Friday, October 18, 2013

A Day (in Photos)

 In lieu of my weekly photo update, I thought I would document one day at our house.  Yesterday, happened to be it.  I decided the night before that I would try to photograph most (if not all) of the things we do in a day.  The reason for this?  Mostly, because when my husband gets home and asks our daughter what we did she replies, 'watch tv' which may be partially true, but does not take up a whole day :)  So, some of the photos are more boring than others, and fair warning, there are a lot of photos.

Also, as it turns out we were semi-sick so we were more mellow than usual. 

Wake up, time to make the beds.




















Although it may look like she is trying to walk around like a ghost, she is demonstrating how difficult it is for her to make her bed without my assistance.  'See mama, the blanket falls on my head every time.' 






















O was inspecting my work. 




















Off to make O's bed, and whoa, what a mess.  


She is not pouting, she is straightening her blankets.
















COFFEE!  :) 




















While I wait for the coffee, I unload the dishwasher, hang out with the hubs a few minutes and snuggle with O. 
















Someone is trying to spin a hat on her hand.  I took about 17 photos of this.  
Breakfast and reading.  We don't always read our Bibles at the same time.  I actually prefer waking before everyone else to have my quiet time, but today we all woke up feeling blah so I slept in a little.


After breakfast I told O to get dressed and this is where I found her.  She almost made it to her room, before she found a book to look at.  This girl loves books, so long as I am not asking her to read them aloud.



I am trying to get dressed, and she is showing me her detective supplies.  She is on a hunt for a mystery.  We say bye to daddy and talk about getting dressed.  We decide it may as well be a jammie day since we have no place to go.  Hmm, maybe I am the reason my daughter has trouble getting dressed during the day?

She is taking a nylon sock you use to try on shoes (from our shopping trip) and making a doll.  This was all her.  She asked for the supplies, and I gave them to her.  I did suggest she use a needle and thread versus tape to attach the things.






















While she works on that, I check facebook.  I have been selling items on virtual garage sale and had lots of messages to respond to.   


I bagged up the items, with my post-it of who, what items, total cost, and time and place for meeting, cause I am crazy like that and feel the need to be obsessively organized :)




















She is still working....but around this point, she asked to take a break because she can't figure it out.  Clean up, and time for a new activity.

Legos.  



Ok, now onto computer time.  Today she is doing ABCMouse.com.  We don't do it everyday.  It is more of a few times a week.

While she does computer time, I dust and wipe down the bathrooms.


In my over eager zeal I bumped a tray that holds a top heavy cactus.  So far, it is the only thing I have kept alive here, but I see this as a sign that its life may be coming to an end soon as well.

Hot cocoa break.  Um, yes marshmallows.  Whatever the appropriate amount of hot beverages one should consume in a day is, I surpassed it before noon.  I also had tea, and the above mentioned coffee.  




















More Legos. 



I somehow missed documenting lunch, but we ate as well :)  I think my phone was charging.




















After lunch, it is clean up time.  O's room was first.


We like Pandora when we clean.



We danced a little. 


Then made muffins :)



Then of course we had to enjoy the fruits of our labor and eat the muffins.  :)




















I refused to turn on the heat because it is run on gas, but I did plug in the little space heater.  O thought it was like a campfire. 




















Monkeying around. 



While she played, I worked on a new project for my other blog.




















Play dough.  I have no idea why she was making chin imprints in it.  
   




















Mail time.  O gets the mail all by herself (the mailboxes are in our front yard).
















Start the laundry. 




















More play dough.  She made some islands today.  




















Finishing up the laundry.
















T-shirts cut up into yarn--super exciting!




















Ok, I thought it was exciting until I realized how very little one can crochet with the yarn.  Um, 6 T-shirts made that itty bitty square.  Yikes. 




















I realized it was almost 5, so I cleaned up my mess and got ready for daddy to get home.




















He was late, and I got bored, so I pulled out a sheet, cut it in half and started making curtains for our bedroom. 




















About the time the hubs got home, I had completed one curtain, and was on the second almost done.  My bobbin needed refilled and when I started again my sewing machine jammed.  Ggrrr.  I took it as a sign I was done for the day.   




















Rough house with daddy. 




















Then, I started talking to F and forgot about my project so I missed dinner and bedtime things....but at any rate, this is a glimpse of a 'typical' day.

