the Community Car Wash

I love my neighborhood.  I cannot say enough about it.  It just rocks for several reasons.  But the biggest one is I have the coolest neighbors in the world.  And they all have the coolest kids who all happen to be around the same age as my kids.  I could go on and on.  But this post is about a car wash which like a lot of things around here turned into a neighborhood affair.  If you're in the front yard then you are just asking for company especially my husband who happens to be a favorite of the children around here.  He really is awesome with them.  He just decided to wash his car Saturday after our morning soccer game.  He was going to let my kids help him.  And then of course some of the neighborhood kids saw him and they wanted to help...and so it turned into a community car wash.  Even another dad helped him out.  As you can see these little girls are also on Celia's soccer team so it looks like they are doing a charity car wash with their uniforms still on from the game.  They worked so hard getting "Mr. Mark's" car clean.

This mean little monkey had to help too...

A reward for all their hard work.  We pay in popsicles around here.

my monkey

no matter what your views are on evolution i think everyone can agree that most children are part monkey, some more than others.  my first child for instance has very little monkey in her.  my second on the other hand is nearly all monkey.  i don't know why i am surprised since my husband can often be found climbing on top of the house or in a tree just for the fun of it.  today i was upstairs for maybe a couple of minutes getting something for my daughter.  when i got back downstairs i find my son has climbed on a chair, onto the counter, and over the stove top to get to my utensils which he has spread out on my counter.  note the knives were kept right next to the utensils so he just as easily could have had those out.  i say "were" kept because they now have a new home on top of my refrigerator.  hopefully that will keep them save until he figures out how to get up there.  my doctor was telling me a story about someone she knew who's daughter climbed on the fridge to get to their knives.  so i maybe have a few months before i have to store the knives in the safe.

so part of this is my fault because i left the chair upright.  normally all the chairs in our house have to look like this.  if they are left upright kye will use to them to climb onto the table/counter top etc.  like i said, he is quite the monkey.  this wasn't even his first incident of the morning.  i also found him on top of my table in my bedroom this morning throwing my picture frames onto the floor.  seriously!?!

Celia's Purple Big Girl Room

since i am playing a little catch-up on here i was debating whether or not to post on my daughter's big girl room i finished for her last month.  since it was a major project for me i decided it was worth the post.  celia was 3 in april and still in her crib.  she liked her crib.  i could really see no reason to put her in a regular bed and i knew getting a new bed for her would mean redoing her whole room and therefore loads of work for me.  don't get me wrong.  i love doing this sort of stuff.  but i knew it was going to be super time intensive.  and i was right.  anyway, her doctor suggested i look into getting her a big bed so the room transformation process began.  this is what we started with...

celia is a HUGE fan of the color purple so that's where i started.  her only other input was that she wanted horses and kitties in the room.  i had visions of cutsie pink and purple ponies and kitties all over the wall, yuck, that is not my style.  she may have liked it, but, sorry, yuck.  i have to see this room everyday too.  so i started out looking all over for fabrics.  the fabric was super hard to find.  but finally i found some cool vintage fairytale fabrics online with violets, pinks, golds and oranges.  i took her room colors from these fabrics.  i ordered a few, but only ended up using them for a few pillows in her room.  one happens to have a cat on it.  to get more horses and kitties in the room i found some horse statues at hobby lobby and home goods, spray painted them white and put them on her shelf.  i also took photos of her at my parents' place with the horse and cat and blew them up for the walls.  these turned out to be her favorite things in the room of course.  here's the final product...

i spent countless hours shopping, sanding, priming, painting, reupholstering, and sewing for this room.  my mom is always a big help.  she's the one who sews the pillows and curtains for me.  my husband and i ended up painting the walls after our painter didn't show.  i really didn't think i would like the purple walls, but it turned out very pretty.  here are a few before and afters...

this was already in her room.  i bought it when i was college.  i repaired some of the damaged wood, painted it a lighter version of the wall paint then antiqued it with rub and buff.

