Progress.......

The dinosaur room! It's almost done! Here are the volcanos:
The wallies are wonderfully colorful and not too cutsie. I got them on eBay. The inspiration for this volcano scape came from our Company Kids catalog. I will put instructions for how I did my volcanos at the end of this post. Also if you are looking for great kids/toy storage for small amount of money, the large galvanized buckets found at Home Depot are great (and can be painted) and so are the $4.99 canvas collapsible bins in the storage/closet organization section at Target. Also finished some simple curtains. Lined with black out fabric of course. ;)
Painted the dresser. White with red drawers.

Here is a simple how to for the volcano scape. Pretty simple to do.
I made my own stencil by taping up a roll of craft paper and drawing the volcanos. Then I took it down and cut it out, being careful to leave the top perfect. Then I used my level and taped off a straight bottom and taped up the stencil.Because true red is a translucent paint, to reduce the number of coats I used a gray primer. Be sure to use a small roller and roll down from the stencil. It's ok if it curls up as long as you roll down from it with each stroke touching the stencil. Then after it dried, I painted the red. After that was dry I was able to attach my dinosaurs and Zachary wanted some smoke coming up from the volcano, so I drew that in with a paint brush and acrylic black paint.

Now I just need to finish painting the desk to match the dresser and set some sheets of metal to hang on the wall. Will post back pics when it's all done!

A Regular Day Party

Kalla, Micah and I celebrated for no good reason on Saturday. lol Well, except that it is just fun to party once and a while. Zachary was gone to a birthday party for his friend. He has not one or two this month, but FOUR! Kalla has 2 of her own, but Sat while Z was gone the other two were quite sad at being left behind while their brother was with friends and cake. So I pulled out some old party plates and napkin left overs (plate from Christmas and some old baby shower napkins) and served up popcorn and mini cupcakes. Turned on some 'party music' and pulled out some games.
We chowed down and bopped our heads to the music while playing a game of candy land.
Then we topped off our party with a Little People hoe down on the farm. :) The lil ponies were invited too.

It was a good time for all. :)

Ski Bama

They took the day off Friday, just the two of them and went skiing. Matt and Zachary took advantage of the cold weather here in AL and went up to a nearby skiing place. Yep that's right, skiing right here in the deep south!
This was Z's first time on skis. He really had a great time. And can't wait to go back.
They even made the news. A Chattanooga station was there and you can see the video clip on this web page (click on 'play video') He's on there 3 times: first with an instructor (falling down), second close up and at the end you can see him and Matt skiing down in the distance. :)

Just fun

We had a nice three day weekend this past weekend. Z was out of school and Matt was off work. So for fun I made the kids these teddy bear pancakes. Complete with chocolate chips and whipped cream. Zachary and Kalla didn't like the whipped cream, course Micah asked for more after he licked his off. They weren't completely 'bad' pancakes as I found a mix at the store that was whole wheat with even wheat germ in it. Course they didn't notice past the chocolate chips. They mix is quite tasty actually as I made some pineapple pancakes for me this morning (the kids are anti-pineapple).

Anyway, after our scrumptious family breakfast, we looked for something fun to do (indoors!). Most places were closed. However The Jump Zone (one of those bouncy party places) were open special for open play. We took the kids and they bounced and slid their hearts out for over 2 hours. Maressa even loved sliding down the huge bouncy slide with me.

Fun fun day. :)

More fun for Zachary and Matt as they head to a nearby tiny ski place on Friday. Matt is taking the day off to take him. It will be Zachary's first time and he's very excited. I'm afraid Z is going to be 'fun-ed' out by next week as then on Sat is his basketball game then a friend's bday party and another bday party to go to on Sun....at the Jump Zone of course!

Basketball...my baby's first game

Zachary's first organized sport. This was the first year we could sign him up. He was not too thrilled about the idea at first. Now he LOVES it! Everything about it. Practices, games, the uniform! lol Here he is warming up for their first game.
Here he is with the ball during the game. It was the cutest thing to watch these 5 and 6 yr old boys playing. The coaches, referees and audience reminding them constantly which direction they should be running. Our team even made a basket for the other. hehe So adorable to watch them cheer for each other and one kid always kept hugging his teammates when they actually made a basket. Now all Zachary wants to do even at home is play basketball. Course daddy is in heaven with that and plays with him all the time when he's home. I'm starting to miss the Go Fish and Sequence game nights. But glad they have something to bond with. Micah tries to get in on the action at home, but is confused and upset when Z is trying to block him or take the ball, so that part is not working out so great. :)

Superfriends!

