park day

The kids and I are spending a few days at my parents.  Today we spent the morning at the park...

Addie is quite a climber

Emmy's first time on the carousel

All smiles after a long, loud wait in line for the train ride.  There was a middle school group there too.  Funny, Regan said "I never realized how well you've taught us to behave until I saw how badly those kids were behaving!"

no more painted sub flooring!

It's official!  We are at the very least getting new floors in the Little White Schoolhouse! I placed my deposit on enough bamboo to floor the entire house! 

We are still awaiting bids on kitchen stuff, but I hope we will have come to a decision by this time next week!

snip, snip, snip

First off, my camera got dropped a couple weeks ago and my regular lens is broken :(  So I am stuck with a zoom lens, photo booth, or my Driod camera for taking pictures until we decide what to do about the camera/lens. So, excuse the poor quality photos and all that mess behind me in the first few photos!

Anyway, I've been thinking about cutting my hair for over a month now, but just kept going back and forth about exactly how much I should cut.  This morning I decided I couldn't wait any longer so I called and made an appointment with a stylist my friend had recommended.    I basically went in and said, "I don't know what I want to do, just cut it however you think would look best!" 

I ended up donating 12 inches of hair!

Tallulah keeps telling me I look like my sister, Sherri.  It won't ever look like this again, b/c I am a wash and go kinda girl.  I can't wait to see how it looks "unstyled".

Addie has been asking me to cut her hear for awhile now.  She said she wanted it like Tallulah's hair.  I have been avoiding it because I love her long hair, but while I was out...

she decided to take matters into her own hands!

Cutting a 4 year old hair is not for the faint of heart.  This is not my best work, but it was the best I could do with a little girl who could not hold her head still or straight!  She love it, and that is all that really matters!

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!