Little Miss Smarty Pants

She knows most of her alphabet, upper and lower case, yet still is working on asking for a drink of milk. sigh.

Link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySl8u71X4Sg&feature=youtu.be

A typical morning.

Just another Saturday night...

Before I get started, let me say, I am like my Dad.  Let me give an example. If someone were to tell my immediate family, “That wall is very hard.  Hitting your head against it would be painful.”  My brother and Mom would say, “wow, ok, thanks for the warning.” and they would walk away.  My Dad and I, on the other hand, would probably walk right up to the wall, hit our head against it a few times and say, “ok, you are right, that was pretty painful.” 

Anyways, it’s been a few weeks since the shed incident and my husband’s away this weekend curling up in BC.  He called my cell phone while I was visiting my grandparents this morning and asked me to call him back when I got home.  I got home and called him at 3:45 and what I thought he said was, “We curl again at 6pm, if we don’t win we are out of the tournament and I’ll head home, if we do win, I’m going to get a hotel up here and you could come up and watch with or without the kids.”  I told him I was planning to take my parents out for dinner for their anniversary and I’d talk to my parents about taking the kids for the night.

I meet Mom and Dad ½ way between our house (aka North, as in North towards Canada) and we have a nice dinner and dad mentions that there’s a train leaving for BC in an hour and I could probably have just enough time to run to my house, grab the stuff I need including my passport and make the train, esp since they generally run a few minutes late.

So, trusting dear old Dad, I drive his car to my house, realizing ½ way there that I have no house key and no garage door opener. Leave it to me to make nothing easy.  After searching for a Hide a Key (none) and checking for unlocked windows (none) I finally make it in (no, I’m not telling you how I broke into the house, suffice it to say, we are about to get more security) grabbed passport, change of clothes, stuff for Paul and keys and hightailed it to the train station. My dad met me there.  “You missed it by 2 minutes, we can catch it at the next stop and you can get a ticket on board because it has to go slower than us.”  We check on the progress on his phone and it says we should just meet it.  Well, kind of. We get there, the train is stopped in the road.  In front of the station.  I yell, “I’m running for it” and much to his dismay I run in flip flops in the dark right behind the train.  The train proceeds to leave. 2 minutes ahead of schedule (yes, a miracle, Amtrak is running on schedule) as I’m screaming and waving my hands, “NO NO NO!!!!!!”

Defeated I get back in the car and Dad starts driving back to his place where the kids are as I try to convince him and I that I’ll just drive back home.  He stops to get gas and I try calling Greyhound to see if there’s a bus (there is, but it doesn’t arrive until 1am, in a town about 45 minutes from where the hubby is) so I give up. And realize I don’t have my cell phone.  If you guessed it fell face down out of my bag on the platform while I was waving my arms at the train you are the winner.

My dad’s terrified a train hobo is going to pick it up and calls his bff who lives near the station (it’s now 8:30pm at night) to go look in the dark for his daughter’s cell phone.  They have been best friends since childhood, so my dad is not at all surprised by this insane request and he and his wife (who luckily my dad introduced to the bff) get to the train station about the same as us.  We chat a few minutes and head back to my parent’s house.

 

Dad calls my mom, who, having just celebrated her  36^th wedding anniversary to the guy is not at all surprised to hear how the saga has turned out. 

I send a text to my husband, “After losing my phone from literally chasing 2 trains and breaking into our house, it looks like I’m not going to make it. Sorry.” And get a call back from him with him scheming to drive home tonight (it’s now 8:45pm) and then we’ll drive up in the morning together for his 9am game.  My husband is a night owl and I have no doubts about his ability to drive home (apparently neither does my dad who agrees he could have made it) however, getting up in time to make it to Canada for a 9am game?  Probably not going to happen.

I get to my parent’s house and ask my mom if the kids are up to decide if I should drive home or not.  “Well, Carter might be sleeping but I’m sure the two little ones aren’t.”  I failed to mention to my mom that the little ones can’t bunk together (Carter and husband can sleep through a bomb going off but the little ones wake up if someone 2 houses away sneezes, hence V, H & I cannot sleep in the same room).  We check on the little ones who are out of bed and laughing to go home.  Carter is sound asleep in the other room.  I get them loaded and tell Carter the tale in the car.  He listens with no surprise. 

We just got home put kids in bed and Paul called, he’s in fact staying in the hotel tonight, sleeping well and planning on kicking ass tomorrow. So far where they are is that they’ve won their entry fee back, if they win at least one more game, it will pay for the hotel room for the night and he’ll feel like he came back even (of course, he also got to curl competitively when we JUST got ice at our home club).

It’s now 11:30 and I’m going to check on a few things and head to bed myself. And finish doing all the stuff that I was going to do this evening in the morning, I guess!

What to do while Valerie naps on school days

Craft of course! I've gone off my internet friend, Joan's blog and made two fun fold cards this week.

