Summertime Brights

New Beads!

We're in the final homestretch!  Tomorrow is the last day of school for the kiddos until August 12th. Today is Honor's Day at the elementary school and Ella is excited about doing the 5th grade Walk of Fame.  (They get to parade around the entire school while everyone claps as a "goodbye" to the place they've spent the last 6 years.)  It was funny watching her get ready for bed last night.  She's highly organized (unlike her flighty mother!) and gets her clothes laid out for the next day before going to sleep.  My uber-tomboy pulled out a DRESS and HEELS to wear.  Seriously!  This is the child that puts on pajamas as soon as she gets home from school - no joke.

It's going to be interesting next year with all the kids in diffrent schools for the first time.  Tilly will be at the high school (yep, a frishy-froshy-freshman - Eek!), Ella will be over at the 6th grade academy and Davis will be at the elementary school for the next 2 years.  *sigh*  My babies are growing up!!

I've got beadie goodies on the backburner while I finish up some orders, but I'm planning to get some new stuff up over the weekend, so I hope you'll check in again soon!

Neverending Story...

I loved that movie as a child, but as an adult I find the concept somewhat annoying. No, not the actual movie - that is still sweet. But the idea of something that just keeps repeating over and over. In my house, that seems to be illness. Tilly was home yesterday because she was complaining of a sore throat and had a pretty bad cough. The doctor diagnosed her with strep throat and pneumonia and stuck her on antibiotics.

(*Side note - we were all pretty freaked out about the pneumonia diagnosis because a very dear family friend was admitted to the hospital late on Thursday evening of last week with a cough and difficulty breathing, diagnosed with double pneumonia the next day and died in the wee hours of Saturday morning. Julia was only 60 and was expecting her next grandchild in the next few weeks. She will be greatly missed!)

Cut to this morning , and now Elinor says her throat feels like she's trying to swallow broken glass every time she swallows. Back to the doctor, yep - more strep but thankfully no pneumonia. Prescribes antibiotics for Ella. Doctor is not impressed with the lack of improvement in Tilly's case and the fact that the strep swab came back immediately positive again. (Don't ask me - I have no idea how cultures work or how long it takes an antibiotic to work!) Soooooo, he changes her antibiotics again and orders another day or two of home rest - for both of them. Now all I'm waiting for is for Davis to get sick and the Fulcher family children will have won the Illness Triple Crown yet again!

Busy Weekend

Elinor is part of a singing group at her elementary school and this past week and the next couple of weeks marks the "busy season" for her. They've had their Concert on The Square last week and yesterday went to the Governor's mansion and sang for Sonny Perdue and guests at the lighting of the Christmas tree on the mansion property. (I'll be scanning the newspaper for photos, as she said there were several journalist taking pictures.)

We made a family outing-type evening of the Concert on The Square, going early to eat pizza and window-shop in all the stores that had holiday expanded hours. We had a blast and took oodles of pictures, of which I've shared the 2 shown above.

Pumpkin Patch

The kids were off on Monday, so we drove to a nearby pumpkin patch. While the kids were running around finding the smallest and largest pumpkins, I wandered around snapping pictures of things that caught my eye. My favorite thing there wasn't the corn maze, the scarecrows or the enormous hay bale spider (although they were all pretty darn awesome) - it was this scale. I can't think of anything that I would need to weigh that would require this monster, but I think it's beautiful in its own old, rustic (yet functional!) way.

And yes, I'll give away something today. Right now, though, we're waiting for the sun!

First Day of School

The kids and I woke up at 0-dark-thirty this morning. I was scared of oversleeping and the kids were all excited about getting to class and seeing their friends for the first time in months. It felt weird being up literally before the chickens! Since May 23, 2009 (last day of school), I haven't even set my alarm to go off before 6 a.m and even then I had the bad habit of hitting the snooze alarm a couple of times before getting up. *grin* And of course, the girls would've stayed in bed until mid-morning all summer long if I had let them. Davis isn't much of a sleeper - he'd rather hop out of bed and hit the ground running. (You can squeeze a lot of video game playing time into a day if you start early enough!)

Now I find I have my mornings to myself again. I'll do my normal early morning walk and then I think I'll add another once the sun starts to go down. In between, I'll make beads and get supper started. During the summer, sometimes we wouldn't even eat dinner until 7:30 or 8 p.m. Since the kids are complete bottomless pits, there were usually several snacks in between lunch and dinner! Now I'll aim to be feeding people around 5 p.m. With an 8:30 bedtime for the kiddieboos, you just can't wait 'til much later.

