Monday, July 30, 2007





Well, I'm going off the air with the blog for awhile, it's just not doing it for me anymore. I dread having to post because it takes so much time and then I feel guilty for sitting there so long on the darn computer. There's just so much to do anymore and so much I want to do, that I think I'll just call it off for awhile. Maybe when everything settles down after our Disney trip, I'll pick it back up. I have school starting in three weeks, Abby's surgery in three weeks, Abby's Birthday in 8 weeks, Disney in 7 weeks, lots of house projects to finish before Abby's party especially landscaping outside, I'm still lesson planning, trying to plan out field trips, etc..for school, Riley turns one this month, we're going to Gatlinburg for Labor Day weekend 4 weeks away), lots of Big Brother, HGTV design star to watch, plus I'd like to take the kids to do some fun stuff before summer's over. It's just a lot on my plate right now and everyday I feel a nagging pull to get on here, check everyones, write a comment and post myself. I just need to get away for awhile, so I can not have it hanging over my head and who knows, I may really miss it and come back sooner! Well have a great summer, here's some pics from our trip to the butterfly show at the krohn conservatory! Love ya all!

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

The classroom



This is the before, when it was Steve's office. His desk was to the left of this photo, he was sitting there, alas not in the pic. The dog's cage resided in that room and now has been worked into my scrapbook room. I had to completely refigure the scrapbook room to fit it in, but it all works well together now.



This is the desk area. I took an temporary door we used during our build and painted it out and it's now the desk, I attached it to the wall in the back and on the right with pieces of wood screwed into studs and then I attached the door to the wood with screws going through it. Yes, I did all this by myself while Steve was downstairs working!! I get so motivated from all the design shows!! I used a storage shelving unit that we already had, to be the third leg, I put baskets in the shelves that we had and use those for my own stuff. The three clear drawers were in the scrapbook room, I bought the big maps at $5 each, I made their titles using the printer and laminator, I bought the alphabet (there's a regular one on another wall) at Dollar Tree for you guessed it $1, I got lots of the plastic pencil boxes for .50 at Meijer, the white board I got for $6 and it's magnetic which I thought was cool, the chairs were upstairs and we brought down the kids computer. I think it turned out pretty well, each kid has lots of room to work on that big desk!



This is the room from the door. You can see the kids playing v-smile on their new tv/dvd combo. That was the only big purchase for the room. We reused the book case in there, I attached it to the wall though, it wasn't previously. You can see here that the clue was polka dots, I used that as sort of a decorating theme for the room. I painted dots around the room in colors we already had, brown and bright blue from the kids bathroom, navy from the theatre and I kept the orginal green in the room. I used navy curtains that we already had and painted dots on them as well and hung them with Mickey curtain rods that we hadn't used since we lived in Texas. The green ottoman used to be in front of the chair in the room, but I moved it by the window to clear up some floor space. I took one of the back pillows from the chair, rolled it up and pinned it so it became a sort of arm rest/ pillow for the ottoman. Beside it is another set of clear plastic drawers that were in the scrapbook room and an old globe we got at Steve's Mom's house.



This is our KONOS timeline wall over the reading chair. We will get to put all different characters in history on the timeline so we can visually see where they relate to each other. The center is the cross representing Christ's Birth. After I took this pic, I put pictures of the kids up Noah right at 2000 and Abby just a smidgen beside it! Then I showed them where people they knew would fall on the timeline and already they are enjoying it. To the left of the chair is an Ohio map that I got free from ODOT. I took star stickers and put on all three maps where we are located, the kids liked seeing that too and how close or far away certain things are.




This is just a close up of the desk area and you can see my exstensive collection of flash cards. I got those at Target in the dollar bins (thanks for the tip Crystal!!) They had them for not only Math and Phonics things, but presidents, insects, animals, states, etc...I thought they would be fun activities to do while I needed to work one on one with the kids.




This is what will be music corner, it's not complete yet. One of the drawers will be filled with all kinds of little instruments and I plan to have the radio/cd player there with headphones, so the kids can listen to music or books on cd, plus we'll sing and dance and play instruments together. That should be fun!





These are my three flags, that I rested in sand up on top of the bookshelf. I didn't think any class was complete without them!


So, that's pretty much it. I still have a few small things to do, but the hard part is done. I have found some really cool things like Math, Colors, Letters, Shapes Bingo for a dollar each, I had tons of supplies like glue sticks, markers, crayons, paper, pencils, etc..that I bought previous years during the big back to school sales, so that was fun to unpack and put away. I also got some cool math things, like clocks, play money, counting animals, calculators, etc..in the dollar bins, they have been great this year! So other than the t.v. I spent very minimally and think I achieved a pretty fun room. The kids love it and have been in there every day since it was finished! Hope you like it!!

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Abby's t-ball game









We missed Abby's first game which was last week, so this was her first. She played first, second and third base and got three hits (all the kids did!!), and we had a really fun time.

Monday, July 23, 2007

A high flying Sunday












We went to the last launch of the hot air balloons at the Ohio Challenge in Middletown. We chose to not go until late because we had been out and about all afternoon and wanted to relax a few hours before we went. So we arrived about 10 til 7 and the balloons were scheduled to go up at 7, but there was some wind issues and they didn't go up until about 7:30. We were able to sit very close even being so close to the scheduled launch time and we got really good views of the balloons filling up and taking off. It was really a cool experience. Noah wanted to stay home and play the new WII we just got, but when we were leaving he sayed over and over how glad he was that we came to this. It really was fun. The red and white striped balloon, filled up right in front of us and when they started to heat the air, we were so close we could feel the heat!! It was so awesome! This being the last night, some of the balloons weren't there, but we were excited to see about 15 take off. The bunny one was so cute! By about 8 they were all off and the excitement was over, but we're definitely going again next year, it was just so darn cool. I heard a man on a microphone say they have the challenge at least for the next 2 years and then it may move to a different city. I think we'll come either Friday or Saturday next time because they have a huge carnival type thing going on as well. They have big carnival rides, tons of food, inflatables, games, a car show, live music, skydiving demonstrations and all kinds of things. I really want to see the nighttime stuff, balloon glow and the pyrotechnic skydiving. Both sound really cool!! Well here's our Sunday!

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Camping for the weekend



Umm Chilli!!




Ummm hotdogs!!




Baywatch at Hueston Woods!




Yummy chocolate marshmallows!




Cuties in the lake




Beach Babe




Noah...jungle boy!




Abby's enormous tonsils!




The only fish that was caught, a little catfish! My husband caught it!




Abby napping, after I got up!




The boys preparing to fish!




Noah shooting out the hook!




Abby's injured arm from the roller coaster accident




The boys by the lake




Abby's big bubbles




The scene of the accident, the car fell into the gap and she flipped over!




The kids table




Noah's bubbles




Abby loving the roller coaster!




Our tent




The geese crossing the road




The kids at the little carnival. They all got their face painted!


Camping was a total blast and that's all I have to say about that!!!!! SM!!!!!!!!!!!

Friday, July 13, 2007





Here's my car full, and the message board by our door that's been up all week, we're ready to go!!