Her main blog is: http://www.dailystampede.com/

Here's the first card: Her's: http://www.dailystampede.com/2012/08/10/fun-fold-friday/

My take on it with some paper I was trying to use up:

Today she posted a tutorial for another Fun fold card she did while back. The tutorial is here:  http://www.dailystampede.com/2012/09/09/fun-fold-tutorial/

the original post is here: http://www.dailystampede.com/2012/07/31/trending-tuesday-36-halloween-fun-fold-card/

Here is my take. I only used one sheet of 12x12 double sided printed paper (one side bolder print, other side more subtle) and one piece of 12x12 cardstock.

A night with the kids

I had a meeting tonight, so I left my husband home with the kids. When I came home a huge TV was in the playroom. No big deal, he’d been researching and wanted to get one.

He’s telling me, “Valerie went crazy when she saw Super Why on this thing.” We head upstairs and he tells me about his night with the kids.

“Honey, I’m going to tell you something, but don’t get mad.” 

“ok”

“So I went out to the shed.”

“Did you do something to the spider?” (I’m a fan of spiders, the hubby is not)

“Yes, I killed it… them, there were TWO and they were huge” he makes a shape with his hands like the size of a grapefruit “they were making baby spiders and I just couldn’t let that happen.”

“Wait, they’d already made baby spiders or you stopped them during”

“No, before, but they were about to make baby spiders.”

“Well, you could have at least waited to kill them until they were doing it so they’d die how we all want to go.”

“Well, here’s what happened.  I went out into the shed and the dad spider came out.”

“Wait, how did you know it was the dad spider.” 

“He was smaller.  I just figured.  Anyway, a moth flew into the shed because it was dark and I had the light on.  It got caught in the web and the dad came out and totally chomped on it.  Then the mom got a couple bites in, then dad and I thought, ‘oh, no, I gotta stop this before they make babies.’ So I sprayed it all with the hose (by the way, there’s a lot of wet stuff in the shed now) and after I chased them outside I cut them up with a shovel.”

I laugh.

“oh, and after we got the TV, I stopped by Little Caesar’s to pick up a pizza and I asked Carter if he wouldn’t mind going in to get the pizza and he agreed.  So I sent him in with $11 and it was busy and he saw the pinball machine and started looking over at it and I thought, ‘focus! Order the pizza!’ then he remembered and ordered and went back to the machine.  Then he remembered what he was in there for after the checkout person gave him his change back which he forgot to take. He checked if his order was up and it was. He headed out to the car. A man picked up the pizza and breadsticks and followed Carter out. I opened the door and the man told me, “cute kid.”  Apparently Carter announced to everyone, ‘hey, could someone help me carry this pizza?’ and this random customer agreed to carry his pizza out for him.”

Those are the only stories he told me that I can share. :)

Nook Cover & Easel

I made my cover with an extra pocket for the easel. 

What you need for the cover:

3 sheets of felt 9 inches by 12 inches each-color does not matter (only need 2 if you are not making a pocket)
Fabric-3 pieces that are approx 24 inches by 9 inches plus a little extra for flap. (Note, if you are not making an extra pocket, you only need 4 pieces.
1 large button
1 pony tail holder or elastic banding
Thread, sewing machine, scissors
optional: little bit of ribbon

Take your 9x12 pieces of felt and fold them in half:

 

Cut along the folded edge so that you have 6 pieces that are 6 inches by 9 inches.  Set one of the pieces aside. 

Make your sides of your cover (you need 2 if not making a pocket, 3 if you make a pocket).

 

Lay out each piece and fold in half with the "good" side of the fabric on the inside.

 

 

Sew with allowances along the two long sides so that the pocket ends up  7 inches across. 

Turn the pocket inside out and stuff two of the felt pieces inside.  Do this 2 times for a cover,  if you want the extra pocket put only 1 piece of felt in that 3rd pocket and I suggest allowing  a little extra so that it's 7 1/2 or 7 1/4 inches across. Trim excess fabric beyond the allowances.

 

Then stack all three pieces with the open part of the pockets all at the bottom.  You now need to sew along all sides EXCEPT the folded edges opposite your open pocket ends .  It will be easiest if you sew as close to the edges as possible and your felt is centered in each pocket so that you are sewing only through the fabric and not the felt.  If you made the pocket a little bigger, it might be easier if you hand whipstitch the tops together an inch or so to get everything lined up properly. 

 

See where I used a hand whipstitch to line up my pockets?  Also note the very small seam allowance-as small as you can get it.

 

Then turn it all inside out.

 

Take a length of your fabric 8 inches long by 5 1/2 inches.  Fold it in half so it's 8 inches long by 2 3/4 inches wide and sew along the long, 8 inch side, then turn the tube inside out and iron it so that the seam goes down the middle of one side. 

 

 

Insert a piece of felt 5 inches x 2 inches cut from the last piece of felt that was not used inside the pockets.

 

Roll one end of the tube in 1/4 inch sections 3 times over and attach using V stitches by hand into the furthest outside pocket (I recommend sewing into the pocket with only one piece of felt in it) about 1/3 of a way down from the pocket openings.

