Thrift Store Finds

Today my sweet three year old boy decided not to nap while his sissy was at preschool, so after over an hour of him playing instead of napping, I got him up and we checked out a thrift store in town that I've never been in before. It's kind of a thrift/junk store. Anyhow, it was a mish-mash of stuff--some great stuff that was horribly overpriced and some cheap stuff that I wouldn't have bought even if it was free! I guess that's how it goes when you have multiple people selling in the same location.
I did find these two pretty milk glass containers. One was $3 and I think the other was $2.50. I like them. They had three that look like the one on the right--I think I might go back and buy one more of them. Ignore the dust on the black dresser...the construction dust is permeating my downstairs!!
I couldn't resist this pretty jar, either! It's not all that vintage in my book since it commemorates the bicentennial...but I just love the coloring. My other jars in this color are older, but I think this will fit in just fine!

Five Week Construction Update

As of last Thursday, we are five weeks into this construction project. Originally this was slated to be a 6-8 week project....I'm thinking it will be more like 9-10 weeks.
The two windows on the first floor that are not included in the remodel are the kitchen and the formal dining room. We had our contractor build the addition so that if in the future (way WAY in the future!) we want to expand the kitchen and build an office off the back of the dining room, we'll be able to tie into the roof line of the addition and not need to recreate that. If it weren't for the possibility of doing that additional work in the future, we would have opted for a gable style roof instead of a shed style.
I love the light that already is coming into the new space!! For this picture I was standing in the old space of the family room and looking toward the new space. Our kitchen table will go in front of the window on the left.
This is our old fireplace wall--with one new 2x2 window cut in on the left--a new one will go in on the right where the studs are exposed. The fireplace header also has moved up--our new fireplace (the old one is wicked drafty!) will be installed on Wednesday and I picked out the tile for it on Saturday. I'm so thrilled to see the old tile GONE! Apparently the builder of our house (in the early 90s) thought it would look good to put floor tile on the wall AND the floor surrounding the fireplace. Tacky!
Here you can see the third 2x2 window that we'll be adding to this space. These 2x2 windows weren't in our original plans, but we decided they were necessary to keep our house as full of natural light as it was before the addition.
Our life is behind that plastic wall--our drafty, chilly, dusty life! I'm ready for this project to be DONE!
This final picture has me standing in the corner of the new space and looking across the room toward our kitchen. I'm so excited for our family to get to start *living* in all this space. It will be wonderful!

Zoo Trip!

Where does the time go? It is May already!! I've been MIA in blogland because construction on our addition has moved inside and it is so noisy here that we leave the house every chance we get!

Last week I took the children to the zoo because admission prices for the zoo skyrocket on May 1st--so we went on April 30th and had such a fun day together! It takes us about 2.5 hours to get to the zoo (we have to take a ferry because we don't live in the main part of our state) so it was an all-day expedition.
I love these lion statues--they used to be in front of the "Cat House" when I was a little girl...back in the Dark Ages when animals at the zoo used to be in cages. I'm so glad these statues were salvaged--my mom has pictures of me posing on them when I was my daughter's age!
The animals were out enjoying the spring weather too. It was gorgeous! Sunny with some warmth, but not so warm that we were seeking out shade. It was great zoo weather!
My children love these gorilla statues and we always get pictures with them!
This one (of the two of them) now is the background on my computer--I love pictures where they both are happy!
My children were so excited to see a baby gorilla--they decided it was "Grampy" giving the baby a ride because their Grampy gives them rides on his back.
Have you met my son the turtle?
Oh wait, I mean my son the spider! Can you tell that my little ones love the interactive parts of the zoo as much as they love seeing the animals?
I just love the body language in this picture--it speaks volumes to me!
And yes, we're not all about frills and fluff...we love trucks (and tractors!) too!

Spring Art Projects

A few weeks ago my little ones were doing art project after art project...we had art drying everywhere! First we did the marshmallow rainbows I posted about earlier...those were a BIG hit--and we still have leftover marshmallows which also is a huge hit.
We also made coffee filter butterflies. They were enthralled with how the watercolor paint was absorbed into the coffee filters. I even got in on the action and made one. After the filters dried, I added a pipecleaner to the middle of each butterfly.
The art project my three year old was most interested in was the cherry tree project I read about on No Time for Flashcards. We had a lot of cherry trees blooming in the neighborhood and he was excited to make a tree like the ones we see on our walks.
However, my favorite project was making daffodils! I traced star shapes on yellow construction paper using a cookie cutter. My five year old cut hers out herself and I cut them out for my little boy. Then they painted popsicle sticks green to use for stems. We used Elmers Glue to hold the flower onto the stem and I did the circle in the middle of the flowers.
Now I have a bucket of daffodils on my windowsill and love them! These are a spring decoration I'll be bringing out again next year too!

