First attempt at Turban Headband

10 Things

1. All of us have some sort of sore throat/congestion/cough combo. Whether it is allergies from all this rain or a head cold, I don't know but I do know that I am ready for it to be over.

2. Because of the above, the morning breath around here could peel paint off the walls.

3. Elsie's current cuteness: She says "Right there!" in the deepest Southern drawl.
    It come out like "Raht theya!"

4. I found an old table top in Grandpa's barn and am going to turn it into a coffee table. (More about that later.)

5. When the seed packet says plant 3 feet apart, they aren't kidding. My bell peppers are almost completely overshadowed by the giant wall of tomato plants in my garden.

6. When it rains non-stop for 30 days, your flower beds turn into jungles. I am going to have a really hard time getting rid of the weeds and Bermuda.

7. Does anyone know anything about pruning roses? Ours are out of control.

8. Some morning glory seed found their way to the easement strip behind our yard and they are growing all over the fence. I think I like it...

9. 18 days till we hit the beach. Time to panic!

10. Drum roll please......We paid off one of David's student loans this month!   *wild cheering and applause*

The Day I Almost Shaved My Head

     Several years ago, when we were still living in the schoolhouse and before Ian was born, we had headed across the street to my sister Rachel's house for some playtime.

It was summer.

It was hot.

     My sister had dog pens in her backyard. The flies were horrific and as a deterrent, Rachel had hung up multiple fly strips around her house. With two little boys in the house who were constantly leaving the doors open, there wasn't much else she could do about the problem.

     I had made a mental note of the placement of all the different fly strips and had done a remarkable job of avoiding them, mainly by giving them a four foot berth. I have a thing with anything "sticky". They taunted me all day. Their long mustard ribbons slowly turned in the breeze, silently daring any fool who came too close.

     We played and watch cartoons, ate snacks and drank juice, sat on the porch swing and chilled in the recliners. All in all, a wonderfully relaxing day.

I must insert here that my recollection of the events immediately leading up to this are fuzzy. I chalk it up to trauma.

     I don't know why or how I let my guard down, but for some reason (in hind sight, I can say whatever the reason, it wasn't good enough) I bent over the coffee table to help a child do something. I stood back up. Suddenly I couldn't move. The left side of my head was plastered with sticky, suffocating, tacky glue. My hair and face were cemented to the fly strip hanging from the ceiling over the coffee table. I grabbed the end of the strip and tried unhook myself, but the glue had adhered itself to my skin. Rachel took the end from my hand and as I leaned the opposite direction, she pulled it slowly off of me. Long strands of glue stretched from the strip to my face like some sort of alien creature emerging from it's pit of slime.

Once free, I tried to use a paper towel to wipe it off my face, but to no success. Leaving Lillie with Rachel, I drove home like a mad woman, gagging and dry heaving the entire way. It took 3 piping hot showers to get the glue out of my hair.

    Even as I write this, I am gagging and having to pause to look away from the screen, as if not seeing the words will erase the memory of that horrible day.



The ironic part: I hung two fly strips up in my kitchen today. All I need now is the Jaws theme song playing in the background.

Dah dum.   Dah dum.   Dah dum. Dah dum. Dah dum..

Photo Update

Little Miss Morning Person

I told him he was going to get a Popsicle. 

She choose blue because it matched her outfit.

30 minutes outside and she was already pink.

He wanted it but complained about it being cold the entire time.

Her mud cake

Just like Daddy

Soot from the fireplace

I found her like this the other day. That is much, much too grown up looking.

They found my flowerpot. No shame here!

DIY Pottery Barn 4th of July Banner

 

Since the 4th will be upon us before we know it, here is some inspiration for a patriotic banner for your back porch, dining room or outside BBQ cookout. 

I saw this cloth banner (below) on Potter Barn and thought

       "I could make that easy-peasy."

And it was. 

 


                           

When Daddy is in charge...

This evening, I ran out to pick up some ice cream and a movie for a date night. I left David and the two smallest kids in the backyard playing. It was so nice to be out by myself for a minute. I sang along to the radio on my way back from the store. I walked in the house and heard the bathwater running. "How wonderful!" I thought. "That sweet husband of mine has already bathed the babies so we can start our movie on time. Isn't he the best?"

I walked to the bathroom door, anticipating a warm and fuzzy scene of two squeaky clean babies splashing in the tub while Daddy watched. Instead, Daddy met me at the bathroom door, stopped me and said

      

                                     

                                                 "I hope you have a strong stomach."

Never, ever do you want to hear those words upon entering the house after being gone.

 NEVER. 

 EVER.

EVER. 

I found the bathroom covered in brown. Brown on the sink counter. Brown hand prints on the toilet. My white bathmat was brown. The two babies were sitting in 12 inches of water so dark you couldn't see through it. Grinning ear to ear with brown all over their faces. 

My first thought was Poop. 

Wouldn't yours have been too?

THANKFULLY, it was just mud. It reminded me of that scene from Men in Tights. 

The Sheriff of Nottingham is telling the Prince John that Robin Hood is causing trouble. John doesn't want to hear the bad news so he suggests

           "Why don't you tell me the bad news in a good way? That way it won't seem so bad."

I have never been thankful for mud before. But when you are primed for poop, mud doesn't seem so bad. 

Here is what happened while I was gone. 

Gardens

"Do not spread the compost on the weeds."

- Shakespeare Hamlet

  

See how close our neighbors are to our backyard? No privacy at all. 

We have to come up with a solution. Maybe vines on the chain link fence?

1st Grade

I can't believe that this school year is over. We have had so many changes, ups and downs, good days and bad days. She has changed from a little girl into a Big Kid. I didn't know if I was ready for that but now that she has matured so much, I realize how fun it is to have someone with whom you can have real conversations about important topics. 

She is my little mother, my help when i clean, the one child who can actually follow through on a task that takes more than 2 seconds. She is kind, loving, sweet, tender-hearted, I don't want to brag about my children but I do want to take a moment to give an example of her God-given love of others. 

There was a little boy in her class who came from a troubled background. She had commented to me before about how she felt sorry for, let's call him Bob, because he always got in trouble every day. I met this young man during some class events and he was definitely a hand full. 

One day well into the school year, we were discussing how lunchtime at school was going and I asked who she was sitting by in the cafeteria, trying to assess who were still friends and so forth. She replied that she had been sitting with "Bob" because no one wanted to sit next to him and she didn't want him to be sad. This was not the only time she choose to play or sit with him over her best friends in the class. At the Valentine's Day party, "Bob" drew Lillie a special Valentine of him and her with the caption Best Friends. I am so, so grateful to see her put the happiness and comfort of others before herself. I pray she can keep putting that trait into action and keep a servant's heart. 

Great White Whale

  I was just going to upload another train track layout for reference when I noticed it looks just like a whale. That made naming it fairly easy. 

   

One of the niftiest accessories in this set is the little cargo loader. It has a magnet that you can lower and move from side to side to load and unload your train. It has really given Ian some good practice with hand/eye coordination.

 

We also discovered that the Melissa and Doug cars fit right onto the train track. This prevents a lot of fighting since Elsie can use the cars easily while Ian gets the trains.