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Shopping Day

After a morning that started out pretty good, and ended less than ideal, we had a shopping day with my mom.  I had O pick out her outfit the night before, which didn't help in the morning.  She was not impressed with the idea of waking up and (almost) immediately getting ready for the day.  She is spoiled from all this homeschooling and mama staying home.  

























Did anyone else see the sunrise yesterday?  Um, breathtaking.  Pictures do not do it justice.  Anyway, back to the shopping trip.  It went well enough.  Since F wasn't there, I would take pictures of every shirt I liked, and send it to him to get his opinion.  What did people do without cell phones?  Speaking of F, since we have known each other, we have had a bit of a debate/banter/conversation that goes something like this...
F:  I am not a Hoosier.  I have lived in other states longer than this one, so I am not a Hoosier.  
Me:  What's your license say?  Where is your current address located?  Hey guess what you got married here.  Hey guess what you had a child here.  I think all of those qualify as 'Hoosier' status.
F:  No, I don't wear flannel.  I don't shoot deer.  I don't (fill in the blank with other random stuff not all Hoosiers do).

Well, it's official folks.  He has officially been in my home state longer than he has been anywhere else.   This fall marks that occasion.  Also, if you look at the photos below, he has taken up plaid, which we all know leads to flannel, and shooting things, right? *me being sarcastic*  Ahh, yes, and we were in Rural King this weekend (his choice), and he was looking at cowboy boots.  So, is he a Hoosier?  I think so.   



















Well, that was a tangent...
Back to my original story.  O and clothes.  This blog has been devoted to more of her outfits than I care to realize.  She loves to be fancy (like Nancy) and she loves accessories.  

The problem is she can not wear costumes and dress up outfits to everything in life...including our family photos we are doing this weekend.  



In this photo, she is trying to persuade me to buy this for 'several events' like Halloween, and pictures.  Um, no.  

Now, I will be the first to tell you that I am not super fashionable, but I feel like I can find semi-cute outfits for this little lady.  
























Every outfit I like, she hates.  The above outfit is 'bossy' and so not princess material.  She was absolutely furious when she saw I bought the button up shirt (hello, I picked out the fanciest one O.  It has bling on the top!). 

Yes, I have tried the tactic of showing her a real princess's wardrobe (thank you Kate Middleton for being super stylish, and not wearing ball gowns every day).  

This did not help.  

I have told O her beauty comes on the inside, and not how we adorn ourselves.  To which she responded, 'but I can't see my insides, I can see my outside.'  Which lead to more super deep theological concepts that I, as an adult, struggle with.  

Finally, daddy came in and said, 'if mommy wants you to wear it, you can state your dislike for it once, but you must wear it because mommy has the final say.'  Which lead to more deep theological discussions.  And then we circled back around to what's on the inside and what's on the outside, and O said, 'My insides and my outsides are not what I want them to be!' 

What's a mama to do?
  

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Pink tights, Gymnastic leotard, pink tutu with multi-color trim, new black boots, monkey bathrobe, and a headband mama was working on--What an ensemble.


And a little bit closer--wow.  Gets better the closer you get, doesn't it?


She took some of the crazy outfit off to paint a pumpkin.  Don't want to get those pretty clothes dirty.  The crazy expression is her explaining what she wants her pumpkin to look like.  'A cat meowing.' 


She drew the cat's face before she began painting.


She carefully painted purple and black on the pumpkin.



We are glitter junkies around here (at least O and I are).  So everything got a nice coat of gold glitter when we were done.  



















Finishing up the final details...she is really focusing on details lately.




The finished product.  A purple/black cat pumpkin saying 'meow'.

Monday, October 14, 2013

Weekend Fun

 This weekend we took a trip to a family farm.  It had some animals, a corn box (like a sandbox but filled with corn), pumpkin patch, and corn maze.  We had a great afternoon enjoying the fall activities.


O measuring herself

























A barn with a slide


Top of the haystack--then of course strike a pose



Daddy swinging O around on the 
How a child sits, while waiting on the hayride.
Punching our cards in the corn maze.  We found all 5 spots.
The last of the points we had to find :)
O photobombed us.








Friday, October 11, 2013

This Week (In Photos)


O made a doll house out of cardboard and a hot glue gun.


See that huge pile of clothes on the table behind O?  I have been sorting, photographing and selling them online this week.  Wow, 5 years of saving clothes is a lot of stuff to sort.  


