Ella’s Hair…

Nope,  didn’t cut her hair either but I found an amazing style and tried it on her this morning!  I’m so excited about this one.  While I didn’t perfect it I’m comfortable enough to say I nailed it close enough and I think once I have a better opportunity to watch the video from  Cute Girls Hairstyles  AND I have more then 10min to actually do the cage-braid,  I think I’ll get better at it.  Seriously,  this is so adorable and so very easy!  WHO KNEW!

Here is the style I attempted to copy.  Click on the link and you’ll be able to watch the video and learn how to do it yourself!  This Mom is amazing!

HAVE FUN!

Rain Boot Clogs

Ever have a child with a favorite  shoe or clothing that they refuse to part with?  At least without a hassle.   my 3yr old has a pair of rain boots that she LOVES!  They are not all fancy or girly and in fact are at least a size to big for her but she does love them!  I didn’t mind her wearing them,  I mean they did keep her dry up to her knees!  Until they didn’t…

At the end of fall, just before it was supposed to be time to pull out the winter snow boots I began to notice her feet were getting wet.  Upon a good look-over of the boots I noticed the back heels both now had cracks in them.   After that I gently encouraged her to wear her lovely winter snow boots.  Something much easier said then done when it wasn’t snowing.  Then it snowed!  Not much but enough to bring a happier attitude about the transition and the rain boots were not a thing of the past.   Until today…

Today, in January, in Mid-Michigan it not a cold, snowy, white, wintery day.  No,  it’s a beautiful 47 degree day with too much green grass and birds fluttering about in my bushes all confused but enjoying themselves.  I decide to pull out clean out the mess of shoes, boots, hats, mittens near blocking out garage door to the house entrance and in that process, the beloved rain boots made an appearance.  Well,  I convinced my sweet 3yr old that they were not good to wear anymore but she was so sad that I came up with an idea.  They may not be water-proof rain boots anymore but she LOVES her new…

        RAIN BOOT CLOGS!

And yes, this is the pic she “granted” me.   LOL!

Megan’s Hair…

If you thought, from the title of this post, that we cut Megan’s hair then you really don’t know me well.     No,  we got another “lice in the classroom” notice today and me, being terrified of having to deal with lice in my house, will go to extremes to protect their  heads.  I decided I would go ahead and try to do a style I’ve never attempted on anyone before and I decided to do it tonight before she went to bed so we didn’t have the added stress in the morning.  I have visions of lots of fly-a-ways in the morning but hey,  a little hair spray will fix them and bonus – I’ve heard Lice doesn’t like hair spray so hopefully we will be able to avoid any possible enemy infiltration during this round of attack(s) as well.  HA!

I left the “tail” because it was late and I didn’t want her going to bed with bobby-pins in her hair. She likes it down so we might just leave it – we’ll see.

I think she likes it – what do you think?  ❤

Since the tail didn’t “end” near the base of her head it stuck out rather funny and looked as though her hair was crooked so I “Topsy-Tailed” it through a looser part of the braid and now it goes directly down the middle of her back and looks “normal”

And this last one just because…well because I liked it.  LOL
Seriously tho,  I was / am so proud of my extremely, overly, head-sensitive child.  She only squeaked a couple of quick little times.   Considering it’s not uncommon to have a full blown wailing fest just when brushing her hair well,  She did AMAZING considering how detailed this was!   ♥ Go Mae! ♥

And now I am going to bed because my 7yr old wants me to attempt this IN THE MORNING with her hair.  *Yawn*   I’m really hoping she’ll settle for something a little less time consuming but I have a feeling I’m dreaming…   *night all!*

*Edit*  Megan asked me to put the “tail” into the Bee Hive (which she insists is actually called, “Princess Hair”) this morning so here is the final result of her hair  as we headed out the door to school.  I have to say,  I was excited to see minimal fly-a-ways this morning!  =)
  It was also asked of me how many different braids this was – it is only one.   One very long spiral braid.  You can see where I began, in this first pic right here.  Then we just went all around until the very tip of her hair on the “tail” as seen in the above pics.   This morning we just “Topsy-Tailed” it in amongst the rest of her braid where we could fit it then lightly sprayed it all.

As I mentioned my 7yr old also wanted her hair done up like the 5yr old’s but we just didn’t have time this morning so we essentially did a Halo on her head.  It was all fine and dandy until we got into the car and her poor head started itching with no relief so with only moments to spare at school,  we took it all out but for a small bit on the side and she went in with a partial braid and a low pony-tail.   Maybe we’ll attempt something else with her tonight.

