Harry Potter Featurette!!

I cannot WAIT!!

All Hail Summer Vacation!!

This is the last full week of school. I hate the last full week of school. We are so busy it is just ridiculous and the kids are in school for absolutely no reason whatsoever. They watch movies everyday and field day and field trips and so on and so on. Anyway, here are some highlights of the week so far.

First event of the week was the Liver Lip's awards day. We were given the "secret" note that told us to show up, so we did. She got a science award, a language arts award and a certificate because she got First Place in the county wide math competition.

Doesnt she look thrilled--in typical middle schooler fashion?

Next on the agenda was the fabulous musical put on at the elementary school. It seems to get larger every year and I think the music teacher outdid herself this year. Different classes did different eras starting in the 1920s with some flappers and ending with Miley Cyrus (bleah). My favorites were the 50s, of course, because one of those little greasers belongs to me, but a special shout out to our favorite 4th grade teacher ever and her class's rendition of the Thriller video...awesome!!


The color on these is horrible....that gym is sooo dark and with those mercury lights...awful.
Here is some 50s dancing for you.



Janis and Jimi


THRILLER!!--none of these kids are even mine, but I got immense joy out of this performance....



These are all the cuties from his class...


And here is a shot of the greasers because little boys are just cute!!

Next event up was the Spring Fling that the PTO puts on...me being a member of that means I was waaaaay too involved and I have the sunburn to prove it.

Snow cones...


Giant bouncy climbing things...


A beach chair relay race between the PTO and the teachers...yes, that is me and no I did not fall down....and yes, we whipped their.......we won!!


Much fun all around...and his class won some beanbag thing that I didnt get to see because I was shaving sno-cone ice.

Finally--yes this is too long--today was Elementary Awards day. We are the social studies guru!!

Molly the Mole Hunter

This is our Molly.

She is a little low on brain power, generally, but she has a couple of areas in which she excels. She can run like the wind, for one thing. She can catch birds in mid-air. And she can find moles and catch them like you have never seen.
Why any mole would want to live in Tennessee I cannot understand. I realize that they probably dont think about their relocation options very often, but they should. Tennessee dirt is incredibly hard and can barely be called dirt at all. It is clay mixed with rock and I feel certain also with Quikcrete. This has not ever stopped the moles or Molly either for that matter.
I walked by our window this morning and saw her with one foot in the air and her nose on the ground, so I stuck around to watch. I didnt have to wait long because the entire process took about 15 seconds.
She lifted one foot and then the other foot, she sniffed the ground in two places and then she literally jumped in the air and landed digging. She did 3 swipes with the paws and had a hole. She stuck her long skinny nose in there and pulled out this thing...


I mean seriously, how gross is that?! Chris is a freak...I would never pick that disgusting thing up.

This is the entire hole she made. She is very efficient. One rain will wash the hole away, but I am sure that little tunnely thing the mole made will be a mushy, muddy spot when it caves in.

Go Molly! You are our hero of the day!

Renaissance costumes finally complete and in use!!

I posted some of these on my other blog, but I felt the need to post some costume related ones here. The full photostream is on Flickr and you can get to that by clicking here or on any of the photos below.

Here is a full length shot of me and C & J. Ignore the stupid look on my face and Jack's completely skinny belt...I didnt catch the belt before we were half way across Nashville and the smart-assed look is a permanent feature.


Here is full length Chris fighting some beer glasses.


Here is a close up of Julia's lacings.


And here is a full length of her and Jack. And, a good shot of Caris's hair fall...the feathers on top were just added to annoy her when she wasnt looking;-P. Also, the blue fairy Hope is wearing is a previous year's costume of Julia's. It is much loved by any girls that join us each year and has been worn by several of them who needed a costume in a pinch.


So that is a good smattering of costume photos. Click on one of the pictures to see the full set--or on the link at the top.
It was fun!! Come with us next time!!

Tennessee Renaissance Festival 2009 (finally)

After much delay and a rain out weekend and all that drama, we finally got to the faire this weekend--for Mother's Day. We frequently go this weekend, but it is usually our second visit of the month, not the first. I took a ton of pictures that I cant begin to post all of here, but if you click on any of these it will open my photostream and you can look at them all if you so choose. You can comment there and everything....
Here is a sample.

Jack w/ his sword.


Julia getting painted up.


The girls....we brought Hope the Blue Fairy with us;-)


Caris and I being chased up the path by a .... well, by a guy with horns.


Caris and Chris snuggling at a show.


Caris holding up her muddy skirts, like a proper lady.


Like I said, there are a million more and better costume shots, but they are all at Flickr. Click here or click on one of the pictures.

Anniversary walk through beautiful Nashville.

