so this is Neverland. . .

Our version of Potter-mania!

 

 

A dear friend of ours introduced us to Quiggly's Clayhouse, a fired arts studio in Richardson, TX.  It's not quite Hogwarts, but they offer a kids art class called Art4Kids during the day for homeschoolers (and one later in the day after school).  I cannot say enough about Mr. Kirby, Mrs. Kristi, and Mrs. Tami!  We adore these classes.  They are offered as a semester or you can show up unannounced like we did and pay for one class at a time.  (All photos from my beloved LG enV Touch.)

 

 

With the Arts getting less and less face time in schools in general, I find this money well spent for my two little art lovers.  The first class we attended was at the wheel.  Noah seems to have a real knack for working the clay.  They threw three pots that day and then got to paint one of them with tinted slip.

 

 

 

That clay on her forehead.  Oh be still my heart.

 

 

 

He gets SO absorbed in his work.  Don't you just wanna squeeze him?

Mr. Kirby and Mrs. Tami do an amazing job of incorporating technique and a little art history into the classes as the kids work.  And the personal attention is invaluable!  Last week, they painted on canvas.

 

 

 

They discussed perspective, horizon line and how to plan your painting before you start.  Keira wanted her island to reach up and touch the sun.  Don't those little trees just make your heart melt?

 

 

 

And Noah turned his boat into a Viking ship armed for battle.  In case you aren't aware, everything is some sort of battle with Noah.  With swords.  And a shield.  And Viking horns. 

There are 3 classes left before the end of this semester, and they are all scheduled to be at the wheel.  If you are in the area, I highly recommend that you stop by and give it a try.  

 

 

Your kids won't learn the fine art of Wizardry,

but I think this is the next best thing! 

Paula

"Second to the right, and straight on till morning."

And I'm mopping, and I'm mopping, and I'm mopping...

I'll give you a dollar if you can guess how many times I mop my laundry room every week.
Oh, alright, not a REAL dollar.  How about a Bonus Buck?  If you ask my kids, they will tell you that a Bonus Buck is better than a dollar any day.  But I digress.

Meet Chance:

 

Chance is 17.

That is 119 to you and me.

And that would explain the grey hair.  And the dental problems. 

And the incontinence.

Chance is my dear, sweet hubby's dog.  It was a package deal.
(Who could say no to a deal like that?!?)

I've known Chance for 12 years of his life.  I have come to the conclusion, after 12 years of getting to know his little Wiener-dog self, that Chance is a cat.  He has nine lives. 

At least 9.

In February of 1999, Chance suffered the fate that so many dogs in his breed suffer.  We came home from a dance competition and found him paralyzed from his mid-back on down.  (Do wiener dogs have waists?)  Anyway, he had the standard Dachshund back surgery and experienced a full recovery.  Well, except for when he would run fast and his back end would try to pass up his front end because he couldn't quite feel what was up back there anymore. 

Even worse than getting paralyzed, Chance had to go through the horrible ordeal of welcoming kids into the family.  Here is a terribly lit photo of Noah hangin' with Chance when he was a baby.  Note Chance's expression.  It says,

"if you ever do this to me again, the new carpet gets it!  Woof." 

 

I'm talking about Chance's expression here. 

Not Noah's.

And I have come to learn, over the years, that he wasn't kidding.  After Keira came along, he became third fiddle.  Well, probably more like forth fiddle.

The combination of getting older and hiding from site because he was not much of a fan of babies, made him a little, shall we say, ornery.  He never really was one to bark when he had to go outside.

Now, you let him outside, he will bark to come in so he can go pee on the carpet.

He has made his way from sleeping in the bed, to sleeping in the floor, to sleeping in a crate, to sleeping in the laundry room.  I start my morning every day by opening the laundry room door to see how many presents he has left me overnight.  There are usually several. 

He is such a little giver. 

He got really sick this summer.  So sick, that we couldn't imagine that he would pull through.

But he did.

And I kept mopping.

A couple of weeks ago, he got really sick again.  Nothing would stay down.  Or in.  For about 3 days.

Good times.

But once I finally got a can of chicken broth in him, he sprang back to life.

This is one tough little Wiener.  And as much as I would like to be able to put my mop away for a few days, I will miss him terribly when he is gone.  I mean, did you see that cutie-pie little face up there?

Now if you will excuse me.  Chance is outside barking.

I think he needs to come in to go potty.

Dragon Rider: A review of sorts

When we made the decision to homeschool our kids, I sat down and made a list of all the things that I felt were crucial to the success of their education.  Very, very high on that list was a love of literature.  I immediately started looking for new ways to expose them to great writing.  

We had always read together, but now we read together every day without fail. Our history is literature based and our science includes as much literature as I can find for each topic.  Also, I am working on building a home library for them so that they are never more than an arms length from any subject that strikes their fancy. 

(God Bless Half Price Books clearance racks!) 

