Fall Giveaway

Ok - So after checking out many of the giveaways over at Bloggy Giveaways I can't help but get involved in the spirit of giving too. I will be giving away a hand painted jar candle with a snowman theme on it. I paint these for friends and family as gifts at Christmas time using a one stroke method of painting.

You can specify what colors you want your snowman to be wearing (think scarves and hats) in the comments. I will coordinate the color/scent of the candle with the colors you choose (think dark rich colors like green, blue, maroon, purple, etc. they look the best against the white snowmen). Just leave a comment before Saturday Nov. 3rd and I will have my daughter pick a random number for the winner.

Here is the fine print…
1. Leave me a comment on this posting WITH A VALID EMAIL ADDRESS - I must have a way to contact you if you are a winner.
2. Duplicate entries and entries without a valid email address will be deleted.
3. You do not need to have a blog to enter to win, only an email address.
4. You do have to have a U.S. shipping address, sorry.

I'll email the winner and post the winner’s name on my blog. You'll need to respond back to me with a valid shipping address within 48 hours of notification that you've won or I'll pick an alternate winner.

Good Luck to ALL and have fun with all of the giveaways!

In the spirit of Halloween..

Halloween has to be one of the best times of the year. It signals the beginning of beautiful fall weather, fun activities, and all of the decorating you can stand. One tradition that I love is carving pumpkins. On Saturday we went to our favorite Pick your own everything place (Weavers Orchard) and participated in the fall festival. We climbed aboard the first hayride we found and took a 10 minute jaunt through all the orchards to arrive directly across the street from where we started. Here we picked our way through a pumpkin patch to find the perfect pumpkins. Now according to Sweetpea we needed a small, medium, and large pumpkin. Sweetpea snagged the first small pumkin she spotted and only with some gentle prodding traded it in for a pumpkin I liked. DH walked around for 15 minutes trying to find the perfect large pumpkin with no luck. I wanted a tall oval shaped pumpkin and finally found one right before we were to catch our ride back across the street.

Once we all piled off the hayride we enjoyed some cool apple cider and water. DH then selected a VERY large pumpkin from the already picked pile and we carried our haul all the way to the cars.

Unfortuately due to a previous commitment (see Mom's fix-it service) we were unable to carve them Saturday night. First thing Sunday morning Sweetpea begged me to carve hers. We spent at least an hour on Saturday evening discussing how she wanted it carved. She finally settled on a classic face pattern. As I was about to begin, I asked one More time - is this what you want? She of course changed her mind - again - and decided on the spider. Here is the result..

Sunday night I had time to work on my own. I chose a classic Disney villan, Malecifent from Sleeping Beauty.





Chris finally carved his pumpkin and he choose a classic evil face...

So those are our pumpkins for the year. We have them proudly displayed on our front sidewalk. I coated them in bleach first to prevent mold and then vaseline so they don't dry out. I hope they last until Halloween. Otherwise I'll just have to carve more..darn..wouldn't that be fun!

Mom's Fix-it service

One day my Sweetpea will look back remember all of the fond times we have had together. Hopefully she won't reflect back and wonder why Mom was always fixing things instead of playing with her though.

I once again spent a portion of the weekend at my MIL's house fixing things for her. This time I was building a radiator cover (she has those old large metal radiators). I do think it turned out rather well but I will spend several more hours there next weekend filling in nail holes and staining the wood edging on it. I am a one woman fix it crew (with some help from the hubby when I need lifting/holding help). I even have my traveling bucket of tools. FYI - I am not for hire though, I provide plenty of free labor to keep me busy year round.

My Sweetpea was good and waited patiently in the living room playing electronic Yahtzee while I hammered away. The only visits I got from her were the numerous times she came running in to tell me she got another Yahtzee - I really don't know how she does it. Her highest score was 344, remind me never to challenge her to a game.

I do hope though, that since I drag her along to all of my projects that she will be able to install her own lighting, fix her floors, and all of the other stuff that needs to be done in a house when she is older. I consider myself privileged to have grown up in a family where we had to fix our own broken pipes, floors, etc since I learned how to do it too and that is my hope for her as well. Maybe one day she can even be the star on one of my favorite DIY network shows.

