Another Project Complete!

I got the names on the walls! They look so cute, if I do say so myself! I had wanted to get them for a long time, but never actually looked for any. It only cost about $15 bucks to do both names, all the letters were half off. I think Hunter's letters aren't completely straight. That's bothering me already! Think I'm gonna have to go back and raise the first couple of letters. More nail holes, but it'll drive me nuts like that. I'll probably leave it for a couple of days, and see if it's still as noticable, I'm sure it's only to me, but if it's still bothering me, I'll raise them.

Notice the nice clean rooms and floors? I spent all day Monday, at least most of it cleaning out the rooms. I can't do it very well with them at home, but when they are gone, the trash can comes out and I fill it up! They'll never know 99% of the stuff is gone. Janae is a packrat and wants to keep everything, that's so opposite of me! Now I'm big time on their case to pick everything up after they are finished with it! They do a fair job of picking up every night, but at some point, mom has to come in and clean it all out!

Pictures!

We have been busy trying to buy things a little at a time to make our house look nicer. Back in the spring, I painted, but the walls have been looking bare since then. We have a huge dining room wall that was just bare. So we went to Kirkland's over the weekend and found a mirror that we liked for it. I'd like to get a couple of the 18" metal crosses from Hobby Lobby and add them to the sides, then I think that this wall will be finished. Next, on to the entry way....this picture is also from Kirkland's, I love that store!

It was half off, so we grabbed it. I'd like to get a small table to put under it, try to dress up the entry. I realize I'll have to move the dog to get it completely dressed up, but until then I guess she's okay. After the table, I've GOT to get some kind of window treatments for the living room. We have 6 windows in the living room and all they have are blinds. We need something with some material. But, whew, that's usually expensive. Although....maybe I could talk Quilty Chick into giving me a hand and actually making something. I'm thinking this as I type. Whatcha think, Quilty Chick? I know you're "crazy busy", and probably don't want to take on any project from me, but a bit of advice at least? Maybe?

I also bought some letters for the kid's names that I'm going to put in their rooms. I've always loved those, and found them for half off at Hobby Lobby. I did good with the sales this weekend! Hooray! I'll show pictures of those after I get them up. The mirror and the picture took up all our time to hang on Saturday night, we didn't get to the letters. Maybe tonight I'll do the letters, and show the pictures tomorrow. Bye for now, I'm off to change sheets, and start on the mounds of laundry that never ends......

Pumpkins!

It's pumpkin time! I finally broke down and went and bought pumpkins. The kids love to draw the faces on them, and just color all over them. So on Wednesday I finally had some cash, and we got a couple of pumpkins. Well, after they marked all over them, Dad said they could carve a face into it. So last night, they all went to work. Mom stayed out of the way and kept the camera handy, much to Dad's chagrin. He didn't much appreciate the pictures, but what's a story on the blog without pictures???



Here is Dad giving some sort of meaningless instructions before beginning......




...Janae being throughly disgusted by the inside of the pumpkins. I know that she's seen the inside before, but I guess she didn't remember. Dad made her pull out one handful of the insides, then he did the rest. Hunter did as well, and he didn't like it either, but I didn't get a picture of that!

Now here is Dad finishing up the "gutting" process

And.....the finished project! They turned out pretty well, not a professional job, but he did good!

How do you like all the marker all over the faces? It was a decent picture before it all got cut up......

My Hunter brought home a "book" on Tuesday to read for homework. He read the whole thing all by himself! I'm so impressed with my 5 year old kindergartener!!

It was amazing to listen to him read. Now granted, it probably only has about 6 different words, but still!! He's learning letter sounds and how to put them together! Janae wasn't blessed like that in kindergarten, she had kind of a sorry teacher who didn't enjoy it, and I don't think the teacher put much effort into the kids, but Hunter's teacher is awesome. I think he will be reading independently by the end of the year. This is kind of hitting home that I no longer have a baby......he's growing up on me!!

