No, No, It's All Wrong!

It's supposed to be a POODLE skirt!

Rosary Bowl Northwest!

I'm really working on trying to convince my family that we need to go to this! Pray for me!

Ask Sister Mary Martha

Do you have any questions? I know I have LOTS of questions, all the time. I recently found this very cute blog written by a nun, Sister Mary Martha. She is a cross between Mother Angelica and Dear Abby. She is so funny! I hope you enjoy her blog as much as I have!

Her tagline: "Life is tough. Nuns are tougher." Need I say more?

Mindless Monday Question

Why do the dogs always run in front of the vacuum, and act like I'm the one coming after them?

Photo Essay Saturday

Monthly Medjugorje Message to Marija

Latest Monthly Medjugorje Message, September 25, 2008

“Dear children! May your life, anew, be a decision for peace. Be joyful carriers of peace and do not forget that you live in a time of grace, in which God gives you great graces through my presence. Do not close yourselves, little children, but make good use of this time and seek the gift of peace and love for your life so that you may become witnesses to others. I bless you with my motherly blessing. Thank you for having responded to my call. ”

Monthly Medjugorje Message

Latest Special Medjugorje Message, September 2, 2008 - Our Lady's apparitions to Mirjana

“Dear children, Today, with my motherly heart, I call you gathered around me to love your neighbor. My children, stop. Look in the eyes of your brother and see Jesus, my Son. If you see joy, rejoice with him. If there is pain in the eyes of your brother, with your tenderness and goodness, cast it away, because without love you are lost. Only love is effective; it works miracles. Love will give you unity in my Son and the victory of my heart. Therefore, my children, love. ”
Our Lady blessed all those who were present and all of the religious articles. Once again she called us to pray for our shepherds

Picture Day Perils

For some reason, whenever it is time for pictures, whether at school or a studio, bad things happen. I don't know why but it seems to be Murphy's Law for me that I almost expect that something will happen as soon as I make an appointment.

Case in point: I don't have any formal pictures of my little princess from age four to five, because things like this happened:

That was when she was doing ballerina twirls in the kitchen and was just the right height to cause this injury when she smacked her sweet face right on the corner of my granite countertop.

Countertop, 1 Princess 0

This was right after her birthday and I had planned on bringing her in for pictures, but now I had to wait for this to heal. It took a while.

I made a new appointment, in hindsight I think that is what the problem is. Making plans. I should just randomly get up one morning and run them all to the photo place and thus outsmart those little gremlins that mess up our plans.

Anyway, I was all set to bring her in and then another mishap. The boys were running in the back door right as Princess was coming out. The door knob just happens to be about eyebrow height, and in one quick swing of the door, she had another huge laceration. This one happened when dad was at work, and I always get freaked out by the sight of my children's blood (no one else's seems to bother me, though)

It was the same eyebrow, same place as before.

We drove to the hospital (conveniently he works there) and instead of putting her through the torture of stitches again, he was able to glue her skin together and put a steri strip over it. She ended up getting the Diego Rescue Center for that injury (the boys did feel very badly!)

Door 1, Princess 0

I kind of just gave up the picture thing for a while, and planned on getting one of the whole family at Christmas, except that didn't happen. We were finally injury free but then had a *dickens* of a time trying to get an appointment (pun intended!) I guess the photo places get pretty busy that time of year.

So, you can imagine how excited I was for picture day. This is her first school picture and I wanted it to be perfect. As they will, though things started conspiring again.

First, she lost her cute little Gymboree dress, you know the denim one with the Bavarian style embroidery? It looks adorable on her and that's what I had planned for her to wear. Except she wore it on Thursday night and misplaced it. I couldn't find it ANY.where. The only other dress that was picture worthy was a size 3T. Just slightly small, since she wears a 5T most of the time. It fit everywhere except the skirt, which was a bit short. It did hang past her fingertips, just *barely* I told her it would be ok as long as she didn't bend over all day!

