Natural Causes

My kids won't stop listening to this ever since I found it at the library. We have renewed it to the renewal limit and then renewed it some more. I wonder if it has to do with the fact that one of the stories is about Arthur losing his first tooth. At the ripe old age of seven.

Anyone who knows Cuddles knows how fond he is of pain. That is probably why it took this long for his first baby tooth to fall out {from forces of nature and not from those of the dentist}.
I can't remember how long this tooth was loose, but observe how the permanent tooth has already come into view. This was a long. time. coming.

The timing of the actual "fall out" was unfortunate for me, since I missed the look on his face in the moment. Turns out that the stars aligned today during Primary between the approximate times of 3:15 and 4:00 pm. {He had showed me his tooth during Singing Time just before class and I could see that it was dangling upside down and tried to get him to just pull it for crying out loud. But he would have none of that.} sigh. And I know that his teachers really appreciated the interruption to their lesson... At least the tooth didn't actually end up lost.

Since When???

Recently I saw these really cool barrels you can put under your rain gutters to catch the water and use it to water stuff in your yard. I thought that would be pretty sweet to hook up a couple of those in the back of our house.

But, turns out Utah is one of two, maybe three states where that is illegal. Illegal. Because the state "owns" the rain water.

Huh??? Now that sounds more like something I would have expected in Massachusetts, but Utah?? Seriously?? It's the *desert.*

So much for that idea...

Laying Out

So The Professor is bound and determined to install our own sprinkler system. I tried many persuasive tactics to get him to hire it out, but that man is . . . determined. And it will save us gobs of money. I just hope it doesn't leave us with more gray hairs. Luckily the front yard is already installed so we just have the back yard to deal with. And that is plenty.

I mean, if putting together this drawing is any indication of what a pain the rest of the process is going to be, then we are in for a *real treat*. I lost track of how many times we measured and remeasured and changed our minds about where the patio would go and then I would draw it and things wouldn't quite match up. That triangular side yard is a killer. {I know I took trigonometry. . .} Ugh! But it felt great to say, "I'm done."

And I've been sifting through Better Homes and Gardens and Sunset magazines and websites about butterfly gardens and growing raspberries and water conservation and lots of other fun stuff.

That will be the fun part.

so long, farewell

bye bye ugly deck

summer school

I was driving by the elementary school a few weeks ago and noticed that they were selling old desks. For three dollars. So I turned that minivan around and bought me two. I felt like I should have paid more for them. And super bonus, I didn't even notice until we got home that I got one right sided and one left sided desk! {Cuddles is a lefty.}




And now that we are a month into summer school, I have realized that all those times I thought about doing homeschool I was only kidding myself...

Accessorizin'

It's been a while since I felt like I actually checked something off of my list, so I spent some time getting this window in the kitchen mistreated. I think I need to actually get back up there and lower the bottom down just a tad. But at least I finally have one window clothed. Only 15 naked windows to go...

And check out these fabulous finds I rounded up this morning at garage sales. It was my first time garage sailing in, well, several years actually. I don't remember how much I spent all together, but the most expensive items were the side tables for fifteen. Here they are staged in our sparkling clean and super organized garage...

I guess its hard to see the glass cake stand that was two bucks. It's down there in the back

And the other day I stopped by Michaels and found these on clearance:

Wait. It gets better! I also stopped at the DI and scored the following items for a grand total of twenty smackeroos: {meaning everything in the following 2 pictures} I know! And seriously, this made me feel so much better about missing the after-Easter deals. I almost want to eat it.Almost done. Just thought I'd throw in this teaser photo of something that's cooking up in the laundry room. {remember the fabric that was too pink and flowery for the master bedroom? well, that's what laundry rooms are for, eh?}

A Transformation

We were waffling back and forth about whether to get a tramp, but when the rock wall guy said he would dig the hole for free, that pretty much sealed the deal.
But then we ended up doing the rest by hand after the backordered trampoline took so long to arrive. The Professor dreamed up the enclosure so we wouldn't have to fork out 700 bucks for the ones they sell. And rocks seem to be my lot in life. . . Look down! Look down! . . .I found myself humming that to myself recently as I wielded my pickaxe. Do you think the kids will ever fully appreciate what we went through? Yeah, probably not.

We still have to put up the net, but you get the idea.

These pictures were taken through Easy's bedroom window. I'm wondering how long it will take before she attempts to jump down from her room. . .