Web-site Spotlight: IKEA HACKING

About a month ago, I found a website devoted to Ikea Hacking. An ingenious soul has gathered Ikea hacks from all over the web and brought them to one spot. Here you can see how people have took regular old Ikea products (often from the used section) and made them shine. It will suck you in!

Here are a few of my favorites:


1) Modern Crib/Dresser

Took IKEA's $100 crib, cut off the legs and placed it on a new base.
Replaced the Hemmes dresser drawer fronts with the same wood as the base
and added new hardware.
Beautiful!
Wish I had seen this before I had kids!
Read about it here.

2) DIY Play Kitchens-

I hate, no despise, plastic play kitchens.
The nice wood ones are sooo pricey.
These were done using a $35 shelf from Ikea, plus some additional accessories.
Aren't they great?
I am going to give my own IKEA Play kitchen hack for Lacey's 2nd birthday coming up in October.

Read about how to make this kitchen here.
Plus there are plenty other of DIY play kitchens
in the children's section.

3) Bathroom Vanity

This was created from a $49.99 kitchen cart!
Inspired? You should be!
Here it is.

If you have favorites, share them!!

The Wild Rumpus

Today we met up with our cousins Elias (3) and Cerwyn (2.5 months) and visited the Wild Rumpus. This is probably the most amazing book store. ever.

It's an independently owned, hole in the wall bookstore that focuses directly on kids ages 18 months- 10 years old or so. Imagine being a kid and going into a book store with roosters, cats, ferrets, birds, and chinchillas to see/pet. There are floorboards that have been removed and replaces with plexiglass so you can even see the pets wandering around under your feet.

They even have a recycling "center" where books range from .50 to $1.00 (my kind of place)! Next month we are going to try to make it to their "PJ Party on the Trolley" (tickets go fast), where you come in your pajamas at 6:30 p.m. and you eat milk and cookies while they read bedtime stories and you ride the trolly around Lake Harriet and Lake Calhoun. We can't wait!

Let's Go Biking!

There aren't a lot of family activities you can successfully do with 2 kids this young. Usually everything takes a lot of planning and you are always getting interrupted by sleep schedules, eating times, and the occasional toddler temper tantrum.

But biking is something we figured we could do. Hey, after all Mike and I met on a bike trip. It just seems fitting that we bike.

We purchased a Burley Honey Bee trailer from REI. It was the only double they had in stock, which didn't matter because its the one we wanted anyway. Took it home and after naps away we went.

Minneapolis has this amazing bike route called the Greenway. It's basically its own road that connects you to the entire city of Minneapolis. Super handy with kids, since biking on actual roads is dangerous and stressful. The Greenway is about a mile from our door, so we hopped on the trail and headed to Trader Joe's, about 6 miles via the trail.

The kids did GREAT. Well, mostly. We neglected to feed Miles prior to leaving so we had to stop along the trail to feed him, since he was screaming periodically in the trailer. Lacey didn't want to get back in the trailer on the return trip, but some dried mango solved that problem. Miles fell asleep on the way back and Lacey kept pushing him off her and whining about him leaning on her (the first of many such whines I am sure), but once we told her to give miles a hug, instead of push him off her she did fine...

The Greenway

Lacey's favorite part of the whole thing
was probably drinking out of the
water bottle. Which she successfully
poured all over herself.

Miles on our pit stop. Happy to be full!

Getting ready to leave Trader Joes. Lacey was a
little grouchy at this point.

Siblings??
Good Lord I think they look a lot alike here.

Sister/Brother love.

down with wells fargo...

i shouldn't really be posting this because 1) I have a job interview at wells fargo in 2 weeks and 2) i would actually like a shot at the job, but seriously. We have closed our Washington account TWICE. yes that is right. we have "closed" it twice.

Mike closed the account in May. We opened up a Minnesota account. June rolls around and I notice that suddenly the Washington account has shown up on my online banking screen with a negative balance + about $150 in overdraft fees. Student loans, car payment, and credit card balance, have all been deducted from my account. So I call up wells fargo and talk to an online banker. I said that this account was closed. Well, no, it was not (???!!!). Okay, I need to close this account (and you need to take away the fees). Transfer money into that account. close it. Done.

No. Not done. Today I open up our account and student loans, credit card balance, and car loan were all taken out, of the WASHINGTON account. I called them up again. Oh, we can't close the account because you have to have a zero balance on it. Once you have a zero balance you can call us back on the next business day to close the account (Monday in this case) or you can go into wells fargo today and close it there. No, not with 2 kids i can't.

It actually was a lot worse than that. For example, my credit card balance will come out of the WA account tonight at midnight. I asked her if we can change that. No, it takes 30 days. But don't worry, if you don't have the funds available, we will just charge you a 40 dollar fee.

not cool wf. not cool.

just one more thing to deal with.

annie

the realities of 2 under 2

please read this if you have kids close together. you will laugh because every.single.thing. is true!

Baby + Toddler

Annie

happenings...

we've had a busy time the past week.

my mom came to town for my birthday, which was GREAT. Mike and I were able to go out. alone. for as long as we wanted too. We strolled down Grand Ave. in St. Paul. Ate at Punch's pizza, and then went for a walk along East River Parkway, and ate Dairy Queen. talk about relaxation.

My 26th birthday was on the 4th of July. In the morning we all headed to the zoo. It was raining off and on, but we managed. We had some friends come over later in the day and they grilled with us. After that we went to watch fireworks. Just Mike and I. My mom stayed home with the kiddos. FABULOUS.

We've all been sick in this house. Ending with Miles, who is currently under the weather. The unfortunate thing is that Tylenol seems to wake him up, and he is too young for motrin. Just when we were getting on the good sleep wagon in our house, we fell off again.

And we are moving. again. blech. It's actually become a pretty seamless process. I'm not sure if that is a good thing or not. We are still looking for a house, but are really waiting on the one that we put in offer in on 8 weeks ago. It's a short sale but the homeowner is also in bankruptcy, so the bank can't move forward on the approval process until the mortgage gets out of the bankruptcy department. He has 2 mortgages on the house. The first one should be out of bankruptcy any day and then they will start on the second one. Hoping that something gets rolling soon.

Now tomorrow i am heading out of town for my cousins wedding and Mike is staying behind to move and work. Hoping it goes easily!

annie

park

We go to the park on a daily basis. We've been blessed to be within 5 blocks from 3 different parks.

Lacey loves the swings, hates slides (thanks to popping right off the end a few times...). She has also learned all about throwing rocks, thanks to her daddy. grrr.