Bragging on Kids. New Scrap Room. Spring Break.

I forgot to show photos of the kids' Valentine cards on my last post. We put some time into them this year as they wanted to make their own. Well, I confess, I was the one who wanted them to make their own but they both had their own ideas and as you'll see, Andrew got a little carried away! We stamped some heart stamps with paint, cut them out and used pop dots. He HAD to sew on his - something he's been wanting me to teach him to do for a while now. LOL Too bad there wasn't someone with a camera to capture my face and stance while I was letting him sew on his Valentine's. He just wrote "from Andrew" on the back. We had spent enough time on them and I was ready to call it quits. Ha! I had seen something similar done by Sarah and her son over at SBO.


Elizabeth had to do hers on the computer - of course! She is quite the digital scrapbooker. ;) Not that I am but I have taught her a thing or two when I've been playing in Photoshop Elements. She knows how to do a lot already on her own. It IS amazing what kids can pick up and learn if you bother to teach them! She had to have a few different styles to hand out. We printed them out and even printed "from Elizabeth Farmer" on the back.





Here's a photo of Andrew from our measly snow day a couple of weeks ago (when they got out of school). There had been more but it melted pretty quickly although the roads had been bad that morning.

The day after our snow, they had school. It was a Friday. Andrew had planned on spending the night with his best friend, Joshua. Since it was just Elizabeth and me after school, I decided to go shopping for her an Easter dress. We hit Belk's first and it became our last stop immediately. LOL We found several dresses for Easter to choose from as well as some casual dresses for other Sundays. Afterward, she begged to go look in Libby Lu and then ended up spending her chore money there. She bought this princess pad that you fill out. Here's what she wrote on it while we were on our way home:

I told her she should put "j/k" in the bottom corner so Daddy would know she was joking. Her response? "I'm not joking! I'm serious!" Oh boy! Daddy liked it though. ;) He says she's going to be trouble when she's a teenager (i.e., in wanting to buy things and be spoiled).

Weekend before last, we went to Pikeville to see Tollette and Rachell's new baby girl, Briley. As I mentioned in my last post, Wade and the kids actually went the weekend prior but I hadn't seen her yet and this was the weekend we had planned to see her. Plus, Ben and Stacy were in for Spring break and we're having a christening/dedication for Stone. After my futile attempt to have flowers delivered to Rachell when she was in the hospital and they never made it for several reasons, I got my money back and just bought the baby some clothes. I had fun shopping for them because when I had Elizabeth we didn't have the money to buy clothes and we had been given so much that if we did have the money, it would have been silly to buy more.

I could not get a good photo of Briley because it was so dark in their house. This is the best I could do.

The card I made for Tollette and Rachell:

Photos of Stone from Sunday:

On Monday (March 3), after my weekly Bible study, I hurried to Elizabeth's class to help start the scrapbook her class is doing for the school auction. Lorrie and I had worked on it quite a bit getting the supplies prepared and her teacher, Miss Lori, had worked hard on getting all the photos put together how they should be. The kids were able to get about 25 pages done in an hour and a half!!! We are using a basic design for each page. Miss Lori gave Elizabeth several pages to do and be in charge of as other kids helped her because she saw she was "an expert" as she called her. Elizabeth ate this up, of course! ;)


The next day Andrew had a field trip to the planetarium at ETSU so I was back at the school busing kids for it. I remember going to Bays Mountain planetarium when I was a kid MANY years ago! The funny thing is that I also remember getting dizzy while sitting in the seat and watching the movement of the sky and fell out of my chair. It's one of those memories that you have stuck in your head for some reason and just don't know exactly how it happened or what went on. LOL

They dismissed early that day from school for parent-teacher conferences. I met with both teachers. The following is not to brag to my friends and family about my kids but because, well, I am very proud and I want to remember what they said!!! Miss Lori said Elizabeth is an excellent student. When she teaches a concept she picks up on it immediately and runs with it whether it be in math or science or whatever. She is very impressed with her creative writing. (This is dear to my heart since that was what I loved and had several high school teachers urge me to pursue.) She's resourceful in using her student dictionary to look up words on her own instead of asking someone else or the teacher. She had excellent reading comprehension and can read things and remember dates and facts like when they were studying the presidents around President's Day. She's doing great in spelling and wants to move her up to the fourth grade spelling words now. (She's been using 3rd grade spelling words.)

Andrew - Ms. Shelley said that she can always count on Andrew to answer the questions about whatever they read the day before or whenever. Again, reading comprehension and recollection. He's always been good at this from when he was in 3 yrs olds at church and his Sunday school teachers would comment on how he would remember the facts from the prior Sunday. She said he's tested perfect in the recent math unit and is reading at early first grade level. The harder first grade level is a bit too difficult for him but this puts him on track for his class - how the other kindergartners are reading. She says he is a hard worker, always helping to clean up too. He is creative in his building and art. (His many "creations" he brings home attributes to this!)

Okay, bragging over! :) (For this post!)

I took Andrew last Thursday to the doctor after he had been coughing for around a week. It wasn't getting any better. Walking pneumonia. Just as I had expected. My main reason for taking him was that the prior two evenings Andrew had melt downs. I knew something was wrong! Since he didn't have a fever, the doctor said he could go back to school. I thought this was strange so I questioned the nurse to make sure I heard right. I later found out that there had been several in his class coughing and out for being sick.


