Rusty-isms

#1 Rusty was cuddling in bed with me the other morning and we were sharing a pillow. He kept pushing me head away, and I finally said, "Stop" and he said, "I don't like how you smell, it's yucky!".

#2 Last night at 2:00am (I guess that would be this morning) Rusty woke up crying. Todd went in his room to see what was going on and he said that Blynn broke his favorite ball. He was really mad at Blynn even though it was just a dream. Luckily, he shook it off quickly and went right back to bed.

This is the way Rusty prefers to watch tv.

Best Cleaning Product Ever!!

This is what I did today. Cleaned my baseboards. And I have discovered the best product that will work on any baseboard. Are you ready... it's paint. I periodically dust my baseboards and I magic eraser them too, but sometimes your baseboards just get to a point that nothing cleans them anymore, except PAINT!! I do not have a nice enough camera for you to see the detail of how beautiful this looks, but take my word for it.
Oh yeah, we worked on another project today in the kids play area too! It's not completely done; but this project below, laundry, dishes, pruning some plants, paint touch ups everywhere, and painting baseboards has lead to a very productive day. Except that I didn't shower or brush my teeth.

Not old enough yet!

This and a couple of turns is the road to my sister's house. Our kids want to be able to walk back and forth freely between our homes, but they just aren't old enough yet. The other week my nephews wanted to run over to my house, so my sister called me as they were leaving and we both watched from our ends. Above is a picture of the boys just emerging at the end of the road. I could hear them giggling, they were so proud of themselves.

Here they are with my mega zoom on.

Rusty couldn't wait to meet them.

Blynn was a little late in meeting them because she had to find her wedding veil and tiara first.

And that car is their mom making sure they made it. It's extra work for us, but they loved it.

Jim Jams

Creativity Camp really motivated me. Todd and I have been cranking out the projects lately at a very rapid pace. This is the deal though, when you live in an old house, most of the projects take a lot of prep work. So I am not at a place to reveal any completed projects to you right now except for these recent accomplishments:

Some people like to pose their models by a nice outdoor backdrop but I like to use my dishwasher and messy kitchen countertop. Is that what 'avant garde' is? I watch a lot of Project Runway.

Creativity Camp

This is my friend Erin. She is one of the gifts God gave me when I went away to a big, scary college (note that "big" and "scary" are highly subjective according to whom you ask). She came to visit me with her brood last week and my creative juices were on overdrive. Even since she left, I've been getting little creative projects done. Erin came with her three children, which in my opinion puts her in the category I put all families with more than two children: CRAZY. But this is why she can handle it... look at her holding her baby while sewing a project for my oldest child. This didn't even phase her.

Here is a project Erin did of my daughters drawing. Isn't putting it on a pillow brilliant? It's some sort of fabric pen that washes off in water.

Then we made these from the popular pillowcase dress, but we didn't use pillowcases and we didn't have a pattern so we just made it up. We're smart because we graduated from a big, scary college.

And I did a lot of embellishing boring dresses from Wally World:

I made Erin do the zig zag stitching because zig zag stitching scares me. In fact, my entire sewing maching scares me.

This dress was Blynn's vision. It already came with the pink buttons on it, but she wanted red ones added in between. Please excuse the posing.

Rusty did not like all the attention of the photo shoot to exclude him, so here are some I took of him.

I'd like to introduce you...

to Miss Mac.

This is our family boat built by my grandpa in 1958. Here he is on the right with my dad sitting on top of the boat sanding the fiberglass. My aunt remembers that he ordered the plans from a magazine and they all killed many healthy cells in their lungs by sanding that fiberglass.

Here they are on Shaver Lake.

She also remembers that the color scheme was picked because of the car and the colors available for the engine. I love the color scheme.

This is my cousin, sister and I in 1981. I guess I can see where Blynn gets the posing from.

And here she is in 2010. We took her out of the barn a couple of weeks ago to clean her up and assess her situation. This brought back so many memories.

A new generation of passengers.

This first aid kit was completely intact. My Grandma was always prepared.

Is anyone as excited about these old life preservers as I am?

And this?

This item is what my sister and I remember the most about the boat. My Grandma would make coffee on the boat and then give us girls a cup. Then she would ask us how many sugar cubes we wanted. I'm pretty sure I would say 21 or 36. Remember that I was 4 years old. I think this is why I like my coffee so sweet to this day.

And seriously this is the best find of them all. Is anyone else screaming like I was? No. Well, are you not seeing what I'm seeing. Look closer.

This is jadeite my friends. I still sense that you are not as excited as I am. This is now the only mug I will drink out of.

As we were working on the boat, everytime I would turn around, this is how I would find my sister.

Now we just have to see if she is sea worthy. The boat not my sister.