Living With Kids: Christy Casimiro

Photo Oct 11, 3 34 59 PM

By Gabrielle.

If you needed a dose of unbridled happiness today, here it is. Between her rainbow decor and kids really do live here style and her vigor for life, Christy’s joy is easy to spot from a mile away. There’s so much in her interview, too, that will inspire all of us to stop overthinking it all and not be so hard on ourselves and get off the couch. She is so persuasive about loving life right this very minute and doing things that you can’t imagine you could ever accomplish that I found myself considering joining a triathlon club.

What?!

Friends, please welcome Christy. You’re going to adore her.

Q: Tell us all about the family who lives here!

A: Hi! I’m Christy Casimiro. I’m a wife, mother, and triathlete. I also have recently launched my own side business selling Younique cosmetics and have been hired by some friends to assist them in their interior design dilemmas. After six and a half years of not making any money, it’s an absolute thrill to contribute to the household a tiny bit doing two things I love!

My husband, Matt, is a fabulous Welshman and my best friend. He’s a breast cancer researcher at a university in Philadelphia, and a completely devoted and active father. We met on an online dating service 12 years ago. He contacted me on a Friday, our first date was a Monday, and within a week we’d taken down our profiles and were a couple. One year later we got married in a castle near his hometown in Wales, and the rest, as they say, is history!

We have three wonderfully wild little kids: Fiona is almost seven and the best big sister you could dream of, Callum is almost five and has a wonderful imagination whilst being a silent mischief maker, and then there’s Beckett, a real love bug whirling dervish.

Q: How did this house become your home?

A: We live in what was the first post office in our region. The house was built in 1883. Can you believe that? I can’t. Anyway, we moved to this very small town of Mickleton after living in Cherry Hill, a crazy-busy suburb of Philadelphia, for almost eight years. I grew up in a busy suburb of Washington DC, and Matt grew up in small town Wales. Last year we decided it was time for a change; our yard was minuscule, we could smell cigarette smoke from our neighbors’ houses when we opened our windows, and we wanted a different life for our kids. So, we searched and we searched and we literally stumbled upon this old farmhouse situated on 1.25 acres right on the main street of a quaint little town. It wasn’t in our price-range – it was well below it, because it required SO MUCH WORK – but we took a gamble and immediately put in an offer.

And then, the next morning, we panicked and took it back! I mean, the house needed EVERY room updated. The kitchen was teeny tiny and we LOVE to cook and eat. It didn’t have a dishwasher! AND there was no AC and our summers are HOT here in South Jersey. The previous owners had moved into the farmhouse in the 1940s and hadn’t done that much to it since then. The wallpaper! The fixtures! The wall-to-wall carpeting covering GORGEOUS hardwood floors though out! Oh, and I did I mention it was COVERED in wallpaper?

So, we slept on the idea of renovating this great old home another night, then resubmitted our offer the next day. Lo and behold we got the house. The sellers had rejected something like 12 other offers, but we wrote a letter and might have even sent a picture of our darling kids. The end result? The house was ours.

OMG!

We have three very active little kids and NOT a lot of time, so we decided to hire a general contractor to oversee the renovation. Best decision ever. There’s no way I could have done all of this on my own. I know some stuff about renovating – I mean, I AM HGTV-obsessed – but the day-to-day stuff was best handled by the pros.

Q: Tell us why you love the place you live.

A: We live in a wonderful little town called Mickleton, and can walk to our kids schools, the bank, the salon, and even our local pork shop. We’re in the heart of rural Gloucester County, and Mullica Hill, the town where my triathlon club (Mullica Hill Women’s Triathlon Club) is based, is right down the road. We have horses and sheep and goats for neighbors, and a small private airfield right past our backyard. I grew up the daughter of a private pilot, so we get a real kick out of seeing the small planes take off and land literally right over our heads!

Oh, and have I mentioned the local farmers markets and shops and wineries and restaurants? Out of this world delicious, and run by our friends, or people who WILL become our friends, because that’s what people do in this small town atmosphere. I LOVE it here!

Q: How would you describe your aesthetic? What are the must-haves in your home that make you crazy happy every time you catch sight of them?

A: I would say my style is bright and eclectic. HAPPY! I love to mix colors and patterns, and surround myself with things that make me smile.

