I found my camera cord!

Here are some random pics that I wanted to post but wasn't able to until I found my camera cord.  These are in no particular order as I don't have the energy in this heat to organize them.  :)

Here is my little princess right before she made her decision splash and rock the boat getting herself kicked off. I love the look of contemplation.

Anthony right before the act..

 My gorgeous plants that I got from Meijer.

 My fountain right after I cleaned it and defeated the swamp monster.  It already has green gunk growing in it again. :(

This is one of my favorite things in my house.  I didn't make this surprisingly enough.  It totally looks like something that I would make. My sister found this steal at a yard sale for 75 cents!!  LOVE IT!  I have it right on my front door.

 My lovely chicken border after about a week of workin on it.  I give up.  I will have to be covered somehow.  It started taking the finish off of the wall. 

 This is Anthony and I drenched at Kart Country this past Sunday.  I was still soaking wet hours after getting out of the boat.  Next time I will bring a change of clothes.

 I adore this picture!  James taking his son on his first go cart ride.  Anthony looks terrified!  Much different story when he got off the cart.  He was beaming!

 Victoria at dance class.  She loves it and is wanting to continue on in ballet.

The Craig family arrival at Kart Country.  We missed Makenzie as she was babysitting and wasn't able to join us. 

Anthony and Addison at dance class.  Addison is to Anthony's right.  She is probably telling the girl next to her how to dance and Anthony is trying to figure out where the Transformers are in the room.  He is standing beside me and informing me that he doesn't sit on a flower mat anymore that Miss Amy got him a monkey carpet to sit on. This is very important to him!

Heated

With temp reaching 105 during the day is anyone else having an problem with cranky kids and being cranky themselves.  My crew has been at each others throat all day today it seems.  Something with the temp closes ears too.  My voice can't seem to be heard today.  I'm ready for a nap and a do over.  Any one else with me?

Cause for panic :)

While checking out the job that my husband did killing the poison ivy along the storm drain yesterday I noticed a substantial snake skin along the water.  I told the kids about it and they were immediately curious.  While getting in the car to get dad we headed over to peer over the railing at the curious thing.  Anthony was hooked and stopped talking about it non stop the whole way.  I should really do a video of Anthony or at least my imitation of him going a hundred miles a minute about the snake skin.  On and on he went about how it was a white snake and how he shed his skin like the bug shed it's bones (cicada) on the tree.  How he wrapped himself around a rock and took his skin off and it was by our house in the water by the rocks where he shed his skin because he was white and it was by the road and he was in the water and wrapped himself around the rock because he needed to take his white skin off and so on and so on.  His mouth and hands were flying.  We walked to the car with the non stop babble and when he hit his car seat he looked me dead in the eye and said "Mom you need to call the cops!"  The kid didn't miss a beat!

Kart Country

What a blast we had!  We took Brooklyn to Kart Country to celebrate her birthday.  All of the kids and us adults had so much fun.  I got drenched on the bumper boats and Anthony spent the day telling the girls "Your going dooown!" speaking of the carts that were coming.  He was sure that Daddy and him were going to win leaving us girls in he dust.

Putt Putt had us in stitches and soaking wet from the heat.  Addison would putt anywhere from 5-24 times and then just walk off the green strutting like she really accomplished something.  Her score card says 8 then walk off, 12 then walk off.  She eventually dropped her ball in the water coming out of the volcano and gave up all together. 

The karts were AWESOME!  Victoria was on cloud nine after finding out that she would be able to drive a cart alone.  I rode behind her the whole track, which led to my first run on the track about 5 miles per hour.  :)  She did great!  I was truly impressed.  We had a ball and were so sore the next day but was well worth it.

