barrett: 55 months old

Check out this big kid!  Barrett is loving all things LEGO Ninjago right now.  We finally saw the movie this weekend, and Barrett has grabbed any LEGO Ninjago book he could find at the library.  And he received some LEGO sets for Christmas, and it seems every day he's pulling them apart and finding a new way to put it all back together again.  

Barrett has reignited his love affair with hot dogs.  Let me tell you, Barrett's eating has been hit or miss lately - he's starving one minute, will only eat cereal the next minute, and then refuses to eat altogether in between.  So, if he shows interest in any food, I'll throw as much of it at him as I can!  

Likes:  ramen noodles, soccer, PJ Masks, playing with his '"tiny Tonkas" trucks

Dislikes:  eating what's for dinner

DIY "vintage" wooden sign

We were recently in Buck-ees (a Texas gas station staple, with a home decor section!) and I saw these awesome vintage wooden signs, that looked like they had been found in some old barn or basement.  Of course, they probably aren't old signs, but in fact new ones made to look old.  And as much as I loved the signs, I couldn't stomach the prices!  I had that lightbulb moment, where I thought, "Hey, I could probably make that!"  And if I failed, I'd trash the whole thing and never speak of it.  But the sign actually turned out well, and I thought I'd share it.  This totally reminds me of the time my sister and I saw a sign in Rappahannock or thereabouts that said "Antiques Made Daily."  Seriously, you can't make antiques!  But a little fake vintage never hurt.

First I painted a spruce board (20 inches by 6 feet) with chalk paint left over from Britton's desk, and I traced the large letters around stencils.  I then hand-painted the letters white.  

I added dark grey shading to the letters to make them stand out more.  The smaller words below the large title were stenciled, but not shaded - they were too small (1.5 inches)!  I added yellow hearts between the smaller words as a color accent.

Then once the entire sign was painted, I "distressed" the finish by sanding it down.  My first coat of paint was a paint and primer in one, to stop the knots from bleeding through the paint. So when I sanded the chalk paint, it showed the white paint below.

Ready for more distressing!  Here is the sign sanded, and ready for some antique wax.  The wax can be a bit much, and I didn't want to completely change the colors on the sign (the wax would darken the colors), so I dry-brushed it on, and quickly wiped off the excess.  I think I struck a nice balance.

The hubs added some d-rings on the back, and then hung the sign in our foyer.  I love it!  Fun fact - "McLintock" is a John Wayne western movie (where he plays George Washington McLintock), and the hubs suggested it when I was trying to come up with a business name that didn't necessarily need to be a real business.  I liked the look of it when I mocked up the stenciling, so the name stuck!  I figured, if I can fake "old vintage sign found in a barn" then I could also fake the name, right?

101 months old

It's back to school for this bunch tomorrow, and while I am not looking forward to getting up early for work, I'm thankful that I won't be here to corral these kids out of their warm beds!  It's freezing here this week, and we are being forced back into normal routines, and dang it all, we all just need another two weeks of pajamas until noon and craft projects.

Britton has really fallen in love with reading.  We finished the Harry Potter series!!!  And we've moved on to the "Cursed Child" book now, and it's the last one I think, because I don't know if I can do all the Fantastic Beasts books too.  Britton is starting a new book club at school in a couple of weeks - "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory"!  

Likes:  reading, going to the library, wrestling with Barrett, attacking the boxing dummy she got for Christmas

Dislikes:  getting out of her pajamas

have yourself a merry little christmas

Admittedly, I have been super-lazy this Christmas vacation!  But I'm all riled up about the fireworks going off tonight and keeping my kids up needlessly that I needed something to do to channel my energies.  So, I'm finally getting around to posting about Christmas!  

Memaw and PawPaw came to visit the week before, and we all got to go to Britton's piano recital together.  Then I had three days of work while everyone else was hanging out and starting vacation.  But that just made the Thursday before Christmas all that much sweeter because I got to join them!  Unfortunately, PawPaw was on call back in Ohio, so he had to head out on the 23rd.  We decided to keep ourselves busy, and got started on Santa's cookies!

Memaw took us bowling on Friday, and then on Saturday she, Britton, and I went to see the "Greatest Showman" movie, which was fantastic.  We like to change up the theme of our Christmas Eve dinner every year, and this year Memaw treated us to Louisiana cooking!  She made gumbo - so good! - and I ordered a king cake from New Orleans.

Barrett refused the gumbo, but accepted a Christmas cookie as his dinner

Just like that, it was Christmas morning!  The kids got us up at 6:30ish, and we ventured downstairs to see what Santa had left.  Score!  Both kids got scooters, and Britton got Shopkins, a makeup kit (only for fun dress up at home), LOL little sister dolls, a "Real Live Pet" kitten, and a Hermione costume for her American Girl dolls.  Barrett got the Paw Patrol Sea Patroller, play dough, PJ Masks, and LEGO sets of the Batmobile and Ninjago.  They both also received clothes, LEGO sets from Memaw and PawPaw of camper sets, books, and craft sets.   

