Playhouse Day Two

Whew. Another long day. I'm glad we had nice weather! Today our plan was to get the walls up. Here's what the littles did...

Framing up the first wall
What is it with little boys and water?...
Almost there... three sides done...
Woohoo!! The last side is UP! This shot is from the right side.



This is a shot of the back.

Ta da!!!

By way of explanation... I'm sure you are wondering "why in the world is this taking so long?!" Well, any *normal* people would have found a neat set of plans and followed them to build a playhouse. Fortunately (or not... as the case may be...) we are not normal!! :-) We drafted these plans ourselves... that should explain a lot... LOL. And we are constantly changing them as we go. See, originally the roof was going to slant front to back... I was going for Quick, Easy, and Cheap. But after we got the floor done and saw how small 6'x8' really is... we decided to do what any reasonable people would do and shift the roof line so it slants left to right.... in theory we are building Half of a Playhouse :-). Then in time (hopefully *soon*) we can build the other half and it will look like a Normal Little Playhouse! Can you envision that?

So, *No* we aren't normal... LOL. But we are having fun!! And it's gonna be SO CUTE!!!

Playhouse Pics... Day One

Day One:
We got the floor completed! You wouldn't think it would take so long... but it was hard getting the floor level and square...

Here's Isaac at our building site. He's so excited!!!

Elijah was cutting these big leaves for us to use as umbrellas!

Nailing the floor down.


The front porch!


(above) Elijah and Sam... using Sam's new driver! (below) Isaac is helping too!THE FINISHED FLOOR!!!

We are building a play house for the littles today...

Stay tuned for pics as we work!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

May your day be filled with feelings of Thankfulness...

Count your Blessings today...
Go ahead... try... I bet you can't even count them all!

My First Completed Knitting Project

A washcloth... It measures 9x10. I thought it was a square but I guess I should have done one more row of squares. Oh well.

I'm pleased with it. There are still a few bobbles but my stitching is getting smoother finally!

Now do I dare start those longies!? Or should I do that shawl for MaryVance first? hhmmm.... decisions, decisions, decisions!!

I'm Learning to KNIT

woohoo!!!

I've wanted to learn to knit for years and years but thought it would be too hard to learn.

One of the ladies on HearthKeepers suggested buying a 'teach a child to knit' book and going from there. So I did! I bought a 'learn to knit this purse' kit geared for ages 8+. I figured if it could teach a child to knit then Surely I could learn, right? I have a very hard time learning from written directions.

We left Tallahassee heading to Jacksonville two Fridays ago. It took me almost the entire time (over two hours) to figure out how to 'cast on' and 'knit'. I don't know how many times I pulled everything out and started over but I finally got it!!!

I had some camo yarn with me and that's what I was using to practice. I made a long rectangular piece and stitched it together and told Sam it was an ear warmer for him. He's such a dear. He said he loved it and he would ear it every day :-). I told him he didn't have to do that and he (inwardly) sighed... hahahaha

So I got some more varigated yarn -- I have a real thing for varigated yarn... and practiced some more! When I bought the yarn (and that would be at a WalMart on our way Home from Jacksonville...snicker) I bought a book about knitting... oh and I got some yummy bamboo needles.





I started with knitting each row. Then I knit a row and purled a row to create a 'stockinette' stitch. After I got the hang of that I decided to try ribbing. See what I REALLY want to learn to knit is longies and longies need ribbing so I had to practice ribbing, right? After the ribbing I did a few more rows of knit then purl.

Then I decided to play with cotton yarn. I think my needles were too small because it was too tight and I didn't like using cotton at all.

But I figured that Everyone uses cotton so it must just be me and I tried again. Bigger needles this time and I was conscious to keep it a little loose on the cast on.

I guess this would be a Sampler Washcloth... I knitted some stockinette to get the feel for cotton ...

There are still some bobbles but I'm getting the hang of it. But it was kinda boring (I think I have Crafters ADD...) so I thought 'what would happen if I knit five, purl five back and forth?

It made a soft of 'checkerboard' pattern. Isn't that cool!

Then I looked in my handy '26 Stitches to Knit' booklet (that I bought at yet another WalMart --snicker--) and thought I'd try the 'cluster rib' stitch. I did something wrong because it doesn't look like the book :rolling eyes:

And let's not forget the beginnings of a sock that I have cast on size 3 aluminum needles. No pic of that one. I don't like it. Of course it's in varigated yarn (red/white/blue). I don't like the long needles. And I can't really see the pattern well enough with the colors of the yarn. But the biggest issue is that the needles are too long. I went to WalMart (do you see a trend here) but they don't have short #3s. Sigh.

I did fail to mention a trip to Hancocks in there. They had yarn 50% off so I got some wool to use for my first longies attempt. All of their knitting supplies were 30% off so I got a few more pairs of bamboo needles, two different sizes of wooden circulars, some little cap things that keep the yard from falling off the needles when you sit it down to rush to the bathroom, some markers and I forget what else.

I think I'm addicted.

Oh and I never did make the purse....giggle.

Fourth Annual Fire Dog Day

Nov 13 is our Annual Fire Dog Day... This is a family holiday we created when we lived in Mississippi. Elijah called hot dogs 'fire dogs' because they are cooked in a fire (makes sense... especially when you are one and a half!) We roast hot dogs, make s'mores and watch a new movie. It's fun to create new family traditions!

DIY Dry Erase Board for CHEAP!

Tony 'built' this dry erase board for me :-). Well, I *guess* I will share with the children... hahahahaha!

It's 4'x8'. Huge! It's on the only solid wall in the dining room... errr... school room. I guess instead of it being a dining room we use for school it is really a school room we use for dining since we school more hours a day than we eat!

The wall before...

Here are close ups of the corners. More details at the end.

Mounted with mirror clips.

Okay, here is the story. I had this hankering for a Huge dry erase board. Tony said 'sure' and looked at office store online. They were very spendy... like $200 plus. Umm... There has to be a better (read: cheaper) way! I remembered *vaguely* something from somewhere about making one so off we go to Home Depot. Tony bought a 4'x8' sheet of white tileboard. In a rack above the tileboard were the strips of edging (he cut the mitered edges with a tin snip) and he bought mirror clips in the 'nails and screws' area.

Tileboard $11.97

Caps 4 @ $2.49 each $9.96

1/4 in Mirror clips 3 @ $1.96 each $5.88

GRAND TOTAL (incl tax) $30.31

Woohoo!!! I am so happy!!! I think I'll go write something now!

Sewing... A Quilted Project

I made this for a dear, sweet friend for her birthday... It's called a pinwheel.

I am not a quilter. I just kinda make it up as I go... Some day I'd like to learn how to Really quilt!!

More Pics from Goat Day!

I just found these on my memory stick. I didn't get to watch Sam and Luke do these because I was holding Joseph as he was napping.

Luke wanted to climb this wall last year but only made it half-way. He made it the whole time this year!

And Sam wanted to do this giant bouncing thing... What brave boys I have! :-)

We can't forget the Most Anticipated Activity of Goat Day... the Pig Chase!