A Sentimental Old Window

My Grandparents (Mom's side) bought their house in Burbank, CA in 1951. My Grandma still lives in that house today at 89 years old. My sisters and I have fond memories of this little playhouse they used to have in their backyard. It actually belonged to a neighbor on the same street but they had an only child who never played in the little house because she was always at my grandparent's house playing with my mom. So her parents asked my grandparents if they wanted to move the playhouse to their yard so the girls could play in it. That is how it came to be my mom's playhouse. When my sisters and I were old enough, they threw in a little play kitchen and it became our favorite part of Grandma and Grandpa's house. Sadly, the house began to rot and critters moved in underneath, so my family tore it down in 2001. It would have been great if it was still around for my kids to play in, although they'd have to wrestle it away from the racoons first. So for the sake of rabies, maybe it's good that it's long gone.

When my dad was tearing down the house I begged my parents to save the little front window for me to have one day. And being the hoarder he is, he gladly said yes and tossed it into his pile in the garage. Even 10 years ago, I loved random old crap. And that window was the bomb, we used it to serve things out of it, like our pretend ice cream cones or pretend lemonade or pretend cupcakes or whatever else we were pretend selling.

So back in the spring my parents were driving out for a visit and I asked them to bring the old window so I could see it, fix it up and figure out what to do with it. It was a busy weekend and Steve didn't notice that some new junk had sneaked into his garage, but when he did notice it, the conversation went something like this:

S: You have 10 seconds to explain why a junky old window is in my garage before I throw it in the trash

Me: you touch that window and you will lose a finger.

He listened to the story of the old window and tried to reason with me that it was falling apart and paint was chipping off and it was held together by some twine my Dad had wrapped around it and where would we put it and we move all the time and you're crazy. All of which is completely correct. But it's my sentimental old window!

So I fixed her up with a little (or alot) of wood glue, gave her a bath and stuck her up on the "mantle" (a shelf really) in her place of glory with all her old chippy paint yumminess and rusty hardware patina.

Here she is with my back-to-school themed mantle/shelf

They just don't make 'em like this anymore people! I love you chippy old window!

Tub Drawings

Recently I've been able to get Brian to draw, only in the tub though. He thinks that "coloring is boring" and would much rather race his cars around the kitchen island or play ball outside. But strip this boy down, throw him in the tub, hand him a tub crayon, and he will go to town with the stick figures! So, since I don't have any stick figure drawings on paper, I figured I better capture some tub drawings. I made a special request on this one, I asked him to draw him and I.

This is his artistic rendering of him and I camping in a tent. I feel like I have alot of junk in the trunk here, no? And I've cut my hair pretty short. But I'm not gonna complain, at least he's drawing something! You can find these special water crayons in the baby soap section at Target.

Slime Blobs!

We made slime today after school! It was very easy and fun and Brian could help alot with it. I followed this recipe/tutorial. All you need is Borax, water, glue, and food coloring. I already had the borax on hand from a homemade detergent experiment (recipe coming to the blog soon) and I always have water and food coloring, so I picked up some clear Elmer's glue at Wally-world this morning. You can get Borax at Wally-world or Target or even some grocery stores, it's in the laundry section. My only tip on making slime is that making an entire recipe (the whole bottle of glue) makes a large blob. If I had known, I would have made two half recipes, to make two different colored medium-sized blobs. Oh well, next time. But you could easily cut one recipe in half so two kids could each make a nice size blob. Blob. blob. Blob. I like that word. I'm going to try to incorporate it into my day more.

He was a little grossed out at first about getting slimy but after you mix the slime well, it becomes dry to the touch, so it's actually not that slimy, which is great for your furniture!

Emy loved the slime and she only tried to eat it once. She kept telling me "ewww!"

There ya' have it, a giant slime blob! Good times!

Back to School

I just can't get used to summer being over since it's still 110 degrees here in AZ, but since school is back in, I guess it's fallish now. It's kinda ridiculous how early the schools in AZ start, Brian's first week of school was actually last week but he played hooky for our trip to CO. So, anyways, summer or fall, hooky or not, today was Brian's first day of his last year of preschool. I don't want to think about how that means that next year he starts kindergarten, so I won't.

Our boy on his first day of preschool--year 1, 2, and 3

He has changed so much from the sweet little baby face on the left who could barely talk to the attitude-filled, non-stop talking boy on the right. It just goes by too fast. Brian's day went great, he had nothing negative to say except his standard "crafts are boring." Everytime he says that something inside me dies a little. But he liked his teachers and new friends and was excited about a few things like the inside playground (too hot to play outside right now) and getting to move his star with him when he changed play stations (not sure what this was but he was real excited about it)

His teachers each got a little first day of school bribe, er, gift from us. Nothing says "please love my son" like cheesy homemade crap! Our bribe, I mean gift, was a notepad with pen and a cute little apple candle I got on clearance last fall at Kohls.

