Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Wordless Wednesday #1






For more wordless Wednesday check it out here.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Tagged? OH NO!

First let me say I am sorry we have been busy and haven't updated this blog. We are all happy, healthy, and having fun I just have been so busy with everything I can't seem to find much time to use the computer. I promise to try harder to share what we are doing with everyone.

I have two reasons for blogging today. The first one is I turned on my computer the other day to send my mom pictures of a problem I am having with some kitchen updating plans I have. When I went into my email to send her pictures I saw several emails from family. (BIG WAVES AND HELLO GOING OUT TO... Granny Peacock, Uncle Gravy, Aunt Lona, Mum Mum, Poppy, and all other relatives and friends who don't live close enough to see us all the time). I haven't read my emails yet but I know just glancing at the email addresses that you all must be wondering how and what the children are doing! Zee is cutting a tooth and spent most of the last 2 days screaming, fussing, and crying in discomfort. Because of her pain I was very busy holding her and trying to comfort her. Today she is happier so I figured before the fussing starts I will drop a quick note on my blog instead of reading and trying to write back to everyone one at a time.

The second reason for this post is because I noticed my google blog reader was working (I have dial up so this feature hardly ever works). I put my cursor over the the homeschooling fun label and a cute picture of Heather's two boys appeared! She said you have to post the 6th picture in your picture folder to share and then tag 6 more people. Below that I see she wrote "3.) Amber (Maybe she will get back to blogging :))"

My first thought was I REALLY NEED TO GET BACK TO BLOGGING! It looks like people are wondering about us (silly me never thought anyone would ever notice if I give up computer time). So that is the second reason for this post.



NOW the UGLY Truth!
I am wondering WHY did I have to be tagged for my 6th picture???? WHy not 106th picture?

Or 2o6

Or 256

Or even 3o6

Why 6th?????

Here is the funny very embarrassing story behind my 6Th picture. I am planning on doing some work on my kitchen. It is very old and very yucky looking. I have been planning out what I can do with the very limited money in our home improvement budget. I decided that waiting until I have money for new cupboards, appliances, walls, counters, floors and such will take forever!!! My hubby has given me a home remodeling budget of a bit over $15 a week. I think he said it is $70 something a month. I am very thankful I can have $70 (I thought at first it was $35 a month). I don't want to save it all for 30+ years to be able to remodel our kitchen. Our house was built in the 1800's and I know every penny I save for a bigger home remodel project will get sucked up by needed repairs (old houses break a lot). My very old house likes to steal my money being saved for big projects by falling apart and needing lots of frequent repairs. I finally got the idea of trying to do some little projects that I can afford just to make my home a tiny bit better looking. I decided starting in the kitchen would be a good idea. I spend so much time in my kitchen doing school with the children, making meals, washing dishes, folding clothes, and such. I REALLY want to make that area look a bit nicer. My kitchen cupboards are NOT nice! I thought painting them would really change the kitchen without costing me a ton of money. I want to paint the cupboards all white. My plans seemed to be moving in a good direction until I realized I have UGLY, AWFUL, ODD, And rather LARGE hinges on my ugly, old, dingy looking cupboards. I asked my hubby to get a price on hinges for my cupboards (he works at Lowe's). I was thinking that replacing the hinges would be cheap. I was sure he was going to tell me $10-20 to replace our old hinges. I figured it would set me back a week with my painting idea but still doable. Imagine my surprise when he said they cost over $2. I counted up my cupboards and realized that I have over 20 cupboard doors. I then thought that I would need 2 for each cupboard and would cost me over $100!!!!!! I was CRUSHED!!!!! (I now know it is a bit over $2 a pair and will cost me about $65 to replace all of them but I didn't know this back then) I called my mom (she was vacationing in Florida) and bothered her with my hinge problem. She thought my hinges could be painted and left on my cupboards or I could take off my doors and have shelves in the place of top cupboards in my kitchen to save money and move ahead with my kitchen updating. I tried to explain how my hinges are odd, ugly, bent over the front of my cupboard doors, and will not work. I then explained how my cupboards are not something that can be left open. The open shelf look will not work with the dishes I own. I told my mom all about my over stuffed cupboards. I told her how my dishes are not the kind you see looking nice on shelves in kitchen magazines. I have cheap not so nice dishes AND plastic sippy cups and such. PLUS I have electrical cords and metal tube venting running on the inside of my cupboards (joys of owning a house built before electricity was invented). She couldn't picture my hinges, cupboard doors, and what it looked like inside my cupboards so I did something that seemed right to do....... I snapped some pictures of my kitchen and not just of my kitchen, my kitchen PROBLEMS and closeups of the ugly spots!!! You know, the things you don't like to look at and parts you hope company never notices. The things you only would share with your husband or your mother!!!! I never thought much about doing this. It seemed like the perfect way to show my mom what I am talking about. If she was home and not away on vacation I would have asked her to drive up to check out what I was talking about. I know you all know the rest of this story! YUP! ONLY ME! I see Heather's note about me posting my 6th picture and sure enough it is one of my kitchen!!!! It isn't even one of my dark, dirty looking, old cupboard doors. NOPE! It is one of the inside! The cramped looking cupboard with all my dishes AND an electrical wire running on the inside!!!!!! MY first thought is OH NO!!!!! I have a friend who once told me about letting my slip show (sharing ugly things you don't want others to know). I think this situation is definitely something that would fall under her showing your slip kind of thinking. I then thought well I haven't used my computer much in months. I haven't blogged or read any bloggs in so long maybe I can just walk away and pretend I didn't see this. I then called my mom I convinced myself that my mother was the one to blame for all of this! After all, if I didn't take the pictures to show her I would have not been in this situation! This is all her fault for going on vacation. LOL! I asked her if I should pretend not to see or wait a day until I took more pictures and my mom (being so much like me) said what I knew I needed to do. YUP! Show the UGLY picture. She said to ask if anyone has any ideas on how to do a cheap redo of my ugly kitchen.


