Paul's Masterpiece

This has been the scene in front of our home today. Paul is slaving away in the hot humid sun to make a masterpiece. What could possess him you ask? Well your clues may be pictures number 2, 3, and 4.... Paul recently bought some new tools and he has found the perfect cause to put them to use. But truly, what has tickled his heart so much to spend his day off in the hot hot sun... possible the wish of a little girl? One hint...

~LEMONADE 5 CENTS~

TO BE CONTINUED...

Scraps IN PROGRESS!

With the additional of our little man Mark in June, it has become increasingly difficult to get my scraps laid out on paper... then I came across Valerie Salmon's blog and her Got Sketch? blog. Okay so I already have Becky Higgin's sketches, Becky Fleck's PageMaps, and a plethora of other sketch sites... well now, let me explain... Valerie has outdid herself and went and made a party group cleverly disguised as a virtual classroom called Got Sketch 101 and now, 102. It's truly is a rockin' virtual classroom Valerie and Janna Wilson have created to share there exclusive sketches and tips to enlighten us all to the point of a fevered obsession. Check it out...

Got Sketch 102 Pre-Class Challenge

This owl is one of Hannah's drawings I found among a pile of drawings...



Additional layouts done with Valerie's sketches

And what party is complete without the party hat?! Val has been so good as to give us our own blinkie for our class... thanks for the party hat chica!

Well I should go get ready... class is almost in session! Class starts Monday Sept 1st... come join us at Got Sketch...

FOUND: Pumpkins in the patch BAY-BY!

We have been trying fruitlessly to control these vines in our sliver of a garden that rests in our sliver of a yard. The vines are now climbing up our neighbors fence... and I have declared any pumpkins grown in his yard are STILL my property. I know NO shame! Hey in this day and age a woman has rights to property, and TO THIS WOMAN... pumpkins are a serious thing. But truly, I wait all year for fall with all the promising notions of pumpkins. Pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie, pumpkin spices, pumpkin ORANGE (what other time of year would the color orange be an acceptable hue in our home), pumpkin candles... and oh yeah pumpkin patch PICTURES!! SO I must share with you my pride and joy, aside from our children...

This one is hiding under the vines which are crawling over the fence... he is shy, he is still a bit green...
Oh oh, wait wait, lookie lookie here... he is full-on-orange... Strange though, they aren't suppose to be orange until the frost comes... well anyhow... don't spoil my joy here...
Okay... I am feeling a bit shameful here... I found him among... (pause... I am terribly embarrassed)... he is sheltered by my weeds... don't tell my mother-in-law, she would high tail it to the garden for a serious session of weed pulling! Dear mother, don't hate me... Well aside from the weeds... I am feeling a bit impressed with ourselves.... Though really it is Hannah's garden, I just feel a bit possessive of all things relating to fall...

ANNOUNCEMENT: Let this be a sign we are on the verge of FALL YA'LL!!

Our Painted House

These past two weeks has had it's thrills and headaches trying to get this house painted. We are so thankful to Robert and April for helping to get it done, to Robert for his skills and supplies, and April for being a girlfriend and especially, sharing her hubby with us to get it done. So check out the before and after below...

BEFORE... dull, drab and BLUE!
AFTER: Warm and inviting hues of BROWN... and my little finials in front as well...

Big Sisters

Just had to get a few pictures of my girls this afternoon... Sara Kate and those dazzlingly (is that a word?) long eyelashes. And then Hannah with a face that keeps changing each day. She has grown and matured so much in these last few months. They are growing so tall and their faces are changing shapes... I never realized motherhood could be so magically to birth, bear and rear these spirits. I am thankful for such an extraordinary experience.

To think, all over the television, the movies, the news, in music, and magazines... to think that there could be anything more exalting than parenthood... enjoying the cool crisp air (Mother Nature is tempting me with Fall) and giggling girls singing to their mama. An afternoon with no noise from silly sitcoms and commercials, or racket banging toys... just Hannah's drawings trickling around the room while she is on the floor with her Legos, and Sara Kate grooming her baby brother's hair and face, while she sings him nursery rhymes. All while I read Little House on the Prairie... what more could us prairie girls want... (except for Daddy to come home...)

Checking up on Mark

Just wanted to let you know our little man is growing by leaps and bounds!

Weight: 11 lbs 10 oz.

Length: 24 inches

Happenings: Oohs and Ahhs and tries his darnedest to talk to us. He is fighting to giggle these days... probably due to those silly sisters of his. OHHH... and he sleeps 12 HOURS at night! Can't resist that eh?!

