kids

While they sleep

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I should have taken a before picture…..it was a total explosion of imaginext toys, swimsuits from the swim bag and the table was covered in schoolwork debris.  You know the kind all those amazingly “special” papers that come home by the tree load every day.

So while the little girls slept I weeded through all of it and moved the furniture around, and re-organized the “homework” table (that I blogged about here) and have made it summer ready.

I put paper in each bin, one bin is lined and one is plain.  I was thinking some of those little hangs that fasten with tags would be perfect, but since I did not have any I just used a good old rock from the landscaping.

And while I was out there I cut these to bring a little more outdoors in.

So much better!  I can be such a better mom and give them more of my time with clean organized spaces. Think I can finish the house before all 4 of the kids are home for summer starting Friday?

Happy Brithday Girl!

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Raiven turns 8 today, she is so excited, and told us she is not so worried about what her presents are but how happy she is to be a year older. I am glad that she is taking what we are attempting to teach her to heart, and I know she is aware of how important it is to be thankful, but come on, after soccer practice tomorrow, I hope she feels giddy about opening her presents, and that she enjoys the thought that her brother, sisters and Jon and I put into picking out gifts for her.

It seems like a year can change so much in a child’s life, her big teeth have changed her smile into a beautiful pre teen smile. She is a sensitive girl ( she gets that from me) but has a spit fire need to play hard and is not afraid to get dirty, She plays with the boys at school but also has lots of girl friends. She has a tender heart and takes kids under her wing. A boy joined her second grade class this year sometime in late September and really felt out of the loop, Raiven friended  him and his mom was telling me the other day how Raiven has really been a great friend to her son. She just has this caring personality and an innate sense to be a helper. Raiven loves to read and enjoys her math homework. She laughs and giggles easily (she gets this from Jon).

Happy Birthday Raiven So! I hope 8 is another wonderful year for you!!

Vertical Wall Stripes

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We have been working on the revamp of Raiven’s room, my goal is to give her a room that fits now and will work for her until she leaves for college…..*sigh*.  I always have ideas in my head and the reality of the real space is usually different than what was in my head.

Raiven has this bedding set by Isaac Mizrahi for Target

I bought it about 4 years ago and she still loves it, so this is the color pallet for most of the room; bright pink, white, yellow, and maybe some red.

First we have to cover these dark blue/gray walls that we my choice for the walls when it was an office but it is too dark for a room on the lowest floor even with daylight windows.

It took 3! yes 3 coats of our almost white color paint, we even bought the paint with the primer in it.  Light versus dark, it is a hard battle, but like all good stories we won.  I also enlisted the help of some of my favorite employees:

Jon than taped all the lines for our vertical stripes, he has the patient for this…me not so much.

Here was the vision:  light silver metallic stripes that were not heavy maybe even just caught a glimmer in the sun.  Reality:  the paint dried super fast and was much darker than we thought.  Instantly I called the stripes to a halt and had a glass of wine (after the kids were in bed) and thought about the stripes.  It was not what I had pictured but we actually decided we really liked them.  What we did was paint them on only one wall instead of the whole room, which was the original thought with the more understated stripes we had planned.   Here is where we are:

In my best Violetn Femmes voice: ” Let me go onnnn like I glitter in the sun Let me go ooooonnnnn”

You can see some of the variations incolor in the stripes from our intial painting that I halted.  This paint has to go on fast and even, it dries almost instantly, I really like the way it looks now.  I think it looks more like real metal with some color variation.

Working list far Raiven’s room:

  • Picture collage above her bead
  • Repaint the vanity?  Not sure if I want to tackle that or leave it wood.
  • Find a chair for her vanity
  • some sort of bookshelf or shelving system  for books and nick nacks.
  • Her closet needs to be reworked, it is just builder grade 2 shelves with hanging, the space could be utilized so much better

Repainting/redecorating a room a month?

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We have been in our house for over 5 years, we built this house, I may have said this before, it is a huge process in life and with it comes pride…and lessons, some you learn in the process others you learn while living with all the decisions you made while building.

