kidding around

How can you get kids and adults “into the zone”?

Classical music, of course!

I mentioned in my last post that we play classical music all day long. I don’t know, it seems like it puts a magical spell on everyone! Not as much bickering and productivity is at an all time high. The music is usually left on until well after dinner and actually requested to be kept on…MAGIC, I tell you.

The cool thing about this “magic”, Penny seems to pick up on using the right side of her brain. She can be found creating all sorts of abstract art, scribbling and coloring to the music. I love it. Of course her zone gets interrupted when opera starts playing out on the speakers and everything…STOPS.

I’m at that point in the winter that I’m ready for it to be over. Everyone feels this way. I’m ready to get rid of the boots and shed our coats. One way I get through this time of year is to tackle household projects. There’s no way I want to be painting rooms in the summer, I’d much rather be in the garden or pool side.

Last year, I painted our living room. This year, my kids informed me that they were desperate for some change.

What? No more pink/red room for my little girls?

We’ve lived in our house for nearly 8 years. Before we moved in, we did A LOT of wallpaper stripping, carpet-pulling and painting. We were worn out when our family actually moved in and since then, we have been a bit resistant to too many house projects.

Now, things have changed and I’m on a kick!

Nothing like a few cold days in February to motivate house projects to check off! Here is a shot of the girls’ room. The lighting is not the best and I’ve taken awhile to post photos because of this, so bear with me.

They both compromised several times on color. Mainly Ellie convincing Penny that her ideas rule. I knew I was up against a lot, so I needed to make sure each girl had a part of the room that was special.

So the big blizzard allowed me some concentrated sewing time. Before painting their room, I was able to make a bunch of pillows for their beds. In order for some individuality, I had each girl pick out fabrics for their bed. Penny was all about drawing on fabric for her pillows! Ellie did a great job figuring out a patchwork pillow with scraps.

We switched around furniture with Simon, added mirrors, and actually brought in Ellie’s dresser from the hallway.

This is my favorite part of Penny’s side of the room. The little animals are adorable and very much apart of my girl’s love affair with animals.

My pup, looking so handsome. He likes the new room and spends a good bit of his days on Penny’s bed. He has full view of the neighborhood squirrels.

Notice the age differences between the girls? Ellie’s desk with photos of friends and Robert Pattinson. Penny’s side with toys, books and dolls. Sigh. They ARE growing up.

As I was painting their room it was very sobering. Eight years ago, we moved to this house and Ellie was 4. Penny was not even in our future. Eight years from now, Ellie will be a few months from 21. Sigh, again. I’m not even doing the math on Penny.

Okay, so on the next room!

Last fall, Nathan tore down the ceiling in Simon’s room. It was plaster and cracking. He replaced the ceiling with dry wall. It was a huge project. Messy and a huge clean up. We waited a few months to continue the project since we knew it would displace Simon for a few nights and it was WORK!

After he finished up his duties, I came into the picture and painted his room. Once I started taking furniture out of his room I realized that baseboards, doors, and ceiling needed to be painted too. Thankfully, my mom was extremely generous with her time and helped me paint.

We are a good team.

I still have more work to do, but you get the idea. The plan is to paint some of his furniture a deeper hue of green. I’ll probably tackle that project outside in the Spring!

I love his room. In fact, I take naps in his room regularly. His room also acts as the guest room, so if you want to visit…you’ll have to fight me for his comfortable bed!

It’s funny, some days I don’t even think or care about maintaining my blog. But then there are days that I have an incredible urge to share photos of our life with family and friends…partly out of guilt and partly I’m mad at myself for not documenting our life better. So today I feel the need to give my blog some love.

I don’t even know who reads “Kidding Around” anymore and I’m sort of glad (although, I ALWAYS love comments). Anyway, I hope to challenge myself and post AT LEAST once a week. I remember a time when I would sometimes post twice in a day. I imagine Facebook has replaced the need to communicate with the outside world.

Anyway, here’s a rundown of the last couple of months.

