Ta-da!!!

Get it? We were still under construction yesterday… toldja to read carefully :)

Our train table has become a somewhat temporary jobsite.  I made this reasonably easy to store away when not in use.

The gravel yard: coffee grounds and sawdust

Construction work is serious business.

And no, the blue painters tape is not an accent piece…our train table actually has very small holes all the way around the outside for add on toys that we don’t have.  I’m a little bit crazy, but not plain stupid.  I covered up all those already dust filled holes.

We’re planning to go and collect some small rocks to add to our site, we just haven’t gotten to it yet.

I can’t take credit for this awesome idea though, you can read more about it here.  I borrowed the general idea, and then kind of went a different direction toward the end.  This guy made more of a rock quarry.  My patience with the project was wavering by the time it came to painting, so I gooped sand, brown paint and glue together and smeared it everywhere!  It definitely achieved the textured, yet not too messy appeal I was going for.  I do recommend his cutting technique for the styrofoam.  You know, unless an indoor snowstorm just appeals to you.  In that case, stabbing a bean bag chair will render approximately the same result.

3 Comments

Project X, as it has been nicknamed is nearly complete.  So these will probably be your final hints.  I curious to see if anyone can figure it out while it is still under construction.

Guess this sort of blows the iceberg theory out of the water ;)

Yes, we did this on purpose.

Final hint: Read carefully.

1 Comment

I cleaned up a small mess before taking this picture.

2 Comments

Who’s up for a good mystery?  Any guesses what in the world we are up to this week?

1 Comment

Tsk tsk.  My poor neglected blog.  You know it has been too long when you have to log into wordpress to access your blog’s dashboard.  It doesn’t “remember” who you are (your saved login info).  And your husband asks, “When are you going to blog again?”  Two days ago.

So, a little criteria for reading this:

  • If you are a dentist, DON’T
  • If you value your teeth, DON’T
  • If you like to remain cavity free, DON’T
  • If you prefer to avoid sugar induced comas, DON’T
  • If you are on a diet, lord knows, DON’T
  • If you’ve read all this and still just don’t care, proceed with caution, and don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Gather your ingredients: honey, cinnamon, butter (duh, you pretty much got that from the title), and powdered sugar.  Y’all stop looking at Civil War era mixer.  She’s a beauty, isn’t she?

I’ve experimented a bit with the recipe, as the honey taste was a bit strong in the first recipe.  I used a scant half cup of honey, 2.5 teaspoons of cinnamon, 1 cup of sugar and two sticks of butter.  Just dump and mix.  No special instructions.  The butter will have a nice, soft (spreadable!) whipped consistency when you’re done.

That’s all, after that, just enjoy the rush.  Warning: you may receive unreasonable demands and/or threats that you make more immediately, when supplies are approximately half depleted.

2 Comments

This past week, our backyard turned into grand central.  Several of the neighborhood kids, who seemingly are free to roam the neighborhood, took up residence on our deck.  We are glad to have the company, but our neat and tidy sandbox turned to chaos.  And it quickly became apparent that the biggest (and most expensive) hit, the moon sand, was being dispersed through the cracks in the deck at an alarming rate.

The sandbox

The whole area around the table with the moon sand box looks like this:

After a little research online, I stopped by Walmart last night and for the grand total of $1.75 for two boxes of cornstarch, I made my own moon sand.  It is a bit messier than the real stuff I think, but for a small fraction of the price.  You combine water, cornstarch and play sand.  The only difference is this sand does dry out.  You have to add a little water each time.

The darker models are moon sand, the lighter is my homemade sand

2 Comments

Oh yeah, he’s gonna love em.

2 Comments

Keeping in mind this is my first time ever carving a three dimensional cake, and my second time ever working with fondant, I don’t think he came out half bad!

He definitely looks best from the front (no he’s not missing a side view mirror – he’s an old car, thus he only had one!)

The side…eh…not overly pleased, but I can see where I made some mistakes in shaping now.

His roof came out great because of the rippled sunroof.  The stripes should have extended a little further.

4 Comments

And there’s a lot of them, you know, since you’ve been so patient.  That’s my story and I’m sticking with it.

The name on his tag is Ember.  Ember is a dalmatian that works with a clown in a fire safety education program.  I asked him what name he wanted on his tag, and he chose Ember.

Funny expression

Peekaboo

A flower for mommy

He wanted to play in the leaves, and I just went with it.  Glad I did because it turned up some cute pictures.

Ready…aim…

…fire!

It actually didn’t take all that long to pick most of the mess off before we left.

His tail.  Just because.  It is cute.

One of my favorites.  But I have a lot of favorites!

6 Comments

IT’S DONE!! IT’S DONE!!  IT’S DONE!!

I cannot wait to see it on him.  If I had been paid minimum wage for the hours I worked on this thing, it would be selling for about $300 bucks!  I just finished gluing the spots on the hood and sewing on the ears.  Procrastinate much?  A couple jokes came out of the whole process.  Scott came home yesterday to this (minus the spots on the hood):

He was like “Um, honey?  Do you just not like the bear?”  I replied, “Well it wasn’t like I could put a plastic bag over the kid’s head to glue spots on.”

This should give you some idea why you haven’t heard from me in several days.  And that’s just a small percentage.

Caleb and I picked out a red collar at Walmart the other day.  Yes, right out of the pet section.  And yes I did get a few strange looks trying collars on my toddler.  Scott said, “Are you gonna get him a leash too?”  Um.  Yeah.  I can see that now.

“Hello, child services?  Yeah these people just showed up at my door trick or treating.  I know the kid was dog and everything, but I think they took it a little too far.  Do you consider a leash and collar around his neck endangerment?”

That would go over well I’m sure.  So that’s a negative on the leash.

Caleb also just so happened to get this patriotic necklace from the children’s museum a few months ago.  It has a plastic disc on it that can be opened up so that you can draw on the paper inside.  It was on a red white and blue ribbon for the fourth.  So I took the disc off the ribbon because it will make the PERFECT tag for his collar!  I am so anxious to put it on him, but I don’t want to risk doing so too early since I literally don’t have time to reglue any spots!  Sorry the pictures have taken so long!  It wouldn’t be made by me if it wasn’t finished at the last possible second.  I did manage to squeeze in four episodes of Will and Grace last night when I should have been finishing it though ;)

3 Comments

Next Page »