Kids Activities

Hi!

How's your week going?  Mine is flying by!

We all stayed up late on Sunday night to watch the blood moon eclipse.  

K took some great pictures!

The total eclipse didn't happen here till 11:45pm so it was a late night.  Both kids were up the next morning though!  Although, N got a ride to school ,since K was working up west in O'Leary.

The kids have decided on all their activities.  

They are both taking acting classes for the whole year. C was planning on doing dancing like last year, but they changed the schedule to go twice a week and doubled the price! Plus, C's friend wasn't going, so we couldn't carpool.  I did some research and found a Kids' Acting Class in Summerside.  Last week, it was "Bring a Friend Week" so C went by herself and liked it!  Also, N's friend is in the Teen Class, so N went with him last week.  N's joining that class, and we get to carpool!

Both kids are in swimming for 8 Sundays.  It started last week.  They are in different levels, but at the same time for 50 minutes.  This means I could swim some laps while they are in lessons (if I wanted to!).

C is also doing Art lessons after school for 6 weeks; has joined 4H which meets about once a month; and is in the school choir which meets at recess.  N is in music class at school, playing the trumpet.

They are pretty busy, but the times all work out where it's not too inconvenient to get them where they need to go.

Enjoy the rest of the week! :-)

Kitchen Shelves Encore

Hi!

Guess what I've been doing?  Playing with the kitchen shelves again!  

The other day, I had rearranged them. 

And now they look like this, after I moved a couple things in and around.

Now

Before

Now

Before

Can you spot the differences? ;-)

In outdoor news, K has started on the gable above the front porch!

 
And I'm working on cleaning up the yard.

Especially by the shed, which is what you see when you walk down our front steps..

Still having wonderful sunny weather!

Have a great weekend! :-)

Kitchen Shelves

Hi!

In yesterday's exciting post, I mentioned that I put some baskets on top of the lockers.

Did I go shopping and buy 6 brand new baskets?  No, silly!

I just got them from the kitchen shelves! Here's where they came from.

I think it looks better now, not so crowded.

The other side, before. 

Much better! 

The seagrass baskets on the third shelves, I took from the top of the kitchen cabinets .

Now it looks like this.

There's usually a bigger pink bowl on the right, but it's holding apples on the table now.

(Ha, did you notice this is an old pic, with the old baskets?)

The baskets that I moved to the front room, hold some kitchen stuff, so I'll have to move it around sometime...

See you later, alligator! Have a great day! :-)

Front Room Benches

Hello!

We are having gorgeous sunny fall weather this week!

I found a coffee table for $3 at the Salvation Army Store last week when I was dropping off 2 bags+ of stuff.

I liked the legs and thought I'd use them for the back of the benches in the front room. 

The front legs are going to be from an "extra" bentwood stool from target.

(old pic- see the old rug!)

For the top of the benches, I was using the nice birch plywood that came from the bench in the old living room (now our master bedroom). My dad cut it in 1/2 when he was here and here's a piece of it sitting in front of the dresser. 

Here's how I got the bench together...

The back legs were shorter than the front, so I had to add some filler wood.  

It's not very nice looking on the back. And actually not screwed in all the way since I just wanted to test it out.

Here's the bench in front of the locker, all the way out.

And here it is pushed 1/2 way under.

(I found a wicker basket in the trunk in the back room when I was getting out the blankets and thought it would look nice under the bench.)

So, the bench is just ok.  I'm not sure I really like it like this.

Since I only made one bench as a test, I brought in a bench from the back patio.

I was getting out our throw pillows and thought, Wouldn't the bench look cute with a pillow?

  And then I thought, Don't I have some fabric I could put on the bench? And even some thin foam I took from our old red couch I could use for cushioning?

Is this better?  Yes, I think I like it better with the fabric.

