Davin's Year of Preschool

We sure lucked out when we moved in a year ago. The first week, or so, in the ward I received a phone call from the primary president. She had passed us a few times in the morning on her way to school, and she wanted to call and see if there was anything I needed (I had just had Maddie 6 days after we moved in). Amy was the first person I knew in the ward. And it was her that I turned to with the question of "do you know of a nice, small preschool in the area?" She turned me to Nicole Ragusa and Busy Bees Preschool. Nicole is just 10 houses up the street from me, has been doing preschool in her home for years, and the price and timing were exactly what we were looking for. Plus, she had one spot left.


Davin has loved going to see Ms Nicole, and he loves seeing her in church each week too. (Eme can't wait for her turn in fall of '10). At the end of the year, Nicole gave each of the kids a little scrapbook of their adventures and daily activities, Davin had been pouring over his book since last Tuesday. He had a great time, and it was exactly what we needed, when we needed it.


Eric's mom gave me this idea with Aidan. I didn't know what to do with all of his projects from preschool, they tend to take up a lot of space. So now, I take pictures at the end of the year of all of his work. I keep those that are special (the ones with his handprints, etc), and I recycle the rest.

The Kid's Bathroom

prepped and ready for paint:
It's done (for now)! I got paint for mother's day, and lots of time alone with my husband. We re-painted the kid's bathroom (we will eventually re-finish their cabinet, and replace the old, stained linolium with tile), and put in some new light fixtures.

I don't have a good "before" shot, but the bathroom was a lemon yellow with a standard 4-bulb chrome light fixture, it was a bit too much color for such a small space. I love the lights that we picked up from Costco ($30/ea), they add such a nice element to the room.
testing the paint colors and stripe placement:
We prepped the walls with two coats of primer, we painted everything a basic bright white. And then, after letting the white cure for a week, spent two evenings taping two of the walls for the stripes. I love the look of the two colors, in different widths, on the two walls. It adds enough color without overwhelming the room.

the finished product:

For you mom...and Henny Penny

Davin's preschool class went to the dairy earlier this month. After the tour, but before the ice cream, they let the kids brush and feed the goats, feed a carrot to the horse, pet the bunnies, and hold a chicken. Davin and Eme fell in love with Peanut the bunny and are now desperate for a bunny as a pet. Eme nearly dropped the chicken, and Davin, who would have prefered to just play with the bunny instead of holding the chicken, did just fine on his turn. I must say, I was rather surprised at how soft those chickens were, very much like a kitten. But I don't want one for a pet, four kids are enough for me.

Eme is going to be trouble, isn't she?

I should have seen this coming much earlier than now; oh, Emelia. What with her first words being "shoes" and "purse", and her love of my mini-credit cards on a key chain in the diaper bag (Maddie's new favorite toy at church too now). And her obsession with pointing out every toy she wants for her birthday (it's only 6 months away, but she's been doing this since Chirstmas). I hadn't realized the severity of the situation though, until today. We went to Target so the boys could each buy themselves a new toy to entertain themselves for the first few days of summer vacation. After Eme's usual wants for her birthday, Davin asked if she'd just like money instead. And her response was: "Oh, that's really what I want!"

I think that I need to stage an intervention, because 4 is way too early for gift cards. I'm a bit at a loss though, the boys have never been obsessed with money the way Eme is. But maybe that's because they both earn allowance money (as little as it is) and she doesn't. I guess it's time to pull out the bucket of pennies and start her with some chores (she's already started by emptying the office's trash can). I'm NOT looking forward to her pre-teen and teenage years, oh the agony!

Mini-Sanity Savers

Here are some of my mini projects that I've worked on these past two weeks. I'm not really sure who, besides me, will care, but if you're here looking around, then I'll assume that my little vignettes will be appreciated with all of your enthusiasm. And if not, then don't tell me, just pretend, smile and nod, smile and nod...

