Homeschool classroom, disovery bottles, spring planting and more

I like to call this furniture the reuse/recycle look.

 I've been trying less new recipes lately, and just keeping up with the old favorites - in the past week I made 2 loafs of bread and 2 batches of muffins.. and chicken nuggets.  I'm sure there was more than that..  just nothing new to talk about!  So, that is not to say that i didn't have some major projects this weekend! I spent a lot of time reorganizing the home school 'classroom' ... honestly, we haven't used the room for much more than storage in months because it just wasn't toddler-proofed ..  I'm not sure how the reorganization is going to help, but everything on the lower shelves is at least toddler-approved.  If she dumps it all, it will still be a huge mess... we'll see i guess.  Plan B involves a baby gate and putting Annie on the playroom side of the gate - and since many of the dump-able toys from the playroom have been moved to the 'classroom' she won't be able to make as big of a mess..  i hope.  We also cleaned and organized the master bedroom, we removed a recliner and added a twin bed in its place and WOW it looks so much bigger! and now Annie has her own sleeping space to start out the night.  I'm hoping once she does well on the twin bed to move her to her toddler bed in Mollie's room.  baby steps! 

Last week I made these discovery bottles .. so far, the kids loooove them.  I made something like 15 of them i think. The usual, glitter water, oil and water, and some more exotic like marbles in hair gel - they are hypnotic! (pictured to the right, and also above, under the fish tank)  Annie loves to sit in the basket WITH all the bottles and play with them. 

 

 

We went out today to get some supplies for a minor project and ended up finding these shrubs on clearance!  We got 4 forsythia and 2 lilacs - all but 2 of them got planted today.  They looked great for 60-75% off! Usually clearance plants require some babying but these look like they'll do great.  oh and on this topic, we're still battling the weeds in the garden, they are HORRIBLE this year.  And i thinned the radishes today.  Something is eating my strawberry plants BAD. I don't know what it is or how to fight it, so i'm kind of just giving up for now, my lettuce is untouched and about ready to start cutting - it looks spectacular.  Carrots started sprouting in the past few days, they need to hurry up and grow so i can weed around them better.. the weeds are bad.. and Mollie and I must have done a horrible job of spacing out the carrot seeds, they are so close together.  Though i saved some seeds this year, if there are big gaps in our rows i'm just going to fill them in!   

there, now I feel like i've accomplished something.

before and after... sort of

AFTER :) 

I've been putting this off because I feel like the after pictures are a lie... We aren't done yet!!  

So now that i've adjusted my idea of "before and after"  here we go .

Before...

It may be a while, but here is the current choice for the counter and wood floors..   I can't wait to get it all done!  We are going to trim back the counter, where is sticks out on the bottom and right bottom of the "after" picture so when someone is sitting at the dining room table, we'll be able to walk behind them to get to the kitchen!!  Our "dining room" (really an eat in kitchen) is made for a tiny little 2-3 person table... not the table for 6 we've got ..  We're also planning to add some counter space where the garbage can is now (bottom right corner of before picture) so we won't be losing much work space by gaining a wider walkway.

so, it may not be done.. but.. YAY anyway :)

Home improvement with kids..

I think we've finally got this figured out .. Got a few little kids and need your house painted? Hire someone else to paint it! Tomorrow while I am wrestling 3 kids at the dentist - Marco the paint master will be transforming our living room and kitchen - very affordable I might add (especially when compared to the costs associated with the impact of major dyi projects on my mental and emotional health) - I did spend a big chunk of time today sewing new curtains for our windows up above the stairs to the basement so the painter (who claims he was "born on a ladder") can hang them for me. We also moved an amazing amount of stuff away from the walls and got down all the pictures (and a lot of dust .. A LOT - as a side note my allergy medicine is working wonders this year - its amazing how well it works when you take it)

Oh and for the record, the last thing I baked in my horrific red kitchen (sorry, I've been trying to like it for the past 4 years, it has only gotten worse) was some very healthy but not so tasty gluten and dairy free multi grain cookies - they were a big hit with Annie but I am going to have to work on them more before I post a recipe - why ever I thought it was a good idea to make up a recipe for my first attempt at gfdf cookies .. I have no idea.