Projects

Projects, projects, projects......I have quite a few projects that need to be done around our house and today I started on two of them for the kids.

Repurpose and reuse...a theory of my mothers that I also live by.

My first project I am tackling is Lauren's old toddler bed. This is a bed I am quite fond of since I came up with the design and most of the measurements and my Dad and I made it for Lauren. Now it is almost time for Austin to be ready for a big boy bed so I am going to convert it from a cute girl bed to a boy bed.

Here is the bed as it looked like for Lauren. My mom painted the cute little flowers along the side and the heart wreath at the end.

Here is a view of the side.

The hard part is going to be getting this bed ready to repaint. When you do a project you never think...how hard will this be to redo when I am tired of it. When I originally painted this I sealed it with a wax with a stain in it. You can't just paint over wax so now I get the fun job of stripping the wax off. Hopefully not to hard.....

Here I have brushed the stripper on and now I have to wait for it to work. It is starting to bubble already.

So while I wait I will start on the next project, a bookcase for Lauren's room. Once again repurpose, repaint and reuse. The funny thing is..this was actually my bookcase when I lived at home. Now if you know my Mom this is not a strange thing to have furniture I left behind. The strange thing.....it is the same color as when I left it..that is almost unheard of in her house. If you leave it she's going to make it into something else, repaint it, not leave it the same.

Speaking of my mom and making things, check out her etsy site Cowgurls Blessing she has really cute stuff for sale that she has made.

Here is the bookcase I am painting for Lauren, is is starting out blue denim. That WILL NOT match Lauren's pink and green room so I am going to put KILZ on this so I can start over.

Okay, all grey with Kilz.....now it needs to dry so I can figure out what color I am going to paint it and what to do with it next.

Time to go back to the bed...the stripper seems to work pretty well...I think I will try to put it on a little thicker on the other side.

No more flowers.....

So after the stripper I ran the sander over it and I think it's going to be ready to repaint. So now I just have to finish the other side and the headboard and figure out what I'm going to paint on it.....I have Mom helping with that part.

I'll keep you posted on how I'm coming with these.

Lauren's 7!!

February 4th.......what a special day for me, the day Lauren was born. I can't believe she's 7 though. It seems like just yesterday..........(it's such a mom comment) so many memories of her firsts.. when she finally decided to walk, or things she did.. catching stars (like Dora did and singing "We did it"), or comments she made..her head say yes.
My sweet little girl is growing into such a lovely young lady.

And now such a wonderful big sister, also. We decided to take some new pictures of her and Austin today to help remember her day but Austin was not so cooperative.
Here he dedcided he should swing his feet.

Lauren's trying so hard to just hold on to him so they can have a cute picture together.

Then she wanted him to sit on her lap. He was not about looking at me and smile, we had quite a fun time trying though. Lauren just smiled right along.

Lauren was kissing his head.

They have so much fun together. Austin knocked them over and they were laughing.

After picture time we had dinner and then it was party time with Austin & Daddy & I.

We got her a little cake and daddy lit the candles. (Don't drop it!!)

We sang her Happy Birthday!! ("That is such a cute little cake with PINK icing" she said)

Make a wish!!

Blow out the candles!!

It's good cake.

Austin thought so ,too.

Present time.

Oh, WOW!!

It's an i pod speaker system. Now she can listen to all her music from her i pod in her room.

Happy Birthday sweet girl!!!

She's getting way to grown up.........she'll always be our little girl though.

Seven years of memories, seven years of love. The time seems to have gone so quick. Everyone says they grow up so quick and it is so true. She is such a joy and bundle of fun....and now we start a new year of memories. Love you Lauren!!!

Walking update

So I thought I would let you all see how Austin is doing with his walking. He is still not walking all the time as you can see in the first video but he is walking much longer distances. He loves to walk around the living room now. He walks along the couches and then into the kitchen then he comes from the kitchen across the living room to the couch. Today he walked all the way down the hall with out touching a wall. He is so funny because he gets so proud of himself when he walks somewhere.

So here are two videos from today of him walking. The first one he cheats and crawls some but then he walks. The second one he walks across the room while talking or singing (whichever he is doing) as he comes to get his football from Lauren.

It won't be long and he will be walking all the time. It is so fun to see how good he is getting and how he reacts when he realizes his new freedom.

Growing up so fast

Dinner at our house is always changing now with Austin. Trying new foods, new tastes and new ways of eating. He has been eating more finger foods for a while now but he has still wanted me to feed them to him. When I would put food on his tray for him to feed himself he would play with it and smash it then look at me to give him a bite.

Last night we had pork chops and I decided to give him some to see if he liked them, he LOVES them. Once again it was it bite size pieces for him to feed himself. Along with pork chops he had carrots and green beans to feed himself. He has trouble picking up the vegetables because they are a little slippery. So last night I decided to see what he would do if I gave him a fork to help. I put a bite on and feed him the first couple bites off the fork to show him how it works. Then I handed him the fork.

