I asked for pictures, and she provided them.  I drooled.  And then I spent every spare moment of my next day sorting Lego.  By color.

Awesome, isn’t it?  The one bin on the top left that isn’t sorted by color holds all the Lego guys and girls, their weapons and accessories.

The boys are thrilled, as it makes it much easier for them to find the pieces they’re looking for.  But… will they be able to keep it this way?  Or, will the “baby” be able to resist dumping and mixing?  I guess we’ll have to see…

**********

This morning was absolutely gorgeous.  Really.  It would have been tough to beat our weather no matter where you live.  So, after walking the kids to school, I decided that Andrew and I would take Cheerio to the park across the street.  After seeing our neighbor with one, I had recently bought a Chuckit! and was eager to try it out.  I wasn’t sure how it would go, though, as Cheerio loves to chase balls, but isn’t that great about giving them back.  Plus, she likes to run off.

I filled my pockets with treats, grabbed AP (who grabbed the new toy), and leashed up Cheerio.

Wow!  That Chuckit! can make the ball FLY and Cheerio was all about going after it.  And, she brought it back!  Andrew and I had a blast watching her run.  After just 4 or 5 throws, she was done and we headed home.

Not wanting to go indoors, we all hung out in the backyard and I finally finished a project I had had in the works for a little bit.

I had seen this on Pinterest, and while I didn’t think I wanted to do all of that, I knew I could do the slide.  Problem was, I didn’t want to spend a bunch of money on a slide (they’re not cheap).  Then… lo and behold, some neighbors put TWO slides (and what was left of their play system) out on the curb for trash pick up.  Whooo hooooo!  What a score!  I sent my boys down the street to collect the better looking of the two and then it sat in our garage (much to my husband’s annoyance) for several weeks.

Until today:

I did manage to make this the other day, and only for the cost of glue, as I had the other materials on hand:

Now Lukie can display his Lego creations securely.

When he saw his new shelf, he was THRILLED.  Until he found out I cut up his base plates to make it.  Then there were tears.

Story of my life.

Between Pintrest and talking often to my extremely talented project-oriented sister, I’ve caught the project bug.  And, in a house like this, with a family like ours, there is ALWAYS a project to be done.

This one, though, was easy and quick and (drum roll, please….) cheap!

Recently, we swapped beds between the kids.  Maria previously had a queen and Jack a twin.  But, as Maria has the smaller room, we figured it would give her more space to get the bigger bed out of there.  It was an easy swap, and Gran provided an awesome new quilt to adorn Jack’s (new to him) bed.  (Maria’s is very girly.)

The only thing that needed work was the headboard.  A few years ago, I made a padded headboard for Maria’s bed.  It turned out great and went well with her flowery quilt.  Being a light green, however, meant that it didn’t go well with Jack’s new quilt.  I put it in his room, anyway, thinking I’d get around to changing it soon enough.

Almost four months later, I did get around to it.  And, it looks great!

The best part?  The fabric was on SALE!!!!  This project cost me a whopping $12 and took (minus the four months) just 15 minutes!

How cute would Andrew look?!?

But then, I forgot all about it.  Until I came across it again, only it was a version in which someone had made a t-shirt rather than a onsie and used felt instead of paint.

Well, this morning was ugly and dreary and I felt like doing a project.  So, Andrew and I headed over to Hobby Lobby for a few supplies.  I found everything I needed except for a brown shirt.  I needed a brown shirt.  Turkeys are brown.  Not black or white or orange or blue.  Or, heaven forbid, pink.

We tried JoAnn’s.  No dice.  Michael’s.  No again.  I called several screen printers in the area, thinking they might sell blanks.  Nope.  Finally, doubtful but desperate, we headed over to Wal-Mart at my sister’s advice.  And I was able to find a brown turtleneck.  While I’m not a big fan of the turtleneck, a) it is cold here; and b) I won’t be the one wearing it.

Now, I know pride is one of the seven deadly sins… but, ISN’T IT CUTE?!?!?!?

Isn’t even cuter with him in it?

My sister, Caroline (she of tremendous talent), crocheted blankets for my babies when they were born.  The kids each latched on to them immediately.  Although I lack the talent she has, I was somewhat inspired.

So, a few years ago, I found someone who knew how to crochet and I bought a book for South Paws and figured it out.  For the most part, anyway.  I think I made three or four blankets, none of which were exactly square, or pretty, but still, they’ve come in handy.

This time around, I got the courage up to actually change colors!  So, I made a blanket with a stripe pattern.  I like the blue and brown combo, but I don’t know… these particular colors may be too dark for a baby.  And, it’s kind of big.  But, hey!  It’s my best effort yet!

Jack has taken his project and run with it.  He chose to do his project on Anacondas (much to his father’s dismay) and the diorama he created is wonderful.  While I think there is NO WAY any second-grader could have done a better job, Dan assures me that we’ll see some other things at the fair that exceed it.  Humpffff. Chalk it up to pregnancy brain (or laziness), but I failed to take a picture, otherwise you could see for yourselves what an outstanding artist my first born is.  I WILL take some pictures during or after the fair so you can see, but for now, you’ll just have to trust me.  It’s AWESOME.

The preschoolers are not to be left out…  They have been working hard on a large display of various animals that live in different parts of the world.  As I was the mommy helper on Wednesday, I was bestowed the honor of stuffing and stapling giant penguins.  For THREE HOURS.  I’m still having trouble using my hands since completing that task and am beginning to wonder if I’ll ever get all the feeling back…

Maria’s class has been studying teeth (hers are VERY clean lately) and I’m looking forward to seeing the fair display they’ve been working on for the last couple of weeks.