The scene from the family room Christmas afternoon - no real need to get dressed or go anywhere, so we hung out and played with all the new toys!

Merry Christmas, ya'll!

let it snow!

The hubs and I chuckled when the weather report predicted snow for Thursday night.  Sure, snow in Texas, right.  When we moved from Pennsylvania to Texas, one of the hardest things to admit to myself was that in moving, I was giving up having snow in winter.  Even after years of living in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, shoveling snow and navigating slick roads, I still think snow is downright magical.  The first flakes floating through the night sky, shining in street lights, giving promise to a late-rise morning with school cancellations and snowball fights - snow is easy to remember in a good light.  I knew I wouldn't see it in Texas, and I rightly mourned it our first year here.  

Turns out, I was wrong.  In fact, it does snow in Texas!  Sure, we didn't get a blizzard, and it didn't stick around for long.  But when the hubs saw the radar showing snow over our house late Thursday night, we went outside, and there it was, floating through the air.  Knowing Britton needed to see this (Barrett isn't as attached to snow because he has less memories of it), I got her out of bed and dragged her outside to see the snow against the streetlights.  She was absolutely delighted, in a way that proves to me that Britton thinks snow is just as magical as I do.

Barrett woke up early Friday from a nightmare, and after going back to sleep, the hubs woke me up.  Grumpy and tired, I had no idea why he'd be so cruel as to wake me up so early on my day off!  And then I saw it - snow on the ground!  We knew we'd never get back to sleep, so we waited until about 6:45 am, and woke up the kids, so they could play in it before school.

Before dawn, the snow's on the ground

I pulled down the "hats, gloves, and scarves" basket from the hall closet - the basket we've not touched since moving here - and pulled out what might still fit.  Barrett got Britton's old gloves, Britton wore mine, and they both put on coats that are a couple sizes too small!

I've never seen so many of my neighbors at 7:00 am!  Everyone was out, making snowmen and taking pictures.  Because we have four large trees in our front yard, we didn't have any snow - but our neighbors did, so we hopped across the street for a little snowball fight and snowman-making!

Snow on palm trees?!?  Even though the snow most likely killed my flowers, I'm ok - it most likely killed off all the mosquitoes too!

On Thursday night, after the excitement of snow died down and the hubs and I gave up and went to bed, I found these pages on my nightstand.  Britton had captured the moment so well, and shared it with me.

She wrote down about getting out of bed to see the snow, and drew herself seeing the snow in the streetlights!

And left us with some beautiful words about snow (recounted, removing third grade spelling and grammar) - "Snow is always in the air at wintertime.  It snows everywhere, including Texas.  I saw the snowflakes falling gracefully, as they dance in the sky.  I wonder why it always snows."  Always the teacher, she also added a quiz!

barrett: 54 months old

This kid is ready for Christmas!  And a haircut, but I digress.  The haircut is coming this weekend - I had to trim bangs tonight, and while he can now see, he also looks like Little Lord Fauntleroy, so the glorious locks have to be tamed.  

We had a parent-teacher conference with Barrett's teachers, and he's doing well in school!  He loves playing with his friends, going on the field trip to the grocery store, and turning blocks or Legos into anything - PJ Masks characters, Paw Patrol, whatever he comes up with.  While he started the school year quite shy, Barrett has come out of his shell and when I get to pick him up, all his little friends rush over and give him a hug goodbye.  

Likes:  Superheroes, wrestling with Britton, writing his letters

Dislikes:  waiting on Santa to get here!

100 months old!

Britton was super-jazzed this morning, not to take her monthly photo mind you, but to get to the Breakfast with Santa at her school!  And it didn't occur to me until I printed out her sheet last night that we've reached a huge milestone here - Britton is 100 months old now!  That's 8 years, 4 months, in normal age counting, but I've kept to months because we take the pictures monthly.  And now I've got 100 of these monthly photos and that seriously blows my mind!

Britton had a high and low in school this month.  She had taken a reading comprehension test (read the passage, answer multiple choice questions) and didn't do so well.  She didn't understand the questions - admittedly, I didn't understand what some of the questions were asking - so we decided that she needed to practice.  Over Thanksgiving break, I found five practice tests, and we went to work.  Well, the practice paid off and Britton nailed the next test when she returned to school this week!  I'm so proud of the hard work she put in, and accepting that learning new things makes your brain hurt and that's ok because it means it's getting stronger.  Or something like that!  And yes, the awesome score is a high, but also, we received an email from her teacher that they received the DLA (District Language Assessment) results back (every school takes them), and Britton was the only one in her class to get 100!  It doesn't count for any grade, but it's an amazing accomplishment, and I'm blown away by what this kid can do.  She's rocking this whole school thing!

Likes: making her own popsicles, playing soccer, exploring new parks (we found a great one today!), KFC coleslaw

Dislikes:  mosquitos still being out in December! (yeah, we ALL dislike this!)