Lady the gecko hunter

So here is our little Lady.

Actually she is not as little anymore. She is up to 17 pounds. She was a mere 5 pounds when we got her the first week in December.

But at 10 months they say she is practically full grown. Still so puppy like, we just love our Lady. She is the sweetest dog. But lately Lady has a new fascination. GECKOS. She is obsessed with them! Barks at them from the inside if she see them on the windows outside then begs to go out. Once outside she thinks she can bark them down. She watches their every move just hoping one will come low enough for her to reach.I'm afraid of what would happen if she did reach one...it wouldn't be to lady-like I'm afraid! Poor gecko.

Some day I'm gonna get that gecko!

If you have small kids and want a great dog, I highly recommend Cavalier King Charles Spaniels. Such a sweet breed that is just active enough to keep up with our crazy house but not so active that it causes harm. We have only had lady since Christmas but we can't imagine life without her....in fact all of us are a little nervous about leaving her for a week when we go to the beach. We love our little gecko hunting Lady!

While I was Facebooking...

I had already stopped blogging regularly before Facebook, but Facebook was the nail that sealed the blogging coffin for me for a while.  However, after a year or so of one sentence status updates and facebook marketing spam, I realized I really missed blogging. I'm now trying to make a blog comeback not so much for anyone else but me.  I need somewhere to record thoughts, and maybe get some feedback.   BUT in coming back to blog world, I have discovered that while I was facebooking blogs in general have become bigger, more business like and a whole lot more organized!  The blog world of my past centered around my little Mommy blog, Mike Copes' Blog, blogs of my friends, and the blogs of friends I met on other friends blogs. We were a blog family back in the day.  I love that blog family still. But blogging has really changed.

For instance...I was one of the first of my friends to link to Ree, the Pioneer Woman. Now a few years later her posts have thousands of comments, she has written a cookbook, a novel,  and they are pitching a movie of her life in Hollywood with Rhee Witherspoon playing her! WOW!!! Blog world has come a long way baby!!!

The blog world I have come back to is home to more professional, specialized type blogs for very subject under the sun.  The pro-blogs have HUGE readerships, give-a-ways, ads and post several times a week. The pro-blogs I love center around decor, design, DIY stuff and crafty things.  My favorite is written by a local friend of a friend, Kristi of Addicted 2 Decorating. (I haven't met Kristi yet but I feel sure we would be fast friends! :)  These more professional blogs are a great source inspiration, ideas and direction and they are just a few clicks away 24/7! LOVE THAT !!! So I added a new blog roll to the right with some of my favorite pro-blogs. Warning though, you can get lost on these sites for HOURS so click with caution.  ENJOY!!!

The Summer Project

So... I'm sort of  a project junkie.

It's like an addiction. I can't stop. Even when I want to stop, the ideas, they just pop in my head and haunt my dreams.

I always have a project or 12 going AND I seem to have a hard time with something they call finishing???

But let me be clear. I don't actually enjoy doing the projects. I love thinking them up. I love having them complete. The doing and actually making it happen...just a means to an end.

So until I can afford to pay someone else to do my bidding on my crazy schedules and whims, I'm a somewhat reluctant DIY'er.

This summer there has been only one big house project so far~ redoing the hall bath. And let me tell you folks, it was not just a fru-fru redo.  I forgot to take before pictures, (I'm really bad about that) but the wall paper was peeling off the wall...in fact it was gone in a few spots. And it was so Sandra. (The woman who had the house built in 1996 who sold it to us in 2002) It was not at all me, or us. We HAD lived with it like that for almost 9 years...so it was time!

Soooooooo,  one night after a date when the kids were gone Rob and I went crazy and tore all the wallpaper down. ( Isn't that how you and your spouse go crazy? :) Literally. At 11PM on a Thursday night we stripped the walls of the hall bath making our house 100% wallpaper free! Free, Free, Free at last!!!!! No more wallpaper and no more Sandra in my house!

