Our summer was awesome. We hit the beach, visited with family, spent lots of time at the pool, and did a lot of relaxing. But all good things come to an end and better things start: school! All three boys are in school this year and it's going to be awesome. As the school year loomed, Grant was pretty bummed and cried every time we talked about it. He didn't want to lose his play time. Blake and Hayden were thrilled at the prospect of school starting!
Thankfully, Grant really warmed up to the idea of school when we got to visit for orientation yesterday. He just grinned as we visited his classrooms, met some old friends, and said hi to his autism teachers that he'll be working with again this year. Hayden was SO excited to visit his class and loved all the toys and books they had to play with. Blake knows his teacher and classmates from last year. They all moved up to third grade together. He was most excited about the new classroom pet: a turtle. We hit up Sonic for the last .99cent kids meals of the summer and headed home to pack lunches.
The morning went really well. We had plenty of time for pictures and Grant's bus even came on time for the first year ever! I have a feeling this year's going to be great!
I've got a bajillion projects that I've been working on and my latest one was a last-minute, two hour project that I LOVE! Our entry is full of doors: to the basement, the laundry room/pass-through to the garage, the coat closet, and the guest bath. They only way our entry looks neat and tidy is if all the doors are closed (and all the crap is off the floor). But, the laundry room door has never shut due to a spot where the house settled and the door always bumped against the top of the door frame. We tried to fix the door last night, but let's just say this went awry. I won't mention any names or any certain husbands that don't have a clue what they're doing...
So anyway, at about 1am last night, inspiration struck: rather than buy a new door for the laundry room, I could copy something I pinned about a DIY barn door. All it takes is galvanized pipe and a salvaged door that I already owned! After measuring carefully, I hit Lowe's at 6am for the hardware I needed. Following these instructions: http://homeboundtheheartoflife.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/sliding-doors/ I had the hardware assembled and the door hung by 9am. I LOVE IT!
All I did was add casters to the bottom of the door and screw-in eye hooks to the top of the door. I used some hook things I picked up at a yard sale last fall to attach the door to the pipe. The weight of the door rests on the casters (which only roll one way) and the pipe just keeps it from tipping. As Travis says: "You can thank me for ruining the door, this looks much better anyway." Thanks babe!
View from the kitchen: closed.
View from the kitchen: open. Ugh. I hate you ugly linoleum! We didn't add wood to this section b/c of the washer/dryer. I'm hoping to do a cool diamond pattern vinyl stick-on tile someday.
View from the stairs: open.
View from the stairs: closed. There is enough clearance behind the door to hang a poster or something on the wall that you'll see when the door is closed. Also, I have a glass knob to add to this side of the door for easy opening.
Total cost? $50 for the hardware. Those dang flanges were $8! And the door was $40 a few years ago at a salvage place in Baltimore. It used to hang out here:
I've since filled that blank spot up top with a this temple print. But now I've got a bigger empty spot to fill! I need another door!
I know there's about a million things to update about: vacation, Mother's Day, Father's Day, the last day of school, yard make-overs, guest bath and front room makeovers, etc. But I just don't feel like it. I do feel like showing off what I've been working on today. It started with a mirror I rescued from the trash in the old house. I used this tutorial to paint it with homemade chalkboard paint, but ended up painting the mirror and frame with chalkboard paint. I love how it turned out!
And then the table it was on started looking pretty beat up. Isn't that how it always works out? It's an old record player I bought at a yard sale about 10 years ago for only $20. I really liked working with the chalkboard paint and it got me thinking about using the blog-famous Annie Sloan Chalk Paint. It's all over the DIY blogs as a great option for refinishing furniture that doesn't require any prep work on the piece. But that stuff is $50 a quart! Dude. I figured there had to be a way to make it cheaper on my own. And there is. After digging around on the internets, I came across the perfect homemade chalk paint (different from chalkboard paint).
For chalkBOARD paint, you mix unsanded grout (got mine at the ReStore for $2 for a giant bag, feel free to borrow some) with your paint. For regular chalk paint, you mix 1/2 cup plaster of paris with 1/2 cup hot water. Whisk until smooth and then stir in 1.5c of paint. This made roughly two cups of paint and it only took about 1/2 of it to paint my record player. I read up on tutorials for painting with chalk paint and got to work. I wanted a more handpainted look, so I brushed it on rather than rolling it. I painted two coats, distressed it with sand paper, and finished it off with minwax finishing wax. Chalk paint is chalky of course, so it needs poly, glaze or wax as a protective finish. I have to say I love the look! And the price rocks. I used a coupon at JoAnn's for the Plaster of Paris, so it was only $4 and that was my only cost since I used leftover paint. Check out the results:
Love it! I used burlap over the "speaker" part.