I absolutely adore our farmhouse table in our kitchen. I discovered the craftsman on Facebook, and reached out to him. He made the table to our specifications and was just awesome to work with.

Our fireplace is surrounded by these gorgeous bookshelves that took me literally weeks to get exactly right. I have all of our favorite books arranged in them, (by color of course!), and have my most favorite possessions there, too. Matt and I were fortunate enough to take a long European honeymoon, and some of our treasures from there grace our mantel. I also cherish a gift made just for us: a super-delicate painting of a momma and papa bird, snuggling their three little chicks. It was given to me after the birth of our last child by one of my dearest friends who I don’t get to see nearly enough, as she lives in Utah and has three children of her own. But every time I see the painting I think of Chrisy and smile.

I also have a collection of five brightly colored vases scattered amongst the shelves that make me ridiculously happy. I purchased them on my 40th birthday girls shopping spree in the quaint town of Charlottesville, Virginia last year with one of my best friends in the world. And one shelf of my books contains books written by my friends. I love that my friends have published books! Gives me hope that one day I may do the same!

And then there’s our bedroom. It’s like my dream-come-true-room. The wall color, the brightly colored duvets, the art of our favorite cities – London, Stockholm and Amsterdam – over my dresser, the inspiring wall quotes, and my triathlon medals. It’s ME.

Q: You are done renovating! Tell us what you’ve learned about reinventing a house. The good, bad, and the just plain awful!

A: OH MY GOODNESS. We are done! FINALLY! When we bought the house, the kitchen was teeny-tiny, there were only two bathrooms, and the third floor attic, while HUGE, was totally unusable. But the house had oodles and oodles of charm and a massive yard. There are beautiful archways between rooms, old leaded windows (with killer storm windows so there’s no draft! Yay!)  and these beautifully crafted huge moldings even inside the closets.

We sat down with our contractor and established a budget. We decided to do a rather large numbers projects, in a relatively short amount of time. We bought in July and hoped to move in in August. Oh, we were naive. The contractor warned us that might not be realistic, but ever-the-optimist, I believed we could do it! Or THEY could do it if I was persistent enough. Whoops.

In the end we installed central heat and air, switched from oil to gas heat, totally gutted our kitchen, designed and built a new kitchen (with the help of a wonderful interior designer, Ken Endt of Chroma Design, who also helped with paint colors and window treatments throughout our home, changed a tiny existing bedroom to a second floor laundry room/powder room/HVAC closet, and finished off the attic to make it not only usable space, but a kid paradise! We ripped up all the carpets and had runners installed on the stairs. We painted every. single. wall. in. our. house.

Would I do it over it again? In a heartbeat. But I’d be MUCH more conscious of the budget and how things just add up and add up! We started out expecting to spend X dollars, and ended up almost spending X times 2! Majorly over budget! And I’d be much more realistic about how long renovations actually take. I had to give up my entire triathlon season while we were homeless. Oh, I hadn’t mentioned that yet had I? We bought this house on July 27, but didn’t move in until early September. In between we went on vacation, then stayed in friends’ houses, then stayed in hotels, then we freaking CAMPED. The camping was brutal, and I even love to camp! I was the president of the outdoors club in college. But camping out of necessity with three little kids? Not so fun.

Q: You’re a triathlete! Can you share with us what inspires you, how you train, and what this activity adds to your life?

A: Oh my gosh, I love being a triathlete! Triathlon is my passion! Joining Mullica Hill Women’s Triathlon Club is the best thing I’ve done for myself as an adult…aside from marrying my husband and having my children, but you know what I mean! Our club is full of the most wonderfully supportive, loving, caring, inspiring women you could find anywhere. We’re just getting ready to start training again full time in March. During the season, I train 4-6 times a week, or more, depending on what race I’m training for. This year I’m going to do three sprint triathlons on the Jersey Shore.

Sometimes I swim, bike, and run alone, but I much prefer to do so with three girls who have dubbed ourselves Team NOLA after competing in a Half Ironman in New Orleans last year. Those woman inspire me and push me to keep going, as I am naturally a couch potato. With them, I get off the couch and to the gym and to the lake and to running path. We chit and we chat and we make the hours fly by. It’s my ME time. My girlfriend time. My I’m-not-just-a-wife-and-a-mother time. Really, it changed my life. I’m a better wife and mother when I walk in the door from a training session. Ask my husband! Even though it means leaving him home alone with the kids for sometimes hours or days on end, he encourages me to do so. It’s the best thing ever.

