A Birthday, Another Birthday, And Oh Yeah, A Birthday!

The kids have turned another year older. There are moments that I stop and think about how fast time is moving and it scares me to death. The fact that my first born is now 4 years old and I am pondering his scholastic future is bizarre to me. When you have a child, it seems like they'll never leave the "baby" phase, then it just seems like suddenly, they are full blown kids with thoughts and ideas completely independent of your suggestion!

 

Anyway, we enjoyed a fun day at home on the kids' birthday.

 

Poppy hung up swings for the kids! They absolutely LOVE them! They play on them every day.

 

 

Poppy also made them a huge sandbox!

 

 

So much fun to be had!

 

 

Helping Mama make their birthday cake.

 

 

Presents time!

 

 

Avengers!

 

 

Super hero and fairy cake!

 

 

Happy Birthday to Ryder and Sabrina!

(They were really more excited than they look.)

 

 

They had a lot of fun on their birthday. But of course, I can't let a birthday go by without a real party. Since their birthday was on a Tuesday, we had to wait to have their big party on the following Sunday.

 

 

The theme was Capes and Wings: A Super Hero and Tinkerbell Fairy party. To see more of the decorations and food ideas, click here.

 

 

 

Of course, a birthday party can't be without some kind of fun something or other. We had our slip and slide again this year, with the fire hose pump spraying water to keep it slick. As always, it was a big hit, even for me!

 

 

Even for Pops!

 

 

Down and down again!

 

 

This was a birthday of big active presents, including Ryder's new bike! The best part is that the squeeze part on the horn is broken so they blow into the funnel instead. Sounds like a duck with a bellyache, but the love it!

 

 

During all this, Selene and Xander came for a visit, and we got to celebrate their birthday as well!

 

 

Opening presents!

 

 

The kids got to spend the day together. Mom decorated her house in a "Frozen: In Summer" theme. So we were all enjoying our luau festivities.

 

 

Gram reading to, well, everybody.

 

 

Happy Birthday Selene and Xander! Island luau cupcakes!

 

 

My mom handmade several things for both kids this year, but the biggest and most impressive was this treehouse she and my dad both made. It's customizable, and all handmade. It truly is amazing, and the kids play with it for hours!

 

 

Also during their visit, we got enjoy some fun times at the Discovery Science Place. The kids are always happy to go there!

 

 

Geniuses!

 

 

Two busy boys.

 

 

Xander checking out at the grocery store. Selene was a bank teller and Sabrina needed lots of oranges. Ryder was the punk loitering around.

 

 

Xander and Sabrina loved playing with this gear table. You put it all together and then you can crank it so they all move. Two detailed minds fascinated.

 

 

The kids' visit was fun filled as always, and Ryder and Sabrina miss them so much.

 

Here are a few moments from our regular life.

 

 

Nick brought a bull frog home from the lake for the kids to see.

 

 

Both were hesitant at first, but they warmed up and had fun poking its eyes and watching them retract. Don't worry, we let him go in our pond perfectly intact.

 

 

I made a little top for Sabrina last week. I caught this pout face while trying to get her to model her new look, and I just love this picture! One I'm sure she'll be proud of when she gets older, heh heh.

 

 

Life's chugging along. We've got lots to look forward to in the next months, including cooler weather! We're all sick and tired of this triple digit nonsense, and I'm ready to see a little more of my husband. There will always be more to do, more to enjoy, and of course, more to post!

 

 

Tickled Pink - Dresser Redo For Sabrina

A while back, I hit the jackpot at my local thrift shop and got a whole French provincial bedroom set for only $40.

 

WHAT?

 

Yeah, I know totally awesome. Everything was in really good shape, only some cosmetic work needed. This style is perfect for my little girl's room, which is colored in pink and orange with a girly chic vibe.

 

I've been intending to paint all this furniture for a while, but with our move things like that just kind of got put on the back burner. But I have finally completed my first piece, and am so excited to share it!

 

Brace yourself, the original state of this dresser can haunt you in your dreams.

 

 

BEFORE

This is how I bought it. See that lovely yellowish color? That is not paint, no. It is an unknown substance; suspected to be some form of lacquer, so extremely sticky (and stinky) that only a cleaner such as Awesome cleaner could remove such a vile covering. Basically, it was gross.

 

 

AFTER

Gorgeous! Perfect for my girl's new space!

 

Now for the journey of the nasty nauseous dresser.

 

 

A close up of the original state. See that top edge? Yep, that's brown.

 

 

The top is laminate and also the actual color of the piece. Eww.

 

 

After a lot of elbow grease and whole spray bottle of Awesome cleaner, we have a relatively clean dresser.

But it still stinks. Now it smells like it did before plus Awesome cleaner.

 

 

First we must sand the piece, including the laminate top. Some people recommend not sanding laminate, but we did and the paint stuck much better once we sanded it. Then we had to prime. As you can see, my photo taking was lapse at this phase. I was more focused on getting it done than taking pictures. But the whole piece was painted this slightly gray color. I painted the inside of the drawers because of the smell. I didn't want it to make the clothes smell bad over time. Now time for the color!

 

 

Voila! The outer frame of the dresser is painted orange and the drawers are painted pink. It took two coats of pink and 3-4 coats of orange (orange is a finicky color).

 

 

I got the drawer pulls at Ross. I love all the shapes of this piece! It's so girly!

 

 

I painted the inside of the drawers pink. I could have left them the primer color, but it seemed wrong against this pink. I'll probably curse myself if I ever repaint this piece because it adds a lot of extra work.

 

 

This dresser looks fantastic in her room!

 

I'll be showing off more projects very soon. I have a lot more painting to do!

