The Room Of Rooms

This particular post has been waiting 3 years to be written!!!

::Deep breath::


The "boys room" (aka torn up room, project room, 'the' room, spare room, unfinished nightmare) if DONE!!!

Come with me on a walk down memory lane:

it all started a few months after we bought our house...

"this room could have so much more SPACE" we said (by we i mean I)

What a nice surprise, the entire house has oak hardwood under the ratty carpet!!

before shots of the closets

the door

"The Wall" behind this wall is a cast iron vent pipe, installed before long before the invention of studdor valves (that i fail to get a picture of)  This pipe postponed the whole rooms renovations by a year... almost two! upon removal of the pipe we had to patch the roof, that later became an entire new roof, and included new siding, for the whole house.. and we also had to gut the downstairs bathroom and install new plumbing

layers of wall paper under layers of paint... sixty years of questionable choices

rooms torn out, rafters moved up... way way up... now we have a loft

A team on cars lining our street to shoot a 10 minute segment of... our house (a friend in the spray foam industry needed a project room... and hey, we had one just sitting here waiting to be spray foamed)

hubs getting his camera face on

me getting all done up (9 months preggers me, is longing to be this skinny again)

i don't recall what we were so amazed by, but WOW spray foam!!!

later we decided the loft needed more structural support!

husband installed/rigged a pocket door

baby3 helping put up sheet rock

3 babies helping put up sheet rock

brought in a professional to mud the room

additional wood flooring ' acclimating '  to the room

4 days was all it took for one talented sheet rocker to finish mudding and sanding

walls primed, but the flooring guys got postponed a few days

so we painted... pregnant lady on a ladder painting ridiculously tall wall whist husband is working

before tape is removed

Floor are sanded and finished, then we have spend two days installing moulding an painting(soooo sick of painting)... AND our new rug (from target, it was free, long story!)

closet finished and another look at our lovely floors... the bench in the closet is to cover the air conditioning duct, but turns out to be one o my favorite features. Pocket door is awesome!!

view of the other side of the room, built in cubbies, accent wall painted 'metropolis grey' second baby picked it out!

a look inside the loft, with an access door to the attic

trim installed on the pot lights

We built this bunk bed about 2 years ago, but never painted it... so we had been sanding and priming and painting this monster of a bed between coats of paint on the walls and moulding... I HATE PAINTING  AHHHHHHHHHH

Star wars toy patent diagrams(thank you zulily) the kids love em, there is a C3PO, a wing, and a walker on this wall... i had ordered an R2 also, second baby's favorite character, but it didnt fit like i had planned it so we put it on another wall

this previously had a doll house on it, but now can be utilized to its full potential as a chest of drawers/ checkers bench!!! The oldest boy was quite excited when he saw the checkers board under the doll house... i had painted it on there before he could walk, but now he is old enough to play ::sigh:: he is growing so fast!!

all moved in, plus a mattress for the girl under the bed(because her room has now been gutted and is in the process of being rebuilt!!) the nifty gas station light and book case came from a friend a few years back, she was remodeling her boys room and gave it to us, and its been sitting in the basement waiting to grace the boys room for quite some time!

Train table has also been sitting in the basement for two years...  the cubbies house most of the building toys so they can use the train table for Lego's, hex bug, blocks, TRAINS, knex, the possibilities are endless... the rule we have been working on in the room is,"toys go on the table not on the floor" the big kids get it, if you don't want to lose the toys keep them in the train table, the baby doesn't get it, he thinks the table is a way to get really high up before throwing fist fulls of tiny Lego's all over the room! Hopefully we will get this rule ingrained before 4th baby is old enough to put tiny toys like Lego's in her mouth!!

Well there you have it, the best room in the house so far!!! I love it, the kids love it, the husband is even impressed with how it turned out... i tell him of course, an unlimited budget(we didnt plan on it being that way, but every time we would have some money to throw into it, we would start work on it again then stop when the money ran out and wait for the next time) and three years of planning will do that, haha. It is so nice to be done!!

Lego Halloween!

This year for halloween, we went all out on our last minute costumes (every year our costumes are last minute hehe)

We made a trip to Toy-r-Us and got some mystery lego packs (one for each child and then a few more just incase we had duplicates (or no girl legos)

this is the three we got in the end

With our legos chosen we went to lowes and gathered some supplies... concrete tube and expanding spray foam being the most crucial part(for the heads)

this is after two or three coats of spray foam... if you spray it all on at once, it wont dry on the inside, it will just be gooey.

Then a days worth of carving, building, spray painting and detail painting we had costumes!!

Without the heads... i said say cheese, and they all said lego haha

the li'lest one didnt want to take pictures with his costume on, not sure what this mini fugure is suppose to be, i kept calling it Conan the barbarian 

so i put his head on and no one can tell how angry he is hehehe

the constable

the pretzel girl

we didnt cut the eyes out until after pictures

her braids

his eyes wound up being right in the middle of his face... so we cut the mustache out

i just love his angry face :)

now off to the party!

first to the church party

we couldnt wear mask to the trunk or treat (safety concerns i guess) but they did get their

faces painted 

then we went trick or treating!! 

conference bingo cookies of the vegan variety

This weekend was LDS General Conference... and that means 8 hours of yelling at my kids to be quiet so we can be taught and uplifted!

It such a juxtaposition, and an imposition ::Clears throat:: Sings: Come follow me the  SHUT YOUR MOUTH STOP HITTING YOUR BROTHER his foot steps tread, for thus alone I SAID GIVE IT TO HIM NOOOOOW!!!

Well we have these bingo sheets i printed out and laminated, a few years back so we went that course rather than the aforementioned plan of action. We have before used skittles or m&ms as the bingo chips but today i wanted to do something special! )also i was freash out of skittles or m&ms I had some miniature vegan chocolate chips so we took that and ran with it Vegan Chocolate "Bingo Chip" Cookies!!!

The secret here is in the scoop!! At first i tried to just roll little tiny cookie dough balls, but the cookies turned out like little tiny balls of baked cookie dough. So I rummaged through the old kitchen drawers for another option, after a few contenders(chopstick, no... strawberry gouger, no... potato peeler, nope) i came to a melon baller!!

So the secret here is to first, scoop the dough and press it into the baller on the side of the bowl, then while pressing against the bowl, sorta rock the scoop in a circular motion so as to trim off the remaining dough. Now you tap the scoop on the rim of the bowl and catch the "bingo chip" cookie in your other hand. Voila! perfect size and shape

Delicious mini Vegan chocolate chip cookies

Playing conference bingo... so hard not to eat the pieces BEFORE getting a bingo!!

The perfect size pieces!

RECIPE:

1 3/4 cups white whole wheat unbromated flour (click link if you dont know what this means)
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar1 tbsp arrowroot pwder3 tbsp water

1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup mini vegan chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Cream the butter and sugars together in a stand mixer

Combine the arrowroot powder and water in a small bowl and add to the butter mixture

In a medium bowl sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt, and slowly add to the stand mixer.

Scrape the sides and add the mini chips. If making bingo chip pieces, refer to scooping instructions mentioned previously... if simply wanting some yummy vegan cookies, scoop heaping tablespoons onto your cookie sheet and press slightly 

Cook for 7-9 minutes, or until slightly golden on edges, careful not to over cook. allow to cool on wire rack, before playing some bingo!!