5QF

Has it really been a week already?  I guess it's that time again.

1. Did you have a favorite blanket or toy as a kid? If so, do you still have it?

I probably have to check with my parents on this one.  I remember one Christmas where I got a pair of roller skates and was the happiest kid on the planet.  I used to go roller skating every weekend.  Yes, I spent 10 years of my childhood trapped in the 80's.  On a side note, my neice still has a receiving blanket she got as a baby!  She spent 2 weeks here recently and brought it with her.  She sleeps with it every night.  She's 12.  This poor blanket has holes in it and is as thin as it gets.  I hope she never gets rid of it!!


2. Do you dream in color?

I think I dream in black and white.  At least when I wake up and can remember my dreams, it never crosses my mind that "Wow!  Those colors were so vivid!" or anything.


3. How tall are you? Do you wish you were shorter or taller?

I am 5"4".  Sometimes I wish I was a little bit taller.  Maybe by 2 or 3 inches.  I don't wear heels at all, so I am stuck at my height.  My kids are starting to creep up to my height, so one of these days I might just rethink the heel wearing situation!!


4. If you could have anyone's (celeb or other) voice as the guide on your GPS, who would it be?

Sean Connery.  I love his accent.  However, we have a Tom Tom and I recently found out that I can download Homer Simpson's voice!!  Can you just imagine taking a wrong turn?  "D'oh!"


5. Do you return your shopping cart to the corral or leave it wherever in the parking lot?

I always return it to the corral.  I know, live on the wild side, right?  I would just feel terrible if I caused damage to someone's car because I was lazy.  I even return it in the pouring rain.

Fall gift exchange!!

  
I am so going to do this!  I am already thinking about what to give.  Fall is probably my favorite time of year.  The air is nice and cool.  I start putting using my fall decorations and putting a fire in the fireplace.  I absolutely LOVE fall!!  Won't you join in?

Fun in the Sun

Lately it has been so hot.  Not just the usual Georgia heat either.  We've had heat advisories and everything.  It is so uncomfortable.  We have a pool in our backyard, although as a general rule, I don't go in it.  Something about not wanting to scar my kids by seeing me in a bathing suit and all that.  Anyhow, this past week, I have been in the pool.  Every.  Single.  Day.   My kids love it when I am swimming with them.  All I hear is "Look at me!"  or "Watch me!"  You'd think that I didn't spend any time with them at all the way they all clamor for attention.  My youngest doesn't know how to swim yet and will only go in the pool with her Safety Seal AND an inner tube.  Well, the other day, she got very brave and decided to do without the inner tube.  She's having a great time splashing around, especially now that she realizes she can touch the bottom!  We have a sport pool, so it's only 4 feet at it's deepest, which is in the middle.  Either side is only 3 feet.  At first I didn't like it, but now I think it's great!  So much better than having a deep end.  You really can't do anything there.  This way, we can play volleyball and all sorts of things.  Anyhow, Maeve is feeling pretty good about going right in the pool.  Me?  I'm a nervous wreck!  I follow her all over the place now.  I think I liked it better when she was much more cautious.   I did get a few pictures of all the kids having some pool fun.  I did manage to get in some pictures as well!  I won't show you those.  You're welcome.

Please ignore the open skimmer.  My children like to look inside and see if anything is dead in there.  I'm not sure why this is fascinating to them, I think it's strange.  Anyhow, today we went to the movies.  On Tuesdays at 10am, you can go to the movies for $1.  The drinks and popcorn are also $1, so it's a pretty cheap way to spend the morning.  They were showing Alvin & the Chipmunks.  I had never seen it before and it was kinda cute.  Next week is the Squealquel.  **On a side note**  Parents:  just because the movies are cheap, does not mean you should let your kids talk through the whole thing!  Or kick the chair in front of them, or pull hair, or throw popcorn!   Some parents really should not be allowed to reproduce at all.   Hopefully tomorrow will be better,  I am thinking of taking the kids to see Shrek Happily Ever After.  Maybe.  We might just spend the whole day in the pool instead.  Summer is going by way to fast around here.  Can you believe that school starts in just 2 weeks!!

5 Question Friday

I know I'm a day late, but I'm linking up anyways!

1. What were your school colors?


In high school, my colors were blue and silver (Go Silverhawks!)
I never finished college, so no colors to report there.  Someday I WILL go back, much to the shock of my kids.


2. What's the best compliment you ever received?

The best compliment any mom could receive, other than "Did you lose weight?" would be that I have some really great kids.   That's always nice to hear.  Even though they all have minds of their own, I like to take some credit for how they are doing.