Sanford and Son

My back yard is a spitting image of that show.  There are over 13 (they just added more) 8 foot long tables FULL of stuff along with truck load after truck load of stuff waiting for a space to go.  My mother in law is having her yard sale this weekend and hopefully all of this stuff will be sold!  I am going to sneak out and take a pic in a minute after they leave from setting up.  It is a bit unbelievable. Two storage units full that they had to rent a Uhaul to get it over here. They have been on it for 12 hours straight at this point and I have had people in and out of my house all day long and strangers walking around my back yard.  Good times let me tell ya good times!  Deep breath...I will not be a control freak, I will not be a control freak, I will not be a control freak.......I have a feeling that the wallpaper in the back bathroom that is giving me a run for my money will be done before the yard sale is if my wrist will just hold out. 

There were really 4 little pigs..

Not many know that there were not 3 little ones but 4 little ones and his house was made out of wallpaper!  I will quit with the wallpaper tangent shortly as I am almost done taking all of the horrible stuff down. Still can't find my camera cord to upload pics as I would love to share that hard work.  It is coming along nicely with a few glitches. 

The chicken in the kitchen are now ripping the texture (stucco?) off of the walls so I had to stop.  I have all of the wallpaper down in the kitchen except for the walls that only had wallpaper.  So we improvise right?  My mom came up with a genius idea of crown molding.  I believe we are going to do some kind of a trim in the kitchen to just cover up the border.  So only you readers know the secret!  Shh don't say anything.  :)

The main bathroom was finished in about an hour.  The steam from the shower has been working on it for a while now and some of it came off completely in areas without even scoring it or wetting it.  I did however find a hole in the wall with a bit of mold.  I believe this is where the little drips of water are coming from in the basement when people take a shower.  So good news and bad news...I found the leak and I found the leak. 

The half bath in our bedroom is giving me a run for my money as I have been working on it in spurts for the past few days.  I am getting a bit burned out on wallpaper removal but know that if I start on another project before I am done that I won't finish my house makeover the way I would like, one project at a time.  I have have a bit of trouble bouncing from one project to another and never finishing so I take my stand now.  Mission 1 Wallpaper!

I have found a really nice product called WP Chomp that is doing a great job on the wallpaper.  If you have any to remove I highly recommend it.  I had Do it best order it for me and while I was there picking it up I found the ugliest rug that I am contemplating purchasing.  It is 9X12 and U-G-L-Y!  But it is like so ugly that it has a unique charm to it that has me drawn to it.  It is mustard yellow, slate blue, orange and some of the carpet color I currently have.  It is only $50.  That is a steal for that size you have to admit but is it too ugly?  I just can't tell.  I really need to take a pic and post to get some input as my husband is out of the country today in Canada under a load and couldn't get the "go" from him and it can't be returned.  So if you are in the area of New Albany check out the area rugs outside of Do it Best right off of State Street and shoot me a message on what you think.  Trust me you will know it when you see it. 

At least it is within walking distance

After getting convicted left and right at church tonight while listening to a sermon on taming the tongue I surprised the kiddos with dessert across the street at the fair.  We walked past the 5 rides and grabbed a funnel cake(funny cake as Addison called it) I have to say that is the most pitiful fair I have ever seen in my life.  The carni workers almost looked embarrassed to be there.  There were no animals no booths no nothing!  I am going to have to check out the floyd co schedule and see what is up with this.  I can't complain too much, funnel cake within walking distance?  Come on your can only stay disappointed for so long.  :)

Charlestown has huge bugs!

I had a ball tonight with Crissy at the Charlestown park. They apparently have a movie night every Friday outside in the park.  Tonight was Despicable Me.  They had free ice cream too!  Can you beat that?!  We had so much fun watching the people there along with watching the movie.  But I do have to ask a question.  How do you get your bugs so big?  I swear one flew by me that blocked the whole screen.  I think I heard an engine coming from it too.  Crissy joked that it was a remote control spy that the toddler in front of us hooked up because he kept coming over and grabbing Anthony's water bottle.  He was sending the robot bug over to check out our snack  bags to see if we had anything else. We got quite a chuckle out of that.  Good times.  I love me some Charlestown festivities.

Where or where?