The new edition! :) Zachary and Kalla are really into super this and super that and capes. The other day they had me make capes for their fav stuffies and some masks. I'm still supposed to be doing a mask for T Rex and Cheer/Rainbow bear. Capes are nothing but squares cut with pinking shears and tied around the neck. Masks are cut with felt and elastic sewn on the sides to fit snug around the face. And of course had to make a tutu for Olivia (the pink Build a Bear kitty). Simple simple to do....just a knotted tutu on elastic cut to fit her waist. :)

How to on knotted tutu....can be adjusted for dolls, stuffed animals or even little girls. Buy some tulle on a roll (one roll for dolls, about 4 for a full tutu for a 4 yr old girl). Measure waist and cut length of elastic to that measurement. Sew ends together taking in an inch of waist measurement (you want the end product slightly smaller than waist measurement so it will stay up). Measure length you want the tutu to be. Cut strips of tulle the double that length plus about 2". Then you simple tie the tulle strips around the elastic. You can mix up colors and you can even put 2 strips together then tie. Push tied strips along elastic til you can squish no more tulle on. Then stretch the elastic a bit and add some more (think how the elastic will stretch a bit when worn and you don't want holes with no tulle). Then you are done....huge poofy tutu for your princess or her dolls. :)

Getting organized!

Yep, new year and I'm jumping in the organizing bandwagon. I've been wanting to do this stuff forever, but made myself wait til after Christmas.
Just sharing some goodies I've found. Above I got the key hook/bulletin board/cubbie thing on clearance at Hobby Lobby. No more lost keys! Or coupons, or tickets, or mail, appointment cards, etc. :)

Speaking of, hanging things. One little tip I did along time ago is I stapled cork tiles to the inside of my computer armoire. Perfect place to stick notes, calendars and whatnot.
This little car organizer diddy I got from a catalog (one a friend's kid was selling from) but I've seen them in many. LOVE IT! Place for the tissue, package of wipes, package of little garbage sacks, Maressa's sling, few toys, etc. Hangs on the back of the passenger seat.
Last but not least this cabinet. $25 from Target. Blends in with my cherry colored furniture in the dining room. Perfect for storing the kids art/coloring supplies. They have a kid sized table of their own in the dining room that used to be cluttered with a stack of coloring books and buckets of crayons/chalk (they have a chalk wall by their table). Now a tidy little place to keep it all. They can find it and best of all they can clean it up themselves!
Here is the inside. Shoe boxes hold a plethora of crayons. Big basket holds sheets of paper and little basket holds erasers, scissors and stamps. Yellow zipper storage holds pages of stickers. If you like buckets, the silver one is simple a tin bucket from the painting aisle a Home Depot. Ahhh organization....it's a GOOD thing! :)

Don't adjust your monitor!

I've been painting. The boys room and here is the new color. Yes that is a neutral creamy off white. Those who know me are in shock that I would paint anything neutral! I'm generally known for my bright colored house. We bought a new house a year and a half ago almost and I've been working and working to get it 'my style'. Every room needs a new coat of paint. But for Christmas, Zachary asked for a dino room. He wanted dino sheets, a cool dino lamp and those wall sticky things. He also asked for me to paint his room red, his fav color. Now I don't object to a red room...I LOVE red rooms and plan for our front/music room to be red when I get to it. But the boys room is kinda small for such a deep color. Not to mention I have plans for other red rooms in the house and what a pain red is to paint. Plus I had this can of cream already with no use for it (we bought it to paint over all the bright colors in our old house when we were selling it, but sold it before we ever got to paint). So the boys room will be a nice shade of off white with bold red furniture instead. Z inherited his dad's old desk that I will paint red. The boys quilts are red. And I'm doing red volcanoes on the wall. This will be posted about when I'm done with the room. So I can deal with the bland wall color, because by the time I'm done with his room, it will be anything but bland and the coolest dino room in town. ;)

Wall Framed Photo Collage

This post is about some tips to do a framed photo collage on your wall. You know like kind you see in the Pottery Barn catalogs. :) I came up with this way to put up the frames with out a bunch of holes in your wall.
First I took some rolled craft paper and taped 2 strips together in the length and height of the space I wanted it in. Basically the length is the length of my sofa I wanted this over. As you can see I even have a helper with this task...lol. I gave her a piece of tape to play with so she didn't shred my paper. ;)
Then take all your framed pics and place them on the paper and work with them til you are satisfied with your arrangement. I like for mine to not be mirror image sides. In other words the left side is different than the right. But balanced.