Gosh, the house sure is quiet right now! It's kinda relaxing and creepy at the same time. I'll get used to it soon enough, I'm sure.

Okay, well - time to go get started on the "alone" portion of my day!

They're on Their Way!

I got an e-mail this morning with the above picture and the message that the girls (and my parents) were packing up to head home. Davis will be thrilled to see his sisters again, if for no other reason that having more kids around takes some of our focus off him!

They usually head to the beach for one last swim before heading home but elected not to today. Tilly's toes are all chewed up from scraping against the hotel swimming pool bottom and Ella has declared herself to be "all beached out". They might stop at a monastery on the way home, depending on how everyone is feeling but... I kinda get the impression that they're feeling like the horse that has seen the stables; ready to be home already. That's alright, I'm ready to snuggle up in my bed with the girls and read books out loud for hours like we usually do. (Davis starts out on my bed, but usually wanders off to play by himself or with his dad after awhile!)

I'm busy changing the sheets on their beds and washing the quilts right now. Then I'm baking a Chocolate Zucchini Cake (will be adding the recipe to our much neglected blog, Radish Roses, this afternoon! Just finished adding - click the name for a link to the recipe!!) for my Dad's b-day celebration (his birthday was yesterday). We'll probably have a cookout tomorrow night and use some of the fireworks leftover from the 4th.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend too!

And They're Off!

The girls have called to check in already! They are now in South Carolina after leaving with my parents this morning at around 6:30. They'll be at Isle of Palms around noon-ish and are gonna check in again then.

I've got beads to pack and mail now that the boy and I are home from our errands (bank, library, grocery store -you know, the usual.). I hope everyone has a wonderful Monday!

Floral Lentils and Muffins

Got oodles of these beads made yesterday and now I'm cleaning and stringing them to add to the Boutique.

Took a brief time-out to make some muffins for the kids' breakfast - Pumpkin Apple Spice. Seriously yummy. The best part? Davis, who turns up his nose at anything pumpkin, has scarfed down 3 muffins so far! Of course, that is probably because I told him that they were apple spice muffins and didn't mention the pumpkin part until he had finished one and asked for another. Bwahaha! You know, there are just some times when a mom has to be a little devious...

Sidewalk Chalk

I went to the grocery store yesterday and picked up a few fun things for the kids along with the regular stuff on my list. The most popular of the kiddie-boo treats was definitely the sidewalk chalk. It seems every flat, paved space has been decorated with very colorful (and extremely dusty!) designs. I've got lots of interesting work to admire now as I work outside the house. There's hopscotch, abstract art, doodles and a very nice mural depicting the life story of a caveman named Ogai done in the style of the Lascaux cave paintings. Ahhhh........ Summer!

I think the kids have their eyes on "improving" our stepping stone walkway next!

Last Week of School

It's a little hairy here, now that we're into the last couple days of school for the kiddos. I'm doing a lot of last minute running around and helping out as much as I can.

Everything on the *jenagirlbeads* front should be back to normal by the weekend. I can tell you that everyone's beads have been mailed out, so be sure to check your mailboxes in the coming days if your beads haven't already arrived.

For some reason, I ended up with quite a few duplicate orders this last time around. Either my shopping cart wasn't updating quantities correctly or several people ordered the same beads at precisely the same time. Whatever happened, it sure made it interesting come time to pack the beads and mail them! But hey - on a good note - I've discovered that quite a lot of people really like the Cabana Boy color scheme!!

Boy, do I need some caffeine right about now!!

Finally Friday

Well, happy day! The week is nearly over and the weekend is about to start. It has been a loooooooong week, that's for sure. The kids have been taking the CRCT test since Monday and they're all about to crack under the strain. No, not the strain of the test - they've all reported that it was a lot easier than they thought it was going to be. The strain they're complaining of is the enforced earlier bed times and my making them eat a real breakfast other than the Pop-Tarts they would prefer to eat. Yes, the truth comes out. I'm a horrible mother that allows her children to eat Pop-Tarts if they want. Somebody better call DFACS! *grin* Seriously, I do enjoy cooking, but I'd rather save the clean-up from breakfast mess for the weekends rather than our hairy weekday mornings.

I've got more beads to make so I'll be ready for the next 2 days, so I'd better run. See you all soon!

Stacked Smiles

I wanted to share one of my favorite pictures we had made last week. Isn't it just sweet??

Movie Time!

We went to go see the movie this afternoon. Very, very cute! It was highly enjoyable for both the kids and me, but you never, ever forget you're listening to Reese Witherspoon play Susan - ummm... excuse me, "Ginormica". She just has such a distinctive voice and sounds so much like every character she's ever played.