 

 



On A Short Rope - A Frame Of Mine

Life's been a little, well, umm...busy.

 

I'll spare you the details. Or more like, I'll tell you about it more in a later post. I've had things I've wanted to post for a while but no downtime to do the posting.

 

Anyhoo, I've got a quick little project to share that's fun, easy, and really cool looking for the right room. As I've said before, my kids' bathroom is a nautical theme, and I've posted other projects for this room in the past.

 

 

A rope frame! Doesn't exactly take a lot of know how to figure out how to make it, but it's surprising how much the store wanted to charge for it.

 

 

Start with a frame. I bought a 5x7 frame at Dollar Tree for $1. It came with the glass and everything, but you want to remove all that before you start working on it. Also, you can do this with any size frame you want. You also need rope, which I bought at Walmart for about $6 in a roll. That was the most expensive part. You will also need hot glue.

 

 

Start gluing the rope on the frame. In this picture, the top left corner is where I started. You have to make sure the end is down so the next layer can keep going around seamlessly. Keep going around, hot gluing one side at a time, until the original frame is hidden behind the rope.

 

 

When you've finished going around the outside, bring the end underneath and cover the under edge of the frame so that you don't see it from the side.

 

 

Perfect!

 

 

Finished! Now just add the glass, photo and everything else.

 

 

Ta-da! The frame and photo go perfectly with my Poop Deck sign. Unfortunately I had to censor the picture for it to be online (but I think you get the idea).

 

 

This frame looks great in the kids' bathroom!

 

 



Fruits Of Our Labor

The garden has been quite fruitful this year, what with all the rain we've had this spring season. We moved back in to our house just in time for me to harvest and can all our produce.

I've been sick this week, and while I seem to be on the mend, I'm still taking it easy. So what else should I do but write a blog post?

I hadn't planted a garden in two years. Basically, I missed a year. I just couldn't handle trying to grow a garden from afar last year while we were living elsewhere. So this year I planted one, thinking we'd be in our new house when it was time to really do some work. Well we made it just in time.

*(Sorry the pictures are small, there seems to be technical difficulties with my blogger.)

 

 

This is what the garden looked like when I first started working on it. It was completely ignored last year, with all the weeds growing as they liked.

 

 

This what it looked like when I got the early crop planted. Lettuce, spinach, carrots, radishes, and cilantro.

 

 

My garden currently. As you can see, I've already lost my squash to the bugs, but not without harvesting some fruit first. My peppers, tomatillos and tomatoes are thriving.

 

 

My tomatoes. The plants have gotten so big that they fell over on the ground. We had to stake the cages up with fence posts to keep the tomatoes from rotting.

 

 

Probably my biggest tomato I've harvested.

 

 

Cucumbers and basil.

 

I've already gotten to make a lot with our yield.

 

 

Blackberry jam. This was just from one crop; we missed our early crop because we were moving at that time.

 

 

Peach pepper jam. The peaches aren't ours, but the peppers are.

 

 

Salsa and pickles.

 

I've also been freezing zucchini as well as green beans. We actually had to make a trip to buy our deep freeze so that we could store all that we're obtaining. Our house freezer is already full. It's fun to be canning again, filling our new pantry with home canned goods. This sickness has slowed me down a bit; I've been out for two and a half days so far. But I seem to be on the mend and looking forward to all our busy summer plans. More to post soon!

 

 



Settling In To The Settlement: The Return Home

We are finally home.

 

On May 31 we moved into our new house. We had been away from home for almost exactly a year and a half (May 29). We are so glad to be back out here, enjoying the quiet and solitude of our 25 acres.

 

We have been slowly working on getting the house set up, but there is much left to do. Nick's job has hit it's busiest season, so he's been unable to work on extra projects around the house. Our garden has also started it's busy time, and I've been swamped with tasks involving our homegrown produce. We've also made trips to the local peach orchards and blueberry fields.

 

Here are a few pictures from around the house. I haven't included a lot of great details partly because things aren't finished and partly because I'd rather people come visit me than give a virtual tour. I'll post more specifics as projects are completed.

 

 

Our living room ceiling. The tin turned out perfect.

 

 

Sorry the picture is fuzzy. I've never claimed to be a photographer.

 

 

Our master bathroom. One of the most completed rooms.

 

 

Our closet. I filled it up just fine, ha ha!

 

 

Our least finished room: the studio. Just needs some paint and baseboards. Hopefully I'll get to it soon because I'm going to need it!

 

 

The kids playing in Ryder's room. I'll be doing a post on the racing stripes on his wall later. Sabrina's room is still needing to be set up, so she's not sleeping in it yet.

 

 

Eating our first dinner: Nachos.

 

 

Roughhousing.

 

 

Eating our first breakfast.

 

 

Ridin' trikes.

 

 

Bathtime! They love their new bathroom.

 

 

We've enjoyed some fun times too in between all the craziness.

 

 

 

The twins came to visit here recently. All the kids had fun together and loved sportin' their new shades!

 

 

We went up to the peach orchards to enjoy some scenery and ice cream. Here the kids are checking out the tractor fountains.

 

 

They have all kinds of cool vehicles sitting around. Ryder loved the fire truck.

 

 

My little Brina. The sign says, "Watch for gators." Eeesh.

 

 

Sabrina loves her some ice cream.

 

 

Ryder gets serious about his ice cream.

 

Taking a break in the wagon at the blueberry fields.

 

 

Sweaty but successful.

 

 

Ryder got a special opportunity to fly in some airplanes again. He and Nick had a great time. Thanks Aunt Jessie!

 

 

We are settling in well and loving the new house. It is busy now, but we'll get to enjoy some great times here.