Ramblings

What could be better than going to Disney World in 7 weeks?

Going to Disney World in 3 weeks!!!!!!

Due to unforseen circumstances we had to move our vacation up a few weeks. And get this. We are going to stay an extra day, and we were able to upgrade to a better resort, and we are getting a better meal plan for only a few bucks more. This could not have worked out better for us!

In the meantime, things are super busy around here. Actually, now that I think about it, I have at least one significant event on the schedule every week until my birthday, January 8.

This week I'm finishing up the kids' costumes for trick-or-treating. They are going to be so cute! I can't wait to share pictures with ya'll.

Our church's Fall Festival is this weekend too. The Tool Man and I head it up each year. If you are not familiar with our festival, it is a HUGE event for our church. We have 30+ carnival games, a fantastic cake walk, hayrides, chili dogs, popcorn, inflatable jumpers, face painting, an extensive petting zoo, and candy candy candy! I'm always amazed at how it all comes together so easily every year. Our people really work hard to make it all happen. And what's even more amazing is how quickly it is all cleaned up! In less than an hour everything is put away, ready to be used again next year.

Next week I have two cakes to make. I hate to tell ya'll this, but the first one is an Alabama football cake! Yuck! Ew! It's for a 9 year-old girl who is a big Bama fan. She wants half the cake to be Bama and half to be LSU. The LSU half I can handle, but the Bama half? Well, that remains to be seen!

I am also helping with a wedding shower next weekend, and I'll have to make a cake for that too. I wonder what flavor I'll make this time. I'm thinking another coconut lemon curd cake. It was a huge hit at the last shower. So yummy! I got the idea from Mrs. Paula Deen so you know it has to be good!

The next week is our annual Thanksgiving lunch at church, and I'm in charge of setting up and decorating for this meal. Of course I'll also be busy planning and packing for Disney World. That will be fun, of course, but it's a little challenging trying to guess how many outfits and diapers a toddler is going to go through in 7 days. Wouldn't want to run out of diapers, now would we? No, that would not be a good thing.

I guess I'll stop boring you with my schedule . But I do want to tell you that at least two of our hens are laying now. Yeah, I found two eggs yesterday! One was a pale sage green color and the other was little lighter and slightly more blue. I love those colors. It just occurred to me that those eggs are almost the exact same color of most of the walls in my house. Maybe that's why I like them so much :)

I'm making a few special treats for the kiddos at Awana tonight - mummy dogs and a giant s'more cake. I'll post a few picture for you when I get the cake finished, but trust me, it is soooooo cute!

The New Student

Ty and I welcomed a new student to our classroom this week. Lucy decided to try her hand out at school. I know I've told you what a climber she is. She's really living up to her title "Monkey."


I have moved our classroom location 3 times this year trying to find a spot that will offer the least amount of distractions from Lucy. First we had school at the roll-top desk. You would think that this would have been OK, but she continuously opened every drawer and emptied each one every day. Then we moved to the kitchen island, but with 3 barstools it was like a trip to the monkey bars for her. Third, we tried the utility room. Sounds odd doesn't it? But I have a huge island in there that has plenty of space for all Ty's school work. There's only one stool in there, and Ty would be sitting on it, so there would be nothing for Lucy to climb. Ha! She just shimmied up the stool with Ty, and if we tried to keep her off she screamed bloody murder.

So we are currently schooling at the breakfast room table. I've removed all but one chair from the table, the one Ty sits in, but as you've probably already guessed, Lucy just climbs up in the chair with him. Only she doesn't stop there. Now her goal is to be on top of the table...playing with markers. Oh brother!

I've considered getting the cage play pen down from the attic to put her in while we are doing our lessons, but I seriously think that she would just climb out of it. Come to think of it, I honestly don't know what's keeping her from climbing out of her crib at night.

When I was pregnant with Lucy I thought there was no way this child could be any more active than Ty, but I'm beginning to reconsider. This climbing business scares me. She has no fear.

