Lego was fun.... traffic not so much

We made it to the Lego store! Yippee for us!

They had an area set up in the mall for kids to build a big block to help make the 8 foot tall R2D2. They had just started it when we were there.


Robert misses his bug...

Tman enjoyed all the displays.

This was the pick a brick wall. You get a cup and you get to fill it up with bricks from the wall. Here Tman is trying to figure out exactly what bricks he needs the most. It took quite some time to try to get them all in the cup and in the end we had to put some back despite having read some tutorials on how to pack a pick a brick cup.

So the way home we were trucking along and then hit.... traffic. I hate traffic. It is the one thing I hate about living in a huge metroplex, and it is that reason that I try never to go far from home unless I can return around 3pm. We were on the way home at 4. We sat for quite a while. Finally when we got close enough to our part of town we pull off the highway, all car sick from the stop and go, and me with a splitting headache. I was lucky enough to be driving, if I had been a passenger I would have gotten sick. W fell asleep before we hit the stalled and stop and go traffic and that was great cause he is the most car sick of all of us.

We are happy!

Things are looking good here in Scatterville. Summer is blooming, the tomatoes are huge already with six or so little green ones already. I think this year I am going to regret planting 22 tomatoes, but after last years failure of the six I did plant I was not going to take any chances.

We got an offer on the old Scatterville, and I have held off posting about it because I did not want to jinx it. We accepted, they did the inspection. They wanted a few little things done, and we said yes. We will close on the 1st of June. We will no longer be the home owners of two homes. The feeling of future relief is amazing, however we are still holding our breathe and won't believe it's a done deal until all the forms have been signed.

So what do you get when you go ice skating with friends? Balloons. See how well W's Balloon is behaving? He was so excited about it's good behavior, he wanted to take it's picture. They were both so serious in this picture.





Then, THE BROTHER, appears and jumps into the scene without asking flailing limbs, causing the worst day EVER!






The kids have already planned some adventures with the proceeds of the house sale, like finishing the tree house deck, getting a bigger swimming pool, and going to Disney World. My plans include paying off massive amount of debt that have accumulated during the whole period of not living in the old scatterville, yet still paying to fix it up. That will feel nice to not be carrying anymore too.

Today we will be heading over to the new Lego Store Grand Opening and filling a cup from the pick a brick wall. I'll let you know how that goes.

Beautiful Sunday

Saturday while the rest of the midwest was expecting snow, blizzard like conditions it was supposed to be cold here. You know grab your parkas, gloves and hats. R and I laugh to ourselves in our longsleeves. Cold to us is when the snot freezes in your nose. It was not cold. Sunday it rebounded into the 70's and K, W and I headed to the local u-pick farm for the first round of their strawberries.
It was our first time u-picking and it was a blast. We will have to go again, once I use up the 5 pounds we came home with.






We have plans to make Strawberry Jelly but first we need jars, lids and other supplies. I already checked two stores, but I guess I need to bite my lip and go into Walmart. Gulp.

I spent the rest of the day digging out all the sod from the new garden bed area and moving it by shovel load to the front yard where the gas guys left a gaping grass free area. I hope that the grass will take and grow in so the bald spot will be gone. I definately got in a work out, that I am afraid I will pay for in aching back later.

Today's project new shirt

This is from my new book weekend sewing. I love this shirt, but I like short sleeves and being a Lot bigger then the normal B cup that patterns are made for I knew I had to make adjustments to the pattern. So using the directions here I got to work. I am very happy with the results in the bust, the back seems a little tighter then I would like as do the sleeves. This was my muslim try, using some cheaper materials I had on hand before I use my "nice" stuff.
This is a close up of the shirt placket and the vintage button I had in my stash, bought from a old lady who lived down the street.
And here is the shirt!

Creative Juices

I've been quite busy. Despite starting school work again this week I have been able to get the children to do it early in the day so I can do "other" things. Yesterday we constructed a garden bed. Today I shoveled off some of the grass to transplant it to where the gas men left huge dirt paths in my yard. We moved some carrot seedlings around, they were every where but where they should be. We found two carrots from fall that were quickly eaten. Yum.



After lunch K and I sat down with my new book


We drooled over all the things to make. I bought this because it actually has some Women's patterns in it. I am disappointed that it has a children section but it is for kids who wear size 4 and under. My smallest is a 6 now. So K and I decided that we (I) could scale an adult dress down to her size.

So... five hours later we have.

Bathroom update

Life is busy. Spring is here and that means projects galore. This weekend we went to Ikea and scored some bathroom cabinets for $30 each. We had to get three because, well we have three bathroom sinks. We only bought one sink however and will have to go back and get the other ones when we are ready for them. We have to get tiles for the floors first.

