Wood shop 101

While I didn't build Audrey's bed entirely, I did get to call up all those skills I learned in Shop 101. Just kidding, I never took that. I guess it would be skills I learned in "Help Dad Replace Your Kitchen in One Week While 7 Months Pregnant" class 4 years ago. (Thanks again for that, dad! It's still awesome!)

I'd originally been looking at trundle beds for her, then our neighbor Angela mentioned a cute girly-bed she'd seen at Goodwill. Angela has an amazing eye for home decor, so I knew I had to see what she was talking about. Even after a few weeks it was still there, behind a couple of dressers and chairs. It wasn't in horrible shape, but it was pretty banged up, and the veneer was peeling away on the back of the foot board. So I grabbed it!

I didn't remove the finish, but I sanded it some and patched up the scratch and dents with wood filler. Then I primed it and started painting. I considered a color for the bed, but with her bright bedding it would have been too much. I had a great helper, too!

Sanding

 

Priming

Primed!

The trick with the bed was the missing side rails. And with the curved foot board and posts I couldn't bolt on the rails. So after lots of internet research I discovered this hardware that would create hook and pin connections without requiring me to learn how to mortise a board. Conveniently I still had some beautiful trim planks left over from the kitchen reno that worked perfectly as side rails. Since I have no table saw, our neighbor Mike graciously made the cuts I needed for the side rails and underbed support. It still required some good math and precise measurement to make sure everything was even and level. And I got to wield the power drill!

Foot board ready almost done

Solid!

And finally it was ready to set up! I even impressed myself with how solid it feels, nary a wobble or squeak. Maybe I've found a new hobby. I like this picture because you can see all the curves and appreciate the shape.

Ready for the mattresses!

And now it is made for the first (and possibly last) time! Yaya brought the side table last week and said we could paint it, but I think I'll take a break, at least until spring!

I finally finished Audrey's real big girl bed. Here's the after, I'll post the before too.

The Christmas Show (part II)

Thursday night Miles made his Kindergarten debut. He and his friends dressed as angels and sang for the lower school Christmas Show. It was a great show! Look for him in the back row, with friends Eric and Eli beside him, and Patrick in front of him.

He and Audrey (and we) send a great big thank you to Yaya for coming to see both shows.


And for a look back, here are all of his past years' performances: 2010

2009

2008 - (he's 3 here, same age as Audrey this year)

2007

2006

The Christmas Show (part I)

Audrey performed in the annual Christmas show again. When you hear the maniacal laughter at about 2:40, that's me laughing as two little girls lifted their dresses over their heads on stage. Sorry I couldn't get the camera on that fast enough!




If you want to look back, here are her shows for the past few years:

2010

2009

More to come after Miles's show tonight!

they each wrote their own names, Audrey 's first time to do it!

Tree me!

For the first time since the kids were born, we went for the live Christmas tree. Wayne has always thought that they irritate his allergies, but we read that if we rinse it first it won't be a problem. We'll test the theory and see which way we go next year. But for now, Miles & Audrey had a great time picking out our tree!

Santa visit

We saw Santa at the Enchanted Forest in Memphis. He was so nice, and so smart! He made Miles limit his list to one item. Thanks Santa!

He's got a hole in the head

Miles lost his first tooth on the drive home from Thanksgiving weekend. He took a bite of a cracker and it fell out in his lap. After he blotted the blood, we called the grandparents and cousins to share the happy news. That night, the Tooth Fairy left him two gold doubloons (the gold president dollars) in his tooth pillow! His teacher celebrates lost teeth at school too. The kids draw a picture of how they lost the tooth and share the story with the class. Then the child brings home a bag filled with storybooks about losing teeth. He has his dentist check up next week, so we'll ask him when he thinks the next one will come out.

Watch out, Turkeys!

Miles's class had a Thanksgiving feast a few days before the holiday. He chose to be a Native American because he knew the pilgrims would wear black garbage bags. He and his friend Patrick were the narrators for the show, then the kids had a feast together.

For Thanksgiving break we traveled to Memphis to visit the family. We got to celebrate with both of the kids' great grandmothers. GG Crosby turns 96 in December, but we won't be back for the party. GG claimed the kids as her seat neighbors, and Miles claimed Aunt Megan as his seat buddy.

