the bees knees

On Thursday I went to the thrift store to use my $50 off of $100 coupon, and got really great stuff. Here's a picture. I spent $46, and will be returning about that much worth, but I got my money's worth already. I got the denim duvet cover to turn into a slipcover to match my other slipcover. I got the cherry printed makeup-case to keep Chick's babydoll clothes in (she loves it). The pink jumper doesn't look like much, but it is seriously cute & will be Chick's Easter dress next year. Not pictured is another duvet cover that we have plans to repurpose & I may blog about at a later date. For my own record keeping, here's the initial stats on the shopping:

15 items purchased (& kept)

$46.86 spent

average cost (for now) $3.12

Saturday, rather than going camping, we stayed home to be productive... and we actually WERE. I'll be posting before and after pics when we get to "after," but clearing the downstairs has been quite a project. I might have mentioned that we cleared out 6 old printers a week or so ago...this weekend HH cut up & disposed of 7 mattresses that were down there. We did a ton of organizing & clearing and cleaning. Not done yet, though, so stay tuned. I have begun to plan out how I want to have it--it'll be a playroom/schoolroom? area.


Sunday we went down to Orting to Erin's baby blessing & luncheon, which was really fun. Little S is her fourth boy, and they are cuties, let me tell you. It was fun to see them--they're far enough away that visits are rare. Thank goodness for blogs.


Monday was Muffin Tin Monday--zucchini bread, cantaloupe, chicken, cheese, grapes, & choc chip cookie (see MTM details here).





Monday was hot. Too too hot, and these little girls melted into puddles of tantrums and fussiness. And mama was cranky, if the truth be told. But the two movies that I wanted to see (Harry Potter 6 & The Proposal) were the double feature at the drive-in nearby, so we set up the travel crib & some chairs & enjoyed the neither-hot-nor-cool night air & the great movies (I enjoyed them both & look forward to seeing them again). It was a really fun break for all of us, even if we didn't get home until 2 am!



Today HH is home & we haven't done much of anything. We have fans going, and the curtains drawn, and we're all sitting around practically in our skivvies drinking smoothies and eating cold chicken. The downstairs is perfectly cool and comfortable, but not cleaned up enough to hang out down there, really.

(Monkey in her skivvies)

Ode to Chicadee

Chick is at a funny age. At least once a day I find myself thinking, "where did she learn to do that?!" or "How did she get old enough to do such a thing?" but then every so often she'll say or do something that reminds me that she's still a 2-yr-old.

Aside from independence battles (and she's always been independent), it's a fun age. I love to see her learning new things all the time. She loves her sister (who is old enough to be able to handle all that lovin'), and she is always ready to help mama. I hate to think what a bleak world I'd live in without her--she is a ray of sunshine. And if I could bottle up her laughter, I really think it would cure the world of any ills.

This picture is from last night. I was tired & had just told HH that I was going to take a bath & he got to keep an eye on the girls (who were both playing) for a while. As I was passing Chick, I noticed how well she was doing with the clothespins (not only was she clipping them on the side really well, but at that point she'd completely separated the colors). I told her what a great job she was doing, and you should have seen her LIGHT.UP.

This picture is from earlier this week. She wanted to match her sister, and they were playing well together.

"Don't want to go" dilemma

OK, all of you who love to give unsolicited parenting advice, hopefully you like to give it when it's solicited....

Chick never wants to go. She never wants to go home from the park, she never wants to go into the house from the yard.... You know the drill. It's such a hassle for me that I don't take her out as much as I'd like because I don't have the energy to get her back home.

I told myself that it's normal 2-yr-old stuff, but yesterday at playgroup I didn't notice any of the kids being carried off kicking and screaming (ok, we don't normally have kicking and screaming, but it is occasionally the case).

So how do you all have such well-mannered & obedient children, & how can I cure Chick?

______

Here's a picture of Chick playing with the dirt in her garden spot...

I was going to say that it's a good thing that she was working in the garden (since I haven't been doing it), but then, 5 minutes later, she uprooted half of our corn. (all but one had roots intact and were salvaged).

"What we do for fun on a Friday night"....or "Stripping"....or "The Saga of the Fuzzy Wallpaper"

This is the entryway wallpaper. Silvery-mirror background with fuzzy yellow flocking. A couple of years ago I spent a lot of time working on fixing up the house for renting. We did a lot of work & made a big improvement, though there was still a long ways to go (and of course a year & a half ago we moved here so that we could finish & still have endless projects....).

But anyhow, when I was working on it that first time (2005, I think) we didn't want to take the wallpaper down because we didn't know what the wall would be like, and we just weren't up to taking on that project.

(btw, the light fixture has been changed....)

And I made the happy discovery that it was infinitely better when painted over--the design was still there (though not fuzzy--it actually became prickly), but subdued to a nice mellow yellow that matched the other walls that I painted yellow on purpose. (In that "before" picture you can see the white before I'd done the whole wall, as well as the original paper).

Anyhow, it would still be a "lets do it later" project, but HH was using a wallpaper steamer at work & had it for the night, and suggested using it while he had it. Turns out that the steam didn't penetrate the painted thick fuzzy wallpaper, so we just ripped it off. The drywall paper came off in a lot of spots, so we'll have lots of mudding to do before we can texture & paint....

So this is our new entry decor for a few days (I get to work on sanding during naptimes before we can mud).