Then I decided to style her hair, something she doesn't normally let me do. Usually she wears her hair in pony tails or just down, whenever we use bows or barrettes they come out and get lost. I stopped buying those cute matching Gymboree bows a long time ago. I had visions of all these cute styles I could try when I had a girl, and well, that doesn't happen. Luckily, she looks adorable even without the accessories.

My curling iron decided to break right when I was doing the last cute little ringlet. At least it didn't break after only the half way point. I could have sent that picture in to Ellen's bad hair day photo contest. I fluffed and sprayed and she looked like an angel.

Before we left the house, I took some 'practice' pictures, just for fun. Good thing I did, because when we stepped outside, it was foggy, and the curl completely went flat. She has my hair, unfortunately-- baby fine and no body. She does have a little natural curl but not much.

I won't know if her pictures turned out for about a month, and with a face as cute as hers, I'm sure that her school picture is just perfect but in the meantime, here are the practice pictures we took before going to school yesterday:

She has the model head tilt! What a little diva :-) If you look closely, you can see the nice scar above her eyebrow. I guess with two brothers, if that's all that happens, she's doing ok.

The smile is a little forced but isn't she just precious?

This is a cute one too. I don't think she can take a bad picture.

Gotta love Picture day!

Green with Envy

Here is our submission to the Before and After, two-month-later-Palooza that Boo Mama is hosting today. I hope you enjoy your stay at the former Pink Victorian which is now the Green Gables. (and no, I'm not changing my blog name!)

Before:

Pretty in Pink

Painted Lady

Painting this house was a huge project. The paint was peeling and there was bare wood exposed, so we knew that it needed to be painted. The question was, should we keep it the color it was, or change it? And if so, to what? The process started in early spring as we began collecting bids from a number of painting contractors. We quickly found that having a 'unique' house had its downfalls. The first being that all the bids were astronomically high. Most said we needed scaffolding 3/4 of the way around (all except the front side).

We finally found a reputable contractor who had experience painting historical buildings and was willing to paint it without scaffolding, and his bid was the lowest of all the others. We were sold! Then it was on to choosing paint colors, which was another story in itself.

We knew we wanted a monochromatic theme, as it was already in a monochromatic pink palette. As we soon realized, we were going to need some help. We called on a color specialist who guided us through the process of selecting the color we like and one that complements the house.

The following pictures served as inspiration as we explored what green can look like on a Victorian style house:

This one is beautiful with the pretty white trim against the green. We liked it, but we did want a little more colors than just two. It was a start.

I love this one, it has some browns in it and looks great for a city setting, but we weren't sure if it would be right for our neighborhood. Still, it was another idea.

Wow! Now I want a horse and carriage too!

After a lot of hemming and hawing and hand wringing and playing on the Sherwin-Williams try-a-color web feature, and with lots of help and encouragement from our color lady, we finally decided on these Sherwin-Williams colors: Connected Gray for the eaves and door trim; Svelte Sage for the body; Ancient Marble for the second floor body color; and Panda White for the window trim.

I have to say, that even though we had spent hours and days and weeks and months thinking about color and looking at colors, when the day finally arrived it was slightly scary. When they were taping off all the windows I felt more than a little anxious. I couldn't believe it was happening so fast. Then the painters started spraying on the main color and when I could finally come outside to take a peek it looked amazing! Each day it looked better and better.

After about a month, it was all finished.

We are so happy with the result, and get lots of compliments on the new color.

So without further adieu, (drum roll please)

After:

Prettier in Green

(This is a shot before the porch was painted)


click for larger view

Ta Da! I hope you liked our Makeover! Thanks for stopping by! Thanks Boo Mama for hosting this, it is so much fun visiting everyone's projects. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think there's a closet that needs some work......

You Don't Jump to Conclusions, You Draw Them

Yesterday, my ten year old casually asks me what the word "conclusion" meant. I was in another room and not looking at what he was working on, so I told him the definition of conclusion would be the end of something.

It turns out he was doing a math problem. This is the question:

"If Jose worked 5 hours and made $31.25, and Annie worked 6 hours and made $37.50, and Tina worked 9 hours and made $56.25, what conclusion can you draw from that information?"