Chris and I had an our 16th anniversary on Friday. We managed to pawn off all the kids on people and hit the town on our own. We had gone to see the new Star Trek movie earlier in the day--which was freaking awesome and we both HIGHLY recommend--so we thought another movie would be a bit redundant. We had a lovely dinner (thank you K.L.) at Cafe' Nonna in Sylvan Park--also highly recommended. And then went into downtown and thought we would walk the Shelby Street Bridge. It may have a new, fancier name now since it reopened as a pedestrian bridge, but I am not sure. It starts at the Schermerhorn, goes over the Cumberland River and ends up in the Titan's stadium parking lot, which they have made into a park area.
A picture is worth a thousand words so here are a couple to prove that you need to come visit us. It is pretty darn nice here. Ignore that goofy couple that kept getting in the picture. It was their anniversary and they couldnt help getting in the way of the pretty landscape.
This is the Batman Building....

We are horrible iphone photographers....off with their heads!!

Chris trying his hand at the backwards pushing of the photo button...

My turn...

We give up after this one and just take city pics since you cant see the backdrop over our big, fat heads...



This is some artistic thing, but I dont know its name. We will call it "broken rollercoaster" because that is what it looks like.


See, it's pretty here. And we have lots of things to do. So, come and visit us!!
Also, if you are in the market for a cowboy boot or western style head covering...this is the place to be. Just so you know...

Country kids go on a field trip--to an agricultural exhibit?!

On Thursday afternoon, Jack's class had a field trip to the Ellington Agricultural Center. I will admit that I would have preferred a culturally rich field trip to the city since all of these kids have grown up in the country and are very familiar with agricultural things, but no one really asked me. Obviously...
Anyway, the place is nice and has lots of nice exhibits. They have a kind of colonial village setup. There was a blacksmith, a lady making dipped candles, butterchurning, and weaving. They also toured the Agricultural Museum. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves---especially after visiting the water fountain. It was kinda hot...

Jack with cow...


This is where they stable the police horses for the city. This is one "on duty". They are beautiful horses.


Petting the miniature goats...


Watching the music demonstration.


Next comes the picnic at a park down the road from the Museum. We will not discuss how the buses totally ditched the 10 cars that were following them and left us all completely lost in the middle of the Southern Hills Hospital area....no we wont discuss that part.
Eventually we found our way there.


Then comes the part where they all passed out from the heat...

...because kids these days are wimpy. { When I was a kid, we used to walk all the way to school in the heat... in florida... in the summer...it was a million degrees....etc, etc, etc.}

Stop the Insanity--Placemat Pillows, Part 2

Uggg. Let me explain. This could have been easy. But I had a "great idea". That is frequently where it all goes downhill fast for me. I will just give you the nightmare in pictures and see if you can figure where good sense went south and the lunacy began.

The plan is make these placemats into four pillows.

The light colored print ones arent double layered so I thought I would split open the green one and use it to back the two print ones. Totally simple, right? Yea, not so much. The green placemat had interfacing sticking the two sides together and was not so easy to pull apart as you would think, but I was determined and in the end I did prevail. Pillow casings done.

{watch my brain work here}
"Hmmmm, what to fill them with. I have a gigantic bag of batting in my craft supplies. I could just fill them with that. Or I could dismantle other pillows like i did previously. That would be all "green" and recycley. Or, if I am recycling anyway, I could use feathers!! I have a feather pillow I never use. Yea, that's the ticket. I will make some awesome feather pillows. They will be all soft and squishy and great. I'm doing it!!"

So, I find some on hand thick fabric that I can makes pillow forms out of. Eyeball the size I want, cut and stitch--leaving an opening for putting the feathers in that I can sew up later.

Looking at this pillow, I figured I could get all four out of this one pillow.

Cut that bad boy open!

Now for the totally fun part. I have to get all these loose feathers into those little pillow forms. Simple grab and stuff. Hmmm, maybe I will go outside for this part. It was totally easy and not messy at all.

In fact, I am so clean after this that I feel sure I can go out to dinner without changing my clothes or anything.

Okay, cute little pillow forms. It only took like what, an hour to do that. Something that should have taken 5 minutes tops.

Now, I think I will spend 2 hours rethreading needle after needle that keep breaking and popping the entire bobbin casing out a few times just for fun. Miss White (the sewing machine) and I are not getting along today. I think she has something against feather pillows. Because I am mad at her I will show you compromising pictures of her inner workings. She should be embarrassed by her behavior.

Anyway, eventually this all got done and the pillows are cute. (I totally should have smoothed the nap on my microfiber couch.)


I only need like 10 more of them, but that will totally have to wait until I forget what a pain in my butt this was.