P.S. I've had a little trouble with Blogger this week. All of a sudden, it will not let me upload any photos. The only way I could circumvent this problem was by switching back to the old version of Blogger. I don't know what kind of effects this may have had on my blog, so please be patient as I try to get this all figured out. :)

Magic in the Air

"Lindsey.  You just found your very first chicken egg.  What are you going to do next?"

"I'm going to Disney World!!!!!!!!!"

Yes, that's right folks.  I am going to DW!  The magic begins December 9.  Let the count down begin.

And since I'm feeling generous, I thought I'd let the Tool Man and monkeys come along with me. ; ) And since I'm feeling very generous, I thought I'd invite my mom and dad.  (Well, somebody has to watch the monkeys while the Tool Man and I lose our lunches on the Space Mountain, right?)

I'm excited to be going so close to Christmas, because I'm sure the decorations and celebrations will be spectacular.   Disney World is beautiful anyway, so can you imagine it "decked" in red and green?

Ty is pumped up about the trip.  He's already started counting down the days.  50...49...48...  I'm not sure he has a grasp of how long that is though, because he asks me everyday if we are leaving tomorrow.  He's really excited that he's tall enough to ride most of the rides this time.  Last time we went, he missed most of the height requirements by 1 or 2 inches.

I'm a little nervous about going to Disney World with an 18 month old.  Ty was 4 years old when we went last.  He mostly rode in the stroller, but he was big enough to walk some.  He was definitely old enough to enjoy the rides, and he was pretty good about waiting in line.  That's where I'm nervous about Lucy.  I wonder how much she will get out of the attractions, and I worry about entertaining her while we're waiting in lines.  It's going to be tough trying to corral her.  She's so active.  More than Ty even!!!  Lucy's not going to be one to sit patiently in her stroller.  Oh well, I'll let the Tool Man deal with her! ; )

I've put together a mini album of photos from our last visit to Disney World.  Hope you enjoy.

This slide was SUPER fast.  I literally flew out of the chute.  Airborne!  I came away from that one with bruises and scratches.  Can't wait to try it again!

Ty talked a big talk about meeting the Disney characters, but when it came down to it he was just plain chicken.  This time he says it will be different.

Green Eggs and Ham, Anyone?

It's the moment we've all been waiting for...

Drumroll, please.

We got our first chicken egg Monday!!!  Woo hoo!

I have to admit that I really doubted if we would ever get any eggs from our girls.  I dunno, I guess I had this fear that our chickens just wouldn't "work."

I was outside Monday afternoon when I heard the chickens cutting up.  I went over to make sure they were alright, and imagine my surprise when I found this pretty little egg.

It was green!

Just what I was hoping for.

Ty observed, and rightfully so I think, that it must be painful to have an egg come out your bottom.  Ha!  What a crazy kid.

There was one little problem with the egg, however.

The shell was cracked.  Fortunately, the membrane was not broken.

Here's a close up.  Notice the nice little trail of chicken poop running across the egg.  Silly me!  I just assumed that eggs came out washed and ready to eat.

The Tool Man was a little nervous about eating the egg.  Not because it was cracked.  He thought that chickens might be like new ice makers...  You have to throw out the first batch they make.  Not so, my friend!  We scrambled that baby up for breakfast this morning.  Yummy!  Can't wait for more.

Quiz Time!

Q:  What do you call the white stuff on top of bird poop?

A:  Bird poop  : )

Lucy's Surgery - Part II

Everything went great with Lucy's procedure this morning.  No troubles at all!  She was a little cranky after the surgery, and she slept for most of the afternoon, but that's totally understandable.  Who wouldn't be tired and grouchy after getting up at 4:30 in the morning??

I'm a little worried that Lucy's recent progress in the sleeping department may be impaired by this whole ordeal.  It seems that every time she tries to start sleeping longer (past 5:00 am) an illness messes up her schedule.  She's been sleeping very well the past week, so I hope that she will continue to do so.  Keep your fingers crossed!

Time for another pop quiz!

Q:  How can you tell when a monkey has been in the cookie jar?

A:  When you find a monkey who looks like this!

That must have been one goooood cookie.  Lucy even had chocolate in her ears!

I hope I'm not misleading you.  She didn't actually swipe the cookie.  I gave it too her, fair and square.

