Something I Made...

Our new house has a bigger master bathroom than before, and "my" sink is completely separate from Jeff's.  I've been wanting to do something to organize my earrings, now that I have wall space to do that, and I've been looking around at ideas...so here's what I decided to do.

I bought an open-backed frame at Hobby Lobby along with some sheer ribbon.  (I figured that it would be easier to poke earring studs through sheer ribbon than through opaque.)  I got out my trusty staple gun, decided where I wanted strips of ribbon, and started stapling.  I had planned to put the stud earrings through two layers of ribbon where the ribbons criss-crossed so that the horizontal strips of ribbon would not droop down under the weight of the dangly earrings.  It worked pretty well.

I think it would look better with some pretty fabric across the back as a background.  I'll probably add fabric...when I find the right fabric.  And the right time.  (And please don't examine my earring collection too closely.  I keep some of them for sentimental reasons.  I don't actually wear the graduation tassels, for example.)

 Here's an honest look at the back where I used my staple gun.  Not beautiful, but functional.  I stapled the ribbon in one direction, then doubled it back in the opposite direction and stapled it again.  This seems to be making the delicate ribbon very secure, and it's not fraying under the weight.

I'm pretty happy with my figure-it-out-as-you-go project.  It was easy...and fast...and now I can just enjoy it.

Jonathan's Imagination

His summer days included many hours dreaming up Lego creations.  He liked to be inspired by looking up directions to old sets on brickset.com or lego.com, and then taking his Legos on a wild ride with his imagination.

One day, he came up with this multifunctional vehicle.  I think it was mean to be a moon rover but ended up as a time traveling vehicle.  Here's its front...

 which opens...

 to reveal...

 this guy and his vehicle, which could explore any location.

 And here's the back.

Jeff's Birthday

To celebrate Jeff's birthday, the kids and I brought him a picnic lunch at work.  The normal me might possibly have made this lunch myself, although it would have been a simple meal.  But, the just-moved me is still overwhelmed at times, so we visited a local grocery store and chose balloons, sandwiches, chips, sushi, and bakery brownies for our picnic.  The kids loved it.  (The best part was when an older couple got in line behind us at the store.  Each of them held a gigantic, bright-yellow melon.  Benjamin said, "Yook at those HUGE yemons!"  They did look like lemons.  The couple thought it was pretty funny.)  As you can imagine, tackling the birthday celebration with the kiddos, and getting them dressed to honor their dad's Husker heritage, took some energy.  It wore me out.  But, it was really fun. And we love Jeff, so we wanted to celebrate him!

First Day of Third Grade

Here it is, our annual "first day" post!  And for those who are feeling nostalgic (maybe just me,) here are some posts from previous years:

Kindergarten (Just look at his round little cheeks!)

First Grade

Second Grade

First day of third grade.  New teacher, new school, new kids, new everything (except for shoes and backpack, which he thought were doing fine, so I said...OK!!!)

The walking crew

Jeff went to work late so that he could walk with us, but it was a very hot morning, as you can see from Jeff's face.

Maybe next year we won't kneel next to him!

Jonathan says he really likes school and his teacher, so that's great.  His teacher is a good friend of our next-door neighbor who has become our friend, too, so we're thankful for that.  We always pray for a great match between Jonathan, his teacher, and his classmates, and we've been thankful for the mix every year so far.  He's still working on learning the names of kids and making friends, which we anticipate to be his main challenge at the new school.  He really does like it, and we're proud of him!  And Grace is so anxious for her turn to go to school!

Northern Getaway: Random

Here are some pictures from Jeff's phone, in no particular order.  They will make sense if you read the other posts about our Northern Getaway.

A panoramic view from the place where we stayed.  We love VRBO.com, by the way!

Walking on the cool bridge with my boys

Another panoramic iPhone shot

Benjamin in a tree stump

Me with the littles in another tree stump

I think I mentioned the portable bridges that crisscrossed the creek.  Some of them that didn't have center supports were really fun to jump on and make a little splash underneath.  Jonathan loved them more than anyone.

We ate breakfast at this cookhouse one morning.  It used to feed the lumberjacks.  Breakfast was very overpriced and very unhealthy, but it was a good one-time experience.

Biscuits and gravy as a starter - my kids' first time to see these.  Everything was served family-style.  You can see by my wet hair that we went first thing in the morning.

Here are a few pictures of Jeff and Jonathan's time on the cliff below our house.  They got a little more ocean time than the little kids did.

Beautiful, right?  Jeff found a great place for us to stay.

Panoramic view from our final day in the trees...

and Gracie crawling through a hollow log.

One last picture of the view from our place.

Northern Getaway: The Fifth Part

Even though we were short on time at the beach, we spent our last day mostly among the trees.  Jeff wanted to see some really big ones, so we did.  We all enjoyed it!

Here we are, driving where a fallen tree had been cut away so that the road could continue.

Jeff with a big one...cut before people knew better, or before the trees were protected.

And me.

The tree face.

My climbers at the base of a tree.

Family photo attempt.  Jeff was happy with this one.  He wanted a family picture with a big tree, and this is what we got.  The base of the tree fills up the picture.

Down by the creek...

This dinky little bridge led us across the creek.  It was a shallow creek, so the bridge wasn't too scary.

Every time we stopped at a sign, Grace had to name each letter on the sign, and Benjamin had to sing the ABCs.  I thought it was very cute.  Sometimes they had to argue about who was interrupting whom, but most of the time they just talked over each other and didn't worry about it.  (I can't remember a two-year-old complain about being interrupted before!)

Rock skipping demonstrations by Jeff

Back on the trail with the big trees

Trying to measure the tree with their arms.  Or something like that.

We all had to take a turn on the seat.

Back at our little house, Jeff and Jonathan spent some time reading by the fire and watching the sun go down.  Jonathan really loved this part, and was sad that we hadn't done it every night.  But, it wasn't clear every night - some nights, it was foggy - so a fire wouldn't have worked all that well.  (The previous night, after the kids were in bed, Jeff and I saw several bats flying by!)

Here's the fire Jeff built on the final evening of a memorable trip!

One more post to come...