Created a little movie about Jordan’s horseback riding lessons.  You’ll need to turn off the music on the right side panel of the blog.

Tooth Fairy Fail

 Oh look, Jordy lost (another) tooth.  Yes I remembered to put it under her pillow.  And that’s about where it ends.  She woke up for school the next day and brought me the scarf. 

“The Tooth Fairy came!” she squealed.  “My tooth is gone!”

Uh, that’s weird.  Because I know I completely forgot the Tooth Fairy was scheduled to come by.  So I grabbed the scarf and sent her to the bathroom and quickly shoved some money inside.  She came out, found the money and lived happily ever after.

The next day, she brought the tooth to me.  She’d found it in her bed.  “I guess the Tooth Fairy remembered that I like to keep my teeth.  Can I bring it to school?"

It’s My Birthday, Y’all!

Happy birthday to me!  Excuse me while I count how old I am.  Let’s see, born in ’77 and it’s 2011 so, yep, I’m 29!  YAY!!!

 When Jordy was a baby, she was bald.  And she stayed bald for a really long time.  She didn’t get her first whale spout top pony tail until she was 2 years old.  First hair trim at 4 years old.  Now she’s six and her hair has made up for it’s deficiency by growing long and fast.

 A couple of months ago, during a particularly troublesome comb out session, I threatened to cut all her hair off.  She screamed “NO!” and ran away.  Then I told her I would never cut her hair EVER even if she asked me to.  Which of course made her start asking me repeatedly.  Reverse psychology, people.  It works every time.  On a six year old.

 So I finally cut it off.

 And we love it!

This was the first go-round.  I had to wash, trim and dry her hair four times before I was satisfied. She was so over it by the time I finally finished.

This all occurred while Dad was not home.  So when he came home and saw her cut off ponytail sitting on the counter, I was surprised to discover he was a little sad about it.  I told him it was because he’d never had to comb syrup out of her hair.

A Convo

Me: “When you were a baby, I used to say ‘come to Mamas, Doobies!’ and you would run to me and hug me.”

Doobie: “But did I have clothes on when I did it?"

Crap That Is Awesome - VW Bus Toaster

A must have for any Volkswagon lover.  I may know a few of those.

Rock The Shot Photo Challenge

This month’s challenge at the Rock the Shot forum is Kids + Fall.  I just HAPPENED to have recently photographed this little beauty in her Fall Forest Fairy outfit, in a lovely field of wheat, on the edge of a nasty construction zone.

Front Door Project

 The story starts like this.  We live in a rental.  And while our landlords mostly let us do decorating and design at our discretion with minimal interferrance, we don’t exactly want to dump a ton of money into a home that we don’t own.  That is why, we didn’t just replace this front door completely.

 This is the before.  Notice the lovely 60’s plastic door panels, the broken screen door propped up by flower pots and the lovely purplish, mauvish trim paint.  Also my dying flower basket.

This is our deadbolt.  It has a key broken off in it.  Awesome.

My first task was to remove the screen door.  It needed to go partly because it was hanging by a thread... 

 The screen itself was no longer really attached to the door frame.  (I actually accept my mail through this hole.  How sad.

 It took awhile but I did finally get the screen door removed.  It is now sitting in our side yard.  Leaning against a tree.  It’s art.

My next task was to remove the plastic panels which had obviously been removed and reattached several times.  What you see here in the photos is glue.  Originally they were attached with pegs through the door.  The door is metal by the way.  But it’s hollow, with styrofoam in the middle.

Now it’s time to patch the hole’s left by the little panel pegs.  I used Auto Body Filler because the door is metal.  No amount of spackle is going to fix this.  It took FOUR coats of filler because as it dried, it sunk into the holes and left dents.  In the end there are still dents but I stopped caring at about the 3rd application.

I bought a pint can of $5 clearance paint at Walmart.  Black satin exterior to be exact.  It took four coats.  I also bought matching spray paint to make the trim go faster.  Funny story, I found dog food on the top of the door jam.  We don’t own dogs.  We have never owned dogs.  Weird.

For a bit of sparkle, I purchased this kick plate at Home Depot.  It was $18 and was bright ugly bronze.  I spray painted it a hammered bronzy color.  I also purchased a door knocker on ebay for $6 and painted it the same color.  I have not attached it yet because my fall wreath is hanging right now.

I bought the supplies for these little topiary’s at JoAnn’s Craft Store.  All were on clearance.  And then I built them.  Because I’m awesome like that.

Done!  Not really.