The 5 year old check-up

Last week was Sweetpea's 5 year old check up. I look forward to these visits since I get a comparison of how she has grown since last year and it gives you peace of mind to have a doctor run through the checklist too. I also dread these appointments because they always entail some laundry list of vaccinations. I am a huge proponent of vaccinations (my daily job is to send vaccines to the market for use so how can I not support them) but Sweetpea is not a fan of shots and can't even stand to talk about the idea.
The visit started as always with the nurse checking her vital signs, height, weight etc. In the last year Sweetpea has grown 4.5 inches (for a total of 46.5 inches) and gained 9 lbs (for a total of 56 lbs). That places her squarely in the 90% range of the growth chart which is where she has been since she was born. The doctor indicated that her height and weight are good for her even though she has a belly that comes and go depending on the time of day.
The second part of her visit was the hearing and eye test. She did this last year but didn't remember it. The nurse put the earphones on her, faced her away from the machine, and instructed her to raise her hand when she heard the sound. The nurse began pressing the buttons with no reaction elicited from Sweetpea. She just sat there with this puzzled look on her face. The nurse kept asking - how about now - hear anything? I was a bit concerned at first but after we went through the entire range on each ear, I figured something was wrong with the machine. I may think she has a hearing problem since I am always repeating myself but I believe that is just selective hearing. The nurse tried the earphones on herself and yes the instrument was working just fine. Ok - let's try again. The nurse starts pushing buttons again while prompting Sweetpea to respond and she still is shaking her head no. The nurse then asked - do you hear anything at all. Sweetpea responded - "All I hear is that doorbell ringing from out in front". After we had a quick chuckle we explained to her that she should raise her hand for the doorbell too. This enabled her to pass the test with flying colors then - that darn doorbell. You have to wonder what she thought she would hear.
The eye test was uneventful - I could have told you she has eagle eyes. We then went back for our quick physical exam and then they save the best for last. Sweetpea needed to get 4 shots. The doctor quickly informed us of this, then left the room while the nurses prepared the shots. They needed 2 people so it took at least 10 minutes for them to come back. In the meantime, I was left with a whining child who is getting more upset about the awful shots by the minute. Luckily I remembered some of the Halloween songs she is learning in school and so I sang those to her and it was wonderful since it stopped the whining.
Shots involve her sitting on my lap while I hold her hands and arms tightly. A nurse then lined up on each side with two syringes ready to go. She was only focusing on the nurse on the left side and Sweetpea kept saying "I'm not ready" as both of the nurses were sticking her anyway. The fact that they didn't wait made her mad and she gave them a very nasty... "I SAID I WASN'T READY!" when they were done. In the end it wasn't too bad. I didn't get kicked, she didn't scream like a banshee, and due to the anger the crying ended almost instantaneously.
So it will be another year until we return (with any luck) and the doctor said that she is all done until she turns 11 with shots (except that yearly Flu shot). Best of all, it looks like she is right on track to hit 48 inches by next summer. 48 inches is the magic number since then she can go on the kind of big rides at amusement parks. Since she is an amusement park junkie (we can't imagine where she got that from) this is a huge goal for her.

Here's the latest project..

Things around the circle have been very busy (which is of course normal) but we have also been painting the walls and installing a new hardwood floor in our dining room. This can help explain my prolonged absence (in addition to the fact that I actually have to do work while at work instead of blogging).

We began our project 2 weeks ago. We tore out the carpeting which was installed by the builder so it came up with almost no effort and our WONDERFUL garbage men took it in one large rolled up piece. Those guys are great and therefore are always on my Christmas list. We then painted the walls a beautiful deep green since we both love color in our house with a classic white ceiling. The trim is bright white as well. We may tackle a chair rail soon, but that won't be before Christmas at least.

We had decided that we wanted to install nail down bamboo (an earth friendly choice since bamboo is a grass that can harvested every 7 years or so). We went and bought all of our supplies, rented a pneumatic floor nailer and away we went. The first row was the hardest since we had to make sure it was perfect and square, but after that the floor sailed along beautifully. It took us about 8 hours to put it in (which includes all of the cutting, laying the padding, etc.). The hardest part was the final rows which had to be hand nailed and let me tell you - bamboo is not a soft wood - just ask the many bent nails in the trash can. Unfortunately when we purchased our wood, we had to order the two finishing pieces for the doorway. They finally came in this past Saturday and I was able to finish nailing down the trim tonight.

Sweetpea can now have her playroom back since the dining room table won't be residing there any longer and I can sweep all of the sawdust from our garage for the last time (until the next project begins). I can say that I am now very experienced in using the miter saw and the jigsaw. Here are some pictures of our dining room

Overall I love this floor! I was so happy with the quality of the wood and we are looking to put a dark cherry in our family room next.

and the Honors begin to accumulate

Ok so I can't help but brag about my Sweetpea. If you don't like bragging stop reading now.........Ok for those who care (or are just nosey) Sweetpea has been awarded the Star Student of the Month Award. Yes, that's right, her first official month of school and she is already bringing home awards. She is one of 4 students in the ENTIRE school (that's right all 9 grades (K-8)) to receive this award. Her award was given to her for "outstanding service to others". So what did she do to receive this tremendous award that gets her name put on the bulletin board for all to see you ask? She gave up her seat in music class to another little girl. As the story goes, all the kids ran over to sit at the tables and once Sweetpea was sitting down there was one seat left. Another little girl (K) was coming over to sit there when a faster kid swept in and plopped in the chair. K was of course upset and began to cry so Sweetpea got up and gave her the chair she was using. Sweetpea then went and sat at a different table. Yes, apparently every now and then, little acts of kindness do get recognized (and miracles happen when kids remember to be kind). So I am writing this now so the next time she does something mean and nasty (not that my angel ever would) I have someplace to point to and say but look she can be nice too!

WFMW - Ask for help issue..

Today's WFMW is a backwards day and I have been looking forward to this. I actually have 2 issues so please offer all of the advice you can.

1.) My first question has to do with play-doh. How can I get ground in, dried up play-doh out of my carpet? It seems that when my neighbor's daughter was over to play she didn't think that the table was so good for play-doh since the floor is so much easier to reach. Anyway - since it's happened I've just been placing the play tent over that spot when we have company. I would like to remove it though without removing the whole carpet...any ideas?

2.) My second dilemma is how do you teach a child to ride a bike. My sweetpea is 5 now and all of her friends on our street can ride without training wheels. In addition, she is just too heavy for training wheels to balance her effectively anyway. We have spent several sessions of me running next to her holding the back of the seat while she cries hysterically because she wants to do it but she is terrified of falling and we aren't getting anywhere that way. This is not a pretty scene for either of us. I need help and fast or I might be hanging from my balcony by the end of the week. So what worked for you? All ideas are appreciated and will be tried!