Watch Out

Two new yellow belts are ready to protect themselves.

Under Construction

Coming Soon:  A Treehouse

Baking Cookies

Last weekend we finally made our last batch of cookie mix that we received a while ago. (We had made and eaten the first batch months ago.) As usual, it was a family affair.

Gwyn and Kevin added the ingredients, Colin wrote down the list of ingredients, and daddy assisted them in all of that. My primary job was taking pictures and eating the cookies. :)

Family Game Night

Last Saturday night we had a game night with the kids. It was better then we expected! I highly recommend it.  Kevin said "It was a blast."

The first game we played was Stay Alive. It was easy for the boys to figure out, and Gwyn was able to move for me. The game moved fast, and set up and clean up was simple. We played two rounds, and both games came down to K3 and Colin. K3 won both games.

 

The second game we played was charades. Since the boys can read, they chose to be on a team together. They were quite excited about being a team against the parents. All the cards had animals on them. This was the best time of the night! I was surprised how creative the boys were on their own when acting out animals. Colin crawled on all fours, layed down, crawled, layed down. We couldn't figure out what it was until K3 yelled "cat!" He was right. K3 explained to me that Colin was walking then napping. Because that is what cats do! Then K3 had to be a fish, and he was shaking his little bottom. Adorable. Gwyn even played snake, and without any help with acting, she crawled very low and stuck her tongue in and out. Her brothers guessed it. The award for acting goes to Colin though, when he tried to get his brother to guess cow. Crawling and eating wasn't enough, so Colin starting milking himself on his belly. The boys won, but that was because Colin was the score keeper. At one point was all had guessed the animals, but somehow the score was 5 to 9. Hmmmm...

The third game was played was Uno, which Colin won. A great game for kids. The last game was Sorry! It took a while for the game to end, since we were all waiting for the exact card to get our last pieces into home.

The entire night was so much fun. There were those moments where we didn't play as hard as we should, which in one case meant that Kevin (dad) didn't get Colin out in Sorry!, only to have Colin get him out on the very next play with a different piece. It was nice to see Kevin being nice to the kids like that, since he was brutal to me. (In the first game Stay Alive, I was working on making sure Colin's last marble was safe while my hubby was slowly eliminating my marbles. He seemed quite proud until I told him what I was doing.) We can not wait until the next game night!

So, there was a thunderstorm last night.

A Quiet Place To Write

Apparently, this was the best place. (I don't apologize for the number of pictures. She is adorable, and was actually quiet and still. I CAN TAKE AS MANY AS I WANT!)

Gwyn is very into writing now. She will ask how to spell things, and then write the letters down one at a time. After each letter she asks if she wrote it correctly.  She even folds them up into notes to be delivered. 

Of course, all of her letters are little squiggles, but it is no less cuter.

Wallpaper Removal

We lucked out. As I pointed out here, Gwyn's room still had the border up. I am slightly motivated to get stuff done around the house (I am hanging pictures, people!!!!) and I want to decorate her room, so this was the next step.

This is what the room looked like. Not great.

The trim never bothered me when it had matching decorations around the room. But I find it so ugly now.

When we bought the wallpaper, it said that it was easy removal. It was made to be so easy to remove that it really didn't stay up all the way for the 5 years we had it up.

There were many places where it was already peeling off.

 So I read that the best way to remove easy-off wallpaper was with a dryer. Just heat it up and peel it off. I am not sure if I believed it, but I tried it. I went to a corner where I knew it was peeling, and just started pulling. Sometimes it would stick and I would try to heat it up.

This wasn't that bad. I could scratch that off. But then I just kept pulling and it came off very easily!

Just little bits stuck here and there!

Aaannnndddd then I hit this wall.

 So this is how it stayed for a week until I could come back to it. Did I mention that someone was "wrestling" in the old wallpaper?

 So this Sunday I got my gear and was ready for a fight. Here are my tools:

A bowl of warm water, a wash cloth and a scraper.

I also added a cool bag that I stuck in my pants, so that I could put the small scraps somewhere other than dropping them on the floor.

But let me go back to the scraper. It is the coolest tool. It is for scraping pots and dishes, but it was perfect for this job! I could scrape away without worry of damaging the wall. I use this to clean my stove, and counters, just basically all the time! (This is the first trip it has made out of the kitchen. If you want one for the house, I would recommend getting two, one for just the kitchen.)

So I set to work, and it was crazy easy. All I did was get the wallpaper wet and scrape it off. Then I just wiped any extra glue off the walls. This process was so easy that I would reconsider wallpaper trim again, if I ever find any I like. It was all gone in about 20 minutes. The longest part was refilling the water to keep it warm.

One wall with the trim all removed! (The other walls look the same as the other photos, minus the minute bits of trim.)

Now we get to paint her room and finish decorating. Gwyn only says that she wants "purple like my curtains." I am thinking something like these colors, with something around her bed like this. (I had seen this and wanted it, but Kevin said it was stupid. But then Gwyn saw Olive's and LOVED it. What do Daddy's know, anyway?)

Best Big Brothers. Ever.

 "I want to cut your hair!"