Then you trace around each frame with a pencil. After that, pick up one frame at a time and measure very carefully where the nail hangers are on the back. Some of mine didn't have any as the smaller ones are shelf frames, so I measured the center and down from the thickness of the frame. In hindsight I would put 2 leveled nails in the wall for those so they don't keep tipping and you having to straighten them all the time...I'm going to go back and add another nail to mine. Make 'T' marks where the nail should go. Once you've done that for all the frames, move them out of the way. Then use blue painters tape to tape your paper to the wall exactly where you want it. Use a level to make sure they are level. Once satisfied, put nails in all the 'T' marks. Then carefully remove the paper leaving in the nails. If you don't think you can remember the frame set up you have, then use sticky notes to label each nail set to which picture goes there. Once you remove the paper all you will have is a wall full of nails. Then hang your pictures. Done! :)

Baby It's Cold Outside!!

No it's not snowing. Not here in AL, but it's cold enough to! We've been having very cold (ok, for us very cold) weather this week. The other day wind chill of 14F and overnite low of 11F. Of course when it's cold enough to snow here, it's sunny. Sunny and windy. We just stayed in. And next week the high is 70F. Crazy weather we have here in the south!! Last January we had record highs in the low seventies one weekend and we had a picnic lunch in the front yard. And what do you think came tinkering down the road? An ice cream truck. Yup, middle of Jan, a picnic lunch and ice cream in the front yard. And I didn't mind it a bit! ;)

What are your goals for 2008??

Here are mine!! :)

*read the bible in a year
*pray more
*lose 15lbs
*potty train Micah
*get rid of Micah's pacis
*cut down our food budget
*stay on budget for all catergories
*finish all half done decorating projects in house (ie painting)
*stock some items in etsy.com store
*spend more time with hubby
*be more patient with the kids
*read to the kids daily
*have more tea parties with Kalla
*play more legos with Zachary
*play more trains/animal farm with Micah
*push them on the swings more
*cut back 'fancy' birthday parties and simplify
*have more people over for dinner
*organize closets and my sewing/craft room...gonna go do that this weekend! :)
*organize and begin having 'girl's night out craft nights at my house...been talking this up for months, but yet to do anything about it!

I'm sure there are more, but that's all I can think of for now!

The Year in Review

Maressa Ann, our baby #4 was born on my birthday, February 13th.

Micah was up to mischief as usual.

The boys played with some real live chicks.

Zachary was a ring bearer in Matt's cousin's wedding in TX. The red dino was his 'reward' for doing a good job. He was none too thrilled about this ring bearer business.

Zachary lost tons of teeth. And lots of permanent teeth came in. He currently has 6 permanent teeth fully in and 2 (upper ones) missing and all four 6 year molars (had them for a year now).

Micah turned 2 with an Elmo party.

The kids fed tropical birds at a zoo near grandma's house.

Kalla turned 4 with a princess party. Unfortunately, Cinderella was MIA.

Zachary started school with his first day at kindergarten. Loves it by the way!

Kalla's first day of 4 year old preschool. She is so loving it and is sad when it's not a Tuesday or Thursday or we are on break, such as now.

The kids had their first boat ride. Kalla 'down under' hiding was not exactly thrilled. Zachary thought it was way cool to go fast.

Micah contined his paci addiction.

Zachary turned 6 and celebrated at the mall and Build a Bear with his friends.

Zachary gets better and better on the piano.

I gave eBay one last shot with a few holiday sets. They bombed and I'm really, REALLY done with eBay boutique. I have opened an etsy.com shop and hope to sell a few things in there one day.

Grandma and grandpa came down to experience the pumpkin farm with us this year. I think they enjoyed it...was way too hot this year though.

Maressa has 6 teeth, sleeps 11-12 hours at night straight, self feeds...loves meat, crawls and pulls up to stand. She is super silly and loves to laugh. She's truely a blessing to our family.

Kalla and I went to the Nutcracker for the first time ever and we both loved it. Kalla also got a big haircut for a cute, no fuss, above the shoulder bob.

My mom got married on her birthday in the mountains. We celebrated with them Christmas eve with a 'reception' at my sister's house.

We celebrated a big family Christmas at my sister's house. One mom and her husband, one dad and his wife, 2 sisters, 2 brother-in-laws, 1 aunt, 3 nieces and nephews and me and my clan. It was wonderful. :)

And that's all folks! Looking forward to another year full of blessings.xo