Five on the 5th {Easter Edition}

I know.  I know.  You've been hanging around your computer waiting.  It's April 5th, right?

Here they are, in our casual Easter outfits.  Actually, I looked high and low for some cute Easter attire.  Something cute, but not too cutesy.  Cheap, but not too cheap so that it looked cheap.  And I ended up with nothing except clothes for myself.  It was the usual.  GAP was so cute but too expensive.  Old Navy wasn't cute enough, and Target didn't have anything.  Bad Target boys section.

It's the weekend (yay!)  What are YOU doing this weekend?  I'm doing the Color Run with a good friend in the morning.  The weather is supposed to be great, so I'm excited.  We have baseball galore.  I'm cleaning house tomorrow after the race.  And then church on Sunday to wrap it all up.

Working on the School Room... Chalkboard Wall!

When we first moved in, I had to get the school room up and going quickly.  We are blessed to have two rooms in the front of our house designated for school.  One is the dining room; the other an office.  We do school in what should be the dining room.  I'm just not a dining room kind of a gal, and we have a big table in there in case we need it for a family function.  After doing school in the kitchen for a couple years, I learned that it wasn't my preference.  Sure, sometimes the kids sit at the counter while I'm doing something in the kitchen, and I help them with a worksheet, but we don't have to clear all of our school stuff before every meal.  We can leave it where it is and then come back to it after lunch.  Also, after certain school days (you know, THOSE days), I just want to leave it all there, a complete mess... walk away from it.  And it's nice to be able to do that.  

Here is how phase one of the school room looked.  This was after I cleaned it out one night.  After our crazy fall, it had looked like this.

Like a tornado had come through.

There's a little closet in there too.  It has most of our art supplies in it.  This was a before and after.  Actually, right now, it looks more like the picture on the left.  We've been in project mode and it's been neglected.

Here is the wall before.  

We obviously had moved the books out.

My dad was nice enough to do the painting for us.  It took 3 coats, and as he said, black paint with white borders is not very forgiving.  He bought the most expensive tape and it worked like a charm.  His borders were nearly perfect.

I guess there's no turning back at this point.

Samuel got to put the finishing touches on the wall.

And the first coat is on.

As a side note, I debated using colored chalkboard paint.  A friend encouraged me not to, and I'm happy with the decision.  There's something classic about black chalkboards.

You had to wait three days and then color the whole thing with chalk... twice.

The floor was a chalky mess, but it actually didn't take that long.

Don't you remember loving to write on the board?

And there you have it.  Now I have a place to jot things up there as we are learning them.  

And keep passages of Scripture I want us to memorize. 

If I can ever make it to the fabric store, I want to make bunting to hang across the top.  I look forward to doing it, but the time... oh the time, it escapes me.   For right now, it's nice to have this messy project done.  Now we are working on doing shelving in the office to hold all of those books.  I made a trip to Ikea and picked up a *few* things for that project.

I'll keep you posted.

Two Months of Grandma and Grandpa

My parents did a bit of snow birding this winter.  Let's see... winter in Minnesota or winter in Texas?  Which would you choose?  They lived with us, in our guest room.  They were easy and fun and all that other good stuff.  The kids especially loved it.  Being one of five isn't all happiness and flowers.  I'm know there's things they miss out on.  They don't get as much one-on-one time as they would if they only had one sibling.  They don't get to choose what restaurant they go to very often (there's only a few that we can eat at affordably when we're all together).  My parents were able to provide lots of individual attention.  They got lunches out.  They were brought on many errands and walks.  They got to cook with my mom.  They got to hang out with Grandpa on the back porch as he smoked a cigar.  The fun never stops with them.

One of the things they did was make these boxes during home school "shop."  The boxes fit into their closet shelving so they can store their important stuff away from their brothers :)

My dad taught them to make the box and my mom taught them to stain.

Staining is long process, but they did all the coats themselves.

Asher wanted to pose with his box.

My mom was the one to get Joseph to read his very first word.  He was so excited, he hugged her.

They got a night with Papa.  What a treat to have so many grandparents in one room.

They were read to (which seems to be a good time to clean out your nose).

We watched ALL three season of Downton Abbey.  All the way to the bitter (I don't want to talk about it) end.

And when they left, it was sad.  Two of those boys were crying.

And Grandma found this note in their car.  It says, "Dear joyce and rich.  I'm sad you are gowing but hope to see you love you.  love samuel"

Sweet boy.

It was a sweet visit.

Let's do it again next winter.

Yum.

I brought these to my small group last week.  Chris has a couple of friends who used to request these routinely on Sundays while we watched the Cowboys.  I haven't made them in years.  I don't even know what to call them.  A kind soul brought them to me after Asher was born.  They're not to be made if you're on any kind of a diet.  They're not heart healthy.  They're not good for the sugar sensitive.  But good to bring to small group if you want to be popular.

They're even easy to make.  Melt butter, pecans and brown sugar in a pan.

Pour over graham crackers and cook until they look like this.

Then you sprinkle some chocolate chips on them.

Yum.

And yum.

Recipe

1 cup butter

I cup brown sugar

1 cup chopped pecans

Graham crackers

Large handful of chocolate chips

Melt butter, brown sugar and pecans in sauce pan and boil for 4 minutes, stirring constantly.

Pour over greased cookie sheet covered with graham crackers.

Bake at 350 for 7 minutes.

Sprinkle some chopped chocolate chips (mine weren't chopped bc I happened to have mini chocolate chips) on top and return to the oven for 1 minute.

Around the House

I've been eyeing this cute little Ikea cart for about a year.  They've been out of it every time I went (until, of course, this last time after I had already found this cart).

When I saw this at a local antique store, I knew I wanted to take it home with me, sand it down, and paint it aqua.

\

Now she has a home, but the school room is getting revamped so it has nothing on it yet.

I found this about a year ago at a garage sale and liked the style of it, but not the yellow flowers.  So I painted it with some of the leftover paint from our building process.

It found a home right next to the chair in our bathroom :)

I also saw this at the same antique store as the cart and texted a friend, "Is it great or is it ugly?"  I liked it, but wanted a little reassurance I was not crazy.  It was cheap enough, but not cheap enough to feel good about buying it if I changed my mind and didn't love it.  

With a little navy (thanks to all my instagram friends for helping me make that decision) spray paint, I'm loving it even more.  I need to find the perfect place to hang it.

My dad and I made a towel rack out of some old hooks I found at a store around here that sells parts from old houses.  I painted it gray from some leftover paint in the garage.  Each of the boys already had a color that was really just for school.  But those colors are creeping into other areas as well.  Emily at The Anderson Crew swears by this, and I'm loving that I know who left their towel on the floor.  If they were really smart, they would use someone's towel and leave it on the floor, but they haven't figured that out yet.  Shhhh.

Next up is the school room transformation... which very well may take months, but I'll show you what we've done so far.  We are slow around here.  I'll be the first to admit it's hard for me to get anything done.  It's hard enough just keeping up with the every day activity around here.  The boys are always home, which I LOVE, but it doesn't lend itself very often to home projects.  Slow and steady wins the race, right?  That's what I keep telling myself anyway.