SOOOO knowing I am showing my slip. Sharing with the world one of the very ugly spots of my house. If you are the kind of person who wonders what is behind doors when you go visiting here you go. This it is my 6th picture.
Anyone have any ideas on a nice fix for this ugly cupboard with too many dishes piled up inside it? Yes that is electrical wire running along the top and a round junction box behind the stack of plates. The nice dishes on the top shelf Rob's parents gave me and I love them and I am very embarrassed now that I see I don't have them stacked very nice! I need a step stool to reach the top shelf so sometimes it gets a bit mixed up.

Even worse than that is my 5th picture. It has the number 6 because I deleted the first picture I took because it was blurry.Yes that is my collection of toddler cups, the lid to my dish on the second shelf should be on top of the dish not on the side. It looks like I have an empty yogurt cup knocked over behind the plastic tea cups. The yogurt cup and soda cozy should not be way up on on that third shelf! The green/white line running along the top and down the left is an electrical wire! The metal on top is the vent for over my stove.

Picture above is of my odd ugly strange hinges. they are copper but when I shine them up to be very bright they look silly on the dark doors. For that reason I leave them with a tarnished look.

Seriously! Does anyone have any cheap creative ideas on how to fix my very ugly problems????? I would love some advice!!!!!

If you are wondering if I didn't take my pictures of my kitchen what would have been the 6th picture here it is. It is a pair of socks I was knitting. If you are wondering the socks are now finished but I don't think I have a picture of them done.

Below are some wonderful 6th pictures I found in my picture folder that made me smile.


I can't pass this on the tag because I am so far behind in the blog world I have no idea who has and hasn't been tagged. Anyone brave (like me) and want to share a uncomfortable sixth picture of something not so pretty? I HOPE if anyone sees the pictures of my ugly kitchen they have some advice on how to fix my problems so I never have something like this happen again!

The great news about this is I am now determined to have this picture to get lost in old pages of this blog I know I will be blogging a lot adding lots of pictures of my very cute children over the next few days! I will even go without sleep if needed!

Heather if you read this I want you to know I still think of you as a very good friend! Unless you bumped into my Mom on her vacation, I know you have no idea I had ugly pictures on my computer!

If anyone still reads this sad forgotten blog please forgive the bad writing. Zee is now sleeping in my arms as I am trying to think and type.

Thursday, January 01, 2009

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

HAPPY 2009



Has anyone seen little Zee?

I hope I can remember all this fun when I am cleaning it up in the morning!



I promise to blog more in 2009! It is 1 hour into the new year and I have already blogged!

BTW. Party hats we made from Christmas clothing boxes. We stapled the boxes into cones and decorated with wrapping paper from Christmas. Confetti was wrapping paper and tissue paper (also all from Christmas) cut up in the paper shredder (took the easy way out this year). Kazoos made from cut up wrapping paper cores, wax paper, and rubber bands. Noise makers made from plastic containers rice and a bit of our confetti paper. Cost was $0.

