Contractor Todd

Todd has built the girls a fabulous chicken coop. He has really upped his game with this coop that I might have him start to build me some furniture. He really did such a great job. It isn't totally finished, but the girls have been living in it for awhile and so far, no complaints.

Here is some artwork for the interior of the coop courtesy of Blynn and Rusty.

And look at how big the girls are getting.

You are making fun of me now, but wait until I bring you fresh eggs.

Hydrangea success

April

May

June

My mom gave this hydrangea to me for Mother's Day last year in one of those foil wrapped single bloom tubs from the grocery store. I love hydrangeas but they are very fragile in our hot climate. I researched this online and saw people saying that the foil wrapped hydrangeas won't grow beyond the bloom you got. I took that as a challenge. And with my fabulous compost and well chose location, I had a great result this year. This hydrangea brings me a lot of joy. Can you tell?

Our garden this year

Oh this is very exciting for me. I really like having a garden but have never been terribly successful. But I came across this book recommended by Todd's aunt who is the best gardener that I personally know. So my little dirt diggers and I went out to work this out in our space. Square Foot Gardening recommends 4x4 square foot raised beds, but we have this great planter bed that runs the full length of our house. When I was growing up, this planter had many rose bushes that my Grandma loved and tended to. About 5 of them are still there and I wonder how old they are. Anyway, instead of constructing something totally new, we just worked with what we already had. So this is the spot we chose. Notice, Todd is doing the majority of the work.

Here it is about a month later. Todd also built me a trellis for the climbers.

And another month later.

It is so pretty right now and we have already eaten yellow squash, herbs, carrots, and radish from our little garden. Every year, I feel like I get better at this.

Paint swatch sample artwork

This is not going to be the permanent resting place for this art work I made for Rusty's room, but I haven't figured out where the perfect place for it is yet.


My kids have a thing for getting paint cards when we go to the hardware stores. We've bought plenty of things from these stores so I go with it. I had purchased a ribba frame from Ikea and Todd modified it so I could hang it horizontally.


Then I printed out the letters in the font and size I needed, held it over the paint swatch and cut.

Then I mounted them on white card stock.

I tried to cut them towards the left of the swatch so you could see the names of the paint colors still.

And then I put them in the already cut matting that came with the ribba.

This project was so easy. And I like it. Now to find the perfect place for it.

A work in progress

I continue to work on Rusty's room. I still haven't quite gotten it converted from a nursery to a completed boy's room. There are so many things I'd still like to do, but this is what we have so far.

Ikea platform bed and expedits.

Please excuse the quality of this picture. The 'mother ship' landing outside the window makes my lighting adjustments difficult. But, nevertheless, look at the mid-century modern desk I scored from a great friend. For free! Well not really, because it meant that my friend was moving to the east coast, so the cost is the presence of my friend.

Here's a closer look. Are you jealous? You should be :)

And for the non modern side of the room. I like to blend styles. Not really, I just have to work with what I've got. But would you please look closely at the art.

Those are paint swatch samples. I'll post about those later. And another one of my recent projects is on Rusty's door.

So there you go. His room makes me very happy right now.

Rusty right now

Why do they insist on eating from the middle of the sandwich?

Man I like this picture. Rusty has been looking older to me lately. I think he may have had a growth spurt but I can't be bothered to actually measure him and see. He has also been a bit of a pill. Disobedient, likes to say 'no', energetic (which is just a word disguise for 'hyper'), intent on hurting his sisters feelings, cannot wear shorts with pockets. Apparently his skin has gotten very sensitive because, all of a sudden, pockets bother him. He likes those elastic waisted cotton borderline pajama shorts. I feel like my motto this summer is going to be, "choose your battles". Eating healthy is a battle worth arguing, but I don't feel like winning a battle over cargo shorts just because they would be nicer looking for church. Because I would really like to wear my yoga pants to church too. In fact, I think I will. I'll have to wear my dress yoga pants instead of my everyday yoga pants. (Yep, that's how you know you've arrived)

Do you see the ornery in that face?
I have decided that children are just the annoying characteristics of your spouse or yourself magnified in the form of a child. Sassy, stubborn, opinionated, clumsy, and mean spirited. I'll leave you to decide which of these are mine and which are Todd's.

obsession

My sister and I have a major problem. Coffee isn't the same unless it has this creamer in it. We know every place in our county who carries it and when we are at one of these places, we stock up.

routines

I meet with a great group of ladies every Tuesday morning for prayer. We are not allowed to pray for anything but us and our immediate family. At first, I felt sort of uncomfortable about that. But, now I understand that guideline so much better, 1. we hardly ever be totally selfish in our prayers, 2. it is not really selfish when we pray solely for our self (God wants to be included in our life even though He already knows our request) 3. it causes us to be humble and vulnerable when it is so much easier to present a request that is our neighbors request 4. cuts down on gossip through prayer requests (you know what I'm talking about) 5. the encouragement, support, and vulnerability you share with the ladies you pray with is great.
So after saying all that, my recurring request this year was that I could get my life under control. Blynn being in school really threw my routine off. It is amazing how busy life can get if you allow it. Todd and I have been very conscious of the fact that we are not going to get caught in the generation X rat race of having our children constantly enrolled in some sort of extra curricular activity, so that definitely helped when all we did this year extra (besides church and school) was soccer. But, life is still very busy, so most of this year I felt very inadequate and failing at my home management duties. So around March, I was really feeling like I was coming out of the disorganization fog. And one of the biggest things to this was to overly prepare the night before, not leaving anything for the morning that can be done the night before.
One is laying out Blynn's outfit. Oh, Blynn really got into this task and likes to include shoes, outside garments, scarfs, and accessories if she can. I think it is hilarious and so, one night, I decided to take a picture for you.


Now, my prayer group is done for the summer and Blynn is done with Kindergarten and my routine is out the window. Only to be figured out again in March 2012, so we can have 2 months of control, right before we get out for summer again. Throwing the new routine out the window again. I have a feeling this is the new normal for me.

Mother's Day

These are the two kids that made me a Mother:

These guys were so nice to me this morning. They both slept in til 7:30 and let's face it, they could have just gotten me that for Mother's Day and I would be happy. Then they got the gift that Todd wrapped with them and hid in Rusty's room to give to me (a hummingbird feeder). And asked if they could take me to Starbucks. They paid for their own chocolate milks and I paid for my coffee and we sat and had a nice morning date before church. I am in charge of honoring the mothers and fathers at church on their days and this year I was fresh out of clever categories and I had decided I was just going to do the boring regular categories like mom with the most kids in church or mom with the youngest baby, yawn. So, I decided to include these two in the decision process over our coffee date and they helped me decide on the following categories:

1. Mom wearing the most orange

2. Mom with the highest shoes

3. Mom with the most gray hair

Nice, and very clever.

Spring

Everything is looking so good around here. The fence just got painted so it looks really crisp. Unfortunately, it makes it more obvious how badly the house needs to be painted.