Milkymilk

Our Summer Vacation, part 1

Today was the girls first day of school.  Yes.  You read that right: girls.  PLURAL.  We send two year olds to school here, because we live in a sea of frivolous overachievers.  We are okay with that.

Any-who, because it is a two and a four year old I was getting off to school this morning, I was not able to get them to hold still long enough to get a good first day of school picture.  I'll stage a recreation after thier first day of school outfits make it out of the landry...

I had meant to catch you up on all our summer fun, but I got a little distracted while going through the pictures.  On nights Harper has trouble falling asleep (um.. most nights), I let her play with my phone.  She has been working on a series of iphone pictures of her stuffed animals at night.  So, I ended up making a slide show of them.  We'll catch up on other stuff another time:)

 

Oh, and I have to share my favorate picture she took this summer:

 

Inside & Out

Well, since we last talked about my crazy pants search for a light fixture for the dining room, we ordered one.  One that happens to be discontinued AND out of stock everywhere.  Yes, about five months of searching, only to fall in love with a phantom fixture.  Like any bad breakup, it took us a while to get over it.  We went out to drown our sorrows in a brigade of home stores in SOHO.  A simple fixture at Schoolhoue Electric won our hearts, and hopefully {fingers crossed} will be installed within a month.  I’ll spare you my Photoshop handiwork.  Yup, you’ll have to wait for the big reveal a little longer.

We have made progress outside, though.  Our outdoor couch arrived.  I’m not going to lie.  It cost the MOON.  It was worlds more expensive than anything we had ever bought.  We could have gotten a bottom of the line wooden swing set for about the same price.  But, we didn’t.  No, we actually prioritized our relaxation over the kids'.  They have a crappy metal swing set from Toys R Us, and we are living in the lap of luxury on our Restoration Hardware couch.  I like to think this was one of our better parenting moves, though.  I could be very wrong about that…  Um, but I’m too busy relaxing to care.  Luckily, Ikea had some ridiculously affordable Adirondack chairs that go brilliantly with the couch.  We just need some pillows, a side table, and we are ready to party.

We also need a much larger kiddy pool.  I got this one thinking it seemed unlikely Casey would drown in it.  I might have been a bit over protective there…

In other news, Harper has become obsessed with The Weather Channel.  She watches it daily, and will spend hours making signs to warn states about a heat wave.   I asked her if she wanted to be a meteorologist when she grows up, and she replied, “Yes!  I know ALL about the weather.  There is rain, snow, then spring, and summer!”  Ready for prime time!

 

Harper Says

Talking to my friend Jenn at the playground:

Harper:  Sometimes my sister takes my things.

Jenn:  Well, babies do that.  It is your job (as a big sister) to teach her how to share.

Harper:  No.  It is my job to keep her safe.

At home, on another day:

Me:  If there is ever an emergency, and Mommy can’t get to the phone, call 911.  The police and an ambulance will come to make it all better.  (Sensing I’ve completely scared her to bits.) Don’t worry!  They can fix anything.

Harper:  Yeah?  Like the toaster.  They could fix the toaster*. 

M:  Sure, they could do that.

Harper:  And the fridge.  They could fix the fridge**, too.

M:  Just don’t call 911 unless it is an emergency.

H:  Right, I’ll call the fix-it-guy.

 

*Which is not broken.

**Also not broken.

The Lone Fixture

The house we bought is 4 bedrooms, 2 ½ baths, and one light fixture.  Well, there is a sea of recessed lighting in the addition (family room & master suite), but only one pretty sparkly fixture.  It is in our dining room. 

It is really a perfectly fine chandelier, just not so much our style, and not exactly in the right place for us...  So, we have been looking for a new light for the dining room since we went under contract, in January.  The world is FULL of lovely chandeliers, honestly, and about .001% seems suitable for our dining room.  Here is the problem: it is not the 1940s.  Everything was too big for our relatively itty-bitty vintage room.  The fixtures we found that were the right size only had one light blub, generally a 60 watt.  Don’t get me wrong; I like low lighting for romantic evening meals as much as the next guy.  If only that was the primary function of our dining room.  Instead, three times a day it is a magical jam hand factory, where sticky thrives and generally crustiness wages war.  We need at least 120 watts of light to fight the battle.  Any-who, after buying and returning three fixtures, we did manage to find four somewhat functional options both Skylar and I could sort of agree on. 

Clockwise: 1.  Himmeli Large Pendant, (really way over the budget) 2.  Jug Lamp in Smoke,  3.  Cowbell Pendants,  4.  Sputnick

 

 

And the winner is!

 

 

I know.  My Photoshop skills are astounding.  We special ordered our cowbells, and hopefully we’ll have some proper “after” photos by July.  That gives us a deadline to find a way to mount those stray deer atlers to the wall, as well.

Settling Down

After five years of marriage and two kids, we did it.  Yes, we finally have decided to settle down.  We bought a house.

Of course we still have Skylar's house in Los Angeles, or our retirement home, as I like to call it.  Sure, it'd be nice to sell it someday, and maybe even make some money off of it so we could furnish this house.  But, hey, who needs furniture?  I hear most people don't use their formal living rooms any-who.

Really, we do plan to get some things for the house here and there as we go.  Currently we are looking for an outdoor couch and a light fixture for the dinning room.  This is a little adventure that has taken us deep deep down a rabbit whole of shopping that has become more painful than pleasurable.  If you have ever taken a 4 year old and a 2 year old into West Elm, Pottery Barn, and Crate and Barrel in one night, you know our angst.  As does most of the population of Westport, CT.  Jam hands, dirty diapers, fine furnishings and fragile objects; it is all just not a good combination. 

Then there was tonight.  We took the girls to Lillian August in Norwalk.  (If have never been, you have to go.  Amazing.)  Harper walked in, stopped, looked around in awe, and said:

"This looks like my dreams."

Hopefully, one day she'll say that about her house, too.  And, hopefully, watching the house get to that point will be super fun, at least for you. 

Here are some pictures as it is now.  We moved in about 3 weeks ago.  It is a completely renovated cape, and we have the benefit of loving what the previous owners did.  It will just take some window dressing to make it feel like ours.

(Oh, and if anyone has any tips for hanging unmounted deer antlers, like the ones hanging out on top of our hutch, feel free to let me know.)