3. Do you buy cheap or expensive toilet paper?

Cheap toilet paper?!?  No way.  Not for me.  I don't want to feel sandpaper on my tush.  I love soft T.P.  My bum deserves no less!


4. Have you ever had a surprise party thrown for you? Or have you had one for someone else?

I've had a surprise baby shower thrown for me.  We lived in Mississippi at the time and my family lives in Florida and Massachusetts.  My mom couldn't make it, but surprised me at Diana's house with a phone call!  It was a pajama shower, so everyone was nice and comfy.  It was so sweet and a lot of fun!! 

On the flip side, I've never planned a surprise party for anyone.  I think it would be really cool!

5. What is one material possession that you "can't live without"?

This is an easy one!  Since I don't have a phone or a car, and I'm doing just fine that way thankyouverymuch, I would have to say my washing machine.  I am no Pollyanna and have NO DESIRE to start slapping my clothes against any rocks to get them cleaned.  Either that, or my microwave, but I think I could do without that also.

Painting Declan's room

For several weeks I've been promising Declan that his room would be the next one to get painted.  Well, I finally got around to doing it!  Choosing paint colors are not easy when you let a 7 year old help decide.  I didn't want to paint the room in all one color, either.  I wanted something different.  I wanted 3 different colors.  Declan picked out several that he liked.  In the end Joe and I decided to go with the blue and red that he wanted, but chose something else for the third color.  He picked out a dark brown, whereas we went with a lighter shade.  After getting all the prep work out of the way, which was a HUGE pain thanks to all the damage that had been done, we were ready to paint!  Since Declan wanted to help, I let him use the roller.

The easy part was painting the two main colors.

 

The hardest part was coming up with this.

Declan LOVES this, so it was all worth it in the end.  Of course, now Maeve wants her room painted.  Pink.

Girls Day Out

On Saturday, I took my daugher, Aislinn, out for the day.  Just the two of us.  We had a nice time.  A few weeks ago, when Joe took the rest of the gang to Florida, Aislinn stayed behind with me.  My plan was to get a bunch of house cleaning and yardwork done.  Especially since I was going to be without a car.  My parents ended up coming up for a vist that week, so they helped me in the yard.  My mom likes to do yardwork.  She loves to plant flowers, etc.  Me, I didn't get that gene.  I kill plants.  See.  It's sad, really.

I don't do it on purpose.  As a matter of fact, I think I kill them with kindness.  And overwatering.  At least that's my story.  Anyhow, Aislinn did a lot of yardwork, too.  I'm sure she was wishing she went to Florida after all.  Anyhow, I decided to do something nice for her.  So, Saturday I took her to get her first pedicure and manicure!!  Her toes look so cute!!

I love the polka dots.  The polish is hot pink.  It almost makes me wish I were a 12 year old girl.   After the salon, we went over to the movie theater and saw Eclipse!!

Hmm?  Oh, sorry.  I was looking at the picture and lost my train of thought.  Ahem.  She hadn't seen it yet.  Me?  I've seen it twice.   I think it's the best one, so far.  Once the movie was done, we went shopping. I had a gift certificate for Macy's that I got for my birthday last month.  I turned 40.  (Hey, I can say that without hyperventilating now!!)  Anyhow, they happened to be having a one-day sale and I scored 2 outfits for $80 off!  Gotta love a sale :)  On our way home, we stopped at a Chinese restaurant and got take-out for dinner.  Cause who wants to cook after a day like this, that's what I'd like to know? 

how I spent my weekend

Since I was feeling much better, on Friday night I decided to go to the local scrapbook shop and get crafty.  I used to go to the scrapbook shop all the time, but then gave it up for a while so that I could work on other craft projects.  But, I've missed hanging out with the ladies there, so even though I didn't work on scrapbook pages, I brought my other projects to work on.  At the end of the school year last year, I made altered clipboards for a few of the kids' teachers.  Well, I bought 5 more to make!  I really love how they turned out.  I ended up using chalkboard paint of about 2/3 of it, and then paper and embellishments for the rest.  Love them!!