So remember that bathroom that I started on like a year ago? Here's a refresher:



Well after a year of scraping off wallpaper, and figuring out that there was no way to remove it from the bottom of the walls, we decided to use plywood and just go over it. We still need to fix the corners, but we got everything done now but the plumbing working, and the mirror hung. We want new lights too but that can wait. So here is the new bathroom! (I don't like the paint color either)




We got the old school house back for sale again in Kansas and are excited about it this year. Maybe just maybe we can sell it this time? Let's cross ourselves, our toes, and our nose hairs and maybe just maybe.


I am considering extending spring break for another week so that I can get the other things done around here. I have a garden bed ready to be put together and need to get soil for it. I have to finish painting K's room, which has three walls left to get the second coat on. Then I am sure she will want me to start painting all her furniture too since we bought paint for them. That would be a dresser and bedframe.

Hopefully I can hold off the boys for a few days then I will paint their room...and furniture.
Hmmm and I never did finish that second coat of paint in the hallway. Man, I think I will need more then a week to get all that done.

Introducing R... at the White House

R was invited to the White House this week, although he could not make it. Dang that would have been expensive. But his Ornament for the White House Tree did make it and Laura Bush announced her Red, White and Blue Christmas. So for the rest of us who could not make it to see the ornament anyway, here it is.


I am very excited and proud for him. He is taking it all in strides.

We will miss you...

We lost one of our best friends last week. He thought he was a dog, and loved being an outside/inside kitty. He always thought of himself as a barn cat, and that he still lived out in the country. This meant that he would saunter across the street at a his leasure. Because of his laid back attitude we renamed him from Marshmallow to Marsh E. Mellow. We called him Marshy for short. He got hit by a car last week and managed to crawl up to our carport, where R found him. He rushed him to the 24 hour vet but the damage was to extensive and we had to put him to sleep.


So here are some pictures of our lovely cat, who loved to be held, and waited every morning to go outside with the dogs. He also came home every night when I called his name. The night before we lost him, he ran towards me at such a brisk pace, he was so happy I was calling him, and love it when I scooped him up.

Fall

One of the down falls of where I live is we do not get a beautiful fall. Most of the trees in our yard, just fall off the tree, without even thinking about changing colors. They just give up and drop off. My neighbor has one of the only trees on the block changing colors and I have a gorgeous shot of it right out of our bedroom window. I thought I would share it with you.

Halloween

I will add some descriptions later. Gotta run now.

Civil War Days

Our Homeschool group went to a civil war day activity where they had "actors" who told us about different areas in the civil war time. Some of these included, a field nurse, cooks, a medicine man, soldiers, spinners, weavers, blacksmiths, and teachers. Although we found out that in the time of the civil war there were no public schools or even one room school houses. Instead most students were taught at home.
It was a very enjoyable day, the perfect weather and I spent the entire day before hand bent over my sewing machine finishing K's bonnet and apron so she could dress the part.

This is the kids before the shot off the cannons for us.

Here they are loading it up. It was very dangerous work and VERY LOUD when they shot it off. The other students who were there were all 8th graders from local middle schools and the girls would scream every time they shot it off. That was every 15 minutes. So glad I never had to relive being an 8th grader.


And W.. listening to the very scary teacher. He was a big man and very strict. The children had to stand when called upon and he was just huge over W. He did tell us that very wealthy families who were planning on sending their children on to University sent their children to private schools, usually held in a local church.




On other news....
We sent R off today to the old Scatterville by himself. It didn't really take much convincing. All it took was a trip to Home Depot last weekend to look at decking for the tree house, and the children to do their, I'm so bored lets pick on each other like crazy so mom and dad can't think thing. They have this down to a science after all the time they have spent in Home Depot. Sad really, they start the moment we walk through the doors.

So it would be much quicker, and stress free if he went by himself. Plus putting three kids, sheets, blankets (it's cold up there!) and two dogs in the car for a two day trip sounded hard. He is going to drain all the plumbing lines, put RV antifreeze in the pipe traps (it is good to -50!), drain the water heater, clear out the water to the dishwasher, fridge and clean them out and shut them off. Then he'll turn off all the power. This is the first year we have closed it down for the winter, but after last years propane bill, heater troubles etc. I wonder why we didn't do it last year! $800 to heat a home you don't even visit. Ouch. So this year we will head up there around spring break, maybe redo the wood floors and get it back on the market.

I hope beyond hope that either the markets have changed or there is some financing changes that will help people buy our little cute home in the middle of no where. Maybe just maybe gas will stay cheap too! Yah, I'm dreaming.

Pumpkins, compost and corn

The pumpkins have been planted in the back corner of the yard. I realize it is mostly shaded, and the soil back there is crap but I just had to try. We made mounds of potting soil and planted, jumbos, pie pumpkins and regular pumpkins. They have already began to pop up. We are hoping that we can have a renegade pumpkin patch much like Hagrid's in the Harry Potter movies.