My project?  Apparently I’m gestating a dinosaur, although I doubt he’ll be ready to make his appearance in time for the science fair.  No… he’ll probably wait until he simply BURSTS THROUGH MY SKIN one day.  Seriously, I don’t know if it’s because I’m so old this time around, or if it’s because my body is worn out from the first four, or if I’ve just completely lost my mind and forgotten what it’s like, but I don’t see how I can be this big and still have SEVENTY NINE more days left.  While I certainly don’t want this baby to pull a Sam and come 8 weeks early, I’m desperately hoping he doesn’t try to wait the whole SEVENTY NINE more days.  (Don’t expect pictures of this project in progress.)

Go… now!  Browse! Create! Shop!!!

Window "Box"

I’ve been wanting window boxes for the front of the house, but have found that the ones wide enough for our windows are waaaayyyy out of our price range.  Coincidentally, as I was lamenting this, our March issue of The Family Handiman arrived.  And in it, a quick project that can be done in lieu of window boxes.

It took us a few weeks to gather the materials, make the cuts and do the painting and assembly, but we finally got it all done and the first one is complete!  I am soooooo excited!

The others should go more quickly, as I think we’ve gotten past all the learning curves.

What do you think? (Keep in mind that the foliage will mature and hang over the ledge eventually.)  Oh, and we plan to replace the shutters with wider, hunter green ones.

Landscaping

Oh, and besides the window decor, you can see that we have planted a redbud tree (my Mother’s Day gift), several rhododendron at the back (which will reach 4 ft. high and wide when fully grown), some hostas to the front (transplanted from the backyard) and some purple thingys in the middle.  Nice to have a little landscaping!

Landscaping

Here’s what we started with this weekend after trying to remove some grout:

And then we went to this:

to this:

to this:

and finally, to this:

While we’ll continue to do some things on our own, we’ve asked Mario to come back and change out the plumbing to an anti-scald faucet (thank goodness!) and to do the taping and mudding of the drywall.  I wish I could show you the whole bathroom, but it’s just too dang small.

While I sit and type this, we’re still all freezing our asses off.  The furnace guy is coming sometime between 10 and 2.  Doesn’t look good for him being on the early side.

Coffee anyone?

So, we’ve been using the first floor tub for showers (Dan and I) and baths (Jack, Maria, Luke and Sam). Despite the stopper not working, we’ve been able to give baths using a make-shift drain plug.  It’ll do until the plumber comes back with the correct parts.  One day.

This is the same tub I’ve complained about due to excessive water on the floor.  It was driving us crazy.  We tried everything to stop it or divert it.  All to no avail.  Then we discovered the problem.  The previous owner (loathe to do anything right) “repaired” the failing caulk line around the tub with this.  In case you’re wondering… it doesn’t work.  Actually, as one bathtub guy told us, it makes the problem worse.  Water runs down the wet tile walls, gets under this strip and then is channeled around the tub and onto the floor.

Obviously, it does not provide a good seal.  Which means: WATER DAMAGE.

We found the WATER DAMAGE not long after I peeled the strip off.  We figured (since it was ineffective and terribly ugly) that we’d peel it off and then caulk around the tub properly.

Despite Dan having suggested that we wait until the upstairs tub was in good working order, I took the bull by the horns and got to work.  (After all, waiting until that tub is fixed could be… forever.)  I chose last night to start the project.  At 10 p.m.

Lo and behold, the strip was easy to pull off.  I mean, it’s not like there was a good seal there or anything.  So far, so good.  I brought the strip to show Dan, who wondered aloud what the heck I was doing peeling that stuff off that late at night, especially when we only had one working tub.

Ummmmm…?

It didn’t look too bad, really.  We just needed to remove the old caulk and put down new.  Dan and I got out our window scrapers and putty knives and went to work pulling up the old, very icky caulk.  It was very easy to pull up, as it was all rotted.

Unfortunately, once the caulk at the front of the tub was removed, it was easy to see that there were some  very loose tiles.  And rot.  I pulled out one little piece of tile at the edge of the tub.  Behind that tile was rotted backer board.  Black, rotted, useless.  Dan stuck his finger in there (ewwwwww) and pulled out black and gray, wet, crumbly cement stuff.

Due to my brilliant, go-getter attitude we now had NO working tub or shower.  And, it was 11 p.m. at night.  And, we both needed showers.

Here’s what it looked like:

And, here’s a nice, gross close-up for you:

We started talking about putting our new fence on hold, buying tile, going to the Home Depot tile clinic and what it would take to repair our bathroom.  We wondered how bad it was behind all that tile.  And, we wondered, what the heck were we going to do for a shower/bathtub? Like right now?

We decided to chance using the upstairs tub for quick showers last night and committed to finding a way to patch things up enough to use the downstairs tub until the upstairs one is permanently fixed.  Once that happens, we’ll get back to the downstairs tub and work on it in earnest.

So… after mass this morning, we worked on the tub some more.  We pulled out the rest of the little tiles along the front of the tub where the problem is.  Dan (oh, so brave) cleaned out all the rotted gunk.  Now we had a whole strip about an inch tall that needed to be filled in.  Then the whole tub needed to be caulked.

Off to Home Depot Dan and Jack went while I served lunch to the youngest three and put Sam down for a much-needed nap.

The boys returned home triumphant.  Dan had been able to find a strip of “never rot” that was just the right width.  He just had to cut the length down a bit to fit.  And fit it did.  Perfectly.  Whew!

My hero then caulked around the entire tub, rendering it water tight.

I figure by the time we get everything done around this house, Dan and I will be experienced enough to get into the flipping industry and make millions.  Look for us on HGTV.

An unexpected working weekend.  But, at least we weren’t bucketing water out our basement windows like the neighbor down the street.  They’re also new to the neighborhood, God bless them.

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