Lovely, isn't it? When we've read thirty books I'm going to take them to Pizza "Hunt" for lunch, but that's a surprise for now. They just think we're making a flower:)
Also, Christian really started pulling himself up on everything! He's been pulling up on the rails of his crib for awhile now, but he hasn't really done it anywhere else. This week, though, he seems to have discovered that there's a lot of fun stuff on top of these tables!
The kids' clothing sale was postponed so I haven't had to worry about that this week. It's looking to be even bigger this fall and in a larger building, too. I get so excited about this sale but it is full of really great clothes and, provided you get there early, there are some great deals. Most of the time I sell enough to at least cover the amount I spend.
Well, I'm off to finish up in the kitchen. My curtains are clean and ready to be pressed! It really doesn't take much to make me happy:) Making things pretty is my favorite part of cleaning, so I bribe myself with little projects like ironing the curtains or rearranging the pictures to get through the scrubbing. Sometimes we have to make our own rewards.
Brenna is a kindergartener! She's only four but she does so much with Levi that I thought it would be neat to have them just one year apart. If we need to add an extra year in there somewhere that shouldn't be a problem, but I'm afraid it's going to be the opposite problem - that she grows up all too fast for me! Already she looks so grown-y!
And now my first grader. Oh my word, I can not believe how fast he's growing. Look at those legs! Every pair of pants he owns is suddenly at least an inch or two too short. My baby boy. Not such a baby anymore...
Starting around March, this lizard visits our back deck every morning. We see him on the back door, literally, every day. The kids have a ball watching him and aren't nervous about him at all (what with the glass between them and all). Even I like to watch him. This is our third year with a (this? how long do lizards live, anyway?) lizard visitor. This picture is from Spring 2006. 
Amish Country Home by Carl ValenteI may say that I work best under pressure, but I crave the peaceful happiness in this picture. There is too much going on in my little corner of the world. There's good stuff, like planning for school next month, and heavy stuff, like our struggling church, and difficult stuff, like a six year old who thinks he 16 or 60 (the rolling eyes, the know-it-all attitude, the "Listen, mom, it's like this") - oh my word. Sometimes stuff just seems to take over my life.
Now, to get to work...
Our street is a little too busy for the kids to play by themselves in the yard just yet, but I can see the back deck from the living room, kitchen and my computer so every summer we haul the baby pool up the steps and they spend hours out there (with industrial strength sunscreen, of course). Last summer they wouldn't stay for long because it was soooo hot, but this year has been much nicer so they are really taking advantage. Christian plays sometimes, too, but only when I can go outside. Now if I throw some bubbles in while they play, will it count as a bath? 
The first thing I do is get out my pretty pictures file and dig through all the, um, pretty pictures, until I find some that look good to me right now. Obviously this will be different for everyone - this is also what makes this so fun. For some reason bright pink was just calling my name this month... Lots of these pictures won't get used, but I like to have plenty to choose from.
Next, I get a plain Jane notebook. The sturdier cover and cheaper price of these make them an excellent choice.
Now I start picking and choosing pictures and tearing them to fit. Feel free to use scissors if you want your notebook to be boring and dull with no cool-edgy-torn effect. Sometimes I use a piece of colored scrapbooking paper for a background, or sometimes I choose a really large picture for the background. Either way, it's easiest to have one piece that covers all the brown-ness and then build on top of that.
I like to have some words somewhere on the front because that's just the kind of person I am. Sometimes a Bible verse, sometimes a quote...one day I might do one with just words all over it. I love words. Let's move on.
Now I slap some modge podge on the cover and start placing things where I think they should go. A couple of notes - always lay it out first and smooth it out really well (see my wrinkles? the ones on the notebook, I mean!). Rubber cement works much better than modge podge, but sometimes I have to make do. I will not go to Walmart just for rubber cement. I just won't do it!
I saw this over at Amy's (she's having a contest for free registration, by the way, but don't sign up cause I want to win!) and it looks fabulous. $19.95 is not a bad deal.
but I have had a rough day (it was my preacher's last day at church...very emotional) and I just want to think about something that makes me happy. My notebooks make me happy. I've been using a plain brown steno book as my "brain" for awhile now. It's so important to me that I bought a purse with a pocket to fit. The problem, of course, was that they're plain and brown and ugly. They do not go with my pretty new blue purse! I also had a stack of magazines that I couldn't throw away because they were just too lovely (Southern Lady for example). So I tore into the magazines and pulled out every picture that appealed to me...blue hydrangeas, pecan tassies, lace hankies, a golden pineapple, peaches, whatever,,,and saved them in a file folder. Now each month I start a new notebook. It only takes about 15 minutes to dig through the pictures til I find some I like and glue them to the cover. Rubber cement and/or modge podge seem to work the best, by the way. Now I know this probably seems a little like a waste of time, but y'all it is so much fun to turn this boring old notebook into something pretty and interesting. And looking over them today really did cheer me up:)
