unpluggits

we spent today at unpluggits with mrs. c and her kids. the idea behind it is "unplug and play"! they had all kinds of craft stuff available. they had leather work, painting, shaving creme, play doh, scrabook stuff, ceramics, beads, and painting your own bags or other decorations. they have a huge playground area. it is several stories high. it has a pulley system that my son loved that dumped balls into a pirate ship. they also had a small area for smaller kids with a train table and small slide. there was also a sand/water table. there was also a lot of boy and girl dress up clothes. great for imagination play.













i thought they were a little expensive. however there is a coupon for $2 off on my blog (on the bottom right-hand side). mrs. c let us borrow one of hers (thanks!) you can also bring undamaged shoe boxes and they will give you .25 off up to $1. for each plastic cap (from a water, coke, or milk carton) they will give you .2 cents. it was $5 for 1-3 year olds, $8.50 for 4-10 year olds and 11 and over were free. this was for an all day pass for the playground and craft area. after 5 p.m., it is $5 for everyone. we got our money's worth today though. it opens at 10 a.m. and we were there on the dot.





we played for about an hour and a half and then we ate lunch at chic-fil-a. since admission is all day, we went back after lunch to let the kids play more. mrs. c and her kids left at 2:30 p.m., but we stayed until 4 p.m. it was a lot of fun! thanks for going with us mrs. c and kiddos!

oh to have color on the walls.....

okay blog friends. i must tell you of my journey - not of finding my purpose in life, or feeling at total peace about helping my kids know the character of God, or even with the perfect, cheap, quick meal to make for my family.

this is my journey to have some color on my walls. it's been a long journey, friends. it started when we bought our house in 2004. it was a new house. an older couple had built the house and could no longer care for the responsibilities of having a house. they had put maroon carpet throughout the house. this is where the problem was. when we moved into the house, we had navy blue furniture and all cherry-colored wood tables. with the carpet being so dark and our furniture being dark, the officer did not want any color on the walls. this past year we have repainted almost the whole interior of the house, but with an light off-white color. you may ask isn't off-white a light color and i would say, "yes it is, but it was the lighter of the off-whites!" the officer didn't want to feel like he was in a cave.

a while ago i asked the officer if i could paint our bathroom with a little bit of color since the linoleum was white. he said, "yes, but not a dark color." i had put off painting because i really wanted a darker color than he wanted.

here are some before pictures of the bathroom.



i wanted to paint while we were doing this no television in july thing. i asked the officer again if i could just paint any color i wanted. he agreed and i immediately went to lowes to get some paint samples.

i brought home about 60 paint samples ranging from off-white (even though i knew i would not do this), greens, beige, chocolate browns, yellows, and reds! i went through the bulk of them and showed the officers my favorites. i knew he was not going to be crazy about all the colors, but i made him pick a dark and a light color he could live with. we picked out the colors garden of paradise (green) and cliveden sandstone (beige).

i went the next day to get the paint. we had almost all the other supplies left over from our last painting job. i don't think the officer really thought i would do it so quickly. i started painting tuesday night. i stayed up until 1 a.m. painting. i got everything finished except around the ceiling. i couldn't reach the ceiling on a chair to tape it up. the officer taped it up for me on wednesday and i finished painting it wednesday night.

except for a couple of small hiccups, it looks great! i think the green may be slightly darker than the picture makes it look. i'm so happy with it!!!! so here it is:

i had a little bit of a hard time with deciding how to decorate it. i'm only halfway finished. however, i couldn't wait to post what i've done so far. since i don't need a shower curtain or have a window in the bathroom i was trying to find something to help pull the two colors together.

i had gotten the two crosses from the treasure chest. i bought another one from hobby lobby. they always have their wall decoration 1/2 price - love it. i also purchased the verse from hobby lobby (also 1/2 price). it says rejoice in the Lord - phillipians 4:4. it also had the word "always" with the verse but it was gold and i didn't like it with the crosses.

since i was having some trouble find decorations to pull the two colors together a little, i decided to paint a canvas with the two colors. you can't quite tell because of the flash, but the canvas is painted beige and i stenciled the swirls on there with the same green color as the walls. very easy to do.


i had this big frame in the closet waiting to do something with it. i found a black and white picture of a celtic cross in front of a church online and printed it off. i like the look and it goes with the other crosses.

i am really getting into the verses on the wall. i know it's more of a trend now, but i like it. i have another place in my hallway that i'm going to put another verse. i'll post a picture of that soon. i have to buy some picture frames to go with it first.

anyhow the verses on the walls always remind me of:

Dueteronomy 11:18-20

Therefore you shall lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you like down, and when you rise up. And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, like the days of the heavens above the earth.

don't you love that verse???? i do. it has really stuck with me every since i first heard it. you may ask yourself how much do i have to work on memorizing scripture or teaching it to my children, but it says it right there in dueturonomy.

always.

forever.

so there's my bathroom. i have to find some more decorations for it. wait for more sales because i just can't bring myself to pay full price for something when i know i can get it cheaper! :)

she's cracking me up!

my daughter has been cracking me up lately. i've heard her saying some funny things. i want to try to remember them so i thought i would keep a log of it here.

i laughed when:

1. my daughter thought judas betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of "silverware".

2. my daughter asked me why my highlighters didn't "light up".

3. i saw her combing her hair with an eyebrow comb. she said, "it's going to take forever to comb my hair because this comb is so small!"

4. overhearing her say, "bubba i'm getting more frustrateder!!!!"

5. my niece was spending the day with our family. my daughter asked her for piggybank (piggyback) rides. as my niece was trotting her around the front room, her cell phone in her back pocket started to vibrate. my daughter felt the vibration and said, "did you just toot?"

