It's a Jungle...In Here?

Ok, so as part of "M's Birthday Prep Week, Part 2" we are starting redoing R & E's room. The people who lived in this house had a boy, so the girl's room was covered on two walls with glued brown paper sacks that looked like this:

That is essentially brown paper sacks, and Elmer's glue, lots and lots of glue. Good news was if we got it wet, it would start to peel off! 2 walls had this on it and 2 walls looked like this:

Do you remember that scene on "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" where she said the neighbors could check out their subtle tribute to the Greek flag, then it pans up and their garage is painted to look exactly like a greek flag? Yeah, that came to mind when I saw this room! Check out the star, it is a window shade!
Ok, so we peeled paper and peeled paper and under the first wall we found this:

That is khaki and those are stenciled animal prints around the closet door (BTW the closet door was red to go with the Texas theme.
And then under the next wall we found this:


Giraffe, Leopard, Tiger and Zebra? What? Keep in mind as I took this picture, the walls to my right and behind me, still look like the Texas flag! Wild! The girls though this was funny, but, mind you, continued to ask when we could get to the pink paint!
Needless to say we are priming the walls!
This is what happens when you buy a house with lots of history!!!

Back to the land of the living!

So, sorry for no correspondence with anyone the last week or two, our computer went kaplooey. It was anticipated, but as always, ill-timed since we are waiting on the insurance adjuster to give us the verdict on our roof. You know, the hail storm..... Anywho, I am overhauling the house in anticipation for M's 1st birthday party next weekend. All grandparents will be coming so I am working on getting the girl's rooms rearranged and ready. It will be lots of fun when everyone is here, but right now I have an overwhelming todo list! I finished the back flower beds today though!

I totally finished the study so I will post pictures of that when we get the computer box out! Woohoo! Another room bites the dust!

Tom got an unheard of 4-day weekend for the 4th so we got to see all of my family! That was great, and a major blessing to get to see Bonnie and Scott before they head out this next weekend! :-( Their moving is giving us an excuse to plan a field trip to Pennsylvania! Independence Hall here we come!!!!

Well, I am off to enjoy the rest that naptime brings to Mommies before the evening commences!

Dottie a.k.a. Guinea Pig #2

Ok, so when you enter the world of small pets you have be always steeled for the worst. In our case poor Pokey only made it a week. She seemed to have come with some sort of respiratory condition. So, we now have "Dottie". Dottie is currently running at full speed around her cage so she seems to be in good condition (right now anyway ;-). We have had Dottie now a week and a half and she is funny, squeaky and cute. So here are her pictures! E is doing good keeping her fed, watered and petted!

Ice From the Sky

As if our life this week wasn't nutty enough running R & E around going to Bible School and to swimming lessons, we had a rip-roaring hail storm last night! Tom and I got the girls in bed and decided to stay up late and watch Fool's Gold on our pay-per-view. It was entertaining, but so very silly! ;-)
Anywho, right after it was over, we were checking doors and turning off computer etc., we checked the radar and hail was headed our way! So, our later night turned into a late late night! We moved the girls to our bed away from windows and such. We started with pea sized hail and ended up with tons of large marble sized and golf ball size and eventually some tennis ball sized! I made matters more dramatic in the midst of everything by knocking over the ironing board and making a tremendous crash, we were just sure things were coming through the roof!

Our yard looks like a war zone, Sallie dutifully brought me 2 dead birds to the back door this morning, and I think we are the only people on our street who haven't cleaned up the mess yet! Lazy bums that we are! So, here are the pictures, these Tom picked up after they had been rained on for about 10minutes -- mind you, it isn't wise to run out there while this stuff is still falling..... ;-)
Oh, please excuse the state of my tennis ball for "scale" when you have a golden retriever, your tennis balls look like this!


Oh, and I had to include this last one, you can really see the layers, isn't God cool!?!?

Pokey and Holly

I found the camera!!! It was in plain sight as usual....

The girls were so funny today, we went to Target and as we are walking in R commented that she was wondering what Pokey and Holly were doing while we were gone. She said she figured Pokey was probably napping in her house and so forth. E listened a minute and then said, "Quit worrying about my guinea pig, I am sure she is just fine!" She sounded so much like Tom it was hilarious!

Here are some pics of our new family members:


This is Holly.

Sorry the picture isn't great, parakeets are not the easiest thing in the world to photograph! ;-)

This is Pokey.

As Time Goes By....

I would apologize for not blogging lately, but nobody else that I know seems to be updating their blogs either.....

We had a great, but all too short visit from Mom and Dad this weekend, it was fun and relaxed. They brought "Hobbes the Poodle" with them and he behaved like a model house guest he is welcome back, next time he can bring "Emmy Lou the bird dog". ;-)

Per R and E's fabulous performance on their chore list Mom and Dad's birthday gifts were a parakeet and guinea pig respectively. So we now have Holly (or affectionately known as Mr. Holly to everyone except R) and Pokey. I will post pictures as soon as I find the camera, it is MIA! I had an interesting conversation with R after she was informed that "Holly" is a boy. She insisted that it was a girl because she wanted it to be a girl. Nope. It doesn't work that way, that's God's department. She frumped, but is slowly coming around. He is a cool green and yellow color, a color very difficult to find on a girl parakeet! I just don't know when R will realize the world can't be changed just because she isn't happy....

Things around here are hot and dry. I have just about finished redoing my study, I will also post pics of that soon too. I am thrilled to have an organized place to pay bills (and blog). ;-)

Hope everyone is having a fun beginning to summer, we start Bible school and swim lessons next week and celebrate E's 4th birthday Saturday! Fun stuff!

I guess my nap is over.....

Ok, I somehow managed to fall asleep this afternoon, it was wonderful and badly needed but I was rudely awakened by my oldest child banging her feet on the wall. She is supposed to be quietly napping too. Sigh. So, now I am awake.

Let's see, we did do other things in the past weeks than just find a hound a home! Tom and I attended the Home School Book fair last week. It was fantastic to get our feet wet in the homeschool scene. There were a ton of curriculum publishers there and some other book publishers. I bought some books from Vision Forum that I have been eyeing for some time. One is called Home Making, then there is Raising Maidens of Virtue and Passionate Housewives Desperate for God.
We also bought Clay & Sally Clarkson's Educating to WholeHearted Child, which I am hoping will also be good and helpful. I liked Sally's books The Ministry of Motherhood and The Mission of Motherhood, I highly recommend them. They were helpful to me in remembering in the tough moments why I do what I do (like when they wake you up from a nap ;-).

I am just now getting started on Home Making I'll have to let you know how it is. So far it is really good and very thought provoking on the importance of making a Godly home and family life. The first chapter about marriage has been worth the book! I have been convicted lately on the importance of making home a place of peace and working together for that goal. I have been pretty tense lately trying to get everything and everyone taken care of! But we have known 2 different families in the last couple of months that broke up. It is sobering to us and a reminder to work at making home strong in God. He is the only thing that holds it all together! Before I start thinking there are ways to make our marriage stronger or to make our home peaceful or any of these things I am reminded of 2 Corinthians 3:5. It has to be God that makes all things peaceful and harmonious!

So, now I am really awake, I think I'll go thaw some turkey burger for spaghetti! Yum!