Tackle it Tuesday

This was my tackle yesterday and now today I finally get to blog about it. It's my goal this week to get some projects finished, so yesterday I decided to work on the curtains for the pantry shelves and get them all done (including installation of curtain rods) before Kevin got home from work. And it was a success! I always feel bad about asking Kevin to do things for me after he gets home from work, so the last couple months I've been determined to try more projects on my own, do things I normally wouldn't try and prove to myself that I CAN DO IT! The curtains were a synch, since we were using some I had made and used before at a previous house. The one problem is that they were too short. They only reached about 2/3 of the way down the shelves. BUT I had three curtains of the same size (all short) and only needed two long ones. So I used the extra curtain to make up the length on the other two. I just folded it in half, cut on the fold, and sewed it on to the bottoms of the others. Easy.

Getting the curtain rod installed was a tad trickier, usually the part that Kevin does. But since these shelves are really nothing fancy I decided I could handle drilling holes all by myself. I found the drill, found the correct-sized drill bit to match the screws I had, figured out after not too much time how to change out the drill bit on the drill, marked spots for the holes, drilled into wood, and inserted screws. No problems at all! The ONLY thing is that I didn't realize how much wider the left set of shelves is compared to the right set, and the curtain rod is extended almost to it's very maximum length, causing it to bend a little bit in the middle. But that's it. Project is complete!

Oh yeah, I should mention, though I'm sure you can already tell, our dining room is still not finished. Since it's kind of a big project to redo the walls and flooring (and probably those shelves too) and the electrical and insulation, we'll have to wait 'til next summer to even start. For now at least we have the space after we knocked the middle wall out. We've just gotten used to it but when I go to publish these pictures on a blog, I realize how crappy it does actually look! Anyway, here are the pics...

before (very exposed shelves full of junk)

after! (nothing fancy but definitely much better)

both the color and fabric pattern match almost exactly to the paint color in the kitchen! for just what we already had on hand, I'd say that's not bad!

Monday Meanderings

With summer busyness, it's been awhile since I've sat down to really plan a week, and I've missed doing that. So here we go! Join me if you'd like, I love planning more than just a menu!

Bible Study
back to daily reading schedule

Husband Encouragement
keep a clean house (clean bathroom counter, clean kitchen counter, toys away, laundry away, bed made), especially in our bedroom. It seems lately it's been getting quite messy--dust all over our dressers, unmade bed, and piles of clothes (I won't say whose) on the floor, laundry waiting in baskets, and a few toys scattered on the floor. I spend most of the day downstairs so I often forget the state of our bedroom, and then it comes time for bed, I realize all I've forgotten to do. So... in effort to go to bed in peace instead of having that unresolved feeling, I'm going to work on this this week.

Train Them Up
Some re-arranges in the house are leading to new activity ideas for the kids!

Personal Goal
Finish projects! After 6 months (that's half a year, people!) I FINALLY finished Hannah's curtains in her room (it took a long time to find the rest of the fabric I needed). Now I just need to do tie-backs in both the kids' rooms. I also want to finish the touch-up paint in the kitchen and sew curtains to hide our pantry shelves. (they're basically done already cuz I found old curtains from a previous house, but I just need to add length and find a way to hang them)

Must Do
* overall clean before Eli's big birthday party this weekend
* wash all sheets
* make sure we have enough blankets for everyone staying with us

Menu

Monday - tacos on fritos, pineapple
Tuesday - chicken Caesar in pita bread, apples, carrots
Wednesday - ham steaks, mashed potatoes, peaches
Thursday - will someone PLEASE tell me what to have??
Friday - bagel bites
Saturday - Subway party sandwich, chips, veggie tray, watermelon, CAKE!
Sunday - hamburgers, hot dogs, potato salad, carrots, jello fruit salad, ice cream sundaes!

Fun Things
* Eli turns THREE on Sunday!!
* A big family birthday party on Saturday and a local friends birthday party on Sunday

Entertaining your kids in the car.

I posted this on our family blog but I thought I'd post it again here. Over 4th of July weekend we took a family vacation to Grand Lake, Colorado. It's a 9-10 hour drive, and this time I tried a couple new things to for the kids' car ride, especially since we decided not to do any movies at all.

1. I made Eli his own little (18x12in) map he could use to follow along the way. We've driven this route before so there were several things I knew we'd be seeing along the way, like a bridge we always drive by when we're out for errands but rarely get to drive through, a HUGE train yard in Lincoln, and the Archway Monument in Kearney, so I added little pictures of those on his map along with all the road numbers we'd be looking for. Next time I have a couple more things I could add to the map that we saw this time: a rainbow colored water tower and a museum of military vehicles. I made sure to include all the road numbers, so he could look for specific numbers as we drove too. This kept Eli engaged for a long time, and he really enjoyed having his own map. I'm no artist and not everything's not quite in proportion but I did the best I could, and it's perfectly fine for this purpose.

2. I also made a BINGO game with a card full of things to look for, like stop signs, bulldozers, construction cones, motorcycles, wind mills, ponds, etc. I really didn't think Eli would especially understand finishing a row of pictures or even look for things on his own. So I mostly pointed things out to him, and he'd put a colored sticker on the picture. Turned out killing a lot of time and we enjoyed the game! I know of a few things I'd change, based on what we couldn't ever find and the things we saw a lot. If anyone is interested in using this game with your children, I'd be happy to email you the file, just let me know! I made three different cards. Just a few pictures are actually among the three cards, because they're mostly just rearranged. I just went to google images and typed something like "tractor clipart", found a picture I liked, and saved it to our computer. Some of the graphics still have a watermark on it but because the pictures are shrunk so small to fit on the card, you can hardly see the watermark so it doesn't bother me in the least bit. I'll definitely be doing BINGO like this again!