Also, as follow up: I did buy the armoire & tables, am reselling the coffee table because we really aren't coffee table people, and I'm now in the process of trying to find baskets for the shelves under the tv (to hold dvds and such)

A new name for Babe

Ok, from now on the-child-formerly-known-as-"Babe" will be referred to as "Monkey." Sorry for the confusion, but it's much more fitting.

Beauty, Charm, & Grace Incarnate

To buy or not to buy....

I don't like our hand-me-down entertainment center. It's kinda ugly, for one, but my biggest complaints are 1) It's almost all open so it always looks cluttered because you can see everything in it, and 2) Several of the shelves don't have backing on them, so you have to be careful to not push things out on to the floor in the back.

I've been looking for a cute, inexpensive armoire so that I'll have a tidier look--something that closes all up to hide the tv & entertainment gear.

K, so I found this armoire on craigslist. I keep going back and forth on whether to get it, so I'm making a pros & cons list. You can comment on whether you'd get it if you were me.

Pros:

• Gorgeous
• Nice quality solid wood
• my style & right color
• comes with matching tables--nicer room overall
• Great price ($200 set)

Cons:

• Taller than I'd like ideally (limits the possibly positioning)
• Has an open shelf that still might look cluttered?...
• We aren't wild about having a coffee table...storage?
• Recessed tabletops look trickier to clean
• Might be hard to transport home due to size
• I could get more essential home improv. stuff with the $

Monday

HH is home today, so I got to go to the thrift store for a little bit this morning : ) I got a long black jumper, a white blouse, a grow-into speedo swimsuit for the girls, and the muffin tin that's pictured below. Anyhow, nothing blue or green, so I count it as a victory over my rut.

Here's our muffin tin for the week. No theme, so we just had: grapes, carrot sticks, cheese cubes, viena sausages, fishy crackers, and green apple slices.

Now I need to buckle down and work on layout. ciao ciao.

"Our 4th of July"....or "Greased Lightning"......or "Hello, is this Poison Control?"

Well, first of all, we've had a nice week.

On Monday Babe cut her first tooth: the lower front left (when viewed from the inside of her mouth). She also is a serious cruiser now, and will "pace" back and forth the front of the couch.

On Tuesday we went to the free kids film at the theater and made it through about half of the show, so that's pretty good. I'm seeing the glass half full on that one, and I threw away the schedule for the rest of the summer movies. Maybe next year?

On Wednesday we went to visit Grandma & Grandpa N. for the day, which is always fun (though no nap for Chick did make a harried afternoon). I got to bring home a nice assortment of veggies from my sister L's garden...hmmm, all we've gotten from our garden is a couple of snap peas, am I doing it wrong?

On Thursday I plopped myself down with a book (The Actor & the Housewife by Shannon Hale) and read ALL DAY! Then Chick and I went on a fun evening hike with my sister M and her daughter. Chick did pretty well & we got to see 2 trains when we were down on the beach.

HH was home on Friday & we both got some housework & errands done & cuddled up to watch "Confessions of a Shopaholic" which was both more funny & more meaningful than I'd expected.

For the 4th we went to the church bike parade & breakfast. Mmmm, mmmm. It was delicious & I was happy to not have to make it myself. I had a friend in Italy (though she was from Ghana) and she used to say that food tastes better when you have someone to eat it with. That's totally true, but it's also true that food tastes better when you don't have to make it yourself.

After that we came home & napped & lazed around & avoided the heat. We rented "Eloise in Hollywood" for Chick, and we all enjoyed watching that (Even HH, though he might not want me to write that).

Chick got to wear a really cute dress that I won in a giveaway from Whimsical Road : ) She got lots of compliments & she loved the dress. Thanks, Whimsical Road!!

One of our neighbors (+ friends) put on a semi-professional fireworks show, so we were able to enjoy fireworks from the comfort of our own home. Of course, when it came time to go to bed it sounded like we were under seige....

Which brings us to the dramatic story of this post. Babe went to sleep earlier, but HH, Chick, and I went to bed at 10:30 (I know, she should have been in bed hours earlier, but anyhow). She was tired, but a little hyped from the fireworks, I think. Anyhow, she usually has her door closed (with a childproof thing on the inside of the doorknob so that she can't get out). The door closed is so that she doesn't come to visit us a million times before falling asleep. This time we didn't shut the door completely, though.

Around 12:20 I woke up & before falling asleep again I heard some little sounds that (paranoid me) could have been the house on fire from fireworks or something? So I got up to double check that all was well. When I got to the hall I saw that Chick's light was on, as well as the Kitchen light. What did I see when I got to the kitchen?

Chick, sitting on a chair that she'd pulled to the counter. She & the chair were completely greased with butter & brown sugar, and she was holding my weekly vitamin case...which was all but empty except for a few soggy looking pills. It had only had 3 days-worth left to begin with, but that's still a lot of vitamins for such a little body. So HH cleaned her up, while I called 1-800-222-1222 (just in case any of you need to call poison control as well). Luckily she didn't eat enough to be poisoned & was given some applesauce and put to bed. With the door firmly shut.

This morning I was fixing some breakfast & pulled a sugary, butter-slimed knife from the knife block.

"Chick, you are NOT allowed to play with KNIVES!"

"I used it to cut the butter."

OK, so seriously: overdosing, knives, & saturated fat. Chick, can you please save some of life's dangers for next week?