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This is what happens when one of these two get a hold of your phone. Not only a post, but a title too! Crazy little men. :)

4

A week and a half ago, this boy turned 4. How is that possible? My sweet, funny, adorable Matthan, Mommy loves you very much.

fantastic

 My porch fan has been without blades for almost a year now. I took them off to replace them with some others that were much better looking.  The old ones were disposed of  before I realized the screw holes for the new blades didn't fit--like 2 mms too close together. So at least once a month, I'd walk out on my porch, want to turn the fan, and get sad. Buying a new fan wasn't really an option, and I didn't want to spend too much money on blades.
This week, I thought I'd take the kids to the habitat home store since I finally figured out where it is, and it's only a mile or two from Matthan's preschool.  What should be sitting there, sort of out of place? Some fan blades, for $5!  I measured them, went home and measured the fan, saw it was a match, and went back to get them.  It was a bit of a hassle loading and unloading the kids, but, they were the right size! I had to get them before anyone else did! But goodness, they were ugly. They looked like this first picture--bad enough!--but imagine this in white and shiny gold. No.

So I did what I've been wanting to try for forever, so I took off the attachments, painted them black, and reattached them to the undecorated side. Much better, don't you think? I love it--makes me want to get crafty with the rest of my porch. :)  Now I just need to find a fitting globe...     

school

Looks like sister isn't the only one enjoying using the K-12 curriculum. If ever we leave Aubie's door open, this is where I find him--standing in Aub's chair, playing with the math blocks. :)

first day of school

The only picture I could get was of him running away. So I tried again and I got a silly shot. Oh well. At least this post will help me remember why I took these pictures--Matthan's first day of K-3. :)

solomon and the cat

This is the face of sheer delight. :) He LOVES this cat.  If only Leo would reciprocate.

Trying

My new phone is connected to blogger. I can talk to my phone and it types what I say.  I can add pictures from my phone. The things that were keeping me from blogging are now no longer an issue.  I think I can do this again now.  We'll see...

I'm trying to learn to love my house again.  Here are two pictures to help me toward that goal. I mean, I'm pretty lucky to have glass knobs throughout. So I guess it's safe to say I love my door knobs. And that's a start.

juice box

I was going to post Cherry Blossom Festival pics, but since it was 2 weeks ago, I thought I'd post something a bit more current first.

Solomon's first juice box. :) It was actually Matthan's so I am so happy that it turned out sto be such a pleasant experience. Normally, this sharing probably wouldn't have happened. But I think Matthan thought Solomon's enjoyment of it was as funny as I did so he kept letting him have more. They are such cute, sweet brothers.

what? a post?

So, you can usually tell if I'm caught up on housework by whether I'm posting or not. For some folks, I'm sure blogging is as much an obligation as folding clothes. For me, folding the clothes comes first. A+B=C, therefore it's good logic to assume that if I'm not blogging, I'm swimming in laundry. I actually am right now, but since it's almost cherry blossom time again, I thought I'd give a little post or two before then so I won't have only 2 posts a year. :)

Yesterday was Dr. Seuss's birthday, so we celebrated by reading Dr. Seuss stories in school and eating green eggs for supper. Since I just COULDN'T dye ham green, we had green pancakes instead. :)

OH, and what's that brick wall doing in my kitchen? You'll see. Eventually. ;)

year 4

Well, it's that time of year again--Pumpkin patch time!

The kids standing by the pumpkin patch sign.
On the little hayride. Without any hay bales to sit on, the bumps were AWFUL!

Matthan getting a pumpkin on his hand.


Since it's taken me till Thanksgiving week to post this, and there are so many pictures already, I'll spare you the flashbacks. But if you want to see them, you can click here.

Six cuties. :)





A shot of all 6 kiddos at Burger King.

Sorry if this is discombobulated, I've spent a couple of different days over the past month and a half trying to get this posted. At this point, I don't feel like proofreading--I still have Matthan's birthday to post--so I apologize for any nonsensical things that might have been said. :)

late night (and early morning) presents

The kids were invited to a birthday party for one of Aubie's friends and her little brother this past Saturday. Birthday parties always mean the same for me--staying up late the night before the party to finish a present. Always. I actually had my inspiration early on for once. I knew pretty much what I wanted the little boy's shirt to look like, and had a grand plan to make a something for the sister as well. Well, the the idea I had for the girl did not work out at all, because I tried using a hoodie, but the jersey was just too thick for applique (at very early in the morning, anyway).

So what to do? I went to Michael's Saturday morning--pushing it, I know, but God is good! Michael's had the perfect gift (on clearance!!!) for this little girl who owns chickens--a foam barn kit! It was so cute. But I felt bad that I hadn't made her something as well. So I made a felt bag and appliqued one of the calico chickens from this adorable vintage fabric (I used it for the straps) onto the bag. When she saw the bag, she was so excited about the chicken! I'm so glad I decided to make her something as well.

Since their mom is about to have a new baby, I thought the little boy needed a symbol of his upcoming status. The big brother shirt was a technique I've been meaning to try for some time, but just now had a need to do it. I used both freezer paper stencil (for the word "brother") and applique (for the word "BIG"). I used too big of a satin stitch for "BIG"--a mistake that could have been dealt with had I made this 2 or 3 nights before. Oh well. It didn't turn out too bad for my first attempt at mixing the two though, I guess. I thought it looked really interesting, so I'm definitely looking forward to using both styles together again.