Visiting the vet

Okay, so today was the day to go visit the vet for a nail trim for "little dog" and shots and an exam for "big dog". Little dog weighed 84 pounds, and big dog, 120. I went by myself and took both of them. Are you impressed yet??!! Well, little dog loves to go, she loves for anyone to give her attention, and she will go with anyone, so no problems there. I took her in, put her in a room, and went to the car to fight with big dog. She is a nervous wreck. I always feel so sorry for her! The last time we took her for an exam it took Hubs, me, and 2 vet people to get her in the room. Her 4 legs are going all different directions, and she's fighting it all the way. HOWEVER, little dog was with us today, and I didn't have much of a problem with her. Big dog just followed her into the room. But, bless her little doggy heart, she tee-tee'd everywhere when the vet came in and did the exam. It's so funny, this absolutely huge dog is really a big, fat, scardy cat! But, now it's done for another 6 months. You know, I had over 200 pounds of dog with me. Bet nobody would mess with little blonde girl today! Thank goodness I could bring them in and out one at at time or it never would have worked! Notice there are no pictures on this posting. I did think about it, but there's just no way!!! I'm not quite that crazy! Close, but not quite.

Wish me luck, I'm off to the school cafeteria to take lunch to the kiddies. Also quite a chore....

The joys of the mop.....

My kitchen floor goes on and on and on......which I do like, it avoids spills on the carpet under the dining table, but it is an awful lot of mopping, which I don't like. That's probably actually my least favorite household chore, mainly because there is so much of it! I'd rather clean toilets than drag out the mop and bucket. It's kind of a mixed feeling, because I am glad that I don't have to worry about drinks spilling on the floor, but you know every single time that I mop all that tile, it never fails, that within 48 hours something amazingly sticky gets spilled on it. So, I mopped on Friday, had scrapbooking here Friday night, and I will plead the 5th on how long it had actually been since the mop and the floor connected before then, some things are better left unsaid. (Plus I don't actually know!) So, fast-forward to tonight, and the 14 year old drops the pickle jar and of course it shatters all over the kitchen floor. (big, big sigh). Out comes the mop and the bucket again. I just did the whole floor again. Now, we'd better not play this game spill something on the floor again, for at least a week!!!

"Cabinetry Work"

Our cabinets in the kitchen, (and the whole house), are quite boring. Every house that this builder has built has the exact same cabinets, the only choice you have is in picking the color. So....we are trying to do small things to set our house apart from every other one in our area. One of the easy things we could do was to put handles and knobs on the kitchen cabinets and drawers. I think it turned out rather lovely!
We only made one "boo-boo" and have an extra set of holes in one of the drawers. We very foolishly assumed that all the drawers were the same size, and just started drilling holes. Not smart! So we're going to have to patch and stain over 2 extra holes. Ah well, we wouldn't have a good project in our house if we couldn't mess it up at least a little bit.


Now I'm thinking that the bathrooms and the laundry room need to be next. We are thinking of putting a wider and bigger cabinet in the laundry room, and then moving the laundry room cabinets to the master bath, which has only one individual cabinet above the toilet. I'm not entirely sure we want to take on hanging cabinets. I may have to call our trusty "crown-molding" installer to take on that project! My sweet friend Stacee's hubby did a great job with that, and I'm sure he could probably whip those cabinets into shape in no time. But, that will be another day, and another time!

Had girl's night here last night, as always that was quite entertaining! I just love my girlfriends, they are good for the soul! Good luck to my sweet friend Kristen, who is about to have a sweet little baby girl! We all can't wait!

Diorama

Janae had to make a horse diorama for a project at school. She has worked really hard on it, did the majority of it herself, I helped with some of the glue and the ideas, and she has done the rest. Great job, isn't it?
It's due on Wednesday, but I'm happy to say that today is Saturday, and all she has left to do is write out the note cards for the back of the box. Way to get motivated and do homework, and mom didn't have to nag her a bit!

Surgery Day

Okay, today was the big day! Hunter slept in this morning until 8:30, which was perfect, because we had to leave about 8:50. We gave him a little present for his big day, just to help keep him distracted......a dinosaur! He loved it and was so surprised! He asked, "why didn't you tell me I was getting a present?" Cute, cute!

On to the surgery center, still no visible nervousness going on, he got a gown with tigers on it and actually kind of liked it! They gave him a dose of Versed right about this time, just to keep him calm, and he got really loopy. It was really quite entertaining, he was trying hard to stay awake, and was acting like he was so incredibly silly. We laughed and laughed, which was also good for me!
Off in the little red wagon! They gave him the choice whether to ride in the wagon, or have the nurse carry him, and he picked the wagon. Don't think he could have even walked back there, he was so loopy he was falling all over himself at this point, but he went with her without a backward look. Didn't bother him at all.