On the way to Memphis we stopped in Jackson for lunch with GG Kremser. She'll be 96 next September. How blessed the kids are to have these two women in their lives, both still going strong nearing the century mark.

Friday we took the kids to the Enchanted Forest at the Pink Palace Museum. It's a path through a snowy forest filled with magical woodland creatures and elves helping Santa prepare for Christmas. It has been around for over 50 years, although it's no longer in its intimate cave-like home at downtown Goldsmiths. While it didn't seem as enchanting as I remembered it, the kids loved it!

Up in the Smokys

We went on a last minute mini-vacation this weekend and stayed in a cabin in Townsend, TN (the peaceful side of the Smokys, as they claim). The area where we picked up our keys was hosting an Art Walk this weekend, with many crafters set up in tents among the galleries and restaurants.

The kids - as well as the fur-kids - loved our getaway! Saturday we drove into the Great Smoky Mountain National Park and hiked the trail to Laurel Falls. It was a paved 1.3 mile path that rose 300 ft in elevation. It wasn't difficult, but there were some steep drop offs on areas.

Everyone did great, even little Audrey with some helpful piggyback rides. Miles exclaimed that his two favorite things are "nature and coloring." Me too, buddy. Me too.

The falls were beautiful. We're glad we went early though, when we drove by again after lunch the parking area was overflowing.

We went into Gatlinburg for lunch and had to introduce the kids to Smoky Mountain taffy logs, yum!

At lunch the kids worked on their Junior Ranger workbooks, so on the return we stopped back at the visitor center to get their badges. They are now Junior Rangers at Hatteras National Seashore and GSMNP! If you visit a National Park with kids, I recommend you check out the program. It's a fun way to learn more about the area.

The owners of the cabin we stayed in (family friends) are building a new house near their current rental. We took several walks up the road to enjoy the new view. Hopefully we'll make the cut and be invited to stay in the new house too!

visiting Papa Stan on All Souls Day

Padre Pio

All Saints' Day was November 1st, and the kindergarten kids really celebrated. Each child picked a saint and dressed as that person for the day. They processed in at Mass, thankfully holding signs so we knew who was whom. There were many St. Patricks and St. Francis of Assisis as you might imagine. There was a great St. Michael the Archangel (the commander of the army of God) dressed in US Army fatigues.

Miles was going to wear his Jedi robe for his saint and originally wanted to be St. Francis. I suggested we wander the Paraclete and look for other saints in brown robes. When I picked up the Padre Pio story and read some to him, he was sold! Padre Pio has a lot of mystical {and controversial} occurrences attributed to him, such as ecstasy and visions of Christ, as well as bilocation - being in two places at the same time. But he was canonized for his devout piety and his ability to read people's souls and bring them closer to God. An episode of Unsolved Mysteries investigated him.   

Here's a video of his friends, Miles is not in this one though.

scary good fun

Halloween was a lot of fun again this year. Audrey knew what she wanted to be and all I had to make was the tutu. She is "Ladybug Girl" from the books by Jacky Davis. Yes, the real Ladybug Girl has a red tutu, but I foresee much more versatility with a black one, so I made the executive decision. Audrey didn't mind at all!

I steered Miles toward his costume a little, but it wasn't difficult to convince him to be a Jedi Knight. We borrowed the robe from a neighbor and used it again the next day for his school All Saints' Day activities. I love pulling together a costume from what we have. He thought the camo jammie pants and skull & crossbone boots lent a little extra fierceness to the look.

We started at a party down the street with hot dogs, homemade petro's and lots of other goodies. The kids had a blast with their friends and even made some new friends.

Later we hopped on the hayride again for a trip down the street. I think our crowd overwhelmed a few houses as the swarm of 30+ kids came begging. We wrapped up a little after 7 and sat down for the Halloween math homework: counting and sorting. We only had a few more knocks before it was lights out for our little ones.

Thanks to the Youngs, Hemricks and Ackers for the party and hayride fun!

Pumpkins!

Today I joined Miles's class for their field trip to the pumpkin farm. We had so much fun! I was a chaperone and rode the bus with all of the kindergarten kids. It was a little overcast and cold in the morning, but the clouds burned off and it turned into a gorgeous day. 

We both got to pick pumpkins, then we went on a hayride around the farm.

The kids loved the cows! Fred the cowdog was working hard to keep these ladies in the pen. Miles was the cow whisperer and got several of them to moo at the group.