I really wish that I knew where my cord to my camera was so that I could load photos to post on here.  I have done some work on the house.  I have no room "done" but have the rooms mostly set up and wanted to give another tour of the place.  I am still working on the border and have ordered a product called WP Chomp that I hear is a miracle product.  We will see.  It should be in on Thursday.  I hit up Grant Line nursery today and got some annuals half off.  I planted some flowers on the front and back porch.  Found some flowers called Hot Cakes.  They are so cute.  Really tall and kind of look like carnations.  I couldn't resist a flower named after a pancake.  Come on!  Still loving the house and even loving all of the extra work that it needs.  :)

Happy 4th

Watching fireworks on the porch with the kids tonight was a blast.  We had our chairs, bug candles, snacks, and drinks ready to go. We ooh and ahh at the fireworks until our neighbor across the street starts to let his 6 year old daughter light them.  "Wow kids look at the time.  We should be going in..."

Room to breathe

My parents came over to help out with a few projects.  My awesome dad helped James switch out my washer and dryer out of the basement.  We tried Vicki's washer and dryer and it just isn't big enough for my crew so we traded so that we have our own.  Thank you guys!  (Even though  it will be 2030 when my dad gets a computer and is able to read this)  My father helped James by getting up on the roof and checking out some leaks that we discovered during the past big storm.  Again thanks!

While the men were doing all the hard labor my  mom and I went to the store to get stuff to fire up the grill.  I love having a grill!  We had some Ball Park Angus franks along with smores made with the super huge marshmallows that they have now.  The kids were covered head to toe with sticky goo and it was great.  I didn't freak out once.  Anthony told me he had to go to the bathroom as he was covered in marshmallow and grass.  He stood there soaking wet from the sprinkler that they were playing in doing the pee pee dance.  I told him to go behind the bush in the back yard and do his business.  He decided to drop them right there and pee off the porch.  It was so stinking funny the first time but the second time we redirected him to ask before he just decides to take it upon himself to pee in public.

While at the grocery store I wondered around Meijer's garden center.  I found these beautiful purple plants.  I have seen these many times before but not this color. They are just gorgeous.  I am going to have to take a pic of them.  I weeded the back flowerbed and trimmed down my Azalea bushes.  I now have 3 and am in love with them.  I just love how full they are when they bloom.  While doing all my work I took a stroll across the back yard heading to the garage and rolled my ankle.  I hit the ground and was terrified as I heard something crunch.  I thought for a second I broke something.  But after a few minutes I was up and walking.  It is fine nothing major but feels like my ankle needs to poop.  If I turn my ankle the opposite way that it rolled now that hurts!  I'm going to ice it tonight and hope that all is well. 

My mother in law came over to eat with us tonight.  I believe she is starting to settle into life a bit.  She talked a lot while she was over here about Papaw.  It seems she is getting a kick out of watching me love on my new house.  She came over and inspected my weeding on the flower beds.  She said "These are the only flower beds that didn't get any attention this past year.  I was just too busy taking care of James." She smiled as I worked and has been nothing but complimentary.  It has been really nice.

It was so nice to have people over and not be stuck in a 20X14 room squeezed in and not having any room to breathe.  Kids laughing in the back yard. Grown ups laughing on the porch and in the house.  My mother in law even showed me that I could roast a marshmallow on the gas stove.  Now that is something to be excited about!!!

Things I don't want to forget about today

• Anthony saying a prayer in the middle of dinner.  "Dear God, Thank you for the Transformer Hot Wheel you are going to get me next weekend.  The one that looks like Bumble Bee and the one that looks like Spiderman.  I love you.  I know you.  Amen!"
• Addison telling me "Mom remember I don't like these potatoes (red skin potato salad)  That is just the way it is."
• Watching the kids play in the back yard with their butterfly nets.  They are butterfly nets to the common eye but in the hands of my 3 little ones they are power sticks!  Each was their own commander leading troops to war and none of them had any soldiers.  :)
• Sitting on the front porch with the glow of my flood light by my clean fountain watching fireworks.
• Watching my husband drive into OUR driveway in his semi and the kids screaming and jumping up and down.  Anthony yelled "Yeah! Daddy brought his semi home!"