun!

Things to come!

Oooh, have I got some stuff to share with you!

I met the most delightful chick online, blog surfing one night – many months ago – and it turns out she lives right near me AND she’s a photographer. She just did pictures of my kids a few weeks ago and I got all the images yesterday. I’m still going through them, trying to pick out favorites to blow up huge and frame – they’re so cute!! I can’t wait to share them with you, and sing her praises, and hopefully send her lots of business, too!

And, I’m sure I mentioned that I’m painting Yo Gabba Gabba characters (once again!) on the walls in the kids’ bathroom, right? You may remember the HUGE characters I did on the playroom walls in the old house. That’s long been painted over by now, and the kids are missing Muno and Plex and Brobee something fierce – so we’re putting them (on a smaller scale!) in the bathroom. That’s not finished yet, but when it is, you know I’ll be in your face with pictures!

So, stay tuned! Cuteness overload to come.

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