It was a great day with a great group of kids! I'm so happy they let the moms join!

On the bus

First Kindergarten field trip commences....NOW!

A letter from George

{This weekend the class mascot came home with Miles for a visit. Here's the letter he wrote Ms. Anderson to tell her about his weekend.}

Dear Ms. Anderson,

This weekend I went home with Miles Erwin. He was so excited and I knew we would have a lot of fun. The very first thing we did was stop at Sonic for some cherry limeade at happy hour.

Saturday morning I cheered for Miles's soccer team. Lots of our friends were there too! I said hi to Shelby and her brother Luke, Eric, Hudson and their teammate Will. Mrs. Haluski's friend Alejandro was on the other team. I'm glad my shirt was red, so I matched his team.

After the UT/LSU game ended, some of Miles's friends came over to play. We built with Legos, played hide and seek and worked puzzles. We had a lot of fun and stayed up way past our bedtime.

Some of those friends stayed at Miles's house and they even brought their own hotel room with them. They'd been in Elkmont for the last two nights but wanted to stay with their friends one night. I could get used to this!

For breakfast, Mrs. Erwin made banana muffins! They were so good, I almost didn't leave any for the other kids.

Then we got to run around and play outside. They blew bubbles and tossed water balloons.


After such fun days of playing I was ready to wrap up the weekend with some snugly story time and a good night's sleep.

But after everyone was asleep, I couldn't resist playing with the camera. Here's my self portrait.

 

 I can't wait for my next adventure! Love,

Pinwheels Spinning

WATE posted the video from Pinwheel Day!! Now you can see the kids in all their glory. The newscaster at the end is Kristen Farley, the mom of one of Miles's classmates. And here's the link to the article. Someone commented that the"girl with the pinwheel is adorable." But we knew that, right.

A Media Frenzy

There are some famous faces living in our house this month. Miles was recently featured in the newspaper while he and his classmates worked on their new Smart Table. Each of the Kindergarten classes have one, and every class in the school now has iPads for the kids to work with. Miles loves when he gets iPad for his center activity! He just wishes they'd let him play Angry Birds on it. He is with friends Eli, Skylar and Ella Grace.

September 21st is International Day of Peace, as recognized by the UN in 1981. A few years ago, some art teachers in Florida came up with the idea of Pinwheels for Peace as a "visual public statement about peace." Sacred Heart participated this year with each student making pinwheels and celebrating with a special photo and assembly yesterday. Miles's class buddies from the 3rd grade helped them make their pinwheels, which are the green ones in the "E" below. Even the 3, 4, and 5yr PreK classes were involved, so Audrey got to be in the picture too. 

The WATE news team and the News Sentinel were on hand to document the event. It is supposed to be in the neighborhood section of the paper next week. In the 5 o'clock news story, Audrey had a few moments of fame when her face filled the screen! I can't find the video online yet, but here's a picture of the screen.She's next to her friends Duncan, Nadalie and Jillian.

And the kids won't let me finish this post without sharing my own brush with fame. I usually go to Zumba classes at the Y up the street, but a friend opened a new dance studio and invited me to a class there.  Little did I know I would end up on the local afternoon news-magazine. If you want to see my dance debut, click here to see it on WBIR.com.

Go Big Orange

Thanks to some great friends, we found ourselves with tickets to the game in the new Tennessee Terrace section of Neyland and a close parking pass, so we decided to make it a family night and take the kids to their first UT game. They were super excited! We got there almost an hour before kick-off so we could get our seats, enjoy some game dogs and enjoy the pregame festivities. They were so patient and ready to watch the band as filled the field. We stood and sang the national anthem and then... 

Lightning. Rain delay. Boo. We did have the Terrace area to hang out in, but even that got pretty hot and stuffy with all the people waiting with us. We headed down the elevators to leave, but found out that we would be trapped in our parking lot until the delay was over, so we stayed in the cool lower lobby. Since we'd made it this long, we thought we should stay for a few possessions of the ball.

We ended up staying for the first half and through the halftime performance by the Pride of the Southland Marching Band. They loved it. Miles got really into cheering for our many touchdowns, and Audrey was a great fan too.

So we hate that they didn't get to see the pregame excitement and there weren't fireworks for the scores, but we'll just have to take them to another game soon!  Go Big Orange!