A bouquet for the table

Grace got into my craft stuff this afternoon. She wouldn't let me see what she was doing until she was done. First, she brought the cup to me decorated with all of the embellishments and the green foamy stuff on top. I gave her two chopsticks and told her she could make flowers out of them and stick them in like a vase. So, a little while later, this is what she brought to me. She also asked me if they made deodorant that was a spray. I said yes but I don't have any. Off she went upstairs. When she came back she had deodorant I bought her a few years ago that she thought smelled good when we were in Walgreens one time. I asked what she was doing and she she told me to wait and see. She rubbed that deodorant on the "flowers" and brought me the bouquet to smell. I thought that was pretty smart! Now my whole kitchen smells like either flowers or fresh armpits, depending on how you want to look at it!

Just don't ask

Last week the girls were at my parents' house for a few days. When we picked them up last Saturday they were full of stories! I wish I had a recorder to remember all that they were saying. The one thing I do remember was something Grace said. Later on I asked her..."So, did you miss us?" We were sitting on the couch and she tilted her head to the side and cut her eyes at me and said, "Mom, you just shouldn't even ask that question." Well, ok then!

After we picked them up we went to the Gardner house for Saturday and Sunday, which was the 4th of July. The girls swam nonstop. We stayed until after dinner on Sunday and left in time to see fireworks in Franklin. I forgot my camera so I don't have any pictures from the 4th of July. I still don't know how to take good pictures of fireworks anyway.

Time for a change

I am ready for a decorating change in my house. We bought our green couch and red chair after we moved into our first house back in 1999 (if I'm remembering right). We are on our 3rd house now and we are still decorating around that green couch and red chair. The furniture has held up very nicely. They are slipcovered by Rowe and the covers are a little faded but that is it. But, I'm just tired of them. We have used red, green, khaki and yellow as our color scheme for a very long time now. It's just time to change. I really want to go lighter and brighter. I'd really like to paint everything white and light blue/turquoise. I've been looking at a blog (www.houseofturquoise.com ) and it has really inspired me to go in a different direction. Well, decorating takes money. Yes, you can do it "cheap" but even "cheap" takes a little money. So, it will happen in baby steps, over time. The most costly project is to change the couch and chair and curtains. Since they are slipcovers, I will have someone from Rockport who is incredibly reasonable, make new slipcovers for me in white/off white. I know that sounds crazy, but, they are slipcovers. I can take them off and wash them! With bleach! That will have to wait until I save up some babysitting money and I start getting a preschool paycheck again. So, the cheapest thing I can do is spray paint. Last week while the girls were at my parents' I decided to repaint my bench and kitchen chairs. I painted them black a couple of years ago and have always wished I hadn't. It's just a lot of black. So, I refinished them. I tried to distress them too. Let me say, it was a huge job! I sanded with an electric sander for 3-4 hours straight! In the sun! I had sweat dripping from everywhere! I was covered in black dust! Then it took several coats of paint to cover it all. Then, a coat of stain which was immediately wiped off. Then, more sanding. Then, a coat of Tung Oil to seal it all. Whew! After all that, the girls' response was...
Girls: "is it supposed to look like that?"
Me: "yes, it's supposed to look antique"
Girls: "what's antique?"
Me: "when something is really old"
Girls: "why would you want it to look old?"
Me: "nevermind, go play"

Then Eric's response was..."do you think you sanded it too much right here?"
My response to Eric was..."don't say anything negative about it because I'm not starting over whether we like it this way or not" (or something like that)

At first, it did seem like too much distressing and staining to me too. But, the more I walk past it the more it is growing on me. It does make the kitchen a little brighter, which pleases me. So, it will stay for now. Mainly because I don't want to redo it for at least another 2 years!

Now, the next project will be to paint the walls! I asked Eric what he thought about repainting and he said "does it really matter what I think?" ha ha ha He knows me too well! I'm blessed to have a husband that will cooperate with my crazy ideas.

Here are the before and after pictures of the bench and chairs...by the way, this bench came from my hometown church in Rockport, IN.

Panama City Beach

Our trip to the beach went well this year. I was a little worried about oil but it was fine. We stayed in Julie's inlaws' condo and it was great! We love it there. The girls love that they have a room together. Plus, there are 3 pools and a "cacuzzi", as the girls call it. Basically, all we did for the week was go between the beach and the pools each day. We usually started at the pools in the morning and then after eating lunch in the condo, we'd go to the beach for a while in the afternoon. We did go to a waterpark one day. It was really fun. The girls can ride the waterslides with us and they love it! On another day, we took a shuttle boat out to Shell Island from the State Park there in Panama City. The water is clearer and the waves are bigger on Shell Island. Unfortunately, we didn't find any shells there. Eric and the girls really wanted to find a whole sand dollar but it never happened. The girls love the bigger waves though. They would dive head first into each wave as it came at them. I love the clear water there! The water was really clear at the beach by the condo on some of the days. On the other days, there was seaweed and algae in the water. We never really saw oil though.

We had a fun vacation and didn't want to come home at the end of the week!

Swimming Lessons

The girls didn't have swimming lessons last summer. So this year I knew they needed some. We went back to a lady that we used the summer before last, Ms. Nancy. She's really good. I've had them in group lessons at the rec. center and in private lessons. I've learned that we definitely get more bang for the buck with private lessons! So, they each had 5, 30 minute lessons. They did great. I was very proud of them. She uses the neighborhood pool, so there are other kids swimming and playing all around them while they are having their lessons. They did a great job of staying focused and working hard the entire 30 minutes. Because I'm the mom, I do have to say that Ms. Nancy kept bragging on what good workers and listeners they were. She kept telling me that she usually doesn't have a lot of students that don't whine and actually try to make the changes in their strokes that she's explaining. I asked her if she would come home with me!

Anyway, Grace is swimming really well now. I would like to see her learn the strokes better but she's doing a great job. She can play in the deep end of the pool now by herself. (I'm right there just in case though.) And Lyla is doing really well too. She mainly swims under water with a breast stroke pull to get where she's going but she can play in deep water too. Her treading ability is getting stronger too.

Ms. Nancy has them draw a picture in her scrapbook at the end of the 5 lessons and she takes a picture of them to put on the page with their drawing. She also gives each of them a swimming medal with their name engraved on the back. They really liked that.

Next year they will either need to be on a swim team or take some more lessons to really learn the strokes but for now, they are good to go swimming at any pool!