I found the idea for the notepad on Pinterest. I used a 3.5 by 5 acrylic frame, post-it notes and a pen (all purchased at Frys Marketplace). I personalized the frame with Photoshop using the TomKat Studio's Back to School Collection party circles. And then wrapped it all up with a strip of coordinating fabric, although ribbon or twine or ric-rac would have worked too. The whole thing cost less than $3. His teachers already had thank you notes waiting for me when I picked him up, I think I'm going to like these ladies!

Another idea I saw on Pinterest was a vase made from colored pencils (also seen some made from no.2 pencils) and I knew I needed one for back-to-school home decor. Most of the tutorials I found online just used rubberbands to keep the pencils around the vase but I wanted something more permanent, so enter the hot glue gun and burned fingertips!

You'll need a round vase type object, a tin can will do, an old pasta sauce bottle too, I used a pint canning jar. It just needs to be straight up and down so when you glue the pencils on, they will stand up straight. I found a 50 pack of colored pencils (already sharpened!) on sale at Target for $5. My pint jar was about 10 inches around and I used 38 of the colored pencils.

I started by lining up the pencils in a color order that I liked...

...then glued them one at a time to the jar, applying the hot glue to the pencil, making sure the writing on the pencil was not visable. Do this all the way around and tie a ribbon/twine/ric-rac/whatever around the vase and wah-lah, you have a quick, cheap and cute little fall vase!

A note on Pinterest: It's the best new thing on the internet right now, I describe it as a way to organize the crafty ideas in my brain. You have to be invited to join and I have at least 7 invites left so let me know if you want to organize your crafty brain too!

Four Corners

We just got back from an almost week long camping trip to Pagosa Springs, CO with my parents and my sister, Julie, and her daughter, Grace. We had a great time visiting the hot springs, the guys doing a little fishing, the girls doing a little shopping, visiting Durango, and my Dad's friend Dan's place, the Wandering Star Ranch. Overall, a great time camping, although sort of hectic chasing a 15-month-old around camp with a small river 30 feet away. I managed to not take one picture of the entire trip, except on the drive home when we stopped at the four corners. I really meant to take pictures but my hands always seemed full keeping Emily out of trouble and it was sort of liberating to put the camera down and just have fun. I love to camp and can't wait til Emily is older and easier to take camping. Brian did great and had tons of fun playing with his cousin Grace. So now I'm at the mercy of my family, who did take pictures, to share them with me, hopefully there will be a post about our camping trip soon. But for now, here are some pictures from four corners.

I'm in Arizona, Brian is in Utah, Steve is in Colorado, and Emy in new Mexico

Emy being silly in the car doing pacy tricks!

Brian version4.5

Our little guy just turned four and a half a few days ago. We celebrated like always with half a cake (any excuse for cake will do). Brian at 4.5 is still a sweet boy but becoming more independent, wanting to do everything himself, without any help. He does things automatically like getting himself a drink and getting dressed (although he usually skips the tedious step of wearing underwear and hides them somewhere). He will also help when I ask, like carrying things in from the car or putting on his shoes or helping his sister with something. He still loves anything cars or airplanes. He loves hitting baseballs off the tee or kicking a soccer ball around with Dad. He says that "coloring is boring" and doesn't like vegetables at all, but really he's pretty laid back and doesn't fight us too much or dislike much else. He does have that little boy naughty streak where all the bodily function words are hilarious to him, not to Mom and Dad, who are sick of hearing about it. He's really excited to start his last year of preschool at the church preschool in our neighborhood. He'll be in the "Shining Stars" class with his friend Maddy and he's already working on memorizing the school prayer. These are some pictures of Brian decorating his school tote (they all get these totes, no backpacks). Not bad for a kid who says coloring is "boring."

A hidden love note from Mommy. I told him he can look at it if he misses me when he's at school and he said "I have to nap at school? Am I gonna be there all day?" and I told him that no, he will only be there for 4 hours in the morning. Then he nicely explained he wouldn't need to read my love note cause he won't be gone long enough to miss me. Um, thanks? I am glad he's so independent though and that school is not a scary idea for him. It really shouldn't be, he's been going to some form of school since he was 2.5.

Emily is SO BIG!

Emily is growing so fast, it's just not fair. She's supposed to be little and I still call her "the baby." She is 15 months now and into everything. Climbing everything. Eating everything. Throwing around everything. Forget toys, toys are for babies. She loves cookie sheets and tupperware and lives for climbing onto the chairs to get onto the table to throw dirt out of the plants. She is a ravenous little animal who eats all day long, yet has only put on 1 pound in 3 months! She's a talker too, she has a lot of words and if she can't say it, somehow has a way of telling you what she wants. She is all energy, all the time! Except when she is sleeping, which she takes very seriously with a 13-14 hour stretch at night and a 2 hour nap during the day. She needs Mommy all the time or there's gonna be drama and lots of it. She now gives the sweetest kisses and hugs on demand, so cute! My favorite words she says are "Juish" for juice and "uh-oh-y!" Brian has started picking her up and carrying her around and you think she'd be a little freaked out by this, but she's not, she regularly walks up to him and demands "up!" and he always complies by shuttling her around to her hangouts (anything she can climb). Love this girl!!

Here's a little 1 minute video of her a bedtime tonight telling me she is "so big" and a few other tricks!