Another Silhouette Project

Spent some time today crafting with my silhouette!  It's been so much fun to get ideas from pinterest and  then recreate now that I have some free time.

My latest creation is something I did as practice for a gift I'm creating.  More on that later!

But, after trial and error and some wasted vinyl, my vision came to life:

I took an old frame (14x24) that I've had in a closet for years, pulled out the mat and created this masterpiece in silhouette designer.  I learned a few things:

1st, don't try and save vinyl and piece things this big together.  Unless, of course, you're awesomely skilled.

2nd, make small slits around the area that you'll peel off to reveal your creation. That way you'll be peeling small sections at a time off. This makes it easier than trying to peel off a 12 x 20 piece of vinyl without ruining your letters.  Trust me, I know!

3rd, use a level and sharpie to make dark lines on your glass (or washable marker if you're adhering to wood) that will show you where to line up your vinyl.  I had a hard time getting my words straight. Of course, if I had just done the whole thing as one piece it would've been easier.

I had to make the date like 3 times cause I kept getting it crooked.  And, my lines are pieced together because I ran out of vinyl.  Only the Hubs could tell.  Of course he does draw straight lines all day so of course he could!

I still need to gorilla glue the glass to the frame and then bend out all the little metal pieces that hold the glass in place.  I'm also not sure where this baby is going to find a home in my house.  For now, it's in the office that has never been decorated!

I love it and it only took me like 8 hours to make! 

Under Construction

Just thought I'd let ya'll know that our house is under construction.  Yep, we're adding on!  I'm so excited to be adding some extra square feet!

Ok, I'm totally joking.  We are adding on some extra square feet, but in the form of a tree house.  You heard me.  A treehouse!  You see, the Hubs had one growing up and has been talking about it for YEARS.  And now, he's building it.

I honestly think the neighbors are nervous about what it's going to look like and one of them is less than thrilled.  The HOA approved and construction has begun.

When the Hubs builds something, he goes all out!  It'll be the best treehouse in these parts of Georgia I assure you.  The kids will be flocking from miles around to see the spectacle!

Well, maybe not miles, but the girls are talking it up. And, while we may never have a boat, or a big house, or fancy cars.  We WILL have a cool treehouse!

The dear Hubs of mine even drew up some fancy old architectural plans.  Six pages I think.

And, I know many of you are thinking, "um Lori, but ya'll are pinching pennies, why are wasting money on that?"  Let me assure you the cost is minimal.  In addition to being a great builder, my Hubs is a great scavenger.  And, the wood is nearly all free.  Thank you to those of ya'll building fancy new houses, we are using your scrap lumber from the dumpster!

So here's a little sneak peak at the early stages of construction:

 I probably won't see the dear Hubs for a few weeks...he'll be living in the back yard as he eats, sleeps and breathes treehouse.  Pray for him.  I fear the mosquitoes will carry him away!

Pinterest: drawer organizing

If you know anything about Pinterest, you know that it's highly addictive!  I mean seriously, it's a magazine-a-holic's dream.  Only instead of clipping a bazillion pages from magazines, you just virtually pin ideas onto boards!  Genius!

The bad part?  Well, most of those ideas NEVER get put into action. 

I decided to actually try one.  I saw this idea where instead of stacking clothes horizontally, you stack them vertically.  And, since my girls have teeny tiny dressers and teeny tiny closets I thought this was brilliant!

I will say that I'm a minimalist at heart.  We don't have a lot of clothing to begin with and the girls only have one small 3 drawer dresser each

Here is the before of C's dresser:

And after I organized them:

 

 And this is R's drawer...I didn't take a before:

Now I have no idea how long it'll stay like this, but it definitely is neater and takes up less space.  I love that they can see where every shirt is. I found it easiest to fold them all and stack them in one big stack.  Then, I stuck them in the drawer like a file.  The Pinterest lady uses long thin bins to keep them all organized. 

I'm thinking I may have the Hubs cut some wood and make partitions in the drawers. I'll letcha know how that works out!

Thirty-Six

Are you sick of all my posts with numbers as titles?  Well, I'm not.

Thirty-Six. The age my dear Hubs turned this year.  We have almost been together half our lives. How awesome is that? We were sort of high school sweet hearts, only we didn't go to the same high school. 

Anyhoo, we met when he was nineteen and I was eighteen.  Seventeen short years ago!

Hubs' birthday just so happened to be our last day of school and the same day as our used book sale.  That meant we couldn't celebrate until late in the day, but he didn't seem to mind!

We had a great dinner at Chili's with his favorite shrimp tacos and then it was dessert at Yogli Mogli!  A fabulous day with a fabulous man! 

The girls presented Daddy with a spa gift for a much needed massage. 

Friday night we were treated to dinner by some fabulous friends which was a nice addition to the birthday festivities!  

I had to include this ridiculous picture of poor Bella with a balloon tied to her collar!  That was Rylie's doing.  