After it was all over, the anestheologist came and told us that he so worked hard to blow in the balloon (the one that was going to put him to sleep), he was trying pop it. He was a little champ, the recovery room nurse said he was the best kid she'd had in a long time. He was a big boy, and I'm proud of him. My biggest prayer was that he'd be courageous and brave, and boy, was he ever!!

I got it done, finally!!! Chop, chop

This is the "long-haired" me. Admittedly, I did nothing to fix it that morning. This was the morning of my first scheduled haircut, which got cancelled. I had Janae take one of the pictures, and Hunter the other, that's why they are looking upward!




Wah-lah!! I called Amy this morning, thought she might, maybe have an opening in the middle of the week, in the middle of the day, for a last minute caller like me, and she did! I finally got it hacked off. We didn't measure, but I'm thinking between 6-7 inches was taken off. It looked like a whole 'nother head of hair there on her floor!

So, I'm back to the "short-haired" me. I'm like Brooke, I let it grow, usually in the summers when it's hot on my neck and end up hacking it off in the winter when it's cold. I've been that way since I was a kid. Usually it doesn't get as long as it did this time, just thought I'd see how long I could grow it, and what it would look like. Looked kind of ratty!! It's alot of work, takes lots longer to dry, and it felt like it was all falling out! So no more ponytails, that should help with the "falling out" problem, and not as much time with the hair dryer. Woo-hoo!

I love getting a new look and a new haircut. If I could afford it, I'd be there every week!

Hair

You know, by the time I finally get that long-awaited haircut, she's going to be cutting off another 2 inches. I don't even have another appointment made yet! Maybe next week.....I'll keep you posted.......

Here I Am Again!

My life has been relatively boring in the last week, but quite busy just the same. Getting ready for surgery on Friday, I feel like I've been driving to "the medical district" 20 times a day. It's not that bad of course, but when I went to the doctor's office on Monday to pick up the paperwork, they couldn't find it. So.....on my way home, they called and told me they did find it. So that was probably 1 1/2 hours of my day just driving back and forth over there. And I've been writing the checks, whew, have I ever! This is NOT going to be cheap! Not that it matters, because we'll do whatever we need to for our boy. Anyway, after I'd gone over there twice on Monday morning, that afternoon, the anesthesia office called and said they needed to be paid before Friday. So, another trip today. It is almost a 30 minute drive from our house, simply because you have to go straight through town to get there.

I had a bit of a meltdown in church on Sunday, struggling a bit with all of this, but strangely not the surgery itself, I really have no worries about that, but more about Hunter's reaction to it. He had not been told at that time, he knew he was going to get tubes, just not when. Well, John told him on Monday morning, and he was fine with it. I asked if he wanted me to take the camera, and take a picture of him with his doctor, (whom he loves), and he is all for it. I think he's going to be fine, may have a little trouble leaving when it's time to go into the O.R., but the prayers are working, because my main concern was that he was going to be really troubled and upset over it all, and he's taking it very calmly. Thank you Lord!

Other than this, everything is smooth sailing in our house lately! I have to put a plug in for the new movie "Fireproof"....GO SEE IT! It was great, I took the kids last weekend, John was out of town, and he and I are going to go see it on Monday, if all goes as planned. It is well worth those stinkin' expensive theater tickets, although I'm paying matinee prices both times! Even those are getting on up there! I absolutely love all those movies, "Facing the Giants" is one of my favorite movies ever, and it still makes me cry everytime I watch it. I wish I had that kind of faith, working on it, and will get there!

I will report back on Friday with surgery details and a picture of my brave kid! Soon you'll be able to read about something else, sure everyone is getting sick of all this talk about ears!!! I am, I'm ready for it to be done and over with.

Just for kicks, I'm going to let you crazy scrapbook girls in on an absolutely crazy dream that I've had a couple of times in the last week......I'm dreaming that I'm pregnant! Hmmm....should I take a test? I think not! Although, we got the insurance paperwork, and it covers maternity at 80% with no waiting period. No way Jose!! However, should it accidentally happen, I know I'll be covered. Once Kristen has that sweet, beautiful baby I know there's going to be a part of me that's ready to do it again. Bet I'll get some comments for that! tee, hee

No haircut today!!

Well.....my child had to stay home from school today, guess what!? His ears are hurting and he's on antibiotics again. The school nurse said his ear is really red, so doc called in a RX for him. So, still no haircut pictures. I'm going to have to make a 3rd appointment......maybe I can get it done someday!!!