I specifically asked our builder when we got to the painting stage to PLEASE, puh-lease not paint our walls in a flat paint, this is builder code and I understand it hides any imperfections in the drywall, but seriously we were not going to return the house?!?! Anyway what did they paint the walls in? Flat paint. WE have 4 kids, 2 at the time, and a dog that weighs as much as I do. Are you getting a visual on how my walls might look, now imagine trying to wash those flat paint wall. NOT awesome!

Needless to say we are in the market for having an entire house repaint in a semi gloss or at least a sheen that handprints, splatters, slobber (dog…I think), food, milk,….you get the idea can be washed off and not leave a greasy looking mark behind.

So, I am hoping that we can accomplish one room per month, and since my mind is in creative-room-revamp-Pinterest overdrive I thought I might share some of the befores and afters, and also what the reality of said schedule may become with this crazy house:)

We decided to start with Raiven’s room, it was at one point a home office, and I had painted it a blue/gray color that I liked but, it is rather dark and not working so well for an almost 8 year old girl.

This was taken at night, but you can see the wall is dark, I am thinking about a nice light white color and having one wall with some metallic vertical stripes. I also want to get more photos up on her wall. She has an Isaac Mizrahi peony bed set with bright pinks so I am going to fit more pink into her room and pull come other colors out of the flowers to add color with the walls being more white

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Valentines’ Day Heart Crayon Craft

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This is such a fun and easy craft to do with all ages.  These are great to give as little Valentines’ tokens or to make and bring into your child’s school, they are also really cute to fill a vase with and then put flowers in.

Anyway, this is very easy and does not require reaaly strict instructions.

You will need: Crayons, heart shape pan/muffin pan,  a cooling rack and patience

First gather all your broken crayons, these work best, but if you need to buy some that is fine also, you will just need to break then to fit in the pan.  We divided them into colors that I thought most fit the Valentines’ theme, pink, red, white, but a heart crayon can be any color you choose.

Heat your oven to about 200, this is again not a strict temp, it needs to be warm enough to melt the wax, but not hot enough to cook  it.

Peel all the paper off your crayons, here is where the patience is needed this can take a bit.

Break your crayons into pieces that will fit into your pan.  Put the pan into the oven, check in about 3-5 minutes, this will all depend on the size of your heart pan and then number of crayons that fit in each space.

Once all the wax has melted and congealed (love that word;) we found it was best to pop the pan on a cooling rack into the fridge to let the was reharden, and they popped right out quite easily for the most part.

Then grab some paper and try them out, or give them away or do whatever your little heart desires:)

County Fair Submissions

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We do not belong to 4H, nor or we farmers in the sense that we rely on our bounty for profit.  However, we are a creative bunch that likes to get our hands dirty in the earth and create projects, and what better way to celebrate these than to participate in the county fair.

I know we all have memories from childhood, the midway rides the animals, and cotton candy on a stick.  I just love the fair, I am a cowgirl at  heart.  Every year we take the kids to look at the animals and get a milkshake from the diary trailer.

Now that the kids are a little older we have started a new tradition of entering projects garden grown goodies.

The 3 older kids entered their Lego projects and were given participation ribbons.

Santanna’s Project and her ribbon.

Raiven’s project and her ribbon.

The little girls also entered onions and kohlrabis:

Santanna’s first place kohlrabis.

Avalon’s 3rd place red onions.

Solomon entered red mulberry jam and won first place.  I am so proud of him, he spend at lest 4 hours harvesting the berries from a tree in my mom’s back yard, then he rinsed them, took the stems, off and followed a no cook freezer jam recipe.

I entered the growth chart into an adult woodworking hobby category, I was very pleased to receive a second place ribbon.

The kids take from this experience a pride in participation.  They were very gracious about each others winnings and were already buzzing about what to make next year, taking inspiration from so many wonderful other projects on display.

We did also earn $4.50 in prize money, just enough for one more milkshake…or Tom Thumb donuts….mmmmmm, fair food!

It is such fun participating in the fair and it always seem to come and go so quickly.  Can’t wait until next year!!