Q: What do you hope your children remember from this very moment in their childhoods in this very house? And what do you hope they conveniently forget! (Sometimes, that’s the more important answer, right?)

A: I hope they remember how very much they are loved and cherished by us and by their grandparents who try to visit from Virginia at least once a month. These children are the center of our world, and we do everything for them. I hope they remember playing out in the yard for hours and hours, catching lighting bugs in the summer, and jumping on the trampoline in the winter all bundled up like snowmen. I hope they remember me yelling DINNER for them while ringing my dinner bell. Oh, yes I do. I hope they think of hopscotch and coloring and me encouraging them to play tag indoors. I hope when they think of home, they think love, safety, family, and great big hugs.

I hope they forget that I sometimes have a tendency to yell, and that we’re not always on the schedule that I set and intend to keep for us every day. I hope they don’t remember the mornings when Matt has already left for work before they wake up or is still at work when they go to bed. And I certainly hope they don’t remember my un-parenting days when I just have had it and plop them in front of the TV all day while saying yes to all their requests for fruit snacks and pretzels!

Q: What has been your favorite part about living with your own kids? What is the one thing that has surprised you the most about being a mom?

A: Honestly, the biggest surprise was that I love being a mom. And a stay-at-home-mom, at that! Before having kids I’d never babysat or changed a diaper or really wanted my own children. Marrying Matt brought out my maternal nature, and I just couldn’t wait to have children with him.

Before Fiona was born I honestly expected to hire a nanny and return to the office when my maternity leave was over. I was a corporate communications writer for a Big Four accounting firm. Instead, I immediately fell madly in love with Fiona and we cut corners and changed our budget and did everything in our power to ensure I could stay home and care for her. It was a huge surprise to us when we got pregnant again before she was even a year old! I had gone through years of fertility treatments to get pregnant the first time, and had been warned that I might not be able to. So, surprise! Baby #2 just 20 months after baby #1. Then, guess what? Same thing with Baby #3! All three were born within 39 months of each other! What a blessing!

Each time, I fretted that I might not love the next baby as much as I loved the prior. I needn’t have worried. The love in my heart just multiplied. I had also worried I wouldn’t be able to love our first baby as much as I loved Matt! In retrospect, I find this rather hysterical. I love them all mightily and fiercely!

Q: Please finish the sentence: I wish someone had told me…

A: Well, they DID tell me, but I didn’t believe them. It gets easier. They don’t all stay in diapers forever. They don’t need you for their every movement and requirement forever. Fiona is already tying her own shoes. Callum pours his orange juice. Beck picks out his own books and sits around reading by himself. They’re all so young but they’re already becoming their own independent little beings and thinkers and they’re just growing up SO FAST.

I look back at baby pictures of all of them and simply cannot fathom that they are no longer in that stage. I will never again nurse a baby. I will never again have to do midnight feedings. In many ways, it’s wonderful, but it also gives me a real pang in the middle of my stomach.

So fellow moms, and women who want to become moms, when they tell you the days are long but the years are short: BELIEVE them. They know what they’re talking about!

–-

See? Don’t you want to get out and run and bike and swim a hundred miles? Or at least paint a wall in your house a candy coated color? Me, too. Thank you, Christy, for adding your joy to this space today. I know we all appreciate it!

Triathlons seem hard. (Is that the biggest understatement of the day?!) Have you ever trained or worked toward a difficult goal like this while trying to juggle everything else in your life? Where did you find your support and how did you fill in the gaps? I’m always curious how everyone else manages, aren’t you?

P.S. – Are you interested in sharing your own home with us? Let me know! It’s a lot of fun…I promise! Take a peek at all the homes in my Living With Kids series here.

42 thoughts on “Living With Kids: Christy Casimiro”

  1. from accounting (which is definitely coloring within the lines) to full color on every surface. i think changin’ it up every once in awhile (to the degree our personality will let us! lol) is healthy for the head. thanks for the share! theprincipledtype.blogspot.com

  2. Christy, this was a delightful tour! I loved experiencing your enthusiasm for life, and that enthusiasm comes across so beautifully in your writing! Thanks so much for sharing your beautiful farm home with us. Also, I love that you’ve become a triathlete! I enjoy training for triathlons, and then doing them with friends as a team. Such a lovely experience!!