January 8, 2012

So excited over a new internet find! |

Today, while “window shopping” on Pinterest I came across this lovely little website called, Wordle !! You can create these neat little name prints for, well,  whomever!  I made up one for my little monkey Molly – tho I see I forgot to put on the word Monkey.  Whoops!   LOL

There are a few tricks of the trade to know tho.  There might be more but the three that I know are these…
* If you want two words to stay together use the ~ symbol.  For example, if I had just put Molly Rae, Molly and Rae could be seperated and placed anywhere on the print.  If I put Molly~Rae (note the symbol), then they will appear together as in the print above.

* Second important trick to know is that if you want a word or phrase larger then the rest, to stand out, you type it multiple times.  It will not appear multiple times but it does increase the font size.   In the print above, I typed each word just once except for Molly~Rae,  that one I typed in 4 times.  I love how her name stands out among the descriptions I used for her.

*  Third and last trick I know of is pretty much common sense, especially if you like to continually edit things before you get to the final choice.   LOL
Simple make sure you copy whatever words you have chosen BEFORE you click on the “GO” or you will have to redue it each time.  Don’t ask how many times I made the mistake of NOT doing that before my common sense clicked in.  HA!

Hope you enjoy this little find!  I’d love to see what you come up with!

<><  Jill

January 7, 2012

WOW!  I know I said I wasn’t going to post every day anymore but how did it get to be 4 days later!   Yea,  that stuff pretty much happens with me ALL THE TIME.  LOL   Oh well,  it is what it is.

The last 4 days have been crazy.  Crazy good and crazy busy!   LOL

Starting on the 4th the kids went back to school after CHRISTmas and New Year break.  My mom was here also and we went through a TON of stuff I’ve been dying to get through!  Slowly making progress here…
She went home with a car packed of stuff to store in her basement for this massive garage sale we’re going to have in the spring.  I wanted to drop about a third of it off to Salvation Army because I’m just done with it all, but I let her convince me to try to G.S. most of it first THEN Salvation Army it.  Hey – as long as it’s out of my space I don’t care.  HA!
I should have taken a pic of my mom’s car load but alas,  the only pic I have is of sweet Molly entertaining herself in the middle of the floor, aka:  right where we walk…

The 5th, Oh I had great plans for this day.  I did!  I’ve gotten so much accomplished around the house and I was motivated to keep going.  I had dropped the kids off,  Molly and I were home and she was doing awesome occupying herself, and I had my morning coffee in hand.  Then the doorbell rang…

Tree Trimmer guy was at my door letting me know they were being sent around to trim tree’s to close to the power lines.  He walked me into the backyard and showed me the power lines he was talking about and told me pretty much what they were going to start doing in about 20 min.  Yea,  not much choice about it as it a required thing not to mention a safety hazard not to.  I guess the last time it was done was 8yrs ago and wow – had these tree’s grown!
I didn’t get much of anything accomplished after that.  Well,  nothing but Molly, Wyatt (the dog), and I playing outside until the guys came then I decided to start snapping pics of the guys “topping” my tree’s.  Oh and for the record,  when they tell you they are going to “top the trees”.  Make sure you know what they mean.  I did but still,  what they refer to as “topping” I’d more refer to as cutting down a fourth of my tree but hey,  like the guy said,  I do “still have at least a 20ft privacy fence”.

And this side ended up not being “to bad”.   I’ve decided I actually have a better view of the sunset(s) now!  =)
The right side on the other hand ended up looking like extremely high, well pruned hedges!

How lucky those poor tree’s were to grow directly under the power lines.  There was no room for anything but a straight line cut.  At least it’s not the view we see easily and it’s mostly hidden by another tree (especially in the summer) and our playset!   LOL

Molly on the other hand could care less what they were doing.  Well,  I take that back,  she was terrified that our dog Wyatt was going to get hurt when I insisted on chaining his whiny butt up outside so I didn’t have to listen to him anymore.  Of course I am the one who told her not to let him out under any circumstance and proceeded to tell her why.    Had to tho – she is awful about letting this dog in and out, in and out, in and out…  even if he doesn’t want to do either one!   LOL

Seriously tho, It was pretty crazy to not only watch and be glad it wasn’t my job to do it but also to see – my side yard looked like someone was getting ready to set up a CHRISTmas tree stand!  HA!

