Friday, October 30, 2015

It's Time for a Change

Kembia and Truitt share a room.  It was formerly the office, so no closet, but we have a dresser tucked behind the door.  It looked like this from the previous owners.

25531 615th St, Mantorville, MN 55955

We basically tossed in bunkbeds and called it a day.  The good news is that the walls are not wallpaper.

Every single day I look down the hallway and see this green.  And it drives me crazy.  I finally bit the bullet and painted the back wall black, and here is some of my inspiration for where I am going with it.

Black walls in a kids room can work like this black, white and colourful #kidsroom shows:
We definitely want to do some type of banner.

33 Ways to Decorate a Rental — On a Budget! | Home For Now:
Crosses with electrical tape on the white wall?  yes, please

Modern Periodic Table - Chemistry & Science Art Print
It's also going to have some type of science-chic (chic as in cool, not chic as in girl, because Truitt has to live in it too) theme going on.

wall art:
We totally have room for feathers, wood and leather!

Stay tuned, I am hoping to have it done in the next week or so.

Thursday, October 29, 2015

Those Dumb Cats

They would be Claire (white one) and Sherlock.  They do kind of look like one big cat blob in this picture.  Or maybe one cat with two heads.



















We call them dumb, but we love them a whole lot.  They love this tree, specifically, the top of it. Two seconds after I took this picture they were "fighting" in it.  Then they saw us and came shooting out of the tree to get loved up.

Their life is really tough.

Sherlock hated people when we first got him.  He would hiss and attack you all the time.  Claire was so tiny we didn't know if she would make it.  The runt of the litter at 8 weeks, she was way smaller than the palm of our hands.  She'd run away from us and be super reclusive.

I don't exactly know what happened, because you would think with the three littles in our family, they would have continued their "fight and run for their lives", but I am thinking that Moyz smothered them with love (literally smothered them, I am kind of surprised they are still alive), that they just eventually decided that people were awesome, especially the closer they were to you.

We've tried dogs in the past, more than I care to admit, but I think we really are cat people.

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Free 2016 Calendars

I print off a yearly calendar every year about this time and organize my life.  Kind of.  At least I try to organize my life.  There are some super fun ones that recently came out on Pinterest.  And they are all free.  My favorite kind.

CALENDAR 2016 3
This is the one that I printed off for 2016.  Super cute colors.  Get it here.


FREE Printable Calendar 2016 Minimalist/Monochrome Style
I like the simplicity of this black and white calendar, but the kiddos like color.


With bright pops of colour and a chic shapes and designs, the #Geometric #Calendar is another one of our most popular #freeprintables that we're excited about offering for the year #2016. Download yours now!
Love the bold graphics of this one.  If I hadn't already printed off the calendar I think this would have been my choice.  I still might succumb to it.

And just in case you didn't see anything you liked above, this lady put together 20 different calendar options!



 

Monday, October 26, 2015

E is for Eczema

You know how when kids are learning sounds and how to read?  A is for apple, etc.  Well to Truitt, E is for Eczema.  That's because Kembia developed severe eczema over the summer, and our days and nights have been filled with medicine and wet wraps.

I laughed entirely to hard at this.:

It started with some itchy bumps in her elbow.  Which quickly spread up her arms onto her chest and back.  When it migrated onto her face, I knew we had a major problem.  And she was super conscious about the bumps on her face.

I'd tried all sorts of salves and balms to help her but nothing worked.  We finally took her in where she saw a fantastic team of doctors and was diagnosed with what we already knew to be eczema.

We now have 4 separate medicines to use, two for when she's really bad, two for when she's sort of bad, and a fifth internal medicine that's kind of like Benadryl on steroids.  And we should probably be buying stock in Vaseline.

And then there's the wet wrap.  Or the baby burrito as we affectionately call it.

It goes something like this:  spread medicine on child, in the mean time have towel in the dryer, and long sleeve shirt soaking in warm to hot water.  Wring out shirt, put on child, wrap child in warm towel, sit for 30 minutes, slather in vaseline.

It sounds like some sort of elaborate beauty ritual.  Kembia loves it, which I think is so weird.  But it helps a lot.  We've gotten the eczema under control, but if we skip a wet wrap two days in a row, her eczema starts to come back very quickly.

We're a tad bit nervous about winter and all the dry weather coming up since eczema tends to be the worst then, but at least I feel like we have a fighting chance.  And finally good health insurance to help us along the way....

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

But It Can Buy Me A Boat

Flipping through the radio stations on a long drive we heard "the boat song".  And our children have been obsessed ever since.



We finally watched the video because they thought a "Yeti 110" was a gun because the lyrics then said it was filled with "silver bullets".

Nope.  Turns out a Yeti 110 is a cooler, and silver bullets are beer.

Oh well.  We still love the song.

Monday, October 19, 2015

Candid Classroom

This is how we mostly do school- at the dining room table. Sometimes the kids go out on the deck but with the walnuts dropping off it's not worth the risk right now.   Moyz was outside and Ava did not want her picture taken.






















Thursday, October 15, 2015

Moving to Florida to Avoid the Imperial System

Huh? Don't worry, I questioned Owen's logic too.

See we learned about the Imperial System (ounces, pounds, feet, inches, etc.,) vs. the Metric System (kilometers, millileters, liters, etc.)

Turns out the only countries in the entire world that use the Imperial System would be the United States, Liberia and Myanmar.  No wonder people hate Americans.

Liberia, Myanmar, and the United States are the only countries that don't use the metric system- 22 maps and charts that will surprise you - Vox:
A visual for everyone.

Owen's way to deal with this is "I'm moving to Florida to get away from the Imperial System."  Lord help that child.  He thinks Florida is a country.  Since we homeschool and Owen is currently going through the 50 states, we may have to spend slightly more time devoted to this!