Tid bits!

As promised here some pictures of Chloe's new and improved "big girl" room. She was completely surprised when she came home from camp to find that Mama FINALLY redid her room. And, I am happy to report, she LOVED it.

There is still some work left to be done. I need to reupholster her desk chair in the extra material from her bedding. We need to add the finials to her bed and finish hanging a few things, but over all, I love the new look. Many of the items have been re-purposed (in other words, we spray painted them black. Dee, I can feel you brimming with pride!). I actually like her bed so much more now that it's black. I wish we had painted it years ago.

Her bathroom is still really plain. I just painted it white and added a few things. We still need to add the shower curtain valence (also waiting to be made from the extra bedding material) and shelves added to the blank wall (also reused from her hold decor, but painted black)

And, on my to do list was finally painting Logan's bathroom. The theme was ducks, so to go with his blue and yellow plaid shower curtain, I painted the walls this nice bright blue. Unfortunately, it looked horrible with the blue in the shower curtain . . .and his blue towels. So, he too, got an upgrade to his bathroom. He chose the ocean theme and I think it was a great call on his part.

So in other news . . .
In an attempt not to strangle my children, I've tried to get of out of the house as much as possible. On Wednesday we took a trip to the Blue Bell Ice Cream factory (a favorite here in the South . . . not by me though. I hold a torch for HEB Ice cream and HEB only . . .but I digress....)
One of my students from last year moved out to where the factory is (about 1 1/2 hours away) so several families from my class (7 in all, actually) all decided to make a day of it. There were so many of us, we were our own tour group. After the tour they give you a huge scoop of ice cream. After we had our treat we headed next door to a neighborhood water park. We hung out until the thunder storm hit, then packed up and started the trek home. It was a great day and was so wonderful to visit with my Super Star families. I've always loved the fact that so many of us became friends outside of school.

The next day I took the kids to the local children's museum where we met up with Uncle Dave, Aunt Brandy and Dylan and Logan's old teacher and her daughter Olivia. The museum wasn't anything special, but it's always good to visit with friends.

Here's my angel, threatening to throw rubber at me if I take her picture. I decided to chance it anyway.

Logan, busy at the sand station where they had the coolest little sea creatures. Many of which I found in my son's pockets as we were leaving. YES, we did put them back, much to Logan's disappointment. Ah, my little Klepto!
(Oh hell, I just deleted the picture! Well, hopefully my description was enough to give you an idea of what he was up to! (Those of you who blog, if you have figured out how to add a photo in the middle of a post, please let me know . . . this happens way to often!)

Here's Dylan in the playhouse. Which he LOVED. He was happy as a clam throwing any and all items he could find on the floor. Brandy assures me he did not learn this from her.

So, our garden is just about ca put. It was overrun with fire ants and bugs. And since I'm deathly afraid of fire ants, I rarely got in there to weed it and harvest the veggies. So, Craig basically ripped everything up (sans the squash and bell peppers, which I am happy to report are still going strong). I'm researching to see if there is anything I can plant now as well as investing in some high rubber boots. Anyway, Craig found this little (or huge is more like it) creature hidden among the green beans. Logan thought he was totally cool. Sort of reminded me of Absolom, the blue caterpillar from Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland.

update: I just learned this guy is a Tomato Hornworm. He becomes a Sphinx moth or hummingbird moth.
Interesting. . .


And last but not least. Here is a photo of my children after being left along to their own devices. Apparently, they were going for the record of how many items they could dump on to the floor within an hour.

You really must applaud their efforts!

This will be the last post from Texas for the next week or so. I'll be taking the kids and escaping to the nice cool coast of Oregon for a visit with Mom and Dad. Craig will be here, holding down the fort in the unrelenting Houston heat. I feel bad.... not bad enough not to go... but bad.

All about the boy!

With Chloe away, Logan and I had our turn to play.

We began our week with story time at our local Wendy's with AJ and fam. Each week they have story time, complete with face painting, balloons and special treats.

The next day we cooled down at Splash Town.

And we tried to get in a movie, but Despicable Me was sold out. So we just took our Subway sandwiches over to see what Carlos was up to. Turns he had made several new friends. A couple more HUGE catfish and a snapping turtle.

Logan LOVED this!

All in all, it was a great week. And, although I truly missed my girl,

I loved spending time with my boy!

The rest of the week I spent painting and decorating. We redid Chloe's room as a surprise.

Pics to come . . .eventually.