I super-love the mirror. I could have one in every room of my house. Did I mention it was free and the frame is made from plastic?
View from the front door. Yeah...we need to stain/paint the banister...but for now, it rocks!
Now maybe I'll get motivated to post a bit more on the blog-o. I've got a few more projects planned for this week.
I love heirloom sewing. I'm not great at it, I don't have a lot of experience with it, but I LOVE the look of lace, batiste, tucks, pintucks, smocking, and embroidery. I smocked a few things for the boys, but of course over the years wished for a girl to try out some heirloom techniques. I've subscribed to Sew Beautiful (heirloom sewing magazine) for years and even bought a whole box of SB's at a yard sale when Blake was 2. And then along came Cosette! Mom and I made her blessing gown after scouring the magazines. I tried my hand at lace shaping with her first Christmas dress. Before we moved last year, I went through all my magazines, marking dresses I wanted to make. In the Easter 1996 SB, I marked a dress "2nd Easter".
Isn't it awesome?! I just love everything about it! And I had some experience with the techniques used, so I thought it was a good plan. I had to ditch the bonnet since it would take up so much lace and I wasn't convinced Cosette would wear it. I started gathering the materials for the dress in February and March. I wanted it to be pink, but couldn't find the right batiste for the right price, so settled on blue like the picture. As for all the lace, holy expensive! I shopped around and was able to pay $2/yard for the laces I needed by ordering them online. I found a similar pattern (found here). It's actually a reproduction of a baby dress from the 1890's. The dress has tons of entredeux (tiny embroidered trim) all over it. This stuff costs $2.85-$3.50 a yard! Thankfully, I found a tutorial on how to replicate the look of entredeux by machine and followed directions in one of my heirloom sewing books.
I started sewing in mid-March, but realized 4 days out from Easter that I was in over my head! My entredeux look-alike stitch was taking FOREVER! I completely underestimated the time required to finish the dress. Oops. So I kept working and last week finally finished the "Easter in May" dress. I love it. It is amazing. It's just like the picture. Of course it has a billion mistakes in it, but I love it so much anyway. In addition to the dress, I made the matching blue slip (really simple) and diaper cover. I even purchased some lace to dress up her socks. Finally, in place of the bonnet I made my own fabric "ribbon" by sewing more entredeux trim and fashioning my strip into a giant bow like girls wore in the early 1900's. I starched it like crazy and stuck crumpled tissue to shape the loops while the starch dried. I also taught myself how to make the ribbon rosette on the yoke. I
Cosey loves her dress and did such a great job modeling her outfit while I took pictures. It was overcast and rainy, so porch pics will have to do! Wanna see?
Hehehe!! I literally squealed when I got her dressed this morning!!
Blake and Hayden could not get enough of her either: "Cosette, you're soooo cute!!"
Serious Victorian look.
Back in time!
The back: I added a couple vintage buttons. You can see the entreduex stitching on either side of the lace insertion on the sleeve and the lace edging of the sleeve.
Sweet baby girl!! The rosette matches the fabric color better in real life. It was hard to catch it with the camera.
As I told Travis this morning, every dang minute was worth it on this dress! I don't even want to think of the HOURS I spent making it. 40? 50? Who knows. As for cost, it was around $50, not including the pattern ($12) which will be used again. It's also roomy and can be made longer by simply taking out the stitching that holds the folded tucks at the bottom. So she will be able to wear it for a couple years. It was totally worth it. I can't wait to sew a few more dresses for Cosey. I've got a few dresses in mind that are simpler with minimal lace for summer, they'll be much cheaper. And I can't wait to dress Cosette up again in her dress for Mother's Day next Sunday!
Remember this? Yup, it was pretty gross. The vision in Travis' eye mostly returned to normal, but he's sensitive to light in that eye and has a hard time driving at night. Lately, his eye has really been bothering him. It looked like he had pinkeye, but two rounds of medication didn't help. Finally, his opthamalogist referred him to a local retina specialist. Apparently the band that was placed to hold his retinal repair in place five years ago is being rejected by Trav's body. As in, his eye is pushing the band out! Ewww! This was causing all the irritation and drainage from his eye the last few weeks. It was to the point that the band had started splitting some of the tissue around his eye. Yuck. So taking out the band was pretty much inevitable at this point. If it continued, not only would his eye keep pushing the band out, but he was at risk of infection.