Yesterday, the 6th,    …  *GASP*  I didn’t take one pic…  oh wait!  Yes I did,  it’s on a phone camera – WHEW!  Thought I messed up my 365 photo thingie I’m doing.  That pic will have to come on later but it’s a fun(ny) one!
Anyway,  Yesterday, the 6th.  I dropped kids off at school (OK.  Lets just assume I do this everyday unless it’s a weekend, or holiday  LOL) then came home, got dressed, and Molly and I went and did some shopping.  Mostly grocery shopping with a quick trip into Salvation Army too.  Wow I love that store!  Our local one is amazing and I have to say, it’s great for retail therapy!  Yep.  that was yesterday!  Nice easy laid back day – I can say that because Molly actually sat in the cart the whole time!  That never happens!  Dare I admit I let her play with my new Kindle Fire!   LOL!

And onto today, the 7th and Saturday.  Wow,  Can’t believe the day is over already!  It was a GREAT day here!   The boys (all two of them) took off as soon as they could politely escape today because Eliana was able to have a friend over and Jeff and Ethan  just couldn’t handle yet another girl in the house!  So they roamed around Home Depot, got some lunch, and saw “The Adventures of TinTin”  Somehow their little outting ended up lasting much longer then our play-date did but Oh how joyful Ella was for this day of hers!  I think she got all of us girls just as excited!!  YAY!
We did a little craft I found on Pinterest.  (LOVE THAT SITE!)  The craft was these hardened yarn balls that the girls could hang from their ceilings, or do whatever with. Ours are still in the drying process and therefore still have the balloons in them but this is what they look like so far…

Yea,  obviously, if you clicked on the Pinterest link you’d probably notice we didn’t use nearly enough yarn!  HA!  But it was fun.  Sadly, I didn’t get any pics of the entire thing because it was so messy!  My hands were covered in wet tacky glue!   Not touching the camera with hands like that.  Nope – no pic is worth that risk.   LOL

However I did get pics of the little girls making bird seed tubes and pine cones later on after Ella’s friend went home.  The boys had come home and suddenly the little girls no longer existed to their big sister as her dear older brother had returned and he always has her eager attention first.    But that’s Ok today because we had a blast!

And yes,  the bird seed tubes are another Pinterest-found idea!

   Here’s what you need:
* Toilet paper tubes or cut up paper towel tube(s)
* The least expensive peanut butter you can find.
(because chances are you will get birdseed in it somehow and will not be eating from this jar.)
* Birdseed
…and my daughter found some teeny tiny pine cones she wanted to do as well so here we are, ready to start!

It’s really pretty simple,  you just slap on the ‘ol peanut butter and then roll in the birdseed.  Wha-lah,  your done!
(Don’t forget your string if your doing pine cones too!)

And on this last note…  I’m exhausted and am heading to locate some missing ZZZzzzzzz’s

Hope you all are having a GREAT weekend! ❤

<>< Jill

January 3, 2012

WOW!  What a crazy day today has ended up being!

* 1st *
I’ve decided that I’m not going to do this EVERY day but at least 3 times a week.  I am not good with time management anymore since having kids so I figure I should be careful not to lose touch with my “real” world as well.  So this post is m last “every day” posting.   LOL  Trial and error…Trial and error…

* 2nd *
If you know me at all then this shouldn’t surprise you a bit.  Late this morning I rescued a, um,  cough cough little ground mole cough cough.
Yep, that’s me,  I love even the undesirables.  HA!   I happened to look out the window at the dog acting crazy in the snow and realized he was aggressively attacking one little spot in the snow.  Then I realized he had discovered a “new playmate” and was just trying to get it to come out and play!

I rushed out there, because I’ve seen what my ever-so-gentle-wouldn’t hurt-a-flea dog can do to a tiny little new play-mate.  (ie: Birds, mice, etc…).  I’m looking and looking and I see nothing.  Honestly I’m not even sure what I expected – it’s cold and we FINALLY have snow covering the ground and still falling.  I was about to give up and turned to head back inside when THERE IT WAS!  This adorable little soft furry gray things crossed a dug-up patch of grass right in front of me.  As quickly as I saw him he was burrowing through the top later of snow again.  I GRABBED him and rushed him inside without thinking and locked the dog out – HA!