6. we were having a tickling session on my bed. she giggled everywhere i tickled her. i asked my daughter, "why are you so ticklish?" she replied, "because that's the way God made me!"

7. my daughter asked me, "is madam a boy or a girl?"

i said, "madam is a girl."

she smiled at me and then said, "then is eve a boy?"

"what? eve is usually a name for a girl!" i replied.

"then is madam is the boy." she stated.

"no madam is for a girl".

she looked so confused. in the chatter that followed, i realized she was asking about adam and eve. she thought it was "madam and eve" and knew one of them had to be a boy.

8. when my daughter asked daddy if he was going the "speed lemon". i said, "it's speed limit honey.", but she doesn't believe me.

9. my daughter has just finished her lunch consisting of ham sandwich, chips, string cheese and grapes. she walked over to me, showed me her full belly and said, "i have a lot of meatness in my belly!"

10. if you get grossed out easily by poop statements, please disregard this one. my daughter came into the kitchen and asked me the following: "mommy, bubba said that when you poop really hard, your brain will pop out of the top of your head and then you have to run into a wall to get it back in. is that right?" umm... i just laughed.

11. we have a pink swirl (a yogurt place) opening by our house soon. we drove by it today and my daughter asked, "is the pink squirrel open yet?"

12. one of my favorite songs is "give me your eyes" by brandon heath ( you can listen to it on the playlist at the bottom of my blog). we listen to k-love most of the day. she came into her room and said, "mommy!!! your favorite song is on k-love. you know the "give me my eyes song"!

13. grandma will be having knee surgery soon. my daughter came up to me and said, "mom, if i was getting foot surgery on my knee, i don't think i would be very happy about it. i think it would hurt!". yes, honey foot surgery on your knee would be painful.

14. i painted my daughter's fingernails and toenail last week for church. she wanted them red. the fingernail paint is starting to chip off her fingers. it's the kind that drys in 60 seconds so it doesn't usually stay on that long. this morning she came to me and said, "mommy! my fingers are starting to come off." meaning the fingernail paint.

15. we were going through her closet and had to get rid of several pairs of shoes because "they were getting too small for her." she asked me, "mommy, will they just turn into baby shoes?"

16. the other day in the car, my daughter asked me, "mom, who gave us the "liberty of all"? i said, "what?" she said, "you know the statue holding up the candle." she meant the statue of liberty.

17. my daughter's doll has a broken leg. she has not let me forget that she needs a wheelchair and "crowches" for her doll so she get around. what are "crowches" you ask? crutches.

lego grand opening celebration

we went to the lego grand opening on july 24th. we had been waiting and waiting for the grand opening celebration. we knew an 8 ft. r2-d2 was going to be built by a master builder. they were going to start building the 8 ft. r2-d2 at 11 a.m. we decided be at the mall by 9:45 a.m. we were meeting my friend, mrs. c and her two kids. mrs. c brought me a vanilla coke from sonic in case i became dehydrated from all the waiting. good thinking!


when we arrived, we quickly realized we needed to get in line to build the r2-d2. it wasn't too bad. they decided to start building the model about 20 minutes early. my son was getting tired of waiting in line, but when the master builder started talking about what they were going to build, my son started to get excited.


once we got into the "inner circle" for building the r2-d2, we went to a table where they had everything you would need to build your rectangle. you were able to build 3 rectangles, then you took them to the master builder who was building in the middle of the "inner circle".



in exchange, they gave you a piece of paper and a coupon. you would trade the piece of paper for a certificate that stated you help build an 8 ft. r2-d2 at the lego grand opening. yes, there was another line you had to get into to get the certificate. luckily, it wasn't too long.













after the line for the certificates, we thought it would be best to go get something to eat. it was 11:15 a.m. now, and a line had formed to get into the store. we thought we would beat the lunch crowd and then head back down to the store during the lunch hour. we saw some of my family at the mall too. i took a picture from the food court of the "inner circle".

we ate lunch and decided to head down to the store. the line was longer now. we got in line and waited. we waited for an hour to get into the store. the kids got a little restless, but i think overall they did very well for all the lines they had to wait in.

by law, they could only let a certain number of people into the store at one time. once we waited, the kids looked at all the lego stuff. we'd been in the store before, thankfully, so looking around didn't take forever. the kids all picked out one reasonably priced item (the legos are more expensive in this store, but they have cool items that wal-mart does not have). we looked at the 6 ft. indiana jones. it was quite impressive. the crystal skull is made up of single square legos. it was pretty impressive how much it did look like harrison ford. everything was lego except his whip.

if you made a purchase, you received a special r2-d2 lego grand opening celebration brick.

we went back to the "inner circle" and the kids build more lego pieces for r2-d2. they also had other legos to play with. i don't know why my daugther is making that face in the picture below, i just thought it was funny.

by the time we got home, it was 2 p.m. and the kids were tired. they spent the next hour and a half in blissful silence as they played and put together their legos.

so if didn't go and were wondering if you should have, this should have given you an idea whether you made the right choice. my son had it marked on his calendar for weeks. he was very excited all week leading up to it. the lego store is pretty small; however, since we had been in it before it did help. i think for my son who is really getting into legos, this was a very neat thing he will remember for a long time.

so ....

time waiting in line: at least 2 hours

cost of legos for my kids: $40 (with the $5 off coupon)

being at the lego grand opening celebration and seeing my son have a great time: priceless

thanks to mrs. c who kept me hydrated with vanilla coke and for waiting in all those lines with me. :)