I've got this lovely table in my foyer, courtesy of our Realtors, and for the past year it has housed 5 National Geographic boxes along with a small lamp. I've known that it needed more, but I wasn't sure what else. I found the little box at JoAnn's on sale, and a big box at Ross (on the bottom shelf-for the same price as the little one), and then I made the hydrangea ball from two clearance stems. The balls inside the little box I made for $1/ea. I just couldn't bring myself to spend the $4-5/piece for the ones at the store, so I picked up some paper mache balls from JoAnn's and Michael's, along with some craft paint. I'm quite happy with how they turned out.

Again, I made some more painted balls for the metal work box on my mantle (right next to my fake reed diffuser). As I was arranging them, I sought advice from Eric (silly I know). I started the conversation with: "I know you don't, but pretend you care..." Well, let's just say that Eric doesn't have a very good imagination, he couldn't pretend. I'll just wait for Eric's mom to come over and see my handi-work, and help me re-arrange things.


I picked up a cute apothecary jar at JoAnn's, it turned out to be just the right height for the shelf above my kitchen window. Toss in a few fake limes for a bit of color, a bit of fake greenery at the end, and I'd say the shelf is done.

And finally, my ceramic containers got a makeover. Until this house, my kitchen has been white and blue (much like most of my house until now). But then Eric's mom and I found this fabric for a window valence, and she picked up some tidbits for my shelf. And after 10 years my kitchen went from being blue and white, with a bit of yellow thrown in, to red and lime green, with a bit of blue thrown in. So the trusty ceramic container that Bill gave my for my wedding went from cobalt blue, to Safety Red (ala Kylon Fusion spray paint). I'm happy with their transformation. I left the inside blue, I like how it looks just peeking out over the edge of red.

So, there you have it. All in all I spent under $40 for all of my jazzy new things. But I am very happy with the effects that such small things have on the house as a whole. Poor Eric, I've been bitten by the redecorating bug, and I've got lots of projects in my head. We'll have to wait and see how many of those actually happen. But for now, I get to enjoy my little projects.

Putting up and other stuff

Well, after my last post it's no wonder that I've been a bit sparatic in my blogging. You may wonder how I've survived the past week (I have too for that matter), and the answer is: I'm not too sure. I have tried to find a few quiet moments here and there. But they have felt too infrequent and too often interupted (by my children, my neglected dishes and laundry). So today, I thought that I'd share some of my better moments.

I've gotten a few little projects worked on (at the sacrifice of my shower), I'll share those another time. And I was able to test stripe the bathroom, all I can say is: love it!! I'll post pick on that project when I've gotten it finished.

Last Friday I pulled another 38 tomatoes off the plants. They have sat on the counter waiting for me to finally get around to them. So yesterday I put up four more bags of crushed tomatoes (we had some in spaghetti sauce earlier this week, WOW, the flavor was amazing). I also put up two more bags of green/wax beans. We pulled off two of the biggest zucchini, they just got missed. It's really too bad, they're too big to be any good. And in a few more days, our first pumpkin will be ready.

I also got around to filling my storage cans with the 25# of both flour and sugar (that sat on my counter for a full week before I took care of them). And now, my kitchen is clean, and that makes me happy.

recap

Time always has a funny wasy of moving, painfully slow during tough moments, lightning quick during the good ones, and after the fact, everything seems a blur. This past week I've had quite the ups and downs, and I am just grateful that it's about over. Once the weekend comes, I have my husband home all day (in theory) to come to my rescue. So here is my recap of my past week (plus a little more).

Last Wednesday, we went to the dairy with Davin's preschool class. I left Maddie home napping with my fantabulous sil Ashlee, who was doing double duty watching our nephew Owen too. Davin, Eme, and I had a fun, albeit slightly too warm, time. Davin and Eme have both decided that they want a bunny for a pet now, thanks to the super soft and cute Peanut. We took a hayride tour of the dairy and the cows (1000+ head), learned some interesting facts, ate really good ice cream, and I got sneezed on by a goat (eew, is there a goat flu that I should worry about?)