Photo Challenge "Sweets"

This photo challenge is being hosted by Brenda's Photo Challenge blog. I was excited to be a part of it so that I could share the meaning behind the pictures I have taken. Though a picture is worth a thousand words... being able to blog about this photo challenge adds a few more thousand words to the true meaning behind my pictures... that being... preserving family ties. So on with it...

So what are sweets to you? Is it the old fashion candy store, like in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (original please!)? Is it a box of Oreos? bag of M&M's? soda? chocolate bar? When I imagine sweets I think HOMEMADE. Whether it's baked bread at home or a pecan pie at Grandma's house.... The picture here is of the gingerbread houses my girls had the chance to make with MY grandmother last November. Now... my sob story... I didn't get to make this with grandma growing up since we were in California and she was in Missouri. Grab my Kleenex! Okay now I have grown up (a bit) and I have made sure to enjoy all the comforts of home... that is, going back to my grandmother's house. And though I didn't get the chance to make these delicious houses with my grandmother... it was worth the wait to see my girls bent over their own houses with icing and old fashion candy pieces.
So SWEETS to me are what's homemade... are what memories are made of... making chocolate chip cookies as a family, the girls icing the cake, sharing homemade bread and candies with neighbors and friends. It's the thrill of getting fudge in the mail from Grandma... knowing it was made by her. It's the recipe book my mother wrote out by hand as a birthday present one year... knowing all our favorite SWEETS were included. So with this image I invite you to make your sweets meaningful... put aside the M&M's tonight... and bake some cookies together.

An afterthought... I still have dreams of visiting an old fashion candy store... like in Willy Wonka... it has it's own spirit of hand made candies and confections.

Thanks for visiting!

Mistreatments Part 3

Okay I am having an absolute hayday with these mistreatments. Need I say it again, check out The Nesting Place blog for some creative and inspiring ideas for dressing and mistreating the home. There will be need to break the bank or neglect the family and home. I was able to mistreat a window while heating Mac & Cheese and I didn't even overcook the noodles. I just picked out a yard of fabric , grabbed a fringe to dress it up and my new best friend... le hot glue gunne. YEE-AH! I even decided to pleat the fabric while standing on the ladder and then I tacked it up with upholstery tacks. So what do ya say... is it time to live a little? To hell with the curtain rods girls... it will make it that much less daunting!

I am on my way to get some more to finish off the family room, and then make another round of mistreatments for the living room. I have to say, with our ten foot ceilings and NO crown mouldings it really brings the eye up in a room. Thanks for the inspiration Nester...

PS The front porch mistreaments are being revisited and revised... I will be back with those soon.

"Mistreatment" Par-tay Part 2

Okay this is my Part Two to The Nester's Mistreatment Par-tay over at the Nesting Place blog... Click here for more info on the what, why's and how's of mistreatments as laid out beautifully by the Nester herself.

Well since we are in the process of making our home spiffy right now. And as the inside of the home has been well loved... it is the outside of the home that is in need of some serious TLC. We have been painting the outside and I am in charge of the particulars of the front porch, along with three children, homeschool lessons, cleaning... oh and one of those chitlins is our newly born baby Mark. Anyhow, I bought some canvas drop clothes at Sherwin Williams and cut and divided them along the front porch. Now I must say, FROM the porch it looks great... BUT from the front of the home... I am not so sure. Please give me your HONEST ideas....

I tacked them up there haphazardly, but should I tidy them up by tacking them in a tight straight line? hmmm... its puzzling...




Okay this is my problem... do my mistreatments look okay or is it all the chaos around it that looks distracting. Am I mistreating the entire house now? Oh Nester help me!! As it happens I am still painting the porch... so you can still see some of the blue paint in the top and bottom of the picture here...
PS I do have some more mistreaments coming your way this week... if the children, namely the baby will allow for that.

Thanks for taking a peek... leave me a love note... I am in need of a little TLC myself...

Nester's 'Mistreatment' Party!

Our Nester friend at the Nesting Place blog is having a 'Mistreatment' Par-tay today and I thought I would jump in on it... Now we are all familiar with the idea of window treatments... well the Nester has turned that all upside down... check it out...

This post tells of The Nester's philosophy of mistreating windows. As she says, "you know how designers throw around the term window treatment? Love it, but what I do to windows really doesn't qualify as a treatment. Hence, the mistreating. Here is her definition of the act of treatments versus mistreatments...
Mistreatment: (n). covering for a window that is quick, cheap and pretty. may or may not need hardware does not require sewing. a real designer's worst nightmare.
Mistreating: (v). the act of treating a window with dignity and respect without use of the following: hundreds of dollars, sewing, time, crying, divorce, child neglect..."