Farmhouse Table….New Kids Desk

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one thing I love about all the wonderful people blogging out there is that there is no shortage of amazing inspiration and the generosity of the same people sharing the how-to’s for said inspirations.  Once again I fell victim to a must create over at Anna White’s Site.  This narrow farmhouse table here, sent me into the garage once again to recreate the table.  I even had a place for it!!  Under the windows in the office, a perfect place for the kids to do homework and e near Jon and I when we are working in the office.

We made the legs out of reclaimed pallet wood, the top we bought the top and side boards.  I sanded the crap out of the top to make it look as much like a solid piece as possible.

I stained the top and put 3 clear coats over the stain.

I painted the legs white, then I distressed the paint with a hand sander.

I did a top coat of Trewax mahogany wood wax.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Markers, colored pencils, a small light, plain paper, lilacs and lillies out the window, bring your imagination to this table and put it on the paper kids:

I do have chairs for the table that are in teh process of being reinvented…I will add a post about them when they are home….but here are a few more shots of the table:

Growth Chart…Done!!

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Let me just say that as often as I think…oh I can do that….often it takes a lot more work to  make something than a person would think.  I am proud to say that from start to finish RAiven and I completed this DIY growth chart by ourselves.  I posted about our start here and yes just the girls with our power tools, oil based stains, paint, brushes and girls abilities completed this project.

I had the board in the garage from another project,  I bought a vinyl tree decal from Target, but thought it was too heavy so I painted an outline round the vinyl, then we stained the whole board in our chosen green stain.  after the stain had set but not completely dried we peeled the stickers off.

Then we added the numbers and lattering….we distressed the stain and hand painting a bit and then did an all over clear coat.

To hand it I did the pop tab hangers, I saw this on pinterest and thought it was a great way to reuse and the price was perfect…free!

So now we have it hung on the wall and everyone measured!!

The black splotch is where I took out our last name..it does not really look like that.

I have updates coming on the fireplace and the garden plot.  Plus I am working on a narrow farmhouse table inspired by Anna White , so I will post pictures when I am done.

Great Summer Read for the Whole Family

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Raiven received this book for her 7th birthday.  We just finished reading “Callie Vee”,the night before school let out for the summer.  However, this would be a terrific summer read out loud book for the whole family. And perhaps inspire some to get their own “notebooks”.

Summary of the book : Calpurnia Virginia Tate is eleven years old in 1899 when she wonders why the yellow grasshoppers in her Texas backyard are so much bigger than the green ones.With a little help from her notoriously cantankerous grandfather, an avid naturalist, she figures out that the green grasshoppers are easier to see against the yellow grass, so they are eaten before they can get any larger. As Callie explores the natural world around her, she develops a close relationship with her grandfather, navigates the dangers of living with six brothers, and comes up against just what it means to be a girl at the turn of the century.

Each chapter in this book has an except for Darwin’s Evolution of Species book, the vocabulary in this book is phenomenal, it has some words that even I had to look up and I feel my vocab is adequate.  My son who is 8 and daughter who is 7, listened intently every night to the chapter we would read.  Even the 1 and 3-year-old listened some nights.

This book really brings to light how far women have come in earning rights and respect in many male predominant fields.  Callie Vee wants to be a scientist and go to the University, her mother wants her to be a domesticated women, typical of this time.  Callie has 6 brothers, so she feels the pressure of her mothers desire.

Her Grandfather is an open-minded, mad scientist of sorts, the relationship that builds between them is empowering and inspiring.

Our family fell into many conversations at the dinner table regarding the topics in this book as well as timeline and historical achievements in women’s lib, and how amazing science and nature are.   Read and enjoy, and feel free to add your thoughts on this book.

One day…not including normal household chores…

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breakfast, coffee, school, flowers, doughnuts, Dr. appointment, sports store, grocery store, home, lunch, stories, shower, school, ice cream, home, snack, baseball game, baseball game, dinner, baths, stories, download pictures, back to bed, ……glass of wine!!

It was the last day of school and really quite a perfect day cool and perfect weather to watch the kids play ball in a hoodie and jeans.  No pictures, just a sampling of a day in the life….