The test of a solid relationship. EDITED WITH PICS

The hubster and I just celebrated our ninth anniversary.
We've been married for 9 years! it seems so long, until I look at people who have been married longer than I've been alive.

Seriously though - we've had a great 9 years and our marriage has withstood more in 9 years than many people have faced in twice that.
We've been through financial ups and downs.
We've lost a child.
We've taken on the challenges that a special needs child can throw at you
We've moved twice in one year - with toddlers, and one of those times I was pg on top of that.
We've been down difficult roads, but this..........

This has been the real test of our relationship.......

HOME RENOVATING!

Oh yes. This is the thing that can throw a solid marriage into turmoil - painting together.

We've done this before - in fact we've done LOTS of painting together - but in all fairness, I don't believe we've done any painting with 3 active mobile children in the same house with us.

Having learned our lesson in our old house about wallpaper - we know it is evil, so we are firm believers in paint.
our old place was previously owned by the wallpaper nazi's who felt compelled to use at least 4 different types in each room - and to wallpaper right over the paper that they had put up earlier. This meant that in addition to painting, we had to first strip anywhere from 2-4 layers of wallpaper from every room first. It took us 6 years and then we sold the place and bought our current home - brand new - no wallpaper, which would seem like a dream to us, until we realized that builders white everywhere was equally unattractive to us. And so we painted - and we painted and we painted.

When painting the first level, we thought about some nice neutral colours at first - and then decided to go with the bold choice of burgundy - believing that it would make a nice contrast to the white baseboards and pillars and in all honesty, I happen to think it looks awesome, but it was a nightmare that took 6 coats of paint to do. Never again we said.

This week we've finally promised to do the kids bedrooms, and since Matthew had decided that he wanted to sleep in his big brothers room all summer long, we took advantage of the fact that we could work on his room after he was asleep.
Chris went to the Depot to get paint chips and brought home a few "kids room ideas" that Disney had kindly supplied (read taunted us) with their paint colours. Matthew immediately latched onto the Buzz Lightyear theme, and we embarked on our most ambitious painting project to date - I mean he wanted a ROCKET painted on his wall and everything - just like the picture.
I will add photos. when I take them
eventually, but I have to say that it looks awesome at this point.
IT should.
we've spent 9 days on it so far. Yes that's right.
9 days to paint a kids room - this is with my husband on holidays and everything.
9 days because we don't paint a room together - oh no. we work in shifts. After all - someone has to watch the kids.
One day I forgot, and we were both up there painting and actually getting along while renovating, and completely forgetting that there was a 4 yr old downstairs getting his own chocolate milk - or should I say chocolate syrup - with a sprinkling of milk to make his chocolate syrup runny enough to drink out of a sippy cup.

meanwhile the 2 yr old has wandered outside and sat in the kiddy pool, so his jammies are soaking wet, and his diaper has ballooned up 4 times it's regular size having absorbed just about every drop of water that was in the kiddy pool to begin with.

Our 5 yr old was of course "helping" us upstairs by asking a hundred and forty seven questions on average every 10 minutes, punctuated with "why" whenever we asked him to do anything remotely helpful.

Coming downstairs to get a drink I discovered that the Nanny that I'd hired in my imagination was indeed just a figment, and we were responsible for watching the kids ourselves, and doing a horrible job because both of us wanted to be upstairs painting the awesome room - using the awesome disney paint that has cool names like Sonic Boom, and Orange Blast and Star Command Blue and goes on ever so nicely in just two coats.

Needless to say that while the bedroom looks awesome the other rooms have suffered a little. I normally do housework in the evenings, but the awesome Buzz Lightyear room kept calling me, and now that it's mostly done, well I was going to do some housework tonight, but it was the season premiere of Prison Break, so I had to watch that while my hubby had his turn playing in the awesomely painted bedroom.

Did I mention that Chris installed a ceiling fan in said awesome bedroom, which makes it some sort of colourful nirvana for Matthew. He was so excited when that went up that he's been coming up to his room (which has been designated as "off limits" ) to turn the fan on and off throughout the day for the past 2 days. he's been thinking about that fan nearly constantly, and I'm pretty sure that once he gets to sleep in that room for real he just might not ever come out. He loves fans.

Anyway - we survived the painting of the kids room. We haven't yelled at each other, bickered or even complained a tiny bit. This is how I know we were meant to be together forever. Very few people can paint a Disney Room without harsh words. We even did stenciling and yes I painted my boy a rocket (freehand) on the wall.

W.I. L. T.
When the kids go to bed willingly and are very quietly 'sleeping' in the same room - check to make sure that one of them hasn't snuck a bottle of sunscreen up there.

Sunscreen doesn't come out of carpet very easily.

the smell of sunscreen lasts a very long time - even after using a steam cleaner. About 4 days. This is of course an entire bottle of sunscreen though. Perhaps half a bottle may linger for a shorter period of time - but that has not been my experience.

Will add pics tomorrow after we vacuum the awesome room

OK - adding some pics:
Matt's room Before:


And After:


The rocket (and I should add that chris built those shelves into the wall!:


The new IKEA bed and bedding:


close up of the wall:


Close up of the dresser - before and after pics