I made some cute curtains for our dining room (sorry, the photos were bad) and I had some leftover bird cut outs. I made these mobiles for some special people for Valentines day. Cute, huh? I’m sure most of the world has seen the Portlandia clip “Put a Bird on it” and I guess I’m guilty of using the sweet silhouette. Or at least my kids like to tell me so. Ha!

We had a blizzard. It was pretty great. Complete with thunder and lightening. And a snow day! Bring on Spring.

Ellie has grown into a full sized violin (she started with a 1/4 size). I’m not sure why, but I was shocked when she came back from the violin shop with a bigger instrument. She is growing up before my eyes.

And yet another example of my kids growing up. Simon turned 10 on the 15th of February. It’s crazy. I began this blog when he was 4, so now you can see why I need to keep this thing going!

Homeschooling is going fine. I feel like I have hit a wall (maybe this will be a separate post). I’m trying to shake things up a bit and teach the kids some things I like to do, like sew. Very simple sewing. It’s a test of one’s patience for sure, especially for the younger 2, but they are champs.

Okay, tomorrow I will be back with 9 more photos! I’ve been busy with painting rooms and checking things off my “to do” list!

I better play a bit of a “blog catch up” before we start thinking Christmas is just around the corner (which it is not!). There’s STILL Thanksgiving, and Penny reminds me that this is the month we are to be thankful. I like that girl.

Anyway, my kids love LOVE love Halloween. They love figuring out their costumes and of course the candy. But to be honest, the candy loses it’s luster pretty quick and I end up dumping much of the non-chocolate stuff.

Enjoy the photos. The extra cutie is my 4 year old niece Tizzy. It’s tradition to go trick or treating with her and then come home to a festive dinner. We all love it.

This coming week, I’ll be sure to share some of the artwork the kids and I are doing…we are having a ball and look forward to our Fridays filled with art.

So today, after messing around in the yard for a bit, I found Ellie in the kitchen making Salsa Verde and blasting music so LOUD that I had to turn it down (I’m such an adult). She has become quite the expert. Oh, and she has found that wearing sunglasses helps her in the onion cutting department.

Good thing, we harvested nearly 20 pounds, maybe more.

Did I mention how WONDERFUL her salsa is? Perfect tang. Perfect bitterness and heat. Too bad we are out of chips.

Did I also mention that I do believe the “teenager population” has increased to 1 in the Shack house? Seriously, she looks and acts so confidently in the kitchen…all while listening to “matt and kim” at full blast!

A beautiful way to to begin the day.

I love the lighting in our dining room during the early morning hours. I savor every morning that begins like this!

This past weekend, we spent a great deal of time cleaning up our yard. The pool is covered. The garden has been harvested and “yanked” out of its plots. Our lush hops vines have been torn down. The last of the zinnias have been picked.

Now we have several lawn bags ready to be picked up.

I feel happy about our progress and grateful we aren’t trying to accomplish the annual clean up in dreary November, but I feel like we have opened the gates of winter to our life.

As I was working in the yard, I thought of our summer. One story I have not shared with all of you (family and friends!) is the event with our dog Ollie. He is quite a character and is my constant companion. He likes to cause trouble by sneaking food off plates, snatching Penny’s beloved Piggy, and barking at the little dogs next door. He even hunted a couple opossums and a squirrel last summer. Nothing is ever boring with this beagle/blue heeler. Good grief.

Anyway, after a lovely afternoon in the pool with my friend and all of our kids the mood suddenly changed right around dinner time. After our goodbyes to our guests, I quickly began to prepare dinner. I let Ollie out and never realized that would be the end of a relaxing evening.

A bit later, I heard a demanding bark at the back door and that was my cue to let Ollie in the house. When I opened the door, I noticed Ollie was shaking his head and blood was spattering all over me, the house, and the deck. I quickly shut the door and knelt down to check out where the blood was coming from…his ear had a huge chunk taken out of it! I felt terrible for him.

I got towels and thought if I applied enough pressure the bleeding would stop. I later learned that ears have many blood vessels and it is nearly impossible to get the bleeding to stop. I called Nathan, not panicking, but totally helpless not knowing how to help our dog and being okay with blood being splattered all over me (seriously, it was gross and I looked even grosser). Unfortunately, THAT day Nathan was in the city for a conference and THAT day I was a cool wife and said come home later and hang out with friends and THAT day he took the train.

