Busy bee

I swear I don't get a chance to sit down very much. Always something to do... and yet my house is always a mess.


Last weekend I made a fabric box following this tutorial. I like her blog too! The box is not too shabby. I should have used stabilizer like the instructions said. I made it mostly to try out her method but I figure it'll make a nice scrap bin as is. If I make more I will get some of the clear vinyl so I can label the bins.

I spent all day yesterday at the school trying to help out with getting the rest of the flowers sold that were left over from Saturday. No such luck. And boy was it hot outside! A few more went but we still have a lot left. I decided to bring some home and pot the plants myself! We had sold out of the small potted plants we had but we still have lots of flats. I potted 20 tea cups and 8 small pots.

What cha think? Would you buy one for $4? After all Teacher Appreciation is next week and Mothers Day is soon too!


Today was filled up with FPS, library, grocery shopping, planting, gymnastics, and now on to Cub Scouts. I think my brain might melt out my ears! No me time anywhere in site... and I never go the garden started!

Good day

I had a long day but it was a really good day.

I worked at the school today selling flowers from 7 am to 1 pm. It was hard not to buy all of them myself. I bought 2 flats and 2 10" pots for the front porch. I still need more...

I left there to take the family to Hannah's gymnastics recital.

She flies around the bars!

Posing on the balance beam.

She did great. She really has improved since last year. I wonder if she'll make the team next year?

After the recital I took the kids to get some ice cream. It was such a beautiful day. Mid 80's. Perfect I tell you.

Is ice cream for eating, wearing, or both? It ran all the way to his elbows! I just laughed and took his picture. What else can you do? Clean 'em up when they're all done I guess. I don't think I'll ever stop carrying baby wipes.

They hung around the house playing inside for a while and then back out to play some more. We ate our shish kabobs and baked potatoes out on the patio table. We followed dinner up with smores. (Ice cream and smores in one day! Lucky kids, huh.) The big kids settles in to watch a movie and Seth asked to brush teeth and go read stories. He's sound asleep in bed...

It was a good day.

Spring has sprung

I finally feel like it's really spring around here! We've had so many cool rainy days that it seemed to drag out winter. (Of course, it's also been a little chilly in the house without heat.) I saw all the signs of spring- tulips and daffodils but I think it's finally, really, truly here. Maybe it's more like the weather finally agrees with what the plants know to be true.


We've been working hard on Hannah's FPS team trip. This week we went to the town council meeting, two PTO meetings, and tonight we're doing a bake sale at a school function. Phew, I'm busy! They've sent out tons of donation letters and we are moving forward with all the travel plans. This trip is going to be such a great experience for all of the kids. I question my sanity for wanting to along with this large group for 4 days...

There's been no time to quilt this week. I have a few small projects I'd like to do. I think this weekend I'll be gardening though. I'm going to pick up some flowers tomorrow for the planter boxes. I'm going to build a little raised bed for a square garden in the back yard too. I really think the kids will have fun picking their own veggies for dinner. I know I will!

Seth was being cute today while I took a few pictures of the flowers on the trees. He loves to pick dandelions. Don't all kids?

Smell the flower.

"Your turn Mommy!"

Hannah's quilt

Here it is.... ta da!


I really like how the binding came out.


I also like, no love, how much Hannah loves it!

Elephant in the room

I made an elephant today to go with the baby quilt.



Seth thought is was so awesome. He wanted to play with it. Ah, this could be bad. I told him all about how it wasn't his that it's for his new baby cousin that we'll get to go see this summer. Then I let him take it for a few minutes. All was well until I took it back. I took it because he was being to rough with it. For the past 20 minutes all he's said over and over is, "I want Elephant back."

I did this to myself didn't I?

He'll live. So will I.

Any hoo, yesterday was a gorgeous day! We sent the wee heathens out to play. They played outside almost the whole day. Wonderful I tell you. Finally at dinner time we told them to come in.