The retina guy saw Travis on Friday and got him into surgery on his next hospital day, which was today. Although the office is in Fredericksburg, the outpatient surgery was at Inova Fair Oaks in Fairfax. Our neighbor came over at 6:30 this morning to get the kids ready for school for us and we hit the road. The 2 hr drive went better than expected and the hospital was really organized and on schedule. Travis was sedated and given local anesthetic while they cut a slit next to his eyelid and pulled out the band, finishing with a few stitches. The whole procedure only took 30 minutes and he was well enough to enjoy some Cafe Rio on the way home.
Excited about surgery?
A big thank-you to our local friends who watched the kiddoes and will be bringing us dinner tonight. Hayden and Cosette had a great time playing with their friends all day. We're glad the procedure went well and Travis will be heading back to work (hopefully) on Monday. It's awesome to have access to such wonderful health care and great insurance to cover our expenses. Mostly we're grateful for such a minor problem that could be easily fixed. And here are some pics of our hospital date:
My favorite part: the temporary tattoo over the afflicted eye. Haha!
Post op and feeling sleepy.
As soon as we got home, Hayden went to find his eye patch so he could match Dad!
Hopefully this is the last we'll deal with the eye! The retina repair still looks good and Travis is looking forward to less irritation and better vision once he's fully healed.
I'm a clearance shopper. One of the best clearance sales for me is The Childrens' Place's Easter clearance sale. It's hard to find Sunday clothes for boys other than at Easter or Christmas and they seem to really mark the boys' clothes down around the end of April at TCP. You just can't beat the sales! You can't buy a shirt from Walmart, Target, or consignment stores for these prices.
So of course I hit TCP on Saturday and found the $5 rack. It was loaded with long sleeve button-downs. Boo-yah. I grabbed some for Grant in a couple colors and couldn't resist buying matching shirts for all three boys. There was an email coupon for 25% off your purchase, plus I get an extra 10% off with my Place card. Those shirts were $3.23! I also picked up some sweaters and a trench coat for Cosey for the same price.
So I present to you, the matching shirts and Cosette sporting a $5 clearance dress from last year's Easter line at Target. Pretty much everything the boys are wearing came from TCP Easter clearance over the years including shoes and Cosey's shrug. What cute kiddos!
Blake is eight! We were excited to celebrate Blake's birthday this weekend. He chose a family party at Chuck E. Cheese in lieu of a friends party at home. Boo-yah! That makes it easy on Mom! To top it off, he requested strawberry cake with vanilla frosting and whatever sprinkles I wanted for the cake. And for presents: just surpise him. Done, done, and done.
Blake's birthday was actually on Sunday, so we headed to CEC early Saturday to beat the crowds. It was awesome. Very few kids, lots of tickets from the manager who was testing the game, the kids loved the pizza, Regan joined us, and it all rocked. After playing and eating, Blake opened presents.
He got a Costco gift card (for books), glow in the dark stars for his ceiling, and a Redskins tshirt from Mom & Dad. Grandma & Grandpa Welsh sent a Cub Scout shirt and belt, a pocket knife with silverware on it, and a six-in-one scouting whistle. Aunt Erica got him Legos and Grandma & Grandpa Hobbs got him a GameStop gift card. He loved all the presents!
We totally rocked the games at CEC and earned 588 tickets: our highest total ever. Blake was thrilled to play a game where he was lucky and got 125 tickets! The boys had a blast picking out junk prizes.
On Sunday, Blake's Primary teacher brought him more strawberry cupcakes and we celebrated as a family with Blakes favorite dinner: nachos.
The highlights for age 8 are the ditching of the booster seat and of course, baptism. We're waiting until both sets of grandparents can make the trip to VA, so Blake will be baptized the last week of July. We can't wait!
Our kids aren't very coordinated. They take after their parents. That plus townhouse living didn't make learning to ride a bike very easy. Mostly, the kids didn't really show an interest in riding bikes until recently. Blake tried it out a few times last summer, but couldn't really get the hang of it. Now that Blake and Grant are pushing 8 & 10, it was time to learn to ride their dang bikes.
I devised a bribe, er plan, to get the boys to ride their bikes over Spring Break. It involved a big parking lot, Chuck E. Cheese, and lots of leftover Easter candy bribes. I would tell them if they all learned to ride over Spring Break, we would go to Chuck E. Cheese. We would have riding sessions each day at the local school parking lot, and after each try on the bike, they would get to pick an Easter egg with treats inside. We started talking up the plan a few weeks ago. I figured after a lot of hard work, at least the two older boys would get a good start with riding. I thought all three had at least a pretty good chance, but I did wonder if we would have three sad boys missing out on CEC if things didn't go well.
We bought new helmets for everyone (and yes, Hayden's giant bobble head needed an age 8 and up helmet!), a new bike for Hayden to replace the one stolen at our last house, and found the knee pads. I enlisted Regan's help for Day 1 and Travis took the day off work. I loaded the car with Regan and the kids while Travis finished up some telework, and headed to a nearby school.
