Simple Things

When I was washing off our driveway today, the kids thought it would be fun to strip down to their undies and have some fun with the hose. My first instinct was to yell NO!!, but when I saw the joy in their faces, I thought what the heck, just go with it Sarah. You know, it's the simple things in life that seem to bring the greatest joy (especially through the eyes of a child).

Who needs this, when you can do....

this, and....

this?

Look at the joy in that face (you can't fake that)!

Priceless!!

First day of School

I enrolled Avery and Deacon in The Learning Place this year. It is a preschool that will take kids as young as 2, and lasts for 4 1/2 hours (that way I can get more stuff done). Avery has been excited because her two buddies: Hannah and Joshua are in her class, Deacon, on the other hand has had anxiety, and fear. He has been crying about not wanting to go to school for the last 2 weeks, and in his words, "me not a big kid anymore, me a baby. Me not want to go to school, me want to stay home with mommy." Well, again yesterday morning he woke up crying, and saying those same words. Avery, the little mommy that she is hugged him and told him "It's going to be okay buddy, we are going to have lots of fun, and you will make some new friends". I have been telling him the exact same thing for the last 2 weeks, but did he listen to me? No!! Something magical happened when Avery told him that. He stopped crying. Then, when we were on our way to the preschool he says "me done crying about school, me going to be a big boy." And just like that he was done, he walked right in to his classroom, gave the teacher high five, and sat down to start coloring.
That is Deacon for you. When he makes up his mind he is going to do something he does it. He potty trained himself, by waking up one morning saying "me need to go potty." And sure enough he did, and that is how he got rid of his pacifiers also. He woke up the morning after sleeping in his big boy bed for the first time, and brought his pacifiers down with him, he opened the trash can, looked up at me and said "me a big boy now, me not need my bappy (aka pacifier), bappys are for babies." And just like that he threw all his bappys away. It is awesome to see the determination he has when he makes up his mind.

Avery and Deacon sporting their new backpacks

Front view

Avery and her new lunchbag

Deacon decided he was going to take he and Avery to preschool in his gator

and their off!

Standing outside the preschool waiting for the doors to open

Deacon saying goodbye to me with a smile!

Avery putting her backpack away in her cubby.

When I picked them up, they both said how much fun they had. As Avery put it "I sure do like my new school, we had a lot of fun." Yay!!! I am so happy they are going to enjoy preschool, and I am so happy I will have a few hours by myself-well, until the baby is here :).

My recycled craft room

I have a little room in the basement that I have transformed into a little craft room. I didn't want to spend much money on it, so I thought I would look around our storage room and garage and find old things I could use. I got a couple of good ideas from other thrifty bloggers, and after consulting with good ol' mom and dad we came up with these ideas:

Here is the final product of the sewing table

This is what it started as. This was a table that the old owners of the house left, isn't it ugly? You can get these anywhere i.e. goodwill for super cheap.

Mom and I found some cheap fabric at the fabric store, and mom sewed little pleats throughout, we then hot glued it around the table.

I just used some black paint as seen in the picture so you wouldn't see the brown of the table.

Dad came up with the idea to adhere the wallpaper onto a piece of luan (Home Depot has it cheap and they'll cut it for you at the exact measurement you will need), instead of directly onto the table. That way if I ever get sick of this paper I can change it out without ruining the table.

I painted some mod podge directly onto the luan and then rolled the paper onto the board, and smoothed the paper out to get all the bubbles out.

This is the wall paper I chose, and what it looked like after I got it glued on the board.

I sealed the top of the paper with more mod podge.

I hot glued the corners of the table, and then adhered the luan/zebra board on top of the table

I also adhered the paper onto the dowel rod just to give it a little pizazz.

And here is the table now.

This is my cutting/craft table. This is our old island countertop that we kept from our old house (don't like the color, but it is very durable and serves the purpose). For the sides I used the cubicles you get from Target by closetmaid for $49.99 a piece, that way you can have cubbies for storage on the sides (I stole that idea from pottery barn, they were selling their unit for $1,000). Dad connected the countertop to the cubbies for me, and then used brackets on the wall to give a little added support. (BTW you can find old countertops off craigslist for free sometimes if you are looking, people are constantly redoing kitchens, and can't wait to get rid of their old stuff- "what's one person's trash is another person's treasure").

Now when we redo the basement like we want it I will still use all this stuff, because it works, I will need help figuring a paint color. Any ideas, please tell me. Thanks for letting me share :).

Rainy days!!

We woke up this morning to rain, rain, rain. Every since we got the kids their Mickey and Minnie umbrellas from NYC, they have to go out in the rain and use them every chance they get. We had a bit of a dilemma though, because they also wanted to wear their rain boots. Deacon's rain boots were too small, so guess what sweet Avery did? She decided to let him have her boots, and she wore her crocs (it is times like that, that I swell up with joy).


After the rain stopped they decided to put their snow boots on so they could both splash in the puddles. Oh, the fun you have when you are a child.
Yes, they did get a bath, afterward and got normal looking clothes on. We then did our weekly (or biweekly) trip to Target. While we were there you'll never guess what we saw: Rain boots. And sweet Avery surprised me again with joy when she said, "mommy I can still wear my froggie rain boots, you can let Deacon pick out a new pair instead, I don't need any." What?!! Did I hear that right? That was twice in one day, that she put someone else before herself, is she growing up or what? A tradition that I started recently is that if both kids are good at Target I will let them get some popcorn there. Yes, it is a bribe, and I know experts say you shouldn't bribe your children, but you know what? I enjoy the popcorn also, and sometimes it's not always about the kids :).Having a picnic in the back of the car when we got home. Can I just say Target popcorn is YUMMY!!
Here are the new rain boots. Deacon didn't have them on for more than 2 minutes before he got them dirty. Oh well, that's just part of it.
Climbing up a mud/dirt pile. Oh, what it would be like to be a kid again, and just play all day.

Yummy!!

We started off last weekend with the fun, and messy activity of making brownies. But you all know what the best part of making brownies are: It is eating the batter. Yes, I know that raw eggs can be dangerous, but you can't take the best part of licking the spoons away from your kids. I mean really we all did it, and if your like me you still do it, and we are still alive right?

Notice how clean and neat Avery is compared to Deacon. Boy vs. girl I guess :).

EYES

Look at the 2 pictures of Avery's eyes.  In both pictures Avery is smiling, but in one she has a fake smile, and in another she is truly smiling.  Can you tell the difference?  Which one is she smiling from her heart?
What is the first thing you look at when you see someone?  If you would have asked me a couple months ago my response may have been somewhat shallow.  I might have said:  their hair, or their clothes, or their body, but not anymore.  After taking the little photography class at the church, I now look differently at people.  I look at a persons eyes first.  In a picture the eyes of someone can captivate you, and hold you in the moment with them.  Isn't that amazing that something as little as eyes can mesmerize you?  If you really think about it eyes are the portal into the soul.  They show all sorts of emotion; sadness, fear, joy, excitement, surprise, etc.  I don't think your eyes can hide how you truly feel.  Just an aha moment I came to this afternoon, sorry for the rambling, but felt like sharing.

SOLD!! My first tutus sold

I am so excited, I just sold my first tutus!!  Thank you to my friend Heather for being my first customer.  The kids and I celebrated by getting a McDonald's breakfast: cinnamon rolls for the kids, and sausage and egg mcmuffin for me (the baby needs to eat :0)).