Ty cracked up when he saw her.  He couldn't imagine how she got it on her nose.  What a mess!

Lucy's Surgery - Part I

Hello! A quick update...we are in the hospital with Lucy this morning. And when I say morning, I mean MORNING! Anyway, she is about to have tubes put in and adenoids taken out. Her only concern though so far is that I won't let her eat! Dad just put her hospital gown on her, but it looks more like an evening gown - floor length. So cute!

Lucy also just had a dose of "magic juice." It's supposed to calm her down, but sometimes it can hype kids up.

Guess what!

Yeah, it hyped her up. She was sitting in the middle of the floor playing with rubber bands. Now she is pulling stuff off the wall and trying to escape from our room.

I'll let you know how everything goes...

Around the House - Halloween Style

I thought I would share a few of our Halloween decorations with you.

First is a wreath I constructed out of leftover material I had laying around the house.  I was inspired by Jen's wreath over at Tatertots and Jello.  If you've never been over there, you should check out her site!

This wreath was sooooooo simple.  After disassembling an old wreath, I covered the grapevine form with strips of burlap.  Then I glued on these fabric "flowers" that I made out of scraps of black and orange and yellow fabric.  For the center of the flowers I used buttons.  The Tool Man thinks the flowers look like eyeballs.  Either way is good for Halloween! ( :

 Here's a close up of the flowers.

And in the kitchen...a few spider webs and spooky leaves draped here and there.

I made these book jack-o-lanters several years ago, and I still love them.  They're just my style - a little bit vintage.  They're the perfect accent on the mantle.

And I've started on a candy can for Ty.  Remember the one I made for Lucy?  Burlap, ribbons, and flowers.  Good for girls, bad for boys.  So I came up with this slightly more masculine and creepy version for "Mummy's" little boy.  Sometimes I crack myself up ; )  All I have left to add is the handle.

Also this year's Halloween costumes are in the works.  Sorry, but I cannot reveal them until the big day.  It's sort of a tradition of mine.  But I will tell you that Ty has requested two costumes this year.  One to wear to our fall festival and one for the actual trick-or-treating.  OK, so I'll tell you about one of his.  He wants to be a caterpillar.  A caterpillar??  Not my idea of a good costume, but whatever floats his boat...

Visions

Seems like I've been apologizing a lot lately for my lazy blogging.  But we were out of town a couple of days this week, and I just ain't had the time!  Plus I've been suffering from a case of blogger's block (yeah, I just made up that condition).  I can't seem to think of anything interesting to say.  And the monkeys have just been up to their usual monkey business, so there's no real news to speak of there.

So, in an effort to supply y'all with some new reading material, and to let you know that I'm still kicking, I decided to go through my file of inspiration photos and share a couple of them with you.

These are just a few of the photos that have inspired my decorating decisions for our new upstairs.  Maybe this will help you see my vision for the new rooms.

CAUTION!  The following photos are very white.  I know. I know.  It's a risky decision for kid territory, but it's a risk I'm willing to take.

First, the bathroom.

Yes, I plan to have all my towels, washed, rolled, and neatly stacked (not to mention color-coordinated) at all times.  Notice how I said "plan" and not "promise."

Although I won't be getting this farmhouse sink, I still love this picture, especially the cracking paint on the cabinet.   And the toile.  Who doesn't like toile?  And the light, breezy curtains.  So fresh!

And for Lucy's room...

I do love me some old stuff!  I have bags full of old toys and dolls and doo-lolly's (mine and my mother's) just waiting to accessorize Lucy's new digs.  I even have my old, white, iron day bed, although its paint is not chipping.  Hmm... maybe I could fix that.

Just kiddin' Mom!

What about Ty's room?  Well, I've got a picture for that too.  It's just in a book.  It's white too, much to Ty's chagrin, but I think he'll be OK with it once all of his stuff is up there to add color and personality.

As for the progress upstairs, we're still waiting for the cabinetry to be made.  And I haven't forgotten that I promised you some pictures from up there.  But I can't think about that today.  "I'll think about that tomorrow."