dreaming

The hubby and I have been talking about possibly redoing our kitchen and maybe even putting down some real flooring (we ripped out all the carpet in the house and painted the sub floors awhile back).  I haven't blogged about it because I am still not sure when/if it will happen, but I have been spending a good bit of time the last month or so researching and talking to contractors and cabinet companies etc.   So, I though it might be fun to share some of the things that have inspired my plans so far...

We want to take down the wall between the kitchen and dining room and have a nice big peninsula like this:

more pictures here

I love these built in hutches: 

 

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back splash

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This is one of the counters I like:

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I LOVE LOVE LOVE these stools, but I have not convinced the hubby yet that we need rainbow stools for our peninsula.

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If you want to see more kitchen inspiration check out my kitchen pinterest board :)

preschool picnic

Addie had her end of year picnic at preschool this week.  Every year they have a moon bounce, pony rides, and a petting zoo followed by a pizza on the lawn.  The whole family is welcome to attend and the kids even get in on some of the fun activities (although my kids are getting a little big for pony rides).

Addie wasn't into the pony rides or the moon bounce, but she loved the play ground.

And Emmy loved the bubble tables :)

Watching the ponies.

Emmaline loved the ponies... until I tried to put her on one!

There were baby chicks...

And the highlight of the day was watching this goat give birth to two babies!

I can't believe we've reached the end of the school year already!  Next week is graduation!

geocaching

Recently the hubby and the kids decided to try some geocaching at the wildlife preserve down the road from us.  I was away for the weekend, so I missed out on their first adventure, but last Sunday, on a whim, we decided to go look for another cache at a park near our house.  Really, the kids were driving me crazy whining and fighting and we all needed a change of venue, so I grabbed the camera, sent everyone to the bathroom, and we quickly jumped into the van and headed out.  It was late and we were totally unprepared for the search.  Somehow Emmy made it out of the house with rain boots on that do not stay on her feet, which meant that she had to be carried the whole time, and Regan and Tallulah were wearing flip flops!

It took us quite awhile to even find a path into the woods, but we did eventually find a way in.  We then spent the next 45 minutes trying to find the cache, all the while swatting at mosquitoes and pushing briers out of our path.  We never did find the box, but since we had left Regan and Adelaide at the playground beside the woods we figured we better find our way back out of the woods.  Luckily the way out proved easier than the way in, but we were picking ticks off of us for the next 24 hours and poor Emmy has welts all over her body from the mosquitoes!  I don't think we will go back after that cache again, but I think we will try geocaching again :)

wild (life) adventures

I've been so busy with end of the (CC) year stuff that I did not have time to post about our back yard wild life adventures last weekend!  We started the day last Friday with a cat rescue from the neighbor's tree.  This poor kitty had been stuck up there for more than 48 hours.  Both the fire department and animal control said they don't rescue cats from trees :( and that eventually he would come down on his own.

This gives you a better perspective of exactly how high up he was in that tree.

Finally, after we had listened to his pitiful cries for two whole days his owners found him and brought their ladder for a daring rescue.  It took some coaxing, but I am glad to report that the rescue operation was a success!

Then, that afternoon the boys discovered a swarm of honey bees in our tree!  A quick google search led me to a local bee keeping couple who had already relocated one swarm that day and said they could come right away to help with ours!  It was a field trip in our own back yard!

So this is what 15,000+ bees looks like when they are protecting their queen and waiting for their scouts to find them a new home.  Pretty amazing!

The bee keepers got all suited up, climbed up the ladder with their vented Rubbermaid, and started shacking the tree branch.

A lot of bees made it into the box, but a lot fell on the ground or stayed in the tree, so they got out their bee vac and started vacuuming up the rest of the swarm.

They said they were pretty sure they had gotten the queen because so many of the bees were all over the box - the bees are drawn to the pheromones the queen releases.

Bob and Susie were so patient answering all my many questions and not minding us all standing by and watching the whole process.  It really was fascinating! 

last day of CC

I just realized I never published this post!  Oops!  Anyway, I am back dating it and posting now!
 
Yesterday was our last day of CC!  The past two weeks have been spent in a flurry of end of year activity including Memory Master proofing, End of Year Celebration planning, Tutor gift sewing, and other misc. things.  Over the past 6 weeks the kids have been making bridges from straws, rubber bands and clay, and egg boxes for an egg drop out of popsicle sticks, rubber bands, and napkins.  Thursday they got to test out their creations.

These were hard projects for my class of 8/9 year olds as the adults were not supposed to help.  They still had fun doing it though.  I don't have any pictures of Regan and her friend Emily's egg box, but apparently theirs won the campus wide contest!

Here's my class with their bridges...

For the end of year celebration our class sang the president song and (most of) the kids dressed up like one of the presidents.

I had such a great time tutoring these guys this year, they were a super fun bunch of kids :)

thank yous

Its that time of year again.  I've spent the last week sewing lots of end of year thank you gifts! 

This is just 11 of the 13 bags I sewed.  I used this pattern.  I am sure I will make more of these, they were pretty simple to make and turned out really cute.  

a royal crown

I was at my friends house last night and her 3 year old daughter had a jar of change she said she was saving to buy a crown.  Her dollar store one had broken and the princess was in need of a new crown!  I asked her if she would like me to make one for her and she said "yes!"  I asked her favorite color and what she wanted on her crown and then headed home to see what I could create. 

As I looked through my fabric and trim supplies late last night I just had to start sewing right then.  It didn't take long to pull this little crown together.  There are a ton of tutorial out their for making crowns, so I wont bore you with too many details.  I've made crowns before out of felt, but I don't like how the felt gets pilly, so I used cotton and lined it with felt to make it stand up.  I got the button closure idea here.

Emmaline was happy to model for me this morning :)

Addie and I dropped the crown off after preschool this afternoon and Mercy was thrilled her new tiara - she even did a few twirls for us.  I meant to take my camera along, but totally forgot!