After I was done making my clipboards, I went to work on 2 small burlap wreaths.  I made a large one a few months ago for the outside of my house for St. Patrick's Day.  Anyhow, I bought a couple of these wreaths a while back to put in my foyer, but for the most part, all the supplies have just been staring  me in the face.  Finally I got to work.  I bought the fabric to match my foyer, which I painted a really pretty brown last fall.  These are pretty simple to make.  First, I cut the black burlap into 2" strips and hot glued them onto the foam wreath.  Try not to burn your fingers!  (I left quite a bit of skin and glue on the store's tables!)  Then I used my cricket to cut a 2" and 3" circle to be used as a template.  I cut about 25 of each size circle in the 3 different fabrics.  Glue the smaller circle to the inside of the larger circle, then glue a button in the center.  Hot glue it to the wreath!  That's all there is to it.  If you don't want to use hot glue to stick the fabric circles together, you can use brads.   Finally, I added large ribbon so I could hang it up in my foyer.  What do you think?  I love them!!

                               

I also started an etsy shop the other day.  Sort of.  I have my name, Ladybugs and Fireflies, but haven't put anything in it yet.  I wanted to secure my shop name first.  Who knows, maybe something like these things will show up one day?  I'm still on the fence.

M. I. A.

That's been me.  Actually, I've been in my bed sick with strep throat.  Again.  I've spent the past 20+ years not getting strep, only to have it now for the second time in 6 weeks!!  What the heck is going on?  When I was about 15, I used to get it all the time.  I couldn't even walk by someone who was sick without catching it.  So, with promises of living a strep-free life, I went and had my tonsils out.  Lately, though, those promises seem to have been forgotten.  I did get a shot and a boatload of pills, so here's to keeping the fingers crossed that with the help of God and 2 policemen, I won't get it again.   I'll be back to posting when I am feeling better.  Until then, have a great day!!

Make your own Memo board / Cork board

A while back, I made Aislinn a padded headboard for her bed.  When the wood was cut down, I was left with another piece and knew that I wanted to make something else with it for her room.  So, I decided to make her a memo board.  It is super easy to make.  First I gathered up everything I needed, which was fabric (leftover from covering a small side table), stuffing, ribbon, buttons, cork, scissors, glue gun and my heavy duty staple gun (I love that thing!). 

I placed the cork down and then cut the stuffing to fit in the open spot.  If you are going to make this, do not stick the cork down yet!!  You still need room to put the fabric and stuffing down first.  Once that was done, I lay the fabric on top of the stuffing to see how much I would need. Be sure to leave yourself some extra on all sides to wrap around for a tight fit.  Then I cut it.  I know it's all wrinkled, but since I am lazy, hate to iron, I left it alone  You can iron it if you are really anal about wrinkles, but it's going to get pulled tight, so they won't show up anyway.

 Next, put a little of the fabric, so the pattern you want is upside down, on the wood and lie the stuffing on top.  Then staple all around the edge of the stuffing to keep it in place.  There should be some fabric that is stapled down, also.

Once that is down, wrap the fabric over the stuffing and staple it on the back of the wood to your hearts content.  Or until you run out of staples,  your dad takes the staple gun away from you,  it's secure.

(See, no wrinkles!!)

Then take your ribbon and place it in any design you want.  When you cut the ribbon, be sure to cut it a little bigger so it can wrap around the board.  Staple it through the fabric and into the wood where it crosses over each other.   

Then stick the cork down.  I bought mine at Wal-Mart super cheap.  All 4 pieces came in a pack for probably $2.50.  It comes with some adhesive tape, which we used, but I also added some extra adhesive as well.  Then I raided my stash of buttons and hot glued them down where all the ribbon cross each other to hide the staples! 

That's all there is to it!  I bought some small picture hanging hooks, nailed them to the back of the wood and hung this baby on the wall.  So far, so good.  She has it loaded down with postcards from her pen pal in Australia and other stuff.  And best of all, Aislinn loves it!

A visit from the cousins

For the past 2 weeks, my niece and nephew have been staying with us.  My niece, Oceon, is 12 and my nephew, Shamus, is 10.  For the most part all the kids gets along.  However, I think that 2 weeks is just a tad too long to spend together.  Oceon and Aislinn are the same age, so that's great.  Maeve is only 4, so she gets on Aislinn's nerves.  Oceon doesn't have a little sister who annoys her to no end, so according to Maeve, she is much more fun to be around.  The girls mostly got along well.  Until 2 days ago, when Aislinn kicked Oceon out of her room, and Oceon was telling Aislinn she was never coming back.  Oh my God, the drama!   Shamus is one year younger than Aidan, and a little over 2 years older than Declan.  Three boys is NOT a good number.  Especially when the youngest wants to do everything the cousin does.  Mostly because they don't see each other except for once or twice a year.  However, the cousin wants to hang out with my oldest son and do everything he does.  It's hard being the littlest and left out of everything.  Especially when the littlest is being told by idolized cousin that his "real parents didn't want him, and left him with us."  WTH?!?  Nice.  For the record, my son is not adopted.  And even if he was, that's not a nice thing to say to a child.  Did my oldest son stick up for his younger brother?  Why no, he didn't.  We are having issues with that right now.