So I waited for over an hour in the backyard with our blood dripping, blood caking on fur dog. All while my kids are in the house having a hey day playing the Wii, playing on the computer and eating whatever for dinner…remember, I am covered in blood and can not go in the house.

I kept things light and sent Nathan multiple photos of our dog saying “can’t wait to see you”. Obviously I was thrilled when Nathan arrived home and we figured a plan to get Ollie in the car without him shaking blood all over our car. I ended up sitting in the cargo area (why not, I look like a horror film character…a little more blood won’t hurt) of our van with our dog panting in my face and a towel around his ear. I sort of started to panic when we were in such close quarters and wondering if he would freak out on me.

To make a long and costly story short, Ollie ended up fine. He has the funniest ear and no matter how much I try to take a photo of it, he backs away and I can never get a good shot.

Look at him. You would never know that he could get in a scuffle with a raccoon, opossum, badger (ha!), or alien monster…we still don’t know what happened, just a good summer story to share.

Did I mention the mosquitoes and flies devouring me? Yep, they did. Maybe winter isn’t looking so bad.

Take yourself back to childhood, remember when something like a new pair of shoes was the biggest, happiest event of your life?!

This summer, Penny began camping out on the floor next to our bed. In the middle of the night, if she is awakened by a scary dream, she just comes downstairs and slips into her pre-made bed. I woke up one morning to this image and it made feel so grateful for the simplicity childhood CAN be…new shoes? YES.

It’s that time of year again! Sharing shots from my garden. I hope you don’t mind…given all the work that is required to prep the beds after winter I like to look back at these colorless shots and revisit when everything is bursting with color!

In the shot above, you can see the hops is already doing quite well. In fact, these photos were taken a week ago and the vines have gone CRAZY. Nathan actually has already hung string for the vines to climb and cover more of the deck. Love it. And I love the beer Nathan makes from our crop.

The flower beds look sad, but I can guarantee they will full of color soon. I use “River Rocks” to separate the sections and found they make perfect pathways for me to walk on- especially when the seedlings appear and I will want to avoid all the cute baby plants.

So- the flower list is: Zinnias, Violets, Sunflowers, African Daisies, Mexican Sunflowers, Hollyhocks, and more Shasta Daisies. Now I only hope that the rabbits STAY OUT.

Every year I draw a diagram of my garden and note the days until the seeds germinate. I am obsessed with watching this little plot of land grow. Everytime I pass it, I whisper encouraging words to GROW. I know, I am a lunatic, but that’s part of “Spring Fever”, right?

We have raised beds in our side yard and 2 huge beds in our back. Our side garden is mainly lettuce, arugula, strawberries, and herbs. I like to call this my kitchen garden. Close enough for me grab things as I need them.

What’s the trellis for? We like to grow lettuce throughout the summer and Nathan found this creates good shade for the harsh months of the summer. I’m not sure I buy it, but you can’t blame him for being inventive.

I’ll share more shots of our backyard garden, but it really is quite unappealing in photos. Everything is pretty much small seedlings or seeds in the ground!

I love our yard so much. In the next year or so, we are looking to sell and I know our yard will be what I will miss most. It’s been an exciting project for Nathan and I to share…the kids are not as into it and I am fine with that, as long as they eat the broccoli!

Oh- and the fairy garden is doing well. I love how it is so whimsical. It’s fun to watch morning walkers smile as they pass our garden.

Mosaic Icon Project from Saint Joseph Orthodox Church on Vimeo.

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Nathan and I teach Sunday School at our Parish. A few weeks back, when our priest asked if we could lead an assembly on our mosaic we created 10 years ago…I had to remind myself we IN FACT DID MAKE ONE!

I’m so glad we made this video. During the time of the mosaic’s creation, this was pre-digital and pre-imovie. Unfortunately, over the years, photos have been lost or not returned so I am glad we have a nicely edited version of our big undertaking.

I thought it would be fun for those that are interested to view what we created…last night!