At first he wasn't sure about it. I would give him the fork with something on it and he would pull it off and put the bite in his mouth. Not quite what you do with a fork but hey. He did think this was fun though and he was feeding himself (without having to chase the carrot or green bean around his tray).

So I continued to give him bites like this for the rest of the meal. He would take it off and eat it and I would have to convience him to give me the fork for another bite (he really liked the fork).

He was really enjoying his meal.

As the meal went along we kept showing him to put the fork in his mouth as we ate. About half way through he took his first bite off the fork himself.


He did a really good job.

He was very proud of himself (and so were we).
Yah!!! (He is clapping with his fork here).

After that was when he realized if he gave me the fork back he got more.

More Mama.

So we have taken another big step in growing up. He is doing all of this so fast. My baby is not going to stay a baby. I know this, look at Lauren almost 7 and so grown up for her age, but somehow I was hoping he would be a little more baby. I know, wishful thinking. I love this journey of watching him grow up and learn and it's so much fun to see Lauren watch this and help him with it. She is such a wonderful big sister. I am so blessed by both of them. I love being a mom!!!

Dinner at Babe's Chicken

Babe's Chicken....I don't know if you have ever been there or heard of it but we had our second experience there tonight. We went to the one with Mike's family in Sanger. It is a home cookin, family style restaurant. While you are eating the waitresses walk around and sing country songs, you order and they just bring out the sides in bowls to share and all the food comes out family style (on one plate, just grab yours off and eat). It is a pretty simple restaurant...fried chicken, chicken fried steak, chicken tenders, pot roast or catfish (I think those are all the choices) green beans, creamed corn and mashed potatoes are your sides. If you haven't been you should try it out, lots of fun with a big group.
On the wall there are all kinds of funny sayings and signs. We kept looking at this one and trying to figure out what the top one says. At the end of the meal Mike and Terry were looking at it and she finally said it (She speak's Lake Livingston language though - east Texas) See if you can get it (I'll tell you later what it says, try to get it before you look at the answer).
The other two signs are pretty funny, also.
"Don't try to drown your sorrows, if she can swim"
"My cow just died, so I don't need you bull"

As we waited for our table Austin played cowboy and rode the horse.

Here is the family at the table (L-R Aunt Terry, part of Carol, Gary - Mike's mom & dad, Tim & Ginny and the side of Lauren)

Here is Mike and Lauren waiting for dinner to come.

Austin was not sure what to think about everything going on.

Here is Terry and Carol and Gary and Tim waiting for dinner

Lauren (with her newest missing tooth hole in her mouth) is playing with Uncle Greg's hat.

While we waited they played the hokey pokey and Lauren got up and did it with all the other kids. She wasn't to sure about it at first then she got into it.

Once dinner was over Uncle Greg got a chocolate pie to share with Lauren (He loves to spoil the little ones when he's here, what can you do? Gotta love him!!)

As you can see from Lauren's face it was good. Seeing as how my children love Uncle Greg, he had "Saved" Austin from his highchair so he to got to benefit from the spoiling.

He has his spoon with chocolate and topping on it and topping on his face.

"I wasn't eating that pie Mama"

"This is so GOOD!!!" Thanks Uncle Greg!!

So after an enjoyable dinner (and dessert for some) it was time to go home. On the way home my thoughts were of Austin eating chocolate pie and sleeping. Luck for Uncle Greg it didn't keep him up, he his sleeping soundly in his bed. We will have another family dinner tomorrow night, what next?

The sign you ask, what does it say? Did you try? What did you get? Go back and try one more time, wait, I'll make it easier

HAWSHAMOMINNIM?

So the sign says..... (I'll spell it out) How's your mom and them? Now go back and read it fast....that is what it says. Did you get it? Must be an East Texas thing.....Ha Ha Ha!!!

As we were leaving there was a sign at the door that I liked, with full hands I couldn't get a picture but it said

"I know God doesn't give me more than I can handle, I just wish he didn't trust me so much."

Sometimes when everything hits at the same time isn't that the truth.

Santa

I'm sure you saw the title of this and are wondering why in the middle of January am I writing about Santa. Well, as I said in a few posts before I did not do good at blogging through Christmas so I am still catching up. I thought about skipping to now but I love some of these pictures and I want to share them so I will just double blog (I'll do a Christmas one and one from now).



