What My Camera Is Full Of

We need to invest in photography lessons or something. Both of my girls LOVE making movies and pictures with my camera and my phone. I just actually ran out of room on my iPhone. Folks, that's a LOT of media on there.

I haven't used our digital camera since I got the new phone, but today I did. And when I went to download the pictures for tomorrow's post, here is what I found:

Wake up! It's the big day!

Gotta eat breakfast.

Feed the horses...

Driving to the show.

The parking lot, I assume.

Everyone got there early for good seats.

The judges are ready. 

Go! Go! Go!

Yes!!! The winner!

That's some trophy!!!

We might need a bigger table!

 *smile*

I love these kids.

I'm Up Early and Some Other Stuff

Being 40 is very strange. I'm about to tell you all about the virtues of getting up early.

Me.

Liking getting up early?

Forty is weird.

I know some of you are natural early-risers and have blogged about how wondrous it is, but I never bought it. I used to think the world would be just about perfect if I could get up at 8:00 every morning. When I was in high school, we slept until 10am at least every morning of the summer. Ug. I would hate to sleep that late now! S and I have been getting up around 6 or 6:15 and I can't believe how much I get done and get this: I'm actually tired at a decent hour and ready for bed!

Now, moving on to other less nerdy 40 year old topics.

Here is the completed dollhouse.

It was one of the smallest ones at Hobby Lobby and the dollhouse itself only cost about $40 with a coupon. But BOY the putting it together!! At last, it is done.

Here is the inside of our old TV cabinet/my new homeschool cabinet.

I love it, but this cleaning up the homeschool room has drug on long enough. I've got to finish it today or tomorrow. It's driving me crazy. I'm ready to start making copies and organizing notebooks, etc. NOT keep sifting through piles.

Today, friends are coming over to play and later in the week we are going to a splash park with our homeschool group. So see? That good night of sleep totally got me in summer fun mode.

And of course, we'll be going to the library. Each girl has read over 50 books so far. Most of which were from the 1,000 Good Books list. And so many of them really have been good books!

This was a book with very few words, but excellent illustrations. They pored over it for so long!

They are so much better than all the bright, colorful paperback books that the kids are drawn to because they are from some Disney show or movie. These books usually have boring covers. But inside--that's what counts. I think Little Bit truly has learned what the saying "You can't judge a book by its cover" means this summer.

I'm off to be productive with my early rising self. (Gotta pick up some before the friends get here!)

Have a great Monday!

One Track

That's the nickname we used to use for Little Bit because her mind tends to be that way. Like...you know the animal that never forgets? That's her. Sheesh, once something is in her head that's IT.

This time I'm the one with the one track mind. I'm in all out get ready for the school year mode. I am so boring. Where is my summer fun attitude?

I think it melted last month. It's SO HOT.

Can I just have a fall fun attitude instead? Huh?

I'm thinking of working really hard in the summer and winter and taking more time off in the spring and fall. That would be mean revising my schedule from last year (6 weeks on, 1 week off) but it only makes sense. When it's beautiful outside--I want them outside!! When they can't be, we might as well work!

Other than that, I have some things to finish up around here. A friend got a teaching job so I loaded him up with stuff that I realized I am never going to use for homeschool. My room is so much emptier now!!! I still have some stuff to deal with in there, but it's MUCH better.

The sewing room however? Not good. I might need a machete to make my way through there.

S and I (mostly S) worked very hard and got Sweetheart's dollhouse put together this weekend. She got it for  her birthday last August and piddled around and didn't finish painting it and procrastinated and never worked on it....until Daddy threatened to throw all the pieces away.

{WAY too tired to upload a picture. Tomorrow, OK?}

Then she got busy. And now she has a dollhouse. And I no longer have dollhouse pieces all over the house.

We went to a friend's house Friday. Some other friends are coming over tomorrow. I guess we're having some summer fun...but I just feel so serious all the time. Maybe I'm tired. We had a really awesome Bible study last night with a friend and we wrapped it up about 12:30. So I think I need to go to bed.

Then maybe I can have a more fun attitude.

And maybe even get my mind off the homeschool track for a while.

I think that's the point of a break.

And to Think They Share a Room

For some reason tonight we got to talking about what style of decor we like. Me and the girls, that is. Oh I know what it was---we had been reading Fancy Nancy and Sweetheart remarked that she liked Nancy's room before she made it fancy. To her, the simple and plain room was beautiful. To Little Bit, it was boring.

I told Sweetheart I knew exactly what style she would like. She always says, "I just like things plain--I don't like them all pretty." I wanted to correct that. Pretty can look like a lot of things. So I showed her some pictures of shaker style furniture and Amish homes. Yep. Right up her alley. She loved them. A simple bedroom with a quilt on the bed. Her style all the way. I emphasized that it was very pretty--just not fancy. It's all in the adjectives.

Little Bit couldn't think of a word for what she likes but I knew---Victorian. She loves to check out dollhouse books from the library that show Victorian style dollhouses. She calls it "rich." She has been trying to make her dollhouse look "rich" for over a year now. The fancier the better! So I looked up pictures of Victorian style homes for her. Yep. Right up her alley. She loved them. Frilly and lacy and scroll-y. Her style all the way. I emphasized that it was very fancy. But "rich" is really not the right word. She wanted to know why not? Then I showed her some rapper's living room. He's rich, but his decor was not lovely. See Little Bit? Just because someone is rich doesn't mean they have their house looking like you like it. The word you want is "Victorian."

Good lesson, huh? Yeah, it went over really well.

About 15 minutes later Little Bit came into the kitchen with a very worried look on her face and said, "Mommy.....I don't want Sissy to be poor!"

I assured her "simple" did not = poor. She said, "Well it sure looks poor!"

What do you suppose they will grow up and describe their mother's style as? Mercy. I don't even want to think about it. But it involves having a plaid 12 year old couch.

Anyone got a word for that style?

The Dollhouse Project

Sweetheart was in karate last year. She wants to continue that but all I can say is, "we'll see." The budget may have another opinion on the matter. Right now she's taking piano lessons, which S and I both wanted our girls to get to do.

But Little Bit is another matter. She's not interested in anything that requires physical contact (like karate--no thank you--she tried) or anything that requires her to get up in front of people (dance, etc.)

What she IS interested in is getting attention. And her dollhouse. This was her dollhouse as given to us last year.

Wonderful! Free! And boring.

It had some accessories with it.

But it needed more!

Since that time we have wallpapered the bathroom, the kitchen, and put "linoleum" down in the kitchen floor. She's received several more rooms of stuff for birthdays and Christmas.

What she wants is to make it look "rich." So we have outlined all the projects we need to do while Sissy is at piano lessons this year.

We started with the car. This was the boring car. Poor dollhouse family in their not rich car.

You'll see next week what we're doing to make it "rich."