Now to share my own experience with this today...

We have a canopy bed that use to be our bed until we bought a king bed. It is just so frail looking to me... maybe it is because I love chunky furniture. Well I had curtains hung on its rails, and then we switched rooms to accommodate our bigger bed. SOOO I took the curtains off to hang in our other room. Big mistake... this bed should not have been undressed. Anyhow I had a few panels left over and I didn't want to have to buy more...sooo, I cut them... AHHHHH!

So here are a FEW of my mistreaments.... more to come though...

Undressed canopy...

So this 'mistreament' par-tay started today and I had a few glimpses of inspiration (thanks girls!) and I was in a frenzied fever cutting and tearing these rich red curtains into pieces. As my 3 year old looks at me trampling all over this curtains on the floor. I could just imagine the ideas going through her mind... I want to run around and play with scissors too mommy! So while on all fours on the floor with my curtains cut and torn into strips, I look up at her and say... "hey Sara Kate, look at mama... now listen, scissors are not toys... so I don't want you to try this okay... just paper my love." Okay mommy I WILL NOT play with scissors. Then with the same breath she asks... Are you playing with scissors mommy? Uh, no just fixing the curtains sugar... as I prayed with thanks that my husband didn't hear me say this. So with a few snips and tears this is what we have... a dressed canopy...

... ah much cozier!! NOTE: I didn't actually mistreat the window I can't bring myself to cover any of the wood trim in our house.


Then... this is our front door right in front of our stairs... if anyhow happens to knock and you are downstairs in your unmentionables... your crap out of luck cause there isn't any other way to get upstairs... well at least you don't have to invite and entertain them now... cause I am not answering the door. So my solution was to clip and hang curtains in the doorway to keep eyes out (oh and sunlight... I am quite the batling when it comes to sunshine). But wait... that is a 9 foot tall doorway and about 6 feet wide... whose gonna buy the curtains to dress that up... so we found this fabric clearanced at a closing sale from a mom&pop fabric store in Tulsa. It was a lucky find I must say... Psst!...The slate floor pictured above was designed by me and laid by my husband...
Oh and notice our wood pillars outside on the porch are blue in the third picture (look through the door)... not anymore though.... I will share more of our painted home in the coming days... with some mistreated outdoor curtains as well... I am in a frenzy now... thanks Nester!

Knock knock...

Knock knock... who's out there? Let me know if your tuning in and up to date on our story here... would love to know who has our little storybook bookmarked...

Orange. Orange who? Orange you glad I didn't say banana! By the way... do you have any GOOD knock knock jokes?

NOTE to everyone...

Don't ever tell me he doesn't look like me... cause I am too proud to listen or your just blind!

WE'RE PAINTING!

We are painting the house... do ya wanna see?... Stay tuned!!

Nothing is more attractive than my man at work! Where's the tool belt love? ;)

Smiles from Mark...

Just a quick moment I caught of Mark and his teddy bears... what a cutie!!

Picnic time...

This afternoon we went to Paul's company picnic for Amazon.com... complete with pools, food, bouncers, cotton candy and more. Isn't it dangerous to have an unlimited supply of cotton candy- for FREE? For children... sure. For adults... it's like turning a bunch of rational adults into giggling babies. Did I mention there were snow cones, pretzels with cheese and funnel cakes too. Oh and then off to the water slide... so guess who had a headache and complaints of being sick on the way home...

Nope it wasn't Sara Kate...

...What? are you dancing? making shapes? sign language? No mama, it's too sunny to take pictures... HAH! Never!! Oh did I mention she has learned how to swim...?!

Ah, there's your clue... this was only a sample, then she was off to the 2 story curly slide after this one... and on the way home... yes... a headache and nausea set in!
Oh she insisted on taking shower before we left...

Come on...let's ride!

Here are a few special moments from our fair rides on Friday evening. This was Mark's first ride... we all had a few butterflies from that ferris wheel. Mark was a big boy... though I pray we haven't turned him into a thrill seeker... oh heavens! I must say, who doesn't love the lights from atop the ferris wheel... the look on Sara Kate's face was priceless.

Up, up, up...
Down, down, down... ...and around we goooo....

Note to Hannah: KEEP ALL HANDS and FEET inside the dragon at all times!