Still - a really fun, popcorn-snarfing movie!

Can I Have a Break Now?

Whew! It's been a loooong day. It isn't even 4 p.m. and I'm feeling like I could go ahead and go to bed already. I don't even think I'd bother eating supper, just collapse into a boneless pile on top of the bed.

We let the chickens out into the coop yard this morning after it had warmed up a bit. They'd been outside in the coop since Sunday, but confined to the hen house while the cold front rolled through. We actually had SNOW yesterday. It didn't stick, but still. Snow? In Georgia? In April?? If I liked cold weather I wouldn't be living as far south as I do, now would I? If this is what global warming means, color me completely unimpressed. Talk to me about it when I'm wearing Bermuda shorts in February.

So, what did we do that wiped me out so much? Now that I think back, it doesn't seem like a whole lot. The most draining part was dragging the kids from pillar to post, trying to find coordinating clothes for them to wear on Friday. Every Spring, I take the kids to have their picture taken so that I have some photographic evidence of their childhood other than the twice yearly school mugshots they bring home. It's that time of year again, so - shopping we must go! Taking my kids clothes shopping is a lot like trying to herd cats; once you get one going the right direction, the others have veered off course again. It doesn't help that we never find the right thing at the first or second (or third or fourth) store we look in, either. By store six, I had almost completely lost their cooperation and only wrested it back by offering to spring for lunch out if they would stay focused. (Eating out is a big deal to my kids, most likely because I offer to do it so seldom. Why pay someone else to make food I'm perfectly capable of making at home?) Turns out that was the perfect carrot to dangle and we bagged our outfits very soon afterwards. Outfits in hand and with full bellies, we hopped back in the car.

What I didn't tell them was that I also had planned to take them for haircuts before heading home. All four of us got our ears lowered, as a matter of fact. Bwahaha! Because we were walk-ins, we had to sit for quite a while before any of the stylists could get to us. Davis got his usual all-over clipper cut. Tilly had about 2 inches cut, while Elinor had her bangs and dead ends trimmed. I went for the more radical change, adding long layers and cutting about 4 inches off the ends. My head feels about 8 pounds lighter now. Summer hair - I love it!

Tomorrow I'm taking the kids to see Monster Vs. Aliens. They're really looking forward to it and so am I! I think I will go to bed early tonight, so there won't be any chance of my zonking out during the movie...

Snow!

As you might imagine, we don't have snow very often. When it does snow, it's a wonderful surprise and the kids have a tendency to go a little nuts. Here's a quick video I shot this morning.

That's our old barn in the background. It's been here for ages, since when the property was a farm - complete with milk cows and chickens. I guess things really do go in circles, although I can promise you we won't be getting any dairy cows. Chicken poop is one thing, but cow patties?? Uh - NO.

Halloween Pictures

It's really sad that I'm just now taking the pictures of my children in their Halloween costumes off my camera's memory card. It's also very sad that it took my looking closely at the pictures while editing them to notice that my little hobgoblins got dirt all over the door frame when they were playing outside last weekend!!

That said, here are my little monsters in costume!!



Davis' costume is fairly self-explanatory. He had originally wanted to go as a CIA agent in a tuxedo and carrying a briefcase. When I asked what he needed the briefcase for, he looked at me as though I'd grown an extra head. "To carry my guns, grenades and spy equipment in, Mom - what'd ya think?!" Uhhh... I think somebody has been watching too much tv!! When I told him that razor wire was completely out of the question for a 7 year old, he kind of lost interest and was happy with the SWAT costume I found.



Elinor was never specific about what she wanted to be for Halloween but she was thrilled when I brought home the witches' costume. She really liked the velvet burnout design of spider webs on the sleeves. Truth be told, that is my favorite detail too! It was her idea to put the make-up on but it was like wrestling a rabid monkey to get the little bit that I did manage to apply to her face. She's my "au naturelle" girl, God love her, and fortunately she has the yummy olive complexion I always wanted so she won't ever need to wear make-up unless she wants to!


Now Tilly was adamant about making her own costume this year rather than buying one. Considering that she has usually been the most label-conscious, conspicuous consumption proponent (think Alex P. Keaton in the old Family Ties sitcom) in our family, I was a little surprised but pleased by her about-face. She debated being a vampire (and recycle an old costume), a werewolf (old costume plus add from her own closet), a were-pire (you can guess that one, right?) and a farm girl. In case you can't tell, she's carrying a little animatronic piglet named "Francis" (Bacon - get it?!?! She's a clever girl! *grin*)