Last day of school

I'm proud to say that we survived our first year of homeschool.  Yes, I know we cheat and actually attend school 2 days a week and are home the other 3, but it's still homeschool.  I still file county attendance, teach the girls lessons, and try to maintain a schedule.  Well, sort of a schedule.

Here's a few pictures that capture the exciting last 2 days.  First up, was the 5th grade pool party.  There are about 42 fifth graders in the school and we all got together for a morning at the pool to commence the year on Wednesday, the day BEFORE school got out!  See, homeschoolers really do have fun!

Bad mommy, only captured this picture in the van prior to the girls running out on the last day. 

These two sweet girls along side my girlies are sisters of a dear family of ours.  They sadly will be leaving the Cornerstone world (our school).  I had the joy of bringing them to school each day and praying over them as they began their day.  I think they thought I was nuts, but they learned that we don't leave the van until I've prayed for them.  No matter how late we were.

It has truly been an amazing year of growth.  It definitely hasn't been easy, but we will continue on next year.  I'll follow up in the coming weeks with a post about the pros and cons of how we homeschool along with how we've grown.

Until then, I'll be purging books, papers and getting ready for the next year!

Mother's Day

"Children are a heritage from the LORD, offspring a reward from him."

  Psalm 127:3

Being a mother has been the biggest blessing of my life next to marrying my high school sweetheart!  These girls have taught me more about God's love than I could have ever imagined.

They can make my  heart melt and sometimes make it feel as if it's breaking, but I love them to pieces! 

I mean seriously, what's not to love about this family?

Sixty-Five

I was blessed to be able to help my father in law plan a surprise party for my mother in law's 65th birthday back in April.  Since she had just been released from the hospital a week earlier, and the fact she had spent about 35 days stuck in a hospital bed, we figured we aught to do something big!

Dad called a few friends and between the Hubs' brother and myself, we got all the food prepared and the house ready for company.

Mom was pleasantly surprised and she enjoyed a great evening where all attention was on her and not her illness.

I'm happy to report that she is doing very well!  Still a ways to go in order to fully regain strength and energy, but we're praying that she won't need anymore procedures this summer!  Thanks for you prayers my sweet friends!

Jekyll Island Day 2

If you missed my post on Day One of Jekyll Island 5th grade field trip, you can see it here.

Day Two was equally exhausting, but loads of fun!  We started the day off with the most anticipated class:  shark dissection.  Wow, did those boogars stink!  It totally brought back memories of pig dissection in high school.  Thankfully, I handled this one way better.

Chloe was totally into it. It took her a bit to warm up, but she got right in there and cut that shark like nobody's business.

 This was one of our 3 tables.  I wanted to ask about the signs...seriously?  Did they actually have a kid eat something?  Ewwww!!!!!!!!!!!

 I think she's holding the spleen.  Can't remember!

 This was totally freaky and if we were at school and not in a secular class, we could have had some amazing lessons about creation here!  These are baby sharks we found inside one of the sharks.  One was still attached to the egg (ovary).  Apparently sharks have 4 ovaries and therefore can have 4 pups.  Kinda cool!

 A baby on top of the shark...this is part of the insides..no idea what parts! 

 Absolutely hysterical to watch C cut out the eye only to have its "juice" squirt across to the boys in front of her!  Her face is priceless!

After shark dissection, we had a few other classes and then it was off to the turtle museum.

 When we arrived, the instructor gave us a spiel on this big guy hanging in the entrance.  Apparently it's a replica of a 75 million year old turtle fossil.  Hmmmm.....I'm pretty sure they are wrong about that age.  If you're a believer in the Bible, you definitely know that fact is incorrect.

One of our students started to debate that fact, but his momma discretely asked him not to.  I would have loved to have heard how such a debate would have turned out!

 The turtle museum also runs a hospital for injured loggerhead turtles.  It was amazing to see these creatures up close. 

 This bug guy can't swim to the bottom of the tank, so he has weights to help push him down.  It was cool to hear about the different rehabilitation methods.

We love watching the Loggerheads on the beaches of FL come up and lay eggs when we vacation.  Well, what we can see while we're being swarmed by mosquitoes not to mention it's typically in the middle of the night!

Following the great turtle museum came fishing.  This was not on the top of my list as favorites, but it was quite funny to watch C try and cast a pole.  It must have been quite entertaining to watch me try and teach her as she yelled, "you're terrible at this!"  Right she was. O'well, we tried!

At the same time as one of our kids caught a shark, my camera died!  Of course, right?!

We had a great day and ended it very late.  We, along with our dear friends, skipped the night beach walk in lieu of a trip for coffee and icees at the local gas station.  Yes, we were that desperate for decent coffee!

Day Three would bring  packing and a few classes before lunch.  Unfortunately, due to the dead camera, I will have to post that later when I get the pictures from a friend!