 

 

Use  a heavy V stitch back and forth over the hair band/elastic and the other end rolled over 3 times 1/4 inch each roll.  If it looks ugly, so a straight stitch over a ribbon to cover it.

 

Fold over your closure flap and figure out where your button should be.  I used one that had the attachment on the back rather than a flat button, it's easier to get the band on, but  a little trickier to sew the button on.  Make a mark where the button should be (about 1/4-1/2 inch down from where the flap ends up when folded over) and sew the button on, making sure to attach it only to the outside pocket by hand with needle and thread.

 

That's it, you are done!

 

 

If you want to make an easel you need some acrylic thick enough to hold up the weight of the nook. I found a sheet of it for $10 at Home Depot in the window section. 

 

You'll also need 4 small hinges and 16 small paper brads as well as a little section of cork 3/4 inch by 6 inches (or another medium that will keep the nook from slipping).  2 skinny sections of ribbon 6 inches long each.

 

You will need a drill with very small and a little bigger bits.

 

This easel will work with the Nook vertical or horizontal.

 

 

 

Cut 3 sections using a plastic cutting tool and directions that come with it so you have 2 pieces  6 1/2 x 5 1/4 inches and one that's 1 inch by 6 1/2 inches.  I also cut a little hole into one of the 6 1/2 x 5 1/4 pieces where the speaker could sit and sound won't be drowned out.

 

Mark where the holes for your hinges will be and using the drill slowly make teeny tiny holes.  Attach the hinges with the paper fasteners, then make a little larger holes and attach your ribbon so that your knots are inside the triangle made by the easel, threading them in between the main part of the easel and the little shelve to put the Nook on to.

 

That's it!  Now you can lean your Nook up on your counter.  It folds up to go in the outside pocket of your Nook Cover. Then your Nook can go into the other side.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summer stuff

Our summer has gone by way too fast....

We went to Canada the end of July to pickup Carter who was there for 3 weeks...

The kids swam a lot...

 We went to Cheeky Monkeys

Valerie had a little birthday treat...

 

 

and unwrapped some presents

then we went to the zoo when we got back...

We got a trampoline after V discovered how fun jumping... on the couch.... was

V started removing her own diapers and we switched from Velcro to button type... 

I took the little ones to the beach while Carter was away on my parents' boat...

I have been updating our church's membership rolls this summer as my summer project... 

I'm still working on perfecting my bread.... hamburger buns are working better than hot dog buns...

My hydrangeas in the front yard are pretty much the only thing still blooming...

 

We headed to the state fair...

 

We are gearing up for going back to school. I took Carter's backpack from last year (an Osh Kosh outlet steal at $2) that's still going strong and made it into an Angry Birds backpack since Henri got one...   He seems just as pleased with it was he would have been had I spent $20 on a licensed one....

 

Moving a shed

Carter came home last Friday from 2 weeks with my parents and his cousin on their boat. Paul picked him up from their house. Saturday morning we wake up and he tells me, "oh, yeah, your parents asked if we'd come over today and move a shed. Well, actually your Dad said they were going to move it and was really excited about it, your Mom kind of just rolled her eyes and made a face like she didn't think it was really going to happen." Me: "Shed?" Paul: "Yeah, you know, the one on the corner of their property? They want to move it around the other end of the duplex and into the backyard."

Background: The shed is probably 12X12 and about 10 feet tall. It's also solid because my dad built it and on skids because he doesn't like to mess with things like permits, so he likes to build his outbuildings so that they are not permanent structures. Oh, and the fact that he likes to change things around periodicly, so they can be moved. My parents bought a house probably 8 or 9 years ago and then attached a whole 'nother house to it so that the duplex is actually two houses with no space in between. The shed had to be moved pretty much as far as possible while still on their property due to the fact that the house is huge and it couldn't go the shorter route because of the structures in their backyard.

So we show up Saturday morning. I'm thinking we are going to take the shed apart, move the pieces and build it back where they want it. Paul thinks they are going to move it in one piece and came because the curiousity of how this was going to happen was killing him.

Well, my parents get moving faster than we do and were already started when we arrived. My mom driving their truck with a tow rope on the back and using 2x6 boards as a ramp and round garden posts as rollers. After several of the rollers broke getting it onto the gravel which they they just had it skill along Paul and my dad went to the hardware store to get bigger posts. They came back with round posts about 6 inches in diameter and we had a system of laying down the boards and shoving posts under the front of the shed and pulling and keeping it moving. I have absolutely no idea what all 4 kids were doing while we were doing all this.

The shed almost only tipped over once and we did get a little caught up in the tree, but it did get moved. I think the funniest quotes were from my mom, though. When the shed was in the backyard and covering the fence gate, "hmm... I wonder how we are going to get the truck out of the backyard" and when she opened up the truck door into her peach tree and exclaimed, "ooh! Look at all my ripe peaches!" (it was a kind of random comment with not a lot of context). But the shed did get moved.