A quick update...

Okay, so my computer is in need of a new motherboard and thanks to a techie friend, I can get it up and running for a fraction of what the computer place was going to charge me. Now I just need to order a new motherboard. So tonight I am borrowing my cousins laptop to do a little update.
I mentioned before that the girls and I made puppets from gourds. Everyone was a bit snippy that day and I felt like a little project would soothe the savage beasts. I really made this up as we went along, but they turned out pretty good. The large part of the gourd is the puppets head and we hot glued fabric to the smaller part to make the body.

Also, I haven't had the confidence to tackle the fabric playhouse I'd planned to make for the big girls, so I made them a tepee (or tipi or teepee, maybe?). Some one hacked down a TON of bamboo and left it at the curb (and everyone knows that I am a sucker for usable goods left at the curb) so of course I loaded up the back of my mini van. I used the sheets that I bought back in the winter for the fabric playhouse and let the kids go to town decorating it with sharpies. The tepee was really simple to put together and I love looking out of my kitchen window and seeing in the far corner of the backyard. Bijou, Zion and I sat out in it this morning with Popsicles and library books (generally not a good combo, but no books were harmed). It was great until a HUGE daddy long legs ran Bijou off. Eh well...

On a side note, I got some comments from a couple of new people and I wanted to say thanks for stopping by. I always love comments, but typing responses on the Wii....ugh!

Booooooo...

Ugh...I am still without my computer! But I will have lots of fun stuff to share when I get it back. The girls and I made puppets from gourds (which turned out really cute), I'm planning a Caribbean inspired party (for the grown ups this time) and we will be putting together some interest based work boxes for the girls to take on our upcoming road trip. I'm really looking forward to being able to share...soon.

An Unplanned Blog Vacation

So, my computer is sick and has been hospitalized. But thanks to our newly purchased Wii I am not completely without internet access. Unfortunately, my keyboard is not a USB so I have to use the controller and the on screen keyboard. This took me 15 minutes to type! But never fear friends! As soon as my computer is back in good health, I will be back to my regularly scheduled blogging! (20 minutes...sheesh!)

Mini Farmers

I finally got around to making boxes for the kids to put their plant in. I've had scrap wood laying around the garage forever, so I just took it to Home Depot and got the pieces cut down evenly. A few weeks ago I came across a very cool little project to make garden markers from old spoons. Of course I can't remember what blog it was from, but they had great letters to stamp into the metal. i don't have those, but I do have a sort of metal punching tool. I bought some old spoons (and a couple of butter knives) at a garage sale on Saturday for a quarter. I wrote the names of the plants on each spoon and used the punch to go over the letters (making a dotted line of sorts). So now the girls have their very own little plot of land to take care of. Jena feels like the plants are her babies, so if no one else takes care of them, Jena will.

This picture is really just to show off Ashni's fabulous outfit. She has her own style!

Parsley, basil and rosemary.

Zion is in charge of picking all of the flowers from the plants when no one is looking.

Cardboard Playhouse: Day 2

I added some fun details to the playhouse today. I decided against making curtains because I want to make sure enough light gets inside, but I did use some tulle to make a screen on one window. I was going to screen the openings at the top, but it just didn't look nice (so we will have to just deal with the bugs). I will, more than likely, make a little mail box over the weekend to put next to the front door. So, here's the playhouse at 99% finished (and the cutest residents EVER).

The lovely red door for good luck!

My fairly crappy version of some cherry blossoms on a tree. It's not that I can't make cherry blossoms, but I had an impatient toddler helping out. So they just became random blossoms on a naked tree.

I wanted to add something fun to one side of the house. It is a little minimalist without the bakery and post office. I personally enjoy a little minimalism but...

...look how cute it is when there's a little postal employee hanging out the window!

And how could anyone pass up the sweetest thing I've ever seen in any bakery EVER!?

Cardboard Playhouse

I feel like I haven't made anything for a long time. Maybe I just needed a break from the constant mess that seems to follow me when I make things. Whatever the reason, I felt the need to make something today. It just felt like a project kind of day. We started the morning with the girls bedazzling a couple of pairs of jeans. When I was a kid, I used to LOVE to cut daisies from fabric and sew them to my jeans. So, it was like life came full circle today watching my girls embellish their first pair of jeans. After they were sufficiently fancified, they headed out to transfer some of their plant into real pots and I sat down to design a little playhouse for Zion.


(I still haven't made the fabric playhouse for the big girls, but I feel like my sewing machine and I have such an on again, off again relationship that we are not ready to take on a large task together. Maybe we should consider counseling.) I make a lot of different things for the older girls, but haven't really had the chance to make anything special for Zion. My plan was to make a small playhouse for her that was just big enough for her (to keep her older sisters from taking over). Thanks to our local Sears appliance store, I acquired 5 very large, very sturdy pieces of cardboard. They were about an inch thick had a honeycomb type core, which makes them VERY sturdy.


I like the way it turned out and Zion LOVES it. It is definitely bigger than I originally anticipated, so technically, the bigger girls can play in it (but I think I will make it three years old and under area). The plan is to be able to move it from the garage, to the backyard or front yard depending on where the rest of us are. It weighs almost nothing, so it's very easy to move. I will keep a blanket to spread beneath it in the grass (to prevent the backyard itchies). I will add some details to the outside of the house, attach the front door and probably make some curtains.




I made just some simple line drawings on the inside for the different rooms of the house. I may do something a little more detailed later on, but this works for now.

The Golden Compass

My big girls are in love with all things related to The Golden Compass. We've listened to the entire Dark Materials trilogy and they've just discovered that there's a movie. Thanks to Netflix, we've watched the movie several times over the past few days. I have to say, without some very pertinent information that you get in the book, the movie was rather confusing. So much so, that I didn't even remember that I saw the movie when it first came out on DVD a couple of years ago. I didn't get it at all then. It's a much better movie once you've read the book and can fill in the gaps.
Jena was devastated to find out that there isn't a movie for the Subtle Knife or the Amber Spy Glass. She's decided that she wants to make those movies. I wonder where she plans to find armored bears in Mississippi...

We took a little Golden Compass quiz (which the girls were very excited about). They did a good job. I will have to come up with a quiz for the other two books. These kids love taking quizzes (I'm not sure where they got that gene from).