Seth is still demanding the elephant back. Ignoring him obviously isn't working...

Zoo

The rain cleared up and made way for a perfect day at the zoo. We took the long trek to the Philadelphia Zoo. It's a great zoo. It's so great in fact, we'll be going back there. Ok. I really bought a membership because as usual with places like that if you get the membership it pays for itself after going twice. The drive is kind of long but I think if we just make a day of it it'll be great. Pack a lunch, you get the idea.

I took Dan's little camera along today. I wanted to get pictures but I didn't want to haul around my nice camera. I'll share these pics with you in a minute.

Furnace update: We're going with natural gas. Yes, it costs more. Yes, it'll take longer to install. And yes, I'll be happy not having to deal with oil anymore!

Quilting: I am sewing down the binding on Hannah's new quilt. (It's nice to have something warm on your lap when there's no heat in the house.) I did something I've never tried before with the binding. I ran the stripped fabric the long way around the edge. I'll show you when it's done. I like it. As for my next project, I don't know. I had ordered fabric online and then with the company going out of business before they sent me my loot that I was really excited to get... I lost some momentum. I'll get something going here. I have lots of to-do's. Just not sure yet.

Without further ado here are a few pictures from our adventure today.

4 happy and energetic kids ready to take on the zoo!

This is what I saw of the kids most of the day. The back of their little heads. Maybe I should have fixed Seth's hair...

Seth and Hannah at the Tiger habitat.

3 little monkeys sittin' on a bear.

Dead furnace

It's official, the furnace it dead. Like soot on the basement floor with the stench of burning oil dead. On Sunday morning we were smelling the fumes a bit more and I grumbled about not being able to take it much longer. We went ahead with our day as usual and went over to our friends house for an Easter feast with fun activities for the kids. Their egg hunt was fun. They had camouflage eggs hidden in the yard. Thankfully they also had a map of where all the eggs had been hidden. I'd never be that organized and we'd never find all the eggs. Anyway, fun was had by all and the eatin' was great too!

Dan went back to the house early with Simon while I stayed with the other two kids. Apparently they could smell the fumes from the house before they even opened the door! He shut off the furnace immediately and opened windows and doors. Here's where all the fun begins. It was only 47 degrees outside and we had to air out the house. I came home a few hours later with one of John and Tiff's space heaters to add to our own. I couldn't believe how bad it smelled. It was awful. And it was freezing.

We ate dinner at McDonald's just to get out of there. Then we went home packed up some stuff and went to my moms over night. I was nervous about the kids being in the house with the horrid fumes. Thanks, Mom!

So here we are with a completed dead furnace, no heat and cool weather. We have oil heat too. I don't know about you but I really don't like oil. I don't like the massive tank full with 275 gallons of oil sitting under my porch. I don't like how it runs out sometimes or how you HAVE the the furnace cleaned yearly due to the dirty build up. It stinks. I'd also love to have a gas stove one of these days. They are so much nicer to cook on.

Now we have a chance to convert to natural gas! Awesome right...

Ok, now this is really fun part. We could get a new oil furnace put in tomorrow if we want. No issues, it'd be put in.

Gas on the other hand we have to get a line run to the foundation of the house. First I had to find out if there were gas lines in the street. Yes. Next, will the town let us get a permit to dig up the road? No, the street was recently paved it can't be dug up for 5 years! How about the other street since we live on a corner lot? It's not a town street it's a county road. Another phone call to find out if there's gas out there. Yes. Another call this time to the county. Will the county let us dig? Yes. Ok. Now for the next round of fun! Finding out how much a new gas furnace will cost... almost double because they have to run the lines in the house, install the furnace and remove our old oil tank.

The best part..

It would take 6-8 weeks to go through all the approval and permit BS to get the gas line run to our house.

AAAAHHHHH!!!

Is it worth it? Is gas that much better than oil?

