green

If you ask me about my favorite color I would say, "Mustard Yellow or Brown or the two of those together or Reds and Pinks." not green. But if you come visit me at my new awesome house on the lake in Georgia, you might disagree. We painted our bottom kitchen cabinets green... i've always wanted green cabinets. I thought just a "splash" of green won't hurt anybody. And since the rest of the house is not green, it won't be too overwhelming. But I'm opening boxes and boxes of GREEN! I have TONS of green accent pieces. I guess I thought our last house needed a few "splashes" of green here and there. So now I've got green cabinets and green everything else...

So I like green. That's o.k. Here's a peek at my new art space. It's in my closet.

My painting space is in the garage (Charlie no likey the paint in the house... I'm too messy) so this will be sewing and scrapbooking and dreaming up ideas space. It's cozy. O.K. happy cold Thursday! My family is coming to visit tomorrow!!!!

things are lookin up

 I've been walking back and forth across the house... from the garage to the bedrooms and up the ladder and over the boxes... crazyness! But it is really fun. I love decorating houses! Yesterday the kiddies rode bikes in the driveway all afternoon while I single-handedly assembled an enormous shelving unit in the garage. For that accomplishment I would like to thank the following... 1. Charlie, for having a long meeting that took you away from your shelf-assembling duties. 2. My MeeMaw, from which I inherited my busy-body/ project-finishing nature. 3. Yerba Mate tea.

P.S. If you spend a large chunk of the afternoon assembling a shelving unit, and your really cute 2 year old is very quiet for most of that time... she's probably eating a melted lollipop off the floor of the garage. Now you know.

little dean turns five

Me: Good morning, Dean! You're five today! Happy Birthday!

Little Dean: um, no. I don't think I'm five yet.

Me: Yes you are! It's February 22nd and it's your birthday and you're five now.

Little Dean: It's my birthday right now?

Me: yes

Little Dean: (long pause... then runs down the hall) MILLIE WAKE UP! I'M FIVE AND I CAN RUN FAST!

So happy birthday to my firstborn child. The funniest person I know. We're having a party on Saturday, but we celebrated family-style today. I asked him what kind of cake he wanted and he said a King Cake (which is like a Louisiana Mardi Gras cake... nobody in Georgia knows what a king cake is... sad really). So I made a King Cake-ish cake out of puff pastry and chocolate chips and icing and sprinkles. It was yum.

Also, a delightful little lady gave little Dean five dollars yesterday at church for his Birthday. So today I took him to the Dollar Store where he then purchased several Hotwheels cars and a green Hula Hoop. Necessities for a five year old cool guy. Happy Birthday, little Dean! My special friend.

hello my name is tired

Hi! Just a friday morning reminder that i am still here. I've been unpacking boxes from the time i wake up every morning until the time i collapse on the bed at night. I'm taking lots of pictures. I promise a better bloggy by the end of the weekend. Here are a few sunshiny things that are keeping me inspired on friday...

i like to move it move it

Here are a few highlights from moving day...

The floor guy... we'll call him Bert (since that's his name) is literally still putting floor down. Slowest floor putter-downer ever, but such a nice guy. We told him he could spend the night with us tonight if he wanted, but we've got to move in NOW because we're about to go bananas living out of a suitcase. So I think he worked all night last night and maybe he'll be done sometime... only the good Lord knows. More pics tomorrow. Move something today!

hearts for my heart

I made my Charlie a card for lovey, kissy, heart day. He was out late last night installing appliances into our new kitchen and I surprised him with this when he got home. It's made out of construction paper and markers and glue and scissors and love from my heart.

I attached it together like a book. It's now sitting on Charlie's desk in his new office. I like him. FUN FACT: I spent 72 minutes cutting out Millie G.'s hair. o.k. maybe that's not a fun fact. maybe that's a crazy, weird, obsessed with cutting paper into circles fact.

what kind of sweetie pie things are you working on this week?

before and after... diaper box

Here's how you can get one more use out of those diaper boxes before chunking them. It will also occupy your children on cold, rainy mornings. Open both ends of the box, then open the corner seem and unfold. I drew a building, a house, a gas station, and a store on each inside panel of the box, then let the kiddies go to town coloring.

Little Dean drew our whole family at the gas station and lots of ants. I finished by drawing a road on the bottom flaps and there you have it! I LOVE making art with my children. It's magic.

jumping

Trampolines are the best. So I've been working on my 2010 "gymless" workout plan. I'll share the whole plan with you soon. Very exciting. I've been thinking of ways to exercise for 45 minutes 6 days a week... without going to the gym (as we may have to hold off on the gym membership until someone buys our house and we don't have to make 2 house payments each month). So anyway, yesterday, I thought it would be fun do some trampoline jumping. I used to be good at trampoline jumping... I mean REALLY good. However, incase you're curious... if you ever decide to have 3 babies in under 3 years, you might not be a really good trampoline jumper anymore. It has something to do with all of your inside body parts (especially the bladder) never returning to any kind of normal function.

So I proudly climbed onto the trampoline (which was a workout in itself) and ordered the kids to get down so "Mama could show them a few tricks." They were happily swinging and watching me. I jumped up and down exactly 4 times. On the fifth time... I jumped up (very high)... I came down. As I landed, I felt (might want to cover the eyes of the children for this part) a GUSH, very similar to when my water broke with the second baby, but it wasn't water... it was pee. And lots of it. I even went to the bathroom before I got on the trampoline to ensure that this would not happen, but believe me... it still happened! The kids were frozen, just looking. Their faces were priceless... sort of a disgusted, shocked, almost laughing face. So I gracefully dismounted and ran inside to change clothes.

After regaining composure, I decided to do some exercises on the monkey bars because that would be a little more gentle on my internal organs. Happy exercising!

the other night

We went to a little retreat with some of our new peeps from church. We got to spend the night in an awesome cabin with... brace yourself... NO CHILDREN! It was fun and refreshing. Now we're back. I like Sundays. I really do.

Smile today! Eat some chicken and rice and smile!

beautiful star

Baby Stella Belle is two years old today. She is such a delight. We still aren't moved into our house, and her adorable brown tutu is buried deep in the bottom of a box somewhere... so I had to let go of a few of my crazy obsessive birthday party rules. It's o.k. (just this once...) I have a strict rule about "character" birthday parties. I prefer themes or colors or something that reflects who the child is. HOWEVER, my very nice mother in law came in the door with this fancy, ruffly, bright Dora dress with shoes to match and I absolutely could NOT resist... I mean honestly... it is awesome.

Also, I usually spend a large chunk of my alloted party money for a fabulous cake. But I haven't found a party-worthy bakery here AND most of the party money was used for light fixtures for the house SO... I made a cake. It was pink, with my homemade buttercream icing. I stuck some star shaped lollipops in the cake for cousins who came over to help us celebrate. Stella Belle means "beautiful star" so I always like to have stars at her party. The cake was delicious. Today is spectacular. Happy birthday dear Stella Belle. Happy birthday to you.