Anyhow, things were not always like this.  Last Saturday we took all the kids to the Montgomery Zoo. 

It's so hard to get 6 kids to look at the camera at the same time, but I think it came out pretty good.  The zoo was great!  Except for the white tigers.  One of them was walking around with a small duck in it's mouth.  I thought it was dead at first, but was sadly mistaken.  When the tiger put him down and proceeded to give the duck a bath, it didn't move at all.  Then the tiger got up and walked away.  The duck seized the moment and started to run away, only to have the tiger turn and pounce on it!  There might have been some screaming from the people, OK me, watching.  At that point, I ran away.  I didn't want to see any more.  My food is born already packaged in the grocery store, thankyouverymuch.  However, when the kids finally caught up to me at the exit, I got to hear all the gory details of how the tiger held his paw on the duck's head while it ripped out all the feathers and then as the tiger got up again, the poor duck was on it's back.  Twitching.  I will never understand why that was interesting to watch, but Aislinn took a VIDEO of the whole thing!  My skin is still crawling.  

Anyhow, onto happier thoughts.  We had a nice time with the kids going to the movies, going out to lunch, playing family kickball, swimming, swimming and more swimming.  And making s'mores!!  Even though they are on the grill and not over a campfire, they still tasted good. 

That's it for tonight!  See you tomorrow.

Hmm,

what else?  Oh yeah!  On the way to Sunday school I got my first speeding ticket!  It was 8:30 on a Sunday morning and there was absolutely no one on the road except for me (and apparently, the police man).  We were running a little bit late.  When I was flying driving down the road, I look in my rear view and see some jerk right on my tail!  Silly me, I pull to the other lane to let said jerk pass.  Well, upon looking back in the mirror, I noticed that the car was still on my tail.  I was about to change lanes again, when I saw the blue lights.  It figures.  I probably could have gotten out of it, but was cutting him off mid-lecture didn't want to set a bad example for my kids.  As a matter of fact, I do see the irony here.  The point is, I wanted my kids to see that if you do something wrong, you pay the consequences.  Thankfully, the nice cop only wrote me up for going 10 over the limit so nothing will show on my license.  I think the Sunday school books that were on my son's lap helped, too.  I'm leaving them in the car from now on!!

don't mind me

In May, my daughter's drum lessons came to an end.  She enjoyed learning how to play and in the last few sessions was getting really good.  She was having a great time with her drum solos!!  She is looking forward to continuing in the fall with the same instructor.  A boy that lived down the street has his own full drum set and told her that she could practice whenever she wanted, but his drum set was all in boxes!  Now, they've moved.  I've looked into getting her a set, but in addition to being a lot of money, I'm afraid of her losing interest and then being stuck with them.  Her birthday is in October, so we'll see.

Slinking in the back

I'm just going to pretend that I've been blogging all along and haven't been gone for several months - AGAIN!  So, where were we?  Well, since I last decided to drop by, we've been busy with baseball season, drum lessons, Sunday school, regular school, the first half of summer, and much more.  Let's take one at a time though, right?  Baseball lasted for what seemed like an eternity.  Probably because after the regular season, Aidan was drafted into the All Stars!  He was so excited to go.  During the regular season he played very well, and was one of the 2 main pitchers.  Each season he plays a couple new positions.  I used to think that it's got to be hard to change like that, but the coaches have faith in him, so I just sit back and watch.  At least most of the time.  However, this season, when he threw a pitch in the first inning, the kid who was up to bat hit a line drive RIGHT INTO AIDAN'S JAW!!  Yeah.  I was on the field in under 3 seconds.  He didn't cry at all, even though he was in some serious pain.  His jaw was all swollen, and while his mouth was full of blood, he didn't lose any teeth.  The coach on the other team was really nice and kept coming over to check on Aidan.  He ended up finishing out the inning as pitcher, and was so mad after getting hit, that he struck out every batter after that!  Once the inning was over and all his teammates were in the dugout, he was like a hero!  All the boys wanted to touch his jaw.  And though I did go into the dugout with my camera, he was in no mood for a photo.  So I left him alone.  We ended up leaving the game after the 2nd inning to go to the hospital for Xrays.  Thankfully, nothing was broken or out of place at all, just badly bruised.