So when we went to see Santa this year it was quite an adventure, we ended up at the new shopping center in Allen. This was not the plan for the day but after two failed attempts it was the best Santa experience we have had. We went to Mike's work that morning for breakfast with Santa (9-12). We got there at 10 and passed Santa in the hall (thought he was going on a break) after we had our breakfast and did the craft they had out we asked when Santa was coming back. We were then told he was done for the day. Lauren was not happy. So we decided to go to the mall and see Santa. Mike wanted to go to Northpark to see that Santa (I told him that Santa is hard to get into see but we went anyways). When we got there aroung 11:30am we were told if we got a ticket now we could come back around 6:30 pm. We were not waiting for that so on to the next plan...with Lauren getting upset again I suggested Allen. We had seen a sign at the begining of November that they would have a Santa and his reindeer would be there. Lauren asked lots of questions about Santa last year and why there were different Santa's. We told her Santa is really busy this time of year so he has helpers that wear a suit like his and help him see all the kids (not to off). Well this year she wanted to know why Santa's reindeer are never here. So the Allen shopping center gave us one more year of her believing.



They really had two reindeer there. So we not only got to see Santa but reindeer. They were so neat to see so close. Lauren said this must be ther really special helper Santa because he got to use the reindeer (she really wanted to see Rouldoph though).







There wasn't really a good spot to get the reindeer and the kids in a picture so it just looks like the kids have antlers. (I think the wind was blowing about 30 mph this day)





I could not get both of them to look at me and smile at the same time but this was such a cute picture with Lauren smiling and Austin's sweet face. He looks like he is just loving Lauren.

This on'e pretty good.

Here's some pictures of the reindeer...

And then we stood in line for Santa...

There actually weren't many people at all. We didn't know if it was because this was the first year there or if it was because of the crazy wind. Either way we were glad the line was short.

Lauren was readdy to tell Santa what she wanted (and she was going to tell him what Austin wanted since he couldn't talk).

It's our turn..........Austin was not a fan of Santa. AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!

Lauren had a good chat though.

The experience was great. The girl taking the picture did a wonderful job. With our camera we got about 4 pictures of Austin crying, the one she got he looks like he could be smiling. Good job picture girl.

So this was Austin's first Santa picture and one more year Lauren still believes. Some people may think that is wrong but there are so few things kids can look foward to and it makes her so happy. She is a very smart girl and I think in some ways she knows he is not real but why spoil the joy. She knows what Christmas is really about and why we really celebrate Christmas. I think as long as that is first and foremost Santa is okay.

Big steps

Children.....isn't it amazing how fast they grow and change. One day you have this brand new cute sweet baby that doesn't know how to do anything and within a matter of months they learn so much. They learn to sit, stand, babble, talk, clap, pick things up and so much more. Within years they are reading writing and an expert on everything. Our house has lots of all of this going on.

Austin is now 10 1/2 months old so everyday it seems like he is doing something new and everyday is a new adventure. He has new sounds, faces and realizations each day. So during the day it is baby play time, playing singing and being silly.

Then there is Lauren, almost 7 and such a little lady, coming home from school talking about math and science and getting ready to go on a field trip to see the King Tut exhibt. After school Lauren plays with Austin some and plays with her stuff some. She goes back and forth with wanting to be a big girl and playing little people with Austin. Being 6 years apart they are in such different places.

I myself am 6 years older than my next sister so I know how this can be. There was 6 years between my sister Emily and I and 8 between Stephanie and I. Growing up I did not always think this was so much fun, although I did get my own room and my own stuff the younger two were very close and always had someone to play with. I always said when I had kids they would only be a few years apart so they to would be playmates. God apparently had other plans. Now that I have two 6 years apart I so love them being so far apart because I can enjoy Austin during the day while Lauren is at school and Lauren is so much fun to watch with her little brother. She and I can sit and enjoy each others company while Austin naps also. (I'm sure my Mom is reading this just smirking away).

Well, today was a big day in our house in our two different worlds. We had Austin decide to try to walk to me and Lauren got her second report card.

Today I was in Austin's room and we were playing and he turned aroung and walked towards me. It was so exciting to see him go. When Lauren came home we got the camera and while I had her tape I tried to get Austin to re-create his steps. Here are two of the attempts. He is well on his way to walking VERY soon. He loves to clap and sing and you can see this in the first video. He is so proud of his little people he is clapping for them. He did better at walking in the second video. He seems to know he is doing something good and starts to get excited while walking and forgets to move his feet. He is so funny

Our next big event, Lauren's report card. She wore this new outfit this morning and we took a picture of how cute she looked so now it captures the day. She got straight A's again! (Did we think anything different?)
English 99
Reading 100
Math 97 - she is not to happy about this because she had a 98 last nine weeks
Science 100
Social Studies 100
Science and social studies are both up from last nine weeks.
We are so proud of her!!!!!!

I know this is not the last of our big days in our house but it is one of your biggest so far. It is so much fun to watch both of them grow and change and learn everyday. I am so thankful for both of them.