The door is actually not finished.  Aside from the door knocker, we still have to install the new doorknob that the landlords bought for us.  The problem?  I don’t think they will work/fit in our door.  Doorknobs are complicated, holy smokes!  Beyond me anyway.  We’ll see what hubby has to say once he gets his hands on them.

Project synopsis:

Cost:  $42 (not including wreath, topiaries or the doorknob which we didn’t have to pay for)

Time: About a month with several weeks of absolutely no progress.  Probably could have done it in about 3 days to allow for drying time.  I just got sick of working on it and left it for days weeks at a time.

Middle Earth Map Dress

This is a map dress.

This is a map dress of Middle Earth.

From Lord of the Rings?

Too right.  I wanty.

School Spirit!

This past week Daddy had his first home basketball game and we all went along.  The cheerleaders were having a free spirit booth with face painting, colored hairspray and fingernail painting.  Jake got really into the face painting.  Jordan did EVERYTHING else.

 Doobie wanted nothing to do with any of it.

Oh, right.  Daddy’s varsity team won but his JV team lost.  Everyone played very well though.  I guess.  I really have no clue.  

What Happened? Bandages

I NEED these.  Like, real bad.

OK to AK

 Back before all the birthday madness...

A few weeks ago, Hubby’s sister, who we haven’t seen in a couple of years now, managed to bring her two babies up to Alaska for a visit.  A huge thank you to her mom who flew down to Oklahoma one day and turned around and flew them all to Alaska the next day.  And then did it again two weeks later.

 The boys had a blast playing with their little cousin Rowynn and teaching him new things.  Like climbing stairs, and driving Jeeps.

 Sometimes they overwhelmed him though.  I think he’s more used to the quiet life.  My crazy kids love to get all up in everyone’s business.

 It wasn’t easy, but I managed to get this one close up image of Rowynn before he ran off to do something else.  Out of about seven attempts, this is the only one that wasn’t blurry!  Speedy little toddler.

We squeezed a photo session in while they were here and we were able to take advantage of the awesomeness that is Fall in Alaska.  Shut up right?  How beautiful is this place?

Rowynn really doesn’t have time for pictures though.  He only had about two weeks to explore Alaska and sitting down for photos was not on his calendar.  But we love how these funny shots turned out.  “Hey dude, where ya going?"

Baby Brennyn likes photos though.

Best family photo ever.

After pictures, we played with the ducks.

While Raychel and the kids were in town.  Her mom (also Hubby’s mom) got married!  That’s right, we had a wedding to attend.  Diana asked Raychel and I to do what we could to decorate her fiance’s living room for the ceremony.  Raychel and I selected all the flowers and created an arrangement.  The first attempt was not good.  The second attempt was better, but then I called in some reinforcements (my very amazingly crafty friend) who tweaked everything into perfection.

Jordan was the flower girl and the boys were both ring bearers.

Our family, all dolled up.

The new extended family!

Rowynn and Uncle Darrin out for a stroll to the car after the wedding.

And this is what I did The. Whole. Time Raych and the kids were in town.  I held babies.

I cuddled babies.

I talked to babies.

And I snuggled babies.

Thanks for the baby fix, Raych!  

 Being the youngest and not yet in school definitely has its perks.  Just ask Doobie.  Last week during school on Friday, while the rest of the family was at school and work, Doobie and I had his little birthday party here at the house.  We invited all his little buddies and their mommies.  Bonus, all their siblings were in school, so the party was a manageable size and budget.  Holla!

 Both of my boys have their birthdays two days apart, so by the time we got to this party, I’d already made a few birthday cakes, some of which were still sitting around, partially eaten.  So I went for store bought mini cupcakes this time.  Perfect size for little friends.

 Goodie bags for party-goers included candy, raisins, crayons, stickers and notepads

 Pre-school friendly feast included uncrustables, applesauce, grapes, fruit snacks (natch!) chips and juice (not the kind that Dr. Oz said was dangerous of course).

 Little friends at the little picnic table.

 Other little friends up at the counter.

 Cute little birthday party Doobie.

 I didn’t have my camera quite ready when the time came to blow out the candles so I told him to WAIT!  DON’T DO IT YET!  And he waited.  And then his friend got sick of waiting and blew out the candles for him.  So we had to redo.

 Yay!  Presents!

 Transformers and Star Wars toys!  Woot!

 This hat was custom made for Doobie by Lucy of Luma Threads.  She’s amazing and we love her!

His very own bible.  This bible is AWESOME!  Highly recommended for all children.  Best children’s bible out there for sure.  The Jesus Storybook Bible.

Birthday time is over for a couple of weeks.  Then its MY TURN!