I'm not sure I'll make the other bench with the bentwood legs... I like the outside bench, but I wanted it to be able to slide under the lockers and it's just a bit too tall.  I could cut it down, but I kinda like having the benches outside... So, I could make new ones... There are a few bench plans on Ana White's website. We probably have enough wood lying around. I've rounded up enough 2x10's and 2x8's for the leg parts, just need something for the top.  If I'm covering it with fabric, it doesn't need to be nice wood.  I guess I'll keep the pretty birch plywood for something else...

Oh one more thing, please notice that I put some baskets on top of the shelves!  Woo Hoo!  Exciting stuff! ;-)

Have a great day! :-)

Fall Stuff

Hi!

Another week has gone by!  

I wasn't too excited about fall decorating, but I finally got around to doing some stuff on the front porch and in the house.

My mom had the hanging baskets in her little travel trailer.  I had them stored in the breezeway for many years and finally decided to hang them up. 

Here's the front room.

Kitchen.

Kitchen shelves.

 Back room.

I put a basket with 3 carved balls on the "coffee trunk". 

In other news, there's been a toad hanging around in our breezeway.  And the other day, K found a real frog in our living room!  The door had been left open, so he got in that way, or snuck in on the laundry basket.  Here's C with him on her thumb. (look closely!) He jumped away before I could get a closeup.

Have a great week! :-)

Update

Hello!

We made it through the first week of school!  Both kids like their teachers and N is adjusting well to Intermediate School (Junior High!).

Our cat Paris has been missing since Sep 5.

It's interesting, that we've always had 2 cats- Elvis & Bebe;  Lisa & Baba; and Lilly & Paris- and one always ends up disappearing in the fall. :-(

Everybody kinda had a cold last week, with N and K feeling the worst on Friday, so we had a relaxing Saturday.  C has been wanting to visit her friend, or have her come over, for a while and she finally got to have some company on Sunday.  N went to Summerside and spent the afternoon at his grandparents'.

There are 3 school meetings this week- tonight a Home and School meeting for C's school, tomorrow a Back to School BBQ for C, and Wednesday a Home and School meeting for N's school.

I'm also working on Wednesday and Saturday....And K is working overtime this weekend on Friday and Saturday.

Not many home projects going on. Just thinking about what to do next!

Have a great week! 

:-)

Front Room Lockers

Hi!

With school starting, I wanted to get the front room lockers painted, so the kids could use them and get into the habit of putting their stuff there after school.

Here's how they look now.

Here's how they looked before.

I tried to fill the paint that had scratched off the doors with Bondo. 

The putty worked well for the small scratches. 

 I used this for the side of the cabinets and for the bottom seams on the front of the first locker. It works well, but is very stinky! 

After seeing that the door paint kept scratching off, I decided to go ahead and strip the paint off the doors.  For this, I had to remove them.

I used the last bit of my Circa 1850 Stripper on one door and for the rest I used Natura Safe Strip.

I didn't think the Natura was working.  It dried out and I had to scrape and scrape to remove the paint.  However, when I went to rinse the stripper off, the paint that was stuck on came off so easily.  So I learned that you just need to re-wet it (not just with stripper like the package says, but with water!). 

Before painting the cabinets. 

I used Zinsser 123 primer

 and 2 coats of CIL Semi Gloss Latex.

It was kinda nice with the doors off...

Here are the doors outside getting painted. 

I used 2 coats of primer and 2 coats of paint.

Here's the final result again!

I like them, but I see that I should've done some caulking to fill the joints where the plywoods meet.  I will hold off on this until I do the rest of the moulding in the room.  It shouldn't affect the use of them, so it won't interrupt the new back to school routine.

And I still need to figure out how to do the benches I want underneath...

N and K and N's friend went for one last sail on Saturday in the Summerside Harbour.

C and I had gone to town to run errands and met up with them.

Here's C doing a cartwheel on the jetty and N's friend photo bombing.

They're off!

K is in the Laser sailboat in the back and N and his friend are in the Opti in the front.

There they go!

Have a great day! :-)