Girl Scout Camp Out

Ava went on her first camp out with Girl Scouts this weekend. It also coincided with another Girl Scout Event called World Thinking Day when G.S.'s from our unit (city area) come together and present fun and interesting info, food, and such about different countries in the world. Elle's troop came up for that part of the weekend. It was exhausting but a lot of fun and Ava's Daisy troop did so well with not getting homesick or injured. It was a great first memory.

 

Ava won the right to carry her troops flag for the Chezh Republic in the parade of flags!

 And Elle got to carry the her troop's flag for Switzerland!

Here's Ava's troop getting ready to present their information.  We were the first troop to go!

 

 And here's Elle's troop preparing to present.

Making closer friendship!

Just Because

I'm not a bouquet person....unless you picked it in the wild for free and it has no bugs. Yep, not a bouquet person...it just seems too much money to spend on something that doesn't really last..... until a few days ago. I've made one exception. I don't know if I've ever gotten tulips before and definitely not this color, but these were gorgeous!!! I took so many pictures of these, trying to get the camera to capture what my eyes were seeing, to no avail. These are pretty pictures but they truly don't do the bouquet justice. These are my favorite flowers I've ever gotten. They are my two most very completely favorite colors ever! Scarlet/crimson/coral red and green!!! And they were a total surprise from my hubs!

 

Grandparents Save the Day!

Paul and Carolyn came in for a visit yesterday. They played with the kids outside in the wonderful weather, ate dinner with us, and then we all headed to Cherry Berry, which we love so much! Today they picked up Levi really early and gave us the entire morning to ourselves. I watched GMA for the first time in years....I have to see it's gotten really annoying so that made me feel good to know I wasn't missing out at all. Anyway, they took the girls lunch from McDonald's and ate with each of them at school as well as Levi, then took Levi shopping for his birthday....and guess what Levi was 100% dead set on getting.....if you follow me on Instagram or Facebook you know. :) Paul and Carolyn said it was the fastest trip they have ever taken any grandkid on to shop for a birthday present. They said he walked right back to the toys, right to that aisle and grabbed Sully and said "Okay, let's go." ha ha ha! I was so excited for him. He is sleeping with him right now and that monster takes up half of his bed!

 

Paid Position

I got my first paycheck as a mother today.  Ava was working very hard on something for me tonite at church and was giddy for me to open it when we got home.  It had a hand drawn picture and a $5.  The picture is of me saying "I love Ava." 

She also wrote in big block letters "I love Emma."  She told me that since I do everything for her, like cooking and cleaning and stuff, that she wanted to pay me because she was so thankful.  I tried to give her back her money and told her I didn't need to be paid, but she truly insisted and wouldn't take it back.  This is probably the sweetest thing any of my kids has ever said and done for me.  She has such a tender heart.  It works out well that she wouldn't take the money back....there's a book she really wanted at the book fair that we just didn't have the money to buy...now we do.  :)

In other news, she lost her second tooth yesterday and by lost I mean, she pulled it and could find it afterwards! ha!  She came home from school with it very loose and wanted to make sure that when she pulled it, it wouldn't get lost again!  A few minutes later, it was in her hand!  Such a brave girl!  Her other front tooth is wiggly too so she should have a mouth full of holes pretty soon.  The tooth fairy didn't show up until 5:45 this morning...cutting it close tooth fairy...but close it better than forgetting.......

Rehab

I sure do love coming up with clever titles for these posts.  Today's post is about rehab; rehabilitation of furniture.  As we were going down our street today, on our way home, we saw this beauty sitting out by the curb. 

Shawn immediately pulled over and we both jumped out to inspect and try to figure out why in the world someone would be giving it away.  All the drawers worked great, the back was in great condition, we could tell it was more on the antique side, with solid wood all over, including the back and the drawers fit together with an old technique used to fit pieces of wood together....all this to say, we knew it wasn't from IKEA.  No offense, IKEA...much of our house is from you!  Anyway, we noticed it had a light green hand towel taped to the top of the dresser.

Strange?  Maybe it was taped there when it moved so as not to get it scratched and then they realized they didn't have room for it?  Well, I peeled back the tape and saw this....I blurred out the last letter for those that are easily offended (and really if you are, you should probably not read my blog ever....or be friends with me....almost all my friends growing up were boys...I can't help it.) 

ANYWAY, this one little word didn't detract me at all, but it did make me sad that someone felt the need to scratch that into a pretty piece of furniture.  All that aside, we hauled it into our minivan and drove it home.  I have big plans people, big plans for this beauty.  The goal and hope is to sand/strip it down to the bare wood, and then paint it MY FAVORITE COLOR!!!!!  I can't wait to get started on this project.  I have ALWAYS wanted a piece of green furniture and this may just spur me on to refinish the other pieces of furniture that I have in my craft room that are a dark wood...course I need to get my mom's permission because I believe they were pieces my parents had when they were newly married.  :)  So there ya go....let's see if I can get this done in under a year.  Oh and if you know anything at all about the company logo on this furniture any info would be helpful! 

And also if you are an old pro at stripping and repainting furniture, that would be great too.  Every single piece of furniture we've ever done this to has ended up with an everlasting semi-tacky feel to the paint forever???

Post Valetine's Date Part 1

Yesterday Shawn planned a lunch date for us! And he knows just the type of thing I like. I'm not a woman who likes fine dining and fancy evenings...I like adrenaline and outdoors and all that stuff. I'm still a tomboy. So he told me that he had gotten a babysitter for Levi for lunch and took me out to one of our friend's land and we got to shoot ALL kinds of guns. They were so much fun. I could have stayed there all day and the only thing I regret is not bringing more targets...we shot those things to smithereens! Afterward we picked up Levi, got ourselves some fast food and headed home. It truly was my idea of a great date! For the gun enthusiasts here is a list of the guns I shot; a 30.30, 357, 12 gauge, a 22, a 30 aught 6, and a 9mm. A few of those guns were so powerful I thought they were going to shake some of my teeth loose!

 

This is the one we keep close by for intruders.....which I hope we never have because they won't survive this one.

Here's the tooth-rattler.

Valentine's Day

The day started with pink heart pancakes for all the kids, made by daddy.

 

Then it was off to school for a day filled with Valentine activities.  I am so thankful that I get to be up at the school for these things.  I love to share that time with them!

 

And here's Elle with her BFF's and their Valentine boxes.  They had to incorporate two simple machines into their box...this was a hard project!

 

For dinner, we did homemade pizzas with heart pepperonis.  I think I may do this every single time from here on....they were SO CUTE!!!  

 And dessert was a double layer cherry vanilla cake which they all loved!

Me and my valentine

Happy Valentine's Day

Valentine's Tree

As if five Christmas trees wasn't enough, let's add in a pink Valentine's tree. It's my newest decoration for Valentine's and I truly adore it. It's my favorite decoration...super cute and sentimental. And the cherry on top is that this tree was 70% off after Christmas!

 

This was the first year I took photos.  Elle was almost 5 and Ava was 2 years old and Levi was negative 14 months old.  :)

Step 3

Buy roundtrip airline tickets: Check.
Let the happy dances begin....and the planning.