Got the kids, they were all excited – we stuck him in a little container and all was good.  Well,  it was until I decided to try to something inside the container and the little bugger escaped IN my house!  I was able to retrieve him but apparently wasn’t wise enough to NOT open the lid a 2nd time and yep, he was gone!  Disappeared somewhere into my home.  OK,  so it was the kitchen he disappeared into – lovely but at least my kitchen got cleaned out in places I never even thought you could clean before!  Like deep underneath and inside the underbelly of the fridge.  I also discovered a deep back hole (so-to-speak) behind my cupboards.  Don’t ask how I discovered it but I did find some extremely old boxed, jar’d, and packaged food from way back to ’85!  Yea,  I was that desperate to find this little critter.  Partly because I now had a very worried 7yr old who was sure it would end up downstairs in her room, and more because I was not looking forward to telling the husband that I’d “rescued” a mole then gracefully let it escape deep into the house…
…I didn’t find it.  DRATS!   Made the call to the hubby.  Figured it might be better to tell him now and give him a few hours to take it all in before he got home and was bombarded with the news by 4 chatty children.

Fast forward to this evening.
I was downstairs – you know,  the place I promised my 7yr old it wouldn’t get to, and yep – there he was!  I picked up a pair of jeans laying on the floor outside my sons bedroom and there is this little dark gray soft looking things sitting right there!  I couldn’t believe it!  I threw the jeans back over it and cupped my hands around it trying to think of who I could call to come help me. You know,  because I’ve already learned the hard way that he’s a tricky little fella.   Wouldn’t you know – the only person near enough to me that I could call, was my 7yr old!  Fortunately she was amazing and ran upstairs and got back up.  Ethan, my 10yr old and also the one who totally surprised me earlier by standing on a chair when the mole got loose (yea,  i kid you not!  It still cracks me up) He grabbed my tough winter gloves and brought them to me and we captured the wee guy an not only locked him into a new little pet bin but also duct-tapped the tar out of the sides.  There would be no escaping this time!  HA!

Everyone but the 3yr old, who was now long asleep, got to enjoy his little antics for about a half hour or so before bed.  It was fun, it was entertaining.  I made a promise to the hubby that after school drop-offs in the morning and the 3yr old got to at least see it once, I would return our little guest to the wild.   Far, Far, Far, Far away from our home.

** Lastly **
On the non-critter side of things my Mommy came by today to visit and help out with some things (she came right after the darn mole escaped for the 2nd time!).  She also brought me some beautiful cut tulips!  Oh how I love Tulips – they are so simple and beautiful and well,  I just like ’em.

Tomorrow I shall come back and add the pics to this posting but at least I got it up.

Tonight I am going to go to bed.  School starts back up in the morning after the holidays and I’ve got to make sure I’m able to be functionable because if Mommy’s not happy – No One Is Happy!  So There!

I’ve got some sick family members out there right now – not my immediate family but a cousin and a child of another cousin.  It hasn’t been a good day for either of them.  If you could just keep them in prayer – that would be AWESOME!

Later!
<><  Jill

January 2, 2012 – 2nd attempt

Today was an exciting day in that the ONLY thing I did of any purpose was to go out ALONE and buy a much-needed floor lamp for our fireplace room.  The room,  while I love it, has absolutely no light in it – literally.  Now there is light!  YAY!  Much more warm and cozy to be in, especially on cold winter nights.

We also had an injury today.  well,  sort of.  Ella’s new Soft LaLaLoopsy doll has a big boo-boo.  Sadly it’s a manufacture problem so I’m hoping they will step up and replace or at least fix her SOON.

Poor Bea!

‘night all!

January 2, 2012

OK – I’m back!  Made it to day 2.  HA!

One thing I have decided to try to do this year is “A Photo a Day”
http://365project.org

My first pic is pretty sad – what’s even more sad is it’s the only pic I took the entire day!  WOW!|

(Since this technically should be on the 1st day’s post, I’ll try to do another more “official” day two posting.  HA!)

<><  Jill

Hello Cyber World!

Here it is,  day one of a brand new year!  Welcome 2012!

It’s also my attempt at starting a blog again. To start off it might get rather boring because really,  I’m going to just try to talk about my crazy day to day life.    Somedays I might “talk” to much and others, well others I might just miss all together but hopefully it will only be a day or two and I’ll catch right back up.

In the meantime, I appreciate all and any advice and or positive criticism

That’s about it for this first posting on this first day of the near year.  Pretty boring but I’ve got a lot to do around the house and with the family before things settle back into “normal”.
I’ve  also got a lot to learn about Blogging.  I’m hoping to “catch on” sooner rather then later but if you hang with me through the thick of it,  I’m sure you won’t be disappointed and if nothing else,  I’m sure to give you something to laugh about…

Well,  Lets see how this goes…

<><  Jill