But back to the bathroom... I had hoped to have the whole unplanned spur of the moment project completed  in 48 hours. Yeah. Rrrr-hight! Will I ever learn?  Once we ripped all the wall paper down,  I decided to change up the color scheme. Once the colors changed, well, everything had to change or be changed to fit. But, I wasn't scared. After 9 years of striped jewel toned wall paper, I was up for it!  But then, I got strep throat.  The kids came home. Ella Kate got it too. I had a major curtain crisis, and color issues, a hanging mishap, a few measuring mistakes, some shrinking hem lines... summer life picked up and well... My weekend project is almost complete, just two weeks later!!!

Below are the after shots I just took. There will probably be  more after shots and then maybe some  post after shots as I tend to have a hard time stopping. It's an addiction I tell you!

Notice EK is still in her PJ's and it's way, way after lunch. It's been one of those days! I will try to come back and explain some of these pics later.

Love being back in blog land, but taking baby steps...and I have to find a faster way to upload pictures! :)

P.S. Last night I decided I needed something more in that bathroom. I needed it to be something I could make (translation= no $ for this something but still feel I need it so I will resort to being crafty cause that's my best option.)  for the bathroom. I wanted this something to be a little formal but also kid friendly since this bath is used by kids 90 5 of the time.  So here is where I am on this project.  Basically, I'm wallowing in a sea of great options but drowning in  indecision AND I'm still in my PJs, at 3:30 PM! Gotta love SUMMER!!!  Project completion pictures will be coming soon.

P.P.S. Oh yeah! My day was not a total loss! I finally got around to putting something in the set of four glass add-your-own-photo coasters I gave my Mom for Mothers day. These 3 little profiles and then this cute little saying that I adapted from  a cheesy grandma frame I saw yesterday at Kirklands. :) She loved them!

The Birthday Princess

Ella Kate's 4th Birthday started out with the breakfast of her choosing.. Daylight Donuts!

She got to go to Build a bear and create her new friend Amy Elly witha gift card from Kolby & Rhett.

That night we had a little family party withthe five of us, Sari, Mama K and Papa!

She loved her birthday!

The next day she got to take princess crown cookies to celebrate her birtday at MDO.

That night was her big birthday party at The Jumping Party. Lots of Pink going on here!

After Jumping we had pizza and cake.

Kolby Sam and Abigail were great sports and big helpers!

The Pull string pinata...the jumping place was not thrilled with this but the kids sure were!

PRESENTS!!!

Ella Kate had a fantastic birthday! The next day came her big present from Sari...

Ella Kate with her new Hot pink suit case!

The Bat Boat

The Zelker Express

Bowling

Kissing frogs, 4ths, and kids....

I honestly can not remember the last time I sat down and blogged. I will blame it on Facebook but really it's just that life got a little crazy about the time I burned out on blogging. But I miss having this place to sit and write out more than a half sentence status at a time. So maybe I will come back to blogging.  At least for tonight I will pucker up to this blog and hope it becomes a principle in my days again. :) (Maybe I should add a cornball warning?)

As I type on this the eve of the 4th of July 2010, my mind is running back through the  4th of July's in my past. I remember so many in San Angelo at the church lake house watching fireworks, wet with lake water, eating homemade ice cream and hanging out with our church family. It was one of my favorite nights of the year. I have always LOVED fireworks! As a teen I remember spending the day on different friends ski boats in that lake. In between those times I remember quite a few fun family reunions at Lake Brownwood at the Sandy Beach Lodge on the 4th with my big family and the Stewardsons. We slept on bunk beds, played in the lake, some years we boated,  always heard lots of family stories, played cards, cooked and cooked... very fun times! I remember two 4th of July's in Nairobi, Kenya both spent at Gringos and then the Boldins playing spades. Then Rob, baby Kolby and I had a few Ranger game 4th of July's. When I was 7 months prego with Rhett we sat outside the Ranger game by some railroad tracks with the Jenkins to see the fireworks...Mark and Rob were convinced a train was going to get us..but it didn't! Remember that Susan? There have been lots of fun family fourths in China Spring. The one I am remembering right now is the one where I was trying to stay rested and cool while waiting to go in to the hospital the next morning to deliver baby Ella Kate! I blogged the night before. One of my favorite things about my pregnancy with Ella Kate was that she was my blog baby! So many of my memories of that pregnancy were blogged here and from time to time I love to look back on them! Ella Kate has changed the tone of my 4th of July celebrations as now I'm also getting ready for a birthday party!