The compost bin is now operational although not pretty. I refuse to pay $7 each for stakes for the panels to hold them up so my attempt at using the sticks we had are evident. It works for now and in the mean time I can hope to come along a pile of stakes in someones garbage bin like my pots that I picked up last week. There is a HUGE amount of leaves on the other side to use in composting and my layered garden beds. We just hope they are used up by the next time the leaves fall.


Speaking of which this is my temporary potting bench. It was a work bench in the shed, but we took it out because it just was not functioning for what we needed it for. Storage. Outside however it is a great work area. It is not currently connected to the shed however so that is on the to do list. Attach and level workbench and paint it with exterior grade paint.

The black pot is one of the many pots I found in the trash last week, there are about 10 more. This one we planted some carrots in.

I also planted some early sweet corn in the spot in the garden where the peppers once were. I am really out of seeds to plant (most are from a year or two ago anyway) so I'm off to find some great heirloom things to grow.

HOT! and finally some much needed RAIN!

It has been weeks, over three since we have had rain, and it's been in the 90's with high humidity also. Thursday the rainless streak broke and we got over an inch. The yard looks wonderful now. Today however it is seems like it is 100 already.

On Wednesday we meet with our homeschool friends and for the last two weeks we have been doing this!



We have been meeting in the evenings and having massive water fights. Its been much fun and it hasn't been to hot where we are. They even have a pond, this Wed. we stayed late enough to see bats, and lots of frogs and fish jumping out of the pond.

Young Wizard takes to broomstick

My young wizard who at the age of almost 6 has been listening to Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone very intently for a 5 year old, made himself a wand and a broom stick. Putting those together with his fathers hat and some glasses, he looks just like a young blond harry potter, much to the delight of his mother.

This is K's idea of cooling off. She insists on being outside even though it is nearly 100. Instead she asks me to turn on the sprinlers. I can't wait to see my water bill next month.



These are my peppers. The one on the right was tortured in my garden, while the other one has been in the shade with dappled sunlight. As you can see there is a HUGE difference in how they look and as soon as I get more potting soil I am pulling the other four peppers out of the garden and into pots too. I wonder if corn would do well in my garden? I am so tempted to pull out the tomatoes too and just planting the whole thing with corn.

Our Weekend

We decided Saturday to load up the kids and head on an adventure to Dallas. Armed with Harry Potter on CD we drove over to Lula B's and found it to be a fabulous antique store dealing mostly with midcentury things. We did find the perfect couch
but it was much to much money for it's condition. We could have bought a new one for that amount. Still lovely. Next we piled in again and headed up the road to two Vespa Shops. R drooled over them and if I had not been there, I suppose he would have put a deposit on one that day! (see me rolling my eyes!) Luckily for him I was and said, "Yes dear, those are very nice. No."

We then found our way to the shopping area that had an Urban Outfitters and tried out a couch we have had our eye on.
It wasn't anything to write home to for comfort and the price is still not dirt cheap. We also went over to West Elm across the street, the kids kept commenting that it looked like IKEA really really LOUD. It was not priced like Ikea. Then we sat on a sofa and the kids slipped the cushions off the couch faster then you can say, "What are you doing?" So this couch would not work for us.

We also found a Whole Earth Provision Company that was totally cool. Way cool clothes, shoes... oh I could drool all day over the shoes. Keens, Crocs, Tevas, all those great rugged sporty shoes. They even had live butterflies in their store and the really cool thing was they allowed dogs in their store. It was neat to see a lady in the womens section browsing clothes with her yellow lab.

Sunday was father's day. Now we do not go all out for any holiday other then Halloween, Christmas and birthdays. Dad wanted some raspberry filled donuts. K and W got sprinkles.



after our donuts and coffee, K,W and I went outside to work on some projects before it got hot. We found from my little experiment that the airconditioner puts out about two gallons of condensation water a day.
The two of them quickly got to work putting the water on the garden. I hope to be able to rig the hose to go directly from where it comes out now to the garden itself. I need another hose!


Next on the list was the compost pile. We currently do not have one but instead had a big leaf pile from the fall that now is the big leaf and stick pile. Sticks do not help in composting.

So we spent the morning pulling the sticks out of the pile until it got to hot. Most work is to be done on this, this week.

Inside the kids decide to make playdough at a little center I set up just for them, it has all the supplies they need and they know how to fix it.

it's always lovely to have an activity that they can do all on their own.



We rounded out father's day with grilled cheese sandwiches and homemade onion rings. Then a quick jot to the store to get R some Blue Bell Key Lime Pie Icecream. Yummy.