Since I still have to put new pictures on the computer--that's been the holdup with new posts--I thought I'd post an old project. Several months ago, I decorated this bag for the movie I was giving as gift. I love doing collage work with scrap paper--it is just so fun to represent something without having to worry about all the minute details. Can you guess what movie is in the bag?

beans, beans...

Aubie has never liked beans. Since she was tiny. The other day when we were eating taco salad, she finally described to us the reason she doesn't like them. "They taste like potatoes without any salt on 'em." After she said it, I could kind of understand where she was coming from. Especially when I split a kidney bean down the middle--it even looked like a tiny potato. :) (Here she is back around the time she was beginning to decide these sorts of things.)

lesson

This morning, I had another Bible lesson much like this one. Though I was standing right in front of him, Matthan kept saying, "Mommy. Mommy. Mommy. Mommy! Mommy! MOMMY!" All the while, I am saying, "Yes, Bud." every time. Finally, it was too much. So I yelled, "Stop saying my name if you're not going to do anything!" More than ever before, it hit me. God doesn't really like that either--He must not if it's one of his top ten rules. And I thought about my dad's sermon on Sunday (if you'd like a link to listen, I can send it to you)--that maybe I'm not guilty of saying God's name as an expletive, but that, like I yelled at my son about, I am guilty of saying His name repeatedly without doing anything.

the house

It's hard to do your schoolwork when a little house needs furniture. And people to live in it. Only, I was just told, "Mommy, that little circle is not a head. It's a table. I can put some people if you want..." No Ma'am, I'd just like for you to finish your spelling, please. :)

already?

Hard to believe this was 2 months ago...

Happy 2 month birthday, Solomon!

more guitars for the guitar room

I've had a 4-picture frame that I bought at Kirkland's hanging on the wall for MONTHS now. I am very sad to say that I left the fake people pictures in the frame and even sadder to say that the way it was hung, those people were sideways. :I

My plan was to take a picture of each of us with David's guitar and put those 4 pictures in the frame. To let you know how long it's been hanging on the wall, "each of us" meant Saige, David, Aubie, and Matthan. :) When I knew number three was coming along, I also knew I had to put up with the sideways people for a little longer. But here's what ended up going in the frame:

This is back before we were married--I think we might have been engaged. But I like that it was an already existing picture even though all we have is a copy made on a copier. And this is actually a picture of that copy. (I mean, I'm sure the negative is somewhere, but who knows where, and the little 2x3 picture is somewhere too but I'm not sure of it's location either.)But with it being one from before our marriage, itt's kinda saying, "Here's where it all began".

My sweet girl.

I love it when he's serious like this (a rarity!).

I "Paint"-shopped this picture to get rid of the grass that was showing because I didn't spread the blanket out far enough. :I Thankfully, you can't really see the weirdness from up on the wall. :)

The finished product. (You can see my yellow kitchen through the doorway.)

this day

On August 28th, 1999, I married this handsome man. :) Eleven years and three kids later, I definitely love him more than I did then.

I plan on making him a mobile...

but until then,

he's thrilled with this one from 1971 (5 years older than me!).

i never thought i'd make curtains

So, a WHILE back, I promised I'd write a post entitled "I Never Thought I'd Make Curtains", but you never saw it. And then a shorter while back, I promised to show you the children's artwork, but never did that either. Well, here are both those posts rolled into one.

I don't guess you can call a simple valance a curtain, but I made it, and I think it was the first "curtain" I ever made. The shade is a flour sack towel that Mom had given me. When she gave it, I knew it had to be used in my yellow and black kitchen somewhere, but I wasn't sure how. Then I remembered having seen a tutorial on adding fabric to shades. So that's what I did. It's a little wonky since it was my first try and, once it's on, it's on. But I like it--it's fun. Now if it just wouldn't fall down every time I try to pull it up... I'm gonna have to have David work on the hardware part for me. :)

You're probably thinking that the shelf just looks like a board laid across two cabinets. Well, guess what? You're right. It is just a board laying across two cabinets! That's a future project...

I really cannot remember where I got the scale. Maybe the Rescue Mission thrift store, maybe David got it from "that old lady" (another post another time), maybe it was Aunt Mae's (my great, great aunt who was the previous owner of this house). All I know is I had it way before I decided on a yellow and black kitchen and I love it. And as you can see, on either side of it is the artwork. Aubie's kind of looks a little Van Gogh-y. Matthan's is definitely very impressionist--as in, the impression of his foot is seen many times throughout the piece.

This curtain is sort of a valance too, I guess--it had to be short so that when I open the glass slats, I can still see the kids through the screen when they're playing outside. Yep, it's one of those weird 50's? doors. I just loved this print on the dress that I got in a stuff-a-bag for $10 at a thrift store. I had to take out some darts, but this curtain came pre-hemmed! I LOVE re-fashioning for that very reason. :) The top is the same fabric as the other valance, and the trim is some awesome Asian-themed ribbon that I got at Malone's fabric (one of the junkiest, most amazing places I've ever been) for a dollar a yard.

That almost concludes the tour of my kitchen. I can't wait till I can one day post the truly finished version. No more plastic tile, no more ugly floor. But until then, I'm trying to make it as "me" as possible.