Eggs for Easter

Before I tell you all about our egg dyeing fun I wanted to show that I still do some quilty things. I picked up Hannah's quilt yesterday before we went to the park. It was a great day for the park. I'll get the binding on it soon.


Easter egg dyeing is such a fun thing to do with the kids. Hannah goes for the artistic look of using rubber bands, crayons, and different color combos.


Simon uses his fingers and dips in different colors.


Seth just wanted red. That's it, red. I snuck a blue one in though. After he had them dyed he liked using the stickers to decorate.

They definitely enjoyed themselves. Simon ate two of his eggs immediately. Guess he didn't want to look at his creative work, he wanted to taste it.

I wish I would have brought the external flash down with me sooner though... I'll learn some day. I know, I keep saying that. One baby step at a time.

Direct flash.

Bounce flash, so much better!

Here's wishing you all a very...

Smoke monster

If you don't have a fireplace and you see this coming out of your chimney, is it bad?


YEAH!

Our furnace vents out the chimney. Obviously, something wasn't right. The guy from the oil company came out today to give it a look see...

We need a new furnace.

Really? Really!

Dammit.

Learning

My house attracts small children. I send three out to play and then I hear more... then a few more...

Why my house?

I think it's the tree. I should probably make all the parents sign a waiver before allowing their kids to come over. There was even one more kid that wasn't in this picture playing at our house today.

Please come down, that's way too high!

The boys room is all painted. The only thing left is the closet. I ran out of go-go juice my friends. It will get done though. We still have to drag all their stuff back in there too. I am amazed at how much crap they have. It's time for a yard sale or some donations. I'll get a picture of the finished room soon...

We bravely let the kids help us paint.

"Take my picture!"

I am amazed we got any painting done at all. I took Seth to two birthday parties and I went to a Pampered Chef party too. I was rather embarrassed today by Seth though. He hit another kid. (This isn't his first offense.) As I was hurrying over to get Seth and remove him I heard the kids dad saying to his son to stay away from that boy, he's hitting. Grr. Seth knows better. I swear. Now to get him to act like he knows better! Tiff suggested a zero tolerance on it. Not just removing him and giving him a time out but leaving. What do you think?

Totally changing subject here. Yeah, I don't have a nice segue.

I watched Twilight last night and added the borders on a charity quilt for the guild. All the fabrics were provided. We had sewn most of the top a while ago and I said I'd finish it.


A little funny to finish off the post.

Do you see anything wrong with this picture?


His pants are on backwards. He dressed himself this morning and he didn't want me to fix them. His socks are inside out and upside down too and if you could see it, his shoes are on the wrong feet.

It's all a learning process.

Quilts, painting and fps

Oh, quilting how I miss thee...

I did finish up the yummy flannel baby quilt. The striped binding really makes the quilt. I did my really fancy stipple quilting on it. Someday I'll learn to do something cooler... someday.


It's super cute. I think it needs a friend to go with it. Maybe a little stuffed animal or something. I have a few quilt guild things I'd like to get done this week too. We'll see if I can.


We made some progress painting last weekend. All the walls got primed and we got the trim done. One more coat on the ceiling and then the blue walls. I am determined to be done with it this weekend. There is just way too much going on. Hannah's FPS stuff is going to suck all my time until we go to Michigan at the end of May.

I am the official liaison for the trip. This turns out to be a bigger deal than I knew (the trip not being the liaison). They aren't just going to a National competition their going to an International competition. These kids of ours will be competing against kids from all over the world. I hardly understood what they were doing when she wanted to start this at the beginning of the year. They are given a future scene and then the team gets 2 hours to come up with solutions on how they'd solve it. The topic they will get to work on will be Pandemics... I looked at Hannah and asked her if she even knew what a pandemic was?

As for me... I have to help with fund raising (hint, hint), coordinating, etc. Thankfully this position comes with one big benefit, my trip is mostly paid for. I think this is another one of those blood, sweat and tears things though... I'll be paying for it alright.