Here is his answer:

They would be TIRED, of course!

Funny Fall Fotos

Foraging

Farmer impression

Field of Corn

Mindless Monday Question Time

Here's me on Monday morning:

Today's Question:

Why can I never find the one thing I'm looking for?

It doesn't matter what it is, I can't find it! I go on a hunt for an important paper-- say, a receipt that is vital for reimbursement, only it is nowhere. I can find plenty of other things while I'm looking for that one thing, but not that one thing. My dad always says it will be in the last place I look. Now that's a lot of help!

Company's Coming!

If you're like me, then you probably use your formal dining room as a space to dump all the extra stuff. My dining room table almost always has an array of things on it, such as: stacks of paperwork needing to be filed; magazines; craft projects in varying stages of completion; toys; clothes needing to be mended; books from the library that need to be returned and other such things that should have somewhere to go other than my table.

But today everything needs to be relocated because we have company coming for dinner tonight. This is where my creative housekeeping comes in handy. I scoop up this potpourri of things that all somehow ended up sharing the same space and toss them all in my craft room in the basement and shut the door. That's handy, isn't it?

Now that the table is cleared off, time for me to think about the food preparation. Our guests are bringing the main course so that leaves me in charge of the appetizers, salad and dessert. (I always remember the word "dessert" has two "s's" because you want a second helping! Did you learn it that way, too?)

At the supermarket, I saw a tray of cheeses cut in cubes for $11.98. Not bad if you really don't have the time, but I do, so I bought three different varieties in the 2lb. size for about the same amount, and we'll have lots of cheese left over. I am going to make a cheese tray with crackers and those cute little mini bread thingies. Oh Martha Stewart I am not! But I try.

The salad will be a simple greens with cucumber and tomatoes (on the side, just in case!)

The dessert was easy. The frozen case at the bakery had a caramel turtle pie ice cream cake.

I was thinking: If it weren't for sporadic company, my dining room might look like one of those rooms you see on Clean Sweep. Not only do we get enjoy a nice meal with friends, but they keep me from the humiliation of clutter gone bad!

Oh, and you were wondering about the picture at the top of this post? I was looking on my hard drive for a before/after of our dining room. We painted it recently but since I couldn't find that picture, I thought this one of my Princess and her bunny was cute. It really has nothing to do with this post!

I'll be a Millionaire as soon as the mail comes!

Catchy title, isn't it ;-)

Now that I'm a stay at home mom with all the kids in school, I get to have the TV tuned on the shows I want to watch during the day. This is what happened today.

So, I'm doing the dishes and watching this infomercial about how to make millions off the internet! It's so easy! Just send $39.95 to this guy who is probably a carnival worker and I can learn the secrets of making money so fast I won't know how to spend it! It worked for Billy Joe Bob who claimed he was taking a cruise while his website brought home the bacon. He made $432,000 in one week! Just three clicks, as easy as sending an email and my web business will be raking in the dough. With a forklift, apparently. Sound too good to be true? I thought so too. But those testimonials, they are so riveting, and almost believable. I was truly on the edge of my seat. In the end, I didn't order because I would rather just have a blog that's more altruistic but poor (just kidding!) But I totally believed everything they said (not!)

But then, when I thought it couldn't get any better, I watched another infomercial (Lucy, turn off the TV!) This was a P90X, which promises that in 90 days I will have seriously ripped abs without surgery! Of course, it only comes with a 30 day money back guarantee, but I bet all those people who bought a system overlooked that little fact. I was tempted but I resisted. If I had washboard abs and the perfect Hollywood body they promised, I would be the envy of all the soccer moms and be shunned from the inner circle of the coach purse acrylic nail tips club. I can't risk that.

Didn't P.T. Barnum say, "There's a sucker born every minute."

I will addend that with "and they're all watching infomercials believing every word you say."

I'm checking out that Arizona ocean front property time share development thing tomorrow. They say if I get in on the ground floor, that I could be the next Donald Trump. wow!

Can you blame the extra weight on the baby.....

when she's five years old? I think I need to lose that "baby weight!"