First up, was Grant. I ran alongside him, and he got scared as soon as I let go, putting his feet down and stopping pretty quickly on his first try. Next, was Blake. I ran alongside him and let go once he seemed to be balanced. And HE RODE HIS BIKE!!! On the first try!! I jumped up and down and couldn't believe how easy it was! Blake was SO excited. Well, this did not set well with Grant. He furrowed his brow, grabbed the bike and wanted to try again. I got him started, let go, and guess what? HE RODE HIS BIKE!!! Again, jumping up and down and cheering from me.
Meanwhile, Hayden practiced with his training wheels with Regan. I quickly ditched the training wheels and started practicing with our whiney, whimpy 5 year old. He can balance like he's on a tightrope, but is too afraid to pedal once we let go of the bike. He quickly fell again and again as he gave up and we couldn't catch him in time. Ugh, it was so frustrating! After a few tries, he would have some candy treats while Grant and Blake practiced turning, pedaling uphill, and stopping. The afternoon session on Day 1 was more of the same: Hayden whining, and Blake & Grant practicing more.
Grant takes off
Both boys come up the hill on day 1.
Blake loves riding!
And he's off!
Day 2 I was on my own with all the kids. We tried another school and Grant and Blake practiced starting and stopping on their own. Hayden built up his confidence. In the afternoon session I finally figured out the best way to get Hayden riding. We started about 10ft from a grassy patch of the parking lot. It was a slight downhill to the grass and I would give him a start and he would pedal into the grass and catch himself before falling over. After a few tries where I finally convinced him to pedal after I let go, he did it! We slowly moved backward, increasing how long Hayden had to ride to the grass. Finally, he could ride over 100ft all by himself! Hayden was going to CEC! Sadly, I couldn't get pics and push him at the same time, so no pics of him riding yet.
Day 3: too cold. We stayed home.
Day 4: We just practiced once because Cosette was angry. Grant and Blake biked through the Mom Obstacle course (starting/stopping, steering around a few obstacles) and passed. Hayden worked on turning.
Here's the proof starting with Grant:
Blake:
Hayden:
Saturday: CHUCK E CHEESE!! We took all the boys bright and early when the place had just opened: 9am. It was awesome! Because who feeds kids pizza for breakfast? Only the Hobbs! We had the whole place to ourselves for nearly two hours of pizza, soda, games, and rides. As an added bonus, the manager was "testing" the games as we arrived. He left all the tickets he won in the test runs in the machines and the kids followed him, gathering around 50 tickets. It was awesome and totally worth it.
Grant thought this simulated jet-pack ride was kind of scary.
This string of tickets is taller than me!
Cosette goes for a ride.
Tickets taller than me!
Hayden drives!
Things we learned: I'm so proud of the boys. Riding a bike is more about overcoming fears and building confidence than an abundance of skill. I'm glad the boys could learn something new. Also, I don't have a lot of patience. Hayden was making me crazy. I knew he could ride, but he was just too afraid to try. Grant and Blake made me crazy at times too and I could have been more patient with them. I had to step back a few times and admit find that fine line between pushing them to do their best and pushing them to frustration. Some things they just had to take the time to figure out on their own, even if I told them how to do it a million times. Also, I hate whiney crying. If you fall because you didn't listen or freaked out, it's not my fault and as long as there's no blood, there is no reason to cry! I remember when I first learned to ride my bike. I was decent enough to ride up and down the street, but one day I took a fall right in the middle of the street. I laid there crying by myself and watched a car driving closer and closer to me. It finally clicked that the driver wasn't going to stop and dust me off, I was going to have to get my booty up off the asphalt and get onto the sidewalk before I got run over! So I guess I took the same approach with the boys: stop crying in the middle of the street. Get up and get yourself going again! The boys were pretty tough though and didn't have any really nasty spills. In the end, they said I was a good teacher, so I guess they forgave me. :)
Now if I could only develop a plan (and the patience) to teach the boys to tie their shoes this summer. I'm pretty sure it will take all summer. And I'm pretty sure I would pay someone to do it because I KNOW I don't have the patience for that one!
As an added bonus, we headed to the Fredericksburg Family Fun Fest at the mall after CEC. It was awesome. The mall was filled booths showcasing local businesses, crafts for the kids, face-painting, performances, and treats & samples for the kids. We had a fun doing the treasure hunt and trying out the gymnastics display. About 150 screaming tweens were waiting to meet Twilight star Alex Meraz. I'm not a fan, but he did happen to walk right in front of us on the way to his autograph signing, so I snapped a pic.