One place I found where we could take advantage of good literature, that I had been completely missing, was in the car.  Living in the DFW area, which is a sprawling place, we spend a lot of time getting from here to there.  Audio books have become a favorite for us.  It takes otherwise wasted time and makes something wonderful out of it.  PLUS, the kids are a much more attentive audience when they listen in the car than if I try to read the same book at home. 

I guess I could install seat belts on our cushy reading chair.

Hmm.

Now, ever since How to Train Your Dragon hit theaters in March of this year, we had been on an exhaustive search for every piece of dragon related literature known to children's books.  When we spied Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke on the audio book shelf at our local library, it was a no-brainer.  I just knew the kids would love it.  After all, it was about dragons.

Little did I know that I was about to add a new title to MY favorites list!

 

Dragon Rider is a wonderful, fantastical tale of a dragon, Firedrake, trying to save his family of dragons from the greedy humans that want to take the land that they call home.  It is a classic tale of good versus evil with a honest to goodness prophecy thrown in for good measure.  On his quest to find The Rim of Heaven, the legendary safe home of the dragons half way around the world, he is aided by a host of fantastic beings...brownies, sea serpents, rats, a genie, a homunculus and what else, but a human boy.  Of course, no fairy tale would be complete without an evil villain.  And what a villain he is!  Nettlebrand, a gigantic dragon-like being created by an alchemist to destroy the dragons, is just waiting for Firedrake to lead him to the Rim of Heaven so that he can finish off the dragons once and for all.

The well-rounded characters and challenging vocabulary made this such a joy to listen to as an adult, while Funke's ability to write fantastic creatures without being too dark or heavy for young children was nothing short of brilliant.  My kids hung on every word, laughed their heads off many times, and never, ever were frightened, even by Nettlebrand. 

Genius.

We have listened to it twice now and I would be remiss if I didn't mention the reader.

 

Dragon Rider is read by Brendan Fraser.  Yes, that's right.  Mr. Mummy himself.  I have to admit, I was a teensy bit skeptical when I saw his name on the cover.  Now, I am truly ashamed of myself for ever doubting him. 

(Mr. Fraser, I am truly sorry for not having faith in your voice.   Please don't sic your mummies on me. Thank you.)

In a word, he was. . .

A. MAZ. ING.

It is worth listening to this story just to hear him read Sorrel (the brownie) and Twigleg (the homunculus).

Seriously.

I kept having to remind myself that this was ONE individual reading this story.

One.

Uno.

Well, maybe two if you count the mummy.

Go get it now and listen. You won't be sorry.

And if you don't have kids, don't worry.

I won't tell.

I should also mention, for those of you that are wondering, that there a couple of curse words in this book. I couldn't tell you for sure, because personally, I dismiss them, but I think it is just the "d" word.  And then, Nettlebrand really likes to use the word "stupid" when speaking to his servants.  That actually bugs me more than the other words.  

Because my kids know stupid.

They don't know "d".

And they know a good story when they hear it and this one gets three marker-stained thumbs

WAY

UP!

Paula

"Second to the right, and straight on till morning."

Decking the Halls

Usually,
the thought of putting up my Christmas decorations before
Thanksgiving would give me the twitches.
And the fact that half of the retail stores started piping Holiday tunage
through their speakers the.day.after.Halloween. would cause me to
run screaming from their store.

But not this year.

 


No.  This year is different.

 
 

(That little pinkie is killing me.)
Maybe it is the fact that we are travelling a lot this holiday season
and I want to get things up early so that we can really enjoy them.
Maybe it is the sentimental side of me that wants to milk
the last Christmas in this, our family's first home, for all it's worth.
And maybe,
just maybe, it is that life is good and I'm feeling festive.

Whatever the reason, I'm loving it. 
Decorating before Thanksgiving has already been
more fun that it usually is all season long.
I'm really looking forward to getting the rest of the decor up this weekend.


And I cannot think of anything much more Festive than this:

 

Disclaimer: Wearing of Christmas themed flannel pj's was totally staged to facilitate the warm, fuzzy feeling of the Holiday spirit. It's 75 degrees in Texas people.  You gotta do what you gotta do.

Or in the words of my cutie-pies up there...
"hanging ornaments we will go, sweating all the way!"

Have you started decorating yet?

Paula

 

"Second to the right, and straight on till morning."

 

Farming in the Burbs

Back in April I decided that it was way past time for me to plant a patch of vegetables here in my postage stamp sized, suburban yard.  I missed having access to my own homegrown tomatoes.  Now, I couldn't take away the immediate back yard because that is where my Babies play.  And we need to keep all the space we can for them.  I decided that the skinny little patch of grass know as our 'side yard' would be the perfect place.  Even the dog wouldn't pee on it.  (Foreshadowing?  Anyone?)