  3. Oh, we had a similar (but not so long) experience in between houses that involved camping as well! We sold our condo and bought a house, but the seller wouldn’t budge on his date, so we were homeless for just over a week with two young boys. And not much money since so much was going into the house! We did a hotel the first night, a friend’s house the 2nd night and were going to camp for a few after that. And we LOVE camping as well, but yes, it’s very different when you are forced to. We chose a campground purposefully near my parents, who lived in a small 2 bedroom apartment. We did one night. And then it poured… I spent a few nights in that small apartment with my parents and boys while my husband braved one more night camping, and then went to a friend’s house. The whole experience was so hard though. It was also a very busy time at work for me, so I still had to manage to work a few days. I said then and I still say it now that I will never move and will die in my house because that experience was so hard!

  4. Seeing how I woke up feeling like a big cow . . . I’m so glad I stopped to read this today!! Love the colors of the house, all the sayings on the wall, and to know that it really does get easier as my 3 under 5 have been very hard this week. I also met my British husband online! :) Loved everything about this post. Thank you for sharing your home and joy with us.

    1. It was my absolute pleasure and a dream come true to be on my favorite blog of all time! It DOES get easier – my three were born a total of 39 months apart!!! ALSO — British husbands ROCK! MWAH!

  5. Oh my goodness, Christy! I wish we could be neighbors– I’m sure we’d be friends. Love your house, your colors, your commitment to triathlons and understand that you are a much better mom and wife with that extra me time. Thanks for sharing!

  6. Thank you for sharing your colorful home, Christy. I, too, have brightly colored walls and sometimes feel like people think I’m nutty for loving them. It’s reassuring to see other people allow color into their lives.And yes, training for a big goal (in my case, half marathons) makes me a better mom, co-worker and wife. If I don’t work out, I am cranky!

    1. I have such respect for long distance runners! I’m supposed to be training for the Love Run in Philly right now…but I’m blogging instead! Ha! :-)

  7. That. Blue. Desk. I cannot stop thinking about that blue desk. It’s gorgeous! It is store bought or re-habbed?

    Your story about rehabbing the entire home is amazing! Now I am not alone. Honestly, my home is still being “renovated” in the last five and half years. The work is never done. Ugh…talk about budget and timing between work and kids and school to finish the darn old house to update to meet our needs!

    Thanks for the story!

    1. Amy – that desk was $30 on craigslist and I spray painted it with two cans of Valspar!!! And I did the original brassy handles white! Thank you!

    1. Oh my gosh no. The kitchen wasn’t finished until sometime in November – and it wasn’t started until sometime in October. We lived in a construction zone for FAR too long!!!

  8. Hello Gabrielle !
    Avid reader of your blogger ever since before June was even born, I don’t think I have ever commented your articles (or I can’t remember). But the way the pictures and writing of this woman match just made me want to change that ! She appears to be such a joyful happy woman, who embraces life as it comes (those close pregnancies!).
    Thank you for sharing with us all theses great posts, these interviews and the bits and snippets of the Blair life.
    I absolutely loved following along your french adventures, as a 24 year old parisian who lived in Princeton from 10 to 13. I could imagine what your kids were living, thinking about this move.
    I’m pretty sure I actually saw you once near the Panthéon in the fifth arrondissement were I live, on my way to the library there. Fun to cross paths with a strong woman whose work I admire in my city :)
    Anyways, keep going, writing and sharing!
    Have a nice day!

  9. Wow! I want to be her best friend! She seems awesome! And I love her house. And camping with three littles? Just wow. LOVE everything about this tour.

  10. Christy, I have been so eager to read this post. You were the first online friend I made when we both started blogging in 2008. One of the things we had in common? A love of Design Mom!

    I’m so proud and happy to see your story here. I know its a big deal for you. Thank you for opening your virtual door to us. For always opening your virtual door to me from so far away.

  11. I am so proud of you and Matt. You have shown what beautiful parents you are and ho much you love your children. Your farm home is beautiful, and what a great place for your children to grow. Keep smiling and we love you, Uncle George and Aunt Martha

    1. Awww Aunt Martha and Uncle George – THANK YOU! Love you guys to pieces and hope to see you at the lake this summer!!!! xoxo

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