Love

I love school supply season.  You can't beat 25 cent crayolas.  You just can't.

P is for....

Even though summer is over, the kids haven't wanted to put an end to the "summer of fun" (ha, I flatter myself. Okay, I should say Kylie has still wanted to do crafts, Jayden would much rather play the wii or legos, surprise).  We've still been fitting in a few crafts between homework and friends and here are the latest:

Playdough- Koolaid Playdough: 1 C flour, 1/4 C salt, 2 Tbs cream of tarter, 1 Tbs veg. oil, 1 pkg koolaid mixed with 1 C water, glitter (optional- you can also add extra food coloring if you want)- cook all ingredients over med heat until ball forms, remove from heat and knead dough on floured surface until no longer sticky, store in airtight container- this is the best homemade playdough recipe I've found, it stays soft for a really long time.

Pretzels- once again, ode to the Rhoades dough! (dipped in powder sugar/milk frosting.mmmm.)

Puppet show- you can get kits at the store, but my kids (or should I say, Kylie and her friend) spent hours creating their own puppets, scenery and writing up the play (too bad it took so long that her friend had to go home before they could perform it and then Kylie was mad at me for all of eternity, or atleast until the next day when I bribed her with an otter pop to let me take her picture.)

Perry Pool- according to my kids the Basha pool is way more cooler and the life guards are way more nicer. Apparently they're little pool snobs, but they still had fun with their friends.

Puzzles- my kids love puzzles and I love that you can get them anywhere for cheap (I got this United States one at Wal-mart for $2, but the dollar store has plenty also).  I also love that the little chubby fingers could help too.

(the more he concentrated, the bigger the puddle of drool was under his chair)

Peter Pipers Pizza- enough said.

Picture scavanger hunt- The kids love this (even Jayden). I give them a camera and a list of things to take pictures of (like "something shiney", "something pokey", "something really old", "something stinky", etc.).  They had all their friends running around the house taking pictures then I would guess what they were.  It was fun to see what they came up with.

Paint- corn syrup paint, it's so cool! A little messy for the little monkey and it takes a while to dry, but it turns out really cool.  Just mix a couple of drops of food coloring in a couple of tablespoons of cornsyrup.  Draw the picture out first with a crayon (the site recommends glossy craft paper, but regular paper worked just fine)

Summer gift idea

I needed a summer themed Bunco prize, and here is what I came up with....simple but personal.  Tins at the Target dollar spot on clearance for 50 cents, a little spray paint, then tape it off and paint on a chalkboard paint label.  The seed kits were also on clearance at Target for $2.50.

 A little slice

Every mom has those moments. The ones you want to freeze. The ones that make you realize how lucky you are to be a mom.  I had one of those moments this evening, it wasn't anything significant but a moment I wanted to remember...rain pouring outside, smells of dinner filling the kitchen, a clean house with fresh Dyson lines, music playing in the background (this sounds cheezy and I'm almost emberassed as I'm writing this because it makes me feel so...so....old, but I love the "easy instrumental" music station on the satellite, it makes me feel like I'm in a fancy restraunt) and my three little munchkins perched at the bar.  Kylie helping Jayden with his homework, Maddox pretending like he's as big as them and all three of them playing so well together.  It didn't last long, minutes later Jayden was trying to make Maddox say "poop" and wouldn't give him his juice until he did, so he was crying.  Kylie's juice got spilled on her homework (which is why we don't do juice that often in our house) and my lovely easy instrumental music was soon drown out by all the crying and chaos.  But for a moment I had a little slice of heaven.  A short moment, but a moment nonetheless.

photoshop talk

I'm just now discovering the magical powers of photoshop. I've always been so intimidated, until I discovered "actions". I know there are many experts out there probably rolling their eyes and saying , "that is sooooo yesterday", but in case there are any fellow photoshop virgins out there, here are a few tips...

Pioneer woman has the best actions (what doesn't pioneer woman do that's the best?) go here to follow her instructions to download them for free. Once you have them downloaded, prepare to spend hours playing around with it. My favorites, and the ones I used for this photo, are fresh & colorful + boost (both in her first set) + colorized (in her second set). I love that with one click you can change the whole look of the photo instead of spending so long manually adjusting each setting.



Coffeeteaphotography.blogspot.com also has some fun free actions and iheartfaces.com also has some great photography tips, that's where I learned how to make the eyes pop. When you have your picture opened in photoshop, use the magnetic lasso tool to highlight the eyes (push shift when you're highlighting the second eye so they're both on the same layer), click "copy", then "paste" (this should create the new layer). Then go to "filter", "other", "high pass". Then click on "layer", "vivid light", and prepare to be amazed at them eyes. My friend was nice to let me interrupt her cleaning day {gasp} and kidnap her beautiful baby so that I could play around with my camera...

Another trick I learned is how to make your pictures bigger on blogger. Once you upload your picture, click on the "edit html" button (next to compose in the edit post mode), on the code for the picture look for "WIDTH: 400 px; DISPLAY;block; HEIGHT: 267 px" and delete that whole line. Then look for "s400" and change it to "s576", then click the "compose" button and that's it!

Projects

We have been busy, busy, busy at our house. Ricky got the dining room floor finished this week and I love the way it turned out. Parker was his trusty assistant this time around and was so excited to put some of his plastic toy tools to use. A safe and cautious carpenter always wears safety goggles, of course. Now that the wood floors are done, it's time to think about the carpet. That'll be next month's project. We'll have them installed though.

I'll admit, I didn't help much with the dining room floor (thanks for all your work honey!) but I've been busy working some magic of my own. With a little spray paint love, I turned these beauties:

Into this:

I love the splash of blue that it adds to my brown book shelf. Speaking of the brown bookshelf, I need you all to weigh in on my internal debate - should I paint that bookshelf and if so, black or white? I'm kind of leaning towards black, but I'm not sure. It's a nice solid wood shelf and I don't want to ruin it with a less then perfect paint job.

Next project...We got some forest green canisters for our wedding. They have served us well for 11+ years but it was time for them to go.

I've been on the look out for just the right canisters and finally found my canister soul mates at Goodwill. Who would have guessed? I brought these babies home, added a little paint and...

voila! They are a prefect match for my kitchen now!

I could tell my little wood block knife holder thing (what are they called?) was feeling very left out. So, being the loving decorator that I am, I let him in on the fun too.

They're not as impressive as new wood floors, but we all have to do our part. I love my new little set!