We relocated the sod to a spot in the front yard that was suffering.  I hated just to till it under.  Then I packed up my small SUV and headed to Lowes.  About 8 trips later, I had enough wood, organic humus and finely packed cow poo to get to work on my raised beds.  Barring a few minor setbacks, like torrential rains on sod-less ground, which caused my dear children to lose their pants,

 

and end up knee high in mud,

 

all went well in the construction. 

 

(My Beloved helped by taking photos.  He's skeered of worms.)

We bought some seedlings from various local farm stores and greenhouses and we also started several vegetable varieties indoors from seed.  (We were in the midst of a plant study here at Neverland Acadamy here, so it was a must.)

Plants took hold, seeds sprouted, and the tomato cages were placed just so.  Then the beautiful, giant tomato plants bloomed.  They were literally covered in them.  Gorgeous, amazing, look-I-grew-this-myself-with-no-pesticide-or-chemicals blooms.  I was proud as a peach.  And then,

that was it. 

The blooms just sat there, mocking me.  I read everything that I could get my hands on.  One garden guru said I should "flick the blooms" with my fingers to help them pollinate.  One said I should shake them.  I even tried soothing music and telling them reckless tales from my youth.  Nothing worked. 

Loads of blooms. 

No maters. 

I babied them, pruned them, feed them compost from my kitchen.  Nothing.  Nadda.  Zilch.

Finally, I gave up.  I declared myself a garden-variety failure. (Although we did enjoy many fresh herbs this summer and fall from my failing patch.) My brilliant idea to use the side yard had a fatal flaw. . .it was basically 10 feet of dirt surrounded on three sides by our house and fence.  Too much shade. 

I'm an idiot.  The end.

So, just for spite, I ignored that wretched patch of yard for weeks. 

Weeks and weeks.

You can imagine my surprise when my sweet children burst through the back door this past Saturday screaming,

"Mamma, Mamma!  Look what we found in the garden!!"

What to my wondering eyes should appear, but tomatoes.  Beautiful, perfect grape and roma tomatoes just the perfect scarlet shade for picking.

I fainted.

Then, I walked around to the side yard to find that the tomato plants that were now laying on the ground, full of weeds and completely un-cared for were full of tomatoes.  And we found a lone carrot that had taken hold and made a snack of himself.  And a pepper was almost ready to be picked.  (We won't even talk about how the pepper plants acted all summer.)  It was a Thanksgiving miracle. 

Tomatoes in November? 

Really? 

When they were planted in April?

 


So as of today, we have paid roughly $23.57 for these grape tomatoes.

Each.

Makes the prices at Whole Foods seem downright economical.
I think I'll plant me some pumpkins next year.  I hear they are fun to hide at Easter.

Paula

"Second to the right, and straight on till morning."

Public Service Announcement

Let's say that you have one of those new fangled washers that requires 'high-efficiency' laundry detergent
(because your old washer up and died on you back in the spring, leaving you with mountains of laundry on your daughter's birthday weekend with a houseful of guests on the way.)

And let's just say that you accidentally pick up a bottle of regular laundry detergent
by mistake.

 

And why don't we suppose that you don't realize that you have purchased the
wrong laundry detergent until you have read the entire washing machine operators
manual and are now about to break down and call the Geek Squad because you
cannot figure out what the devil is wrong with your washer.

Your washing machine WILL LEAK water and foamy, white suds all over your laundry room.

Please don't ask me how I know this.

The End.

I know what you are probably thinking.

If you are finding yourself here for the first time and you look around a little, you are likely thinking one of two things, if not both:

1.  "This person just fell right off the edge of the Earth back in the fall of 2008."
or
2. "Hmmm.  This person was blogging to a very specific audience when she was actively blogging."

And you would be right on both counts.  Life happened and I had to take a step back from the work I was doing in the Scrapbooking Industry, and my subsequent blogging, for a short period of time.  Which turned into a long period of time. 

Long. 

Really Long. 

Let's just call it a sabbatical, shall we?  Fast forward two years and I have finally found my rhythm again.  I am very excited to pick up where I left off with this blog, only with a much broader scope.  I hope to document and share content dealing with several of my favorite topics, including, but certainly not limited to, scrapbooking. 

During the next couple of weeks, I am going to mix in some of the stories from "the missing years" with my current posts.  I could just pick up from here and move on, but there are some things that I would love to share, if for no other reason than to preserve the story.  I think I'll start with the story behind this photo.  It seems appropriate after what I found in my yard this weekend.

  

I know, I know. . .
What Mamma in her right mind would let their child do this to himself? 
I can throw out some lame excuses for you if it would make you feel better.

    1) It was Earth Day and I told the little dear to go forth and be One with the Earth.
    2) It was "Be-a-Statue-of-You Day" for Homeschool.
    3) I had a strong distaste for this particular pair of shorts and needed a guilt-free excuse to chuck them.
    4) The benefits of a mud mask correlate exponentially to the number of layers of said mud mask one applies.

And what 6-year old isn't concerned with skin care?
Paula

"Second to the right, and straight on till morning."