Tuesday, January 22, 2008

A lost treasure found.

A while back The Gremlin Wrangler posted about going thru some of her childhood things stored away in her shed. It brought memories of two of my favorite doll from childhood. Adoption dolls. Remember those? I had two. One was all the way from Xavier Roberts in Atlanta, birth certificate and all and the other was made by my mom's boss' mom, did you follow that? LOL! Well, thru the years, and there have been many, I had misplaced those dolls and Carrie's posts brought back thoughts of where they might be. Well, not to be all spiritual or anything, but God loves to delight in His children and not even 2 weeks later I get a call from my cousin, Cari, who now lives in my grandparents house. I had lived there from the age of 15 until I was married, with a few semesters here and there away at college. She was trying to clean out the garage and came across a box of stuffed animals. She saw a doll on top and knew it must be mine. I am now reunited with my beloved Amber Lynn and Shannon Marie.

Here are Amber Lynn(dark blonde/green eyes, adopted from Babyland) and Shannon Marie (Light blonde/blue eyes, Handmade with love by Mrs. Zaire)



Aren't they beautiful? Did anyone else have one of these, back before Cabbage Patch Kids were all the rage and mass produced? I think we'll have to get them some new clothes. And, another blessing, one for each girl!

You can't mop a dirty floor!

Yesterday after taking down all the Christmas decorations, dh and I vacuumed and mopped. We put the swiffer in the dining room, to await vacuuming of dog hair before mopping and went into the boys' room to begin the big cleanup in there (moving furniture and getting rid of stuff ) So I come out of the boys room and see the floor wet and the swiffer moved. Emma loves to play with the Swiffer, so she had started mopping the dining room. I yell out, "You can't MOP a dirty floor." and take the swiffer, then I crack up. Um, I guess waiting to mop a clean floor saves me on housework,

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Interested in a bed and breakfast in NW Arkansas? I've got a place

This is my Dad and Stepmom's Bed and Breakfast in Bentonville, Arkansas. It's a gorgeous home that has been remodeled and updated. I'm hoping to get up there next month to see it for myself. But for all of ya'll in the Midwest interested in a getaway, check it out.

The A Street Guesthouse

Let me know if you are interested!

Friday, January 18, 2008

What I did today...

FTR, I will not post "before" pics. I'm so embarrassed at the state of our back room, sigh...It really is horrible. So today I began...the art cabinet was the first to be attacked. We had moved it recently and taken all of the STUFF normally stored in there and put it a rubbermaid bin. So it needed to be sorted and organized and replaced in the cabinet. Here are the results after culling out a number of old, yucky things that we no longer needed/could use. I love throwing stuff away Wakka Wakka



See the blue bin and all the crayons... here's a closer look:


Aren't all those crayons lovely? The bin now only carries whole, good quality crayons. No more minuscule pieces. No more "Denny's" crayons brought home from Kids Eat Free night. No more "Quick, buy the kids something to keep them busy at the dollar store" crayons. Trampoline I love crayons, the smell of new crayons brings joy to my heart. This bin, before, not so much. The thoughts of dismay that went thru my mind each time one of my dd's would drag the crayon bin out would overtake any other thoughts occupying my mind. How would they ever find the color they were looking forward? Where exactly would I find all the rejected broken pieces of crayon afterwards? So, I took on the Crayon Bin and what you see above is the beautiful results. I'm So Proud


And the leftovers? Here they are:



What should I do with these? I'm sure there is some crafty mom at there who can tell me what to do with them. Please do share!!!

Thursday, January 10, 2008

The Never-ending Homeschool Day...

My dc are perfect, really they are, they must be. We homeschool, you know. Okay, they're not. And today was proof. We started out late because I slept in. Ha, who am I kidding, I sleep in most days, today was actually earlier than many, 9am. We are all night owls here. So, I got everyone up and moving around and getting dressed and eating and doing their chores, etc... And around noon we started. And by "we started" I mean the attitudes came out and the fidgeting began and the "I'm not the parent but I'm gonna tell you what to do anyway" started and the interrupting the person reading to tell mom about something that had nothing to do with lesson and the kicking brother/sister/cousin/dog under the table and the poking and the making faces. ARGH!!!!! This is what happens when you take a month off... We've only done school one other day this week so far, so Saturday and Sunday might be school days (In between the football games!


After a while, a looooong while, everyone finally took me seriously and we finally finished up (well, as much as I had the energy to do) around 6pm. That's really only 6ish hours but it was all the drama. I hate Drama!!!! So now I wonder if there is some netflix movie dh has been holding out