i found this chair at an antique story in my hometown in oklahoma.  it's actually cute red, but that wouldn't have looked very good in her room.  reupholstering this guy wasn't easy, definitely a 2-person job, thanks mom!

and i have to mention the pillow on the chair.  it's a copy i did of this one i found in "house beautiful" magazine for a whooping $650. yes, you read that right.  my version cost me less than $10 to make.  it just took a little time to cut out all those felt flowers.  i actually want to go back and add some more little ones to it, but i just haven't found the time.

and i missed getting a before picture of the ottoman before my mom and i started taking it apart, but this is what it looked like mid process.  we reupholstered it in an orange outdoor fabric with purple buttons and then i painted the legs white.  getting those buttons on was not easy.  thanks again mom!

as you can see celia approved which was a really good thing because there was no way i was doing all this again :)  this room is going to have to last her for a while.

lucky #7

well it's official, i am a "soccer mom".  celia decided she wanted to play soccer this year with the rest of her little friends from our neighborhood.  nearly her whole team lives within walking distance from us.  as usual celia is the youngest and smallest.  but we are so proud that she is out there running around with the other girls and trying really hard.  the name the girls settled on for the team is the "unicorns".  i ordered little unicorn patches off the web for all the girls to sew on their jerseys, so cute, the patches anyway, the jerseys i'm not so sure about.  sorry, these are not the best pictures.  and i am blaming it on the ubber bright sunlight along with the bright fluorescent jerseys reflecting orange on the girls.  i might like the team colors better if i wasn't brought up to hate orange and black being the huge Sooner fan i am.  at least the girls make it look cute.

madeline

i have 1 brother and he has 1 daughter, madeline.  this is the only cousin my children have ever known.  she's 11, yes only 11 and this stunning!  i love her dearly.  she is wonderful with my children and just a super awesome kid.  i am constantly "practicing" my photography on my kids and every now and then i get a little bored with that and borrow someone else as my model.  i convinced madeline to let me practice on her at my parents' house this summer.  it was a last minute idea.  all she had there was a t-shirt and shorts so i ran into "town" to the local consignment shop and picked her out an outfit.  isn't it cute?  i may be more proud of the outfit i put together for her than the pictures... no i really LOVE these shots.  and isn't my parents' place the perfect backdrop for photos?  i really wish i could just move their whole ranch to houston with us.  that would be perfect.  anyway, this post was about madeline.  isn't she gorgeous???

some of celia's favorite guys... pokie and poppa

these 2 photos have to be a couple of my all time favorites.  celia and her poppa take great pictures together.  she could ride on this horse all day long.  pokie is an old rodeo horse.  i believe my dad told me he's 29.  dad got him just for his grand kids to ride.  and his name fits him perfectly.  i think he starts sweating when he sees celia coming.  he'd prefer to spend his golden years grazing in the pasture.

the happiest place on earth...

i have lots of catching up to do on here so i'll start with some photos from the summer.  i am certain if you ask my children if they would rather spent a week in disney world with mickey and friends riding rides etc or a week with my mom and dad on their ranch in oklahoma that it would not be a contest.  my kids LOVE my parents' place.  they go from morning til night playing with the cats, checking the cows, riding "pokie" the horse, gardening, riding the tractor, riding the mule.  they have a blast.  my parents pretty much drop everything they are doing and give my children undivided attention.  why wouldn't they love it here?  i LOVE it here.  while they are playing at being country kids i get to read books, something i do not get the time to do at home.  we got to go there twice this summer.  the 7 hour rode trip is not fun, but so worth it.  i have found that leaving at 3am is the only way to go.  here are a few shots of my kiddos just hanging out on the ranch.   aww...i'm already ready to go back.

hi

ok, so i've been wanting a blog for a while.  i'm addicted to reading other peoples' blogs.  and i probably do not have time for this.  i mean there's already email, facebook, a website for my kids etc.  but i have all these photos that i'm sure my friends on facebook get tired of seeing and plenty stories behind most of them so here i am.  i might not have any readers, but at least i know i will enjoy my own blog.  i hope you do too :)