Tulip Fields

My little ones still aren't back to 100% yet, but they're doing a lot better. We went on an outing to the tulip fields because we all were going stir-crazy at home! We did some geocaching on our way there and one of the caches we found was near an eagle's nest! The nest was HUGE--look closely at the picture (or click it and make it bigger!) and you'll see an eagle in the nest. There also was another eagle circling overhead.
We visit the tulip fields every year during the month of April. It was a bittersweet trip for me this year because of all the memories. In 2004 we took our little girl to the fields for the first time on her four month birthday--we bought some cut tulips and brought them to my grandma. I remember how much she liked the flowers and how she cuddled my baby girl. After she got some good cuddles in, she called my aunts and they came over to see my girl. Now my grandma is gone and my aunts aren't nearly as interested in my girl as they used to be. Sad.
These fields are planted by a bulb company that sells bulbs nationwide. The fields are gorgeous and remind me of the Netherlands.
Most of the daffodil fields were done blooming, but we found a few that still were full of color.
Anyhow, my little ones weren't willing to do very many pictures this year as they weren't feeling too great, but I did get some good shots.
With my boy in a daffodil field
My two children found a "confused" tulip (aka a tulip that didn't match the others)
Lots of good sniffing going on!
I'm a softie for a little boy in OskKosh overalls!
Pretty cute, huh?! Although I do like pictures of people walking away from me, these pictures show his back because he was bellowing "you no take my picture, Mama!! NOOOOOOO!"
I made him turn around because you're not supposed to walk down the rows (although they turn a blind eye if you just go down a little ways) but he still wouldn't look at me!
That's okay--I really like pictures where I catch my children utterly absorbed in something.
I didn't have as much time to play with my camera as I wanted to have though...maybe next year!
Finally I resorted to bribery to get a picture with happy children...and it worked! I also did a few elephant noises...

Target Clearance

My poor little girl has been sick with a high fever (103+) since Monday! We finally have the fever mostly under control, but she was diagnosed with a sinus infection and an ear infection. Ugh! We have been going stir crazy around here! And then on Thursday morning I took my three year old to see the doctor because his temperature was creeping up and he was starting to cough...and he has bronchitis! Now they're both on azithromycin, so hopefully they'll be on the mend soon!
In the meantime, look at this cute tray I bought at Target for under five dollars! It was in the 75% off Easter clearance section last week and I couldn't resist it. I've been wanting a tray for my living room coffee table and this one fits the bill. I may paint it though...I'm not sure yet.
I wouldn't have paid the original $20 for it, but just under $5 worked well for me and was a much more appropriate price in my mind.

For more frugality, go on over to The Shabby Nest for Frugal Friday!

Ballet

My 5 year old has been taking ballet since she was 3.5 years old and this past weekend was her first spring recital. She has been in two small shows in the past, but this was her first BIG show--and she was so excited! They had performances on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday as well as months of rehearsals leading up to the show weekend. Her dance school performed a variation on Cinderella. I have to say, I was surprised by how cute and *funny* it was! I definitely was entertained!

My little girl was a pumpkin--she's the second little pumpkin from the left.
She did SUCH a great job. The other little girls in class all are in kindergarten or first grade and my little one (who is the tallest in her class!) is in preschool.
The pumpkin dance was expanded a few weeks ago to include the dance that the mice performed. The teacher realized that the mice were having trouble with their dance, so she had the pumpkins do it with them in the hope that it would help the mice remember what to do.
The show was very well done and was a neat spin on the traditional Cinderella. The role of the fairy godmother was my favorite!
The sets (except for the kitchen set) were flown in from NYC and were beautiful! Here is a shot of the Prince dancing with Cinderella.
Uh oh, the clock struck midnight!
Oh and there even was a bit of disco thrown into the mix!
Prince Charming kindly posed for a picture...too bad my little girl was more interested in her flowers than in the prince!
Her ballet teacher danced as the Prince's mother in the show. She used to be Snow White at Disneyworld--doesn't she look the part?!
She was thrilled to get flowers after the show and didn't want to let them go!Me with my ballerina! She did such a wonderful job and worked so hard--I'm very proud of her!
Hopefully by the next show I'll have a better lens and a tripod for my camera. I'm pretty happy with my shots, but know they can be better--and I'd love to be able to zoom! Still, considering it was a dark auditorium with a brightly lit stage and we weren't allowed to use a flash...these are pretty good! I ended up using my 50mm prime lens (which isn't really suited for these types of shots) so that I could make use of the image stabilization it offered. I also used my gorillapod (kind of a mini tripod) and a remote to reduce camera shake. I definitely have a LOT to learn about my camera though!