I don't remember much else about our week, it's all a blur now. But Friday night we went to one of our favorite hangouts, that's right, Home Depot. Eric bought me paint for Mother's Day. We spent Saturday taping, priming (2 coats), and painting the kid's bathroom-I'll post pics when we've completed the project. All of that work so Eric could hang our new light fixtures. The bathroom has gone from lemon yellow to bright white. We're not done yet, it's a bit to anesthetic for our tastes. This weekend we'll be taping the bathroom, so I can paint two colors of yellow stripes on two of the walls. Just enough color without being overwhelming.

Sunday was Mother's Day, and the best part was having no bishopric meetings, at all. That meant that Eric was home to help me get everyone ready for 8 am church. THAT was a blessing. It was fun to open up the boys' homemade school gifts/cards. And poor Eme was so upset that she didn't have a gift for me yet, we reassured her that her sunbeam class would take care of that. And, by the way, our ward ROCKS when it comes to our gifts. Every year they give the mothers these amazing 5 layer brownies (to die for), much better than the sugar-free chocolate bar I got from another ward once, or the plants that die within a week. The crinkle of celephane during sunday school was funny. After church the boys each gave me their M&M's card from primary, Eme said that they were hers though. I got a nap, and when I woke up, I found that my husband had cleaned up after all of the kids' messes. Nice.

Then the first part of this week was rough, really, really rough. Like tears and tantrums, not just the kids, rough. I'd like to forget about most of it. It hadn't helped that Eric got home at 10 pm on Tuesday, the same day that we had scouts, a kindergarten meeting, book club, and scorching temps. I spent most of the afternoon in the car driving the kids to and from Eric's parent's house, to and from scouts, to and from the grocery store (just in case I could make it to bookclub, I needed a treat)-we got home at 8 pm. As soon as it was all over, and the kids were in bed, I just wanted to cry. I'm grateful that I had help, I couldn't have managed without it.

Oh, and yesterday was a real gem too. For the most part it was a good day, aside from one really, really bad moment. I went to a dentist appointment, it was my first time there, so it was just for x-rays and a consult. I knew that I might need a root canal on a back molar, very least a crown. Turns out, they think that a crown will cover me. That's good, a crown is cheeper, and less painful. But the bad news was that there was a weird shadow on a front tooth (we took x-rays twice). Apparently, major facial trauma can take 15+ years to show up. So that one time when Uncle Karl came to visit (sometime in HS) and we all went to play softball, and I got hit in the face with one of ED's pitches (be careful Cami), and I cried, and Ed got mad at me for crying. Well, I guess I really did have a good reason to cry after all. So now I get to go and see an endodentist to see if my tooth is still alive or not. Worse case is a root canal on my front tooth.

BUT, the kids were perfect for the rest of the day for me.

Ahh, spring...or is it now summer?

While the rest of the country enjoys lovely spring weather, we have officially breached the 100 degree mark. Our temps are not expected to drop back down until the late fall (mid-October for those not in AZ). On the bright side (isn't it always bright in AZ?), our garden is in full swing.

We pulled 40, yes 40 tomatoes off on Saturday, and we've got another 2-3 dozen green ones (mmm, fried green tomatoes). We put up all of those yielding 6 pints of tomatoes (crushed, stewed, and whole), they are now chilling in our free-standing freezer along with a pint of wax beans from Monday.

Thus far we've gotten 6 zucchini, loosing only 1 to birds before we netted them. And we were very pleasantly surprised by our pumpkins. Last fall I saved the seeds from a store bought sugar pumpkin, we planted those not sure what would happen (you never know if your produce has been irradiated). But they are going strong. We've got at least three the size of baseballs, and a couple more of various smaller sizes. I am sooo excited for pumpkin pie, bread, cookies, bars...

I think that I had a little too much fun with my pickings from Monday. Sometimes you need to play with your food. Hum, I might make this my profile pic, any thoughts?

And finally, my mimosa tree has started to bloom. Yes it makes a mess in the fall (neither Eric nor our neighbor like it), but it is so beautiful in the summer, hot pink against bright green. And the smell is heavenly. We planted some butterfly flowers, dame's rocket, and dwarf dahlias under it, hopefully next spring it will be awash in color.