Hard to beleive that in 48 short hours our Ella Kate will be 4, although most people say "you mean she's just 4?" Ella Kate is bigger than her age...and not in size! She is just bigger than life. She exasperates me faster and is by far my hardest child to deal with in many ways, yet she is also the funniest and makes me laugh more than any person on the planet.  I have a very hard time keeping a straight face around Ella Kate. I find myself quoting EK quite often and telling EK stories!  (Oh no!  I have turned into one of those Moms!) Ella Kate loves people. She loves her family,  her siblings, her friends, her dog, her teachers, her friends. Ella Kate is so happy to see people who are "in her world' as she calls it and is known for her "tight hugs."  When I asked her who to invite to her birthday party she literally tossed out about 40 names! How many almost 4 year olds do that? It is no secret that Rob and I weren't really planning on Ella Kate...but I am so glad God gave us Ella Kate! That girl is something else. She has blessed us all.  

I feel that way about all three of my kids. Biggest blessing to Rob and I since finding each other and loving Jesus. How do they grow up so fast? I think I want to talk a little about my kids.  Is that OK? :) 

Kolby. Miss Kolby is not a little girl anymore. At age 12 she is tall and thin and a master texter!  She wears the same size shoe as I did when she was born.  She LOVES finally being  old enough to be  in the youth group and loves dance.  Her long range dance goal is to be a Goaltender (drill team)  in High School.  Heaven help me, I'm already a bit nervous about that try-out and the fact that it is less than two years away!!! Breathe. Smile... Kolby is a such a great girl! Despite her issues with dyslexia, she  has yet to have a year end average below an A and loves, loves, loves to read. She is really excited about AP English next year. She also loves art but has decided to take choir and speech next year to broaden her horizons.  Kolby looses her shoes everyday. Many times we have to go in and basically shovel out her room. She is getting better at it, but it doesn't come naturally. I get that. Sadly she has also inherited my creative spelling..in fact her's is even MORE creative! God bless her! :) Kolby is a good hearted sweet girl who wants to please people and do the right thing. She wants to please God and is growing in that relationship everyday.  Sometimes I wonder how this girl got here? Where is my baby? Her sister looks so much like her that it's hard for me to believe my first baby is this sweet young women and I have another one coming up behind her. I know that God has great things in store for Kolby. 

And my Rhett, well, he is a boys boy. Loves sports, video games, sports, video games, a few other sports and did I mention games? :) Rhett is my easiest and hardest. He is a self maintaining type kid. Up and dressed before the rest of us everyday. Goes to bed when he is tired, no matter what is going on. Reminds me about things due at school etc. Does his homework when he gets home and doesn't balk too badly on his chores. But oh he has a temper! WOAH! And mixed with his competitive nature Yowza! When he doesn't want to do something, talk about something, or admit something., it's almost impossible to budge him. Don't know where that stubborn streak comes from? But Rhett is good natured 99% of the time and keeps it in check. Rhett loves school and HATES to ever be sick. He is a  very smart kid.  He even won a spelling bee this year~ for crying out loud! That is not in his DNA I assure you!!! Rhett can make friends with a stick, but is very loyal to his best friends and isn't one to go out and seek new people. His feelings are not easily hurt and he isok to let someone else be the star.  He loves his sisters and his family...loves our dog Lady! If he weren't mine, Rhett would still be one of my favorite kids because he is funny stuff. Just ask him to do his Gibby dance or impersonate an alien lizzard! Love that boy!

Man that was fast! I sit down and the words just pour out! But I need to get to bed so that's it for tonight. Nice to be home here in blog world.  Be back soon!  In the mean time Happy Independence Day America and happy Birthday my little Miss Independent! :) Night!