Ben and Stacy stopped by our house again on Saturday when they were heading back to Pennsylvania. I'm enjoying getting to have them visit us now that they live further away. Doesn't seem to make sense but that's okay! LOL I made dinner for us (fettuccine carbonara, cranberry spinach salad with homemade dressing, pesto cheese bread and cheesecake) and got to enjoy visiting with them for a bit until they got back on the road. I tried to get some photos of the three of them before they left. I even got out our feather duster like the lady at JCPenney's does to get Stone to look and smile. I think it made Ben and Stacy smile more to see the person dancing with it. By the way, after the first few photos taken by me and Wade not doing a good job with the feather duster, I took over and handed him the camera. Ben said we needed a picture of me. ;) Nah, that may get put in the black mail folder. Some of these photos aren't clear because I wasn't using my flash. I didn't like the harsh shadow it was putting on them since it was inside and night time. Any photography tips, friends?

So the really exciting thing going on right now it that I am getting to remodel my scrap room. I am pumped! New carpet, new paint, whole new shelves and getting rid of my old shelving. Daddy is making me shelves like Donna Downey has in her scrap room - see here. I hope to get to decorate with some beautiful antique blue glass that was Wade's grandmother's. I'm going to do the walls a beige color that I have in our living room. I still like that color after five years and it's a nice neutral but not too light either. The carpet will match the other carpet we put downstairs three years ago - if I can find the right color to make it match. I am having a time finding somewhere that has the style samples. It has gone up $7 a yard too! Ouch! I'm playing with the idea of painting some graphic zinnias along the top of the wall like I saw in the Better Homes & Gardens March issue. I may use various shades of the blue in the glass. I was telling Elizabeth and Andrew my master plan last night and showing them how I was going to arrange everything and Elizabeth exclaimed, "It's going to look awesome! It's going to look like a new room!" That's my plan. :) Does anyone have opinions on whether to store my paper horizontally (like Donna Downey's in the picture above) or vertically (in the Cropper Hopper vertical holders)? Please leave me a comment. Thanks!

Last Friday was Dr. Seuss day at Ashley Academy in honor of Dr. Seuss' birthday last week. The students were encouraged to dress up as a character from any Dr. Seuss book and try to be something other than the obvious - the cat in the hat, thing 1 and thing 2, etc. Well, Elizabeth came up with being this green bird from Oh Say Can You Say. I asked if it had a name and she said it's called "hoonie" in the book but she didn't want to be called that. She said she was going to say she was "the green bird's wife." I told her she should call herself "Hoonie's honey". Ha! That went over like a ton of bricks (with an eye roll). Andrew wanted to be the "bumbleboat" from Marvin K. Mooney. It was an orange boat with a propeller coming out the side. It also had a flag on the back with "M.K.M." on it but he didn't want the flag. He said his friends may figure out what he was then and he didn't want them to know.

We used a paper plate for the base of Elizabeth's mask. We cut out the eye holes and then covered it with green felt. We covered the top of it with green feathers. She wanted to use Stickles to outline the eyes. She had a green outfit to wear to get the green body. For Andrew's "costume" we sewed two big sheets of orange fun foam together. Did you know you can sew that stuff? :) Then we cut like a strap to go around his head to keep it up. Since the foam isn't that pliable we couldn't make straps or he wouldn't be able to get it on. He had to be able to pull it up instead of put it on over his head. We then painted dowels and used a piece of floral foam to make the "propeller". Not that great really but he liked it and we did this all last minute on Thursday night! By the time he got home, his costume was modified a little (with tape and other things!). He wore his orange UT shirt to complete the look. ;)

Spring break is this week. I didn't know six months ago when I was scheduling Andrew's next teeth cleaning that the day I chose was during spring break at 8 AM no doubt!!! We have yet to get used to the time change from last Sunday since we haven't had a scheduled time to get up yet so it was rough getting up early yesterday morning. Andrew and I had stayed up until 11 the night before too purging the big cabinet in my scrap room. After his cleaning - which he did wonderful at and even was brave and got x-rays and a fluoride treatment for the first time - we ran by McDonald's for breakfast. Then we went on home to crash in the living room and watch TV for the next two hours while I dozed. I had to make sure I could stay up last night.

Wade and I decided on a landscaper and he came yesterday for us to sign the agreement. We are excited about this. Our yard doesn't get any TLC in the early spring because of Wade's work - being his busy time and working around 12-15 hours a day. They are going to trim everything (and there is a LOT with all the bushes, perennials, trees, etc), clean up the beds, put down pre-emergent, mulch all our beds, treat the lawn, etc. We will probably have a half brown yard this year because of all the weeds that have cropped up with the drought last year and our own lack of lawn care but hopefully by middle to late summer it will be looking good. They are going to mow the first month for us, just until Wade gets out of tax season and can take over. He really enjoys yard work but it's just impossible for him to do the early spring care.

Plans for today include taking the old Little People buildings outside and making them a winter wonderland with shaving cream. This was Andrew's idea and for a couple of dollars, I'm sure it'll bring at least an hour's worth of fun. ;) Maybe I can talk them into packing it all up in the attic afterwards. Ha! We'll see. They'll probably have a renewed interest after they play with them again.