The other things we used for entertainment on the trip were a big stack of new library books. Usually I get a set of 8 books and Eli finds one or two that are his favorites. But this time because I really wanted him to like ALL of them, I made sure to get several books with familiar characters in it like Curious George, Arthur, Winnie the Poo, Thomas the Train, etc and he really did enjoy every single book. So between having reading time with the one of us parents reading and time where Eli just sat looking through his books, plus a few others we brought from home, that kept him occupied for a long time.

And then we had one diaper box of toys. One bigger toy for each child (like Eli's learning laptop and Hannah's little ark toy that has lots of buttons) and then the rest were all little things like teething rings, small cars and dolls, MagnaDoodles, rubix cube, play phones, etc. Eli was fine for the ride, but Hannah was the one who was got very restless and just began chucking one toy after another 30 seconds after we'd give it to her. If we had the opportunity I would've switched for some of the smaller toys we keep at Grandma and Grandpa's house, but we haven't been back home for quite awhile and they haven't been here for a few week, so we'll have to do that next time.

It wasn't always a smooth ride. There was a point when both children were screaming crying at the same time and I just had to stop and the nearest exit and refuse to drive anymore until they stopped. The crying was making my blood boil and I couldn't take it anymore. But that seemed to do the trick for everyone. And we made for a successful journey!

OTHER IDEAS:
* All around the edge of your BINGO card you could have graphics of windmills. Since they're so common (at least in these parts), you could put a sticker on a windmill every time you saw one. Or I remember playing ZIP! when I was younger. Whenever you saw a windmill you shouted ZIP! or some other silly word and whoever said it first got a point.

* You could play a truck game. Have a paper with different colored semi-trucks on it. Since trucks sometimes come a bunch at once, it would maybe hard to keep track of all together. But if you have several children you could assign each child a color or two and when they see a truck of their color they mark it next to the corresponding truck with either a sticker, a star, or tally mark or whatever. And you could find out what the most common truck color is on your drive. Just throwing that out there for ya...

Summer evening sun.

There was a beautiful haze over the ground last evening and the sun was perfect, so I thought I'd go out with my camera and experiment trying to catch some sun flare. Click pictures to view larger.

I started to edit out the power lines here, but it was really blotchy there in the grass, so I had to go back to the original. Here's what it COULD be...

slightly different angle. I love the water pump in this one.

Which photo is your favorite?

Recipe: Curried Chicken Divan

I don't really know if this is a standard recipe or not. This is the one my mom always used when I was growing up and the one I choose still today because I just love it and the kids do too!

Curried Chicken Divan

1 1/4 cup rice, cooked
1 pkg (10oz) frozen broccoli florets, cooked
1 1/2 c. cooked chicken
1 can cream of chicken soup
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/3 cup milk
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese + some for the top
1/2 tsp curry powder

Put cooked rice in the bottom of baking dish. Then lay broccoli and chicken. Mix everything else together and cover over broccoli, chicken, and rice. Top with cheese. Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes. Yumm...

Activity: Summer Sunshine

Activity idea found HERE.

Supplies:
glue stick
orange and yellow construction paper
scissors
little hands
black marker

after I traced hands (folding over the paper so I only had to trace/cut half as many handprints) I sent Eli off to do something else while I cut everything out and got it ready. I traced a circle using a cool whip container and then made small dots where I wanted Eli to glue the yellow handprints

working on the orange hand prints

done so far

now add a cute face, and it's done!

Thankful Thursday

I am thankful for this moment right. now. I'm with the kids (of course) and we're drinking these delicious peach smoothies while listening to Chris Tomlin. It's sunny and beautiful outside, and after this we're (yes, all of us) going in the pool (yes, a baby pool). I am thankful for this day, this time with my lovely children and the gifts God has given me.

No menu today!

because the kids and I are off to the zoo, this time with grandma and grandpa! Excited for a fun day!

One great dad

This man works hard all day and then comes home to yet a full evening with the family. He fixes everything around the house, squashes bugs, and does all the yard work. And even amidst all that he still finds time to be a great dad. He is super involved in their lives, always has been, and anyone can see how much he just loves and adores these two beautiful babies. He is a strong man and I am so grateful to have him by my side. HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!

Thankful Thursday

I am thankful for my children. Life would be so quiet and boring without them. And they sure are cute and lovable.

I am thankful for air conditioning. We don't have central air and only had one window unit, downstairs, but yesterday Hubby put in two units for upstairs, and it is sooo much nicer! As much as I LOVE just having windows open, it's starting to get a bit too hot for that these days. (low 90s!) I am thankful my husband is the handy man he is.

I am thankful for music. I don't play it much because it's often too much noise to have music playing and toys going off at the same time. But this morning I've been playing my music, and it's so nice.

I am thankful for quiet time. The kids played peacefully on blanket time for FOREVER this morning, and it was sooo nice!

I am thankful for my husband's job. Honestly, so much of life comes from that. Food, house, clothes, fun things, etc.

I am thankful for fresh fruit. I just love it!

I am thankful for our weather radio. Since we live in the country now and away from tornado sirens, I really wanted to make sure we had something to alert us at the house, especially for nights when I'm home alone with the kids. We've had a lot of severe weather in the area lately, and it makes me feel safe to know we have a way to hear news. Even if it means listening to alerts go off all through the night, or all afternoon like yesterday, for an area 2 or more hours away. I'd rather hear all that than not hear anything. Safety is important. I'm also thankful that those alerts are just for weather, and not of my child's heart machine or something much more serious like that. (keep praying for Baby Stellan) And more importantly I am thankful for our Great God that watches over us in all the storms of our life.

What are you thankful for this week??