Zee didn't make it until midnight. She was fast asleep at 11 pm (just like last year). Travis and Demi had no problem staying up. They have been up every year to celebrate the new year with us. I better go get some sleep. It looks like I have LOTS of vacuuming to do in the morning! My house looks a bit like the streets of NYC right now! We have confetti ALL OVER!

Monday, November 10, 2008

Tree sap and play time

I promise to get back to sharing some of our learning games and such soon (by next week). Time is a bit short right now so I will just share a few pictures I took the other day (before the temps dropped). We put on winter coats and gloves outside today. :(

Zee loves to touch everything. I love her chubby little fingers!


Pictures of Travis playing more football (doubt that surprises anyone).
I managed to get a picture of the ball in the air this time!





Girls playing house.
They got tons of visitors that day.

I want to move the play house to another part of our yard. I think you can tell that it is under a pine tree so they get lots of buggy visitors and they sometimes get into tree sap. My children love the tree, pine needles, pine cones, and buggy visitors so they don't want the house moved.


Demi saw one of her old cars in the garage and insisted that she isn't too big for it and said she would be happy to clean it up (it was VERY dirty) so she could ride it.


Here she is trying to get it to go. She is WAY to big for this little car!She had to stand up and walk it to move. LOL!

Here she is walking it again. She walked it all over the yard insisting she isn't too big for it. I am happy she doesn't want to grow up too fast.After giving up on driving the little car she decided to protect us from any evil lurking in the yard.

I doubt you can tell from this picture but she CAN NOT SEE in front of her!!! I don't know if she doesn't know how to wear the helmet or if she shuts her eyes when she has it on (she likes to walk around with her eyes shut) she wanders around bumping into things and falls down! here she is holding the sword out waving it from side to side to feel for anything in front of her.
This is the look on her face once he hit the old log in the yard. She really had no idea she was near the log.
Here is another story about this huge log laying near the playhouse. I noticed Travis was working at it but I didn't know what he was doing.


I saw him measure and hammering. I was thinking that hammering nails was a good activity (good for hand strength). I really thought he was just hammering nails into the log. He has been known to do stuff like that.
When he finished he asked me if he and Demi could eat outside at the new picnic table.


LOL! I felt bad that I wasn't able to see his hammering and realize he was building a table! It might be the smallest picnic table I have ever seen but that is also a very small house next to the table. OK, I can picture you all looking at Demi sitting at it and saying how can a mom not see that is a picnic table. Just scroll up again and look at Travis in the first 2 pictures and you will be able to see that until Demi sat down in front of it this looked NOTHING like a table! I think this was the third board he put on it so to me it looked like he was pounding nails into a log! I know now tat they have a picnic table they will NEVER let me move that playhouse! I think this is so CUTE!!! BUT I think I am now doomed to years of sap covered play clothes. The up side is I have a reason to keep sewing!

OH! I wanted to say thank you to everyone who left a comment or wrote me emails! I had no idea so many people looked at my blog! I was shocked to get so many emails. Once my hubby is back to work and I de-germ my house (wipe down everything he has touched or coughed on) I will take some time to post some of our newer inside learning games. I can only do this on sunny days because my camera is on it's last leg and will not take pictures in my house if I don't have enough natural light comming in the windows. I can't afford a new camera right now so I have to try to make the best of the one I have.

I got many emails asking about my sewing patterns and tutorials on my craft blog. I will get back to sharing some of my sewing patterns starting next week craft. By the end of next week I will have at least one pattern posted to share (I hope to have more than that up by then but even if life stays crazy I can get one up). I am working on finishing up a couple projects for friends with my small amount of free time I have this week (only have a couple hours of work left to do to finish). My hubby is home sick with a bad cold. This week having a sick hubby, 3 children, housework, homeschooling, and a couple old projects needing to be finished will take up most of my free time this week. Two people wrote asking about my old links and patterns on my my craft blog and I did get a free minute to look at my blog and I can see that many of my old patterns and pictures are no longer working. I just realized this is because I had some of them on yahoo pictures and I lost them when yahoo pictures shut down. I don't know if I still have all my old pictures and PDF pattern files BUT my youngest is still in diapers so I can redo most of that stuff it just might not be exactly the same because I don't ever do the same thing exactly the same twice. Zee could always use some new diapers and I am always looking for reasons to sew so this will be no problem to fix. I will get that fixed sometimes in the next two weeks.

I hope you all can read and understand what I am writing. It is late. I am tired. It has been a long day and I am worried if I wait until tomorrow to read this over I might forget to publish this (I forget to hit publish button a lot).