Marshmallow math.  We practiced skip counting.  We added and subtracted.  We ate too many marshmallows.  We had hot cocoa.  It was lovely.  One of the precious moments this week school work was not complained about by either party.  Speaking of schooling, have you read this article?  Lately, more and more of our school time is play time with a few bits of 'school' lessons thrown in there.  Heart training and character training seem to fill my days lately.  And I think that's ok, because it will be a lot harder to instill values in my strong-willed little girl if I wait until she is older.  OK, and I am stepping off the soap box :)

We also made pictures with the marshmallows, and tried to guess what it was before the creator was finished making it.  I made things like hearts.  O made things like a coastline.  What?  Yes, that picture is of a coastline.  Needless to say, I didn't guess it correctly.

I spent way too much time looking for these keys this week.  I try to set our home up so we have a nice little area to place keys, coats, wallets, bags, etc. close to the door.  My husband enjoys walking through the house and placing things in random locations.  It makes me crazy.



I took O to the playground this week.  There were a few seemingly well-behaved children there about the same age, so O had some playmates.  Score!  That gave me some time to work on this hat.  I was going for a Hello Kitty hat.  Next week, you may see a post entitled, 'Failed attempt at Hello Kitty Hat'  Those eyes are just not looking right.


When I could keep food down this week, I wanted lots of kiwis, pumpkin flavored things and potato chips.  3 kiwis were devoured standing over my kitchen sink, (ahem) 3 pumpkin flavored doughnuts, and a bag of chips.  Whoa.  Far cry from Whole 30 I'd say, but this food actually stayed in my stomach so I will call it a win.

I had about 30 minutes yesterday, that I really should of/could of done school things with O.  Instead I read my Bible.  I think I chose wisely.

I royally burnt some cheese toasties, and O asked me to keep the black part on, because she likes it when I make them that way.  Haha, my daughter thinks that's what a cheese toastie should taste like, because it happens so frequently.

I made and photographed a few burlap baskets this week.  Now, to drive them to the shop. 

Have a good weekend :)

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Did I really just have to say that?

To go along with yesterday's post, here are a few things I never thought I would say as mama.

'Please take your toes off your plate.'

'Worms do not belong in the house.  Take it back outside.  Did you throw the worm on the pavement?  You are going to hurt it.'

'Ugh, is that a booger on the wall?  Why did you pick your nose and wipe it on the wall?!'

Me:  'Please do not spit the water back into the bottle when you are drinking.'
O:  'But I decided I didn't want anymore, so I wanted to save it for later.  Isn't that clever of me?
Me:  'No I do not think it was clever for you to save it for later!'

'Are you wearing underwear?  You must wear underwear!'

'O I am not stealing your food I am holding it for you while I put you in the car seat.  Chill out ok?'

Me: 'Do you have your shoes on?'
O:  'No, but that's ok.'
Me:  'I don't want you to step in dog poop, please be careful.'
O:  'I'll be careful.  If I step in it, I will just say, 'uhhh Pappaw, I stepped in dog poop.  He'll take care of it.'

O:  'Daddy you be Jesus, I'll be Mary.'
F:  'What about mommy?'
O:  'Um, she can be Snow White.'
Me:  'How does Snow white fit in with the story of Jesus?'
O:  'I don't know, but you always tell me you don't want to be the mean step mom so I made you the princess.  Wasn't that nice of me?'
Me: 'Uh, I guess?'



Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Broken Record

I repeat myself at least a dozen times a day.  My husband can attest to this.  I need to come up with some new catch phrases.
On any given day, here are a few things that come flying out of my mouth before I realize what is happening...

'I can't find (fill in the blank).'

'Why would I buy that?  I can totally make that.'

'Well, I tried.'

'Well, I burnt the food.'

'I am just distracted right now, that doesn't normally happen.'

'Is that what you are going for?'

'I feel like I just cleaned up in here, why is there stuff every where?!'

'PLEASE stop rough housing in here!'  (said with a please, but with a tone and glare that are not so polite).

'Do NOT put anything on that table, Please.' (our dining room table is still yet to be varnished.  I am very protective of it.  So much so, that O asked me, 'why are you so worried about that table mom?  It is just a table.'

'Hmm...I didn't really think this through.'

'The idea in my head worked a lot better.'

'I can not remember what I came in here for....Ohh what is this?  I will work on that.'  Proceed to pull out project #7 for the day.

'Well, the house was clean earlier today, but then we started working on ____'

'Today is not going as planned.'