Decorating Oops

I attempt to work on a project most days during Scout's naptime.  Somedays this doesn't happen due to cooking/cleaning/laudry/sick kids/errands/bill paying/Olympics/facebook/email.  You know all the other stuff that fills my day.

Today I decided to tackle the master bedroom curtains.  Since we have lived almost a month without any type of window covering I was getting desperate.  I sorted through the fabric and old curtains and decided for now to use a window treatment we used 2 houses ago.  Basically sheer curtains with a type of fake valance on the top.   I completed the 3 windows in the bedroom and they look OK, not great, but at least now there is not a free peep show for the neighbors.

   So then I had one more slightly different color set of sheers.  These were left over from some previous house.  They were going into the closet, so didn't really need to match exactly. I was just hoping for some privacy in there.  I hung the curtain rod and then hung the curtains.  I stood back and started to laugh.

Did you see it?  How about a closer look.

They are just about a foot short... so now I need to find another solution to the closet peep show.  Maybe for now I will leave the short ones up.  At least they aren't laying on the floor of my sewing room anymore.

Decorating

I was debating putting up pictures of the new house, but decided against it.  Partly because the house is still partially furnished and sparsely decorated.  I will post pictures of stuff gradually as I show off the curtains that will eventually be finished and the other projects that I want to complete around the house.

My favorite part of this house is that I have a sewing room/office  right off the kitchen.  It is nice to be able to sew while dinner is cooking and still be able to supervise kids.  My biggest challeng will be trying to keep it a little bit neat since everyone can see my works in progress.  Earlier this week it looked like this.  It is only slightly better now.

My first project is one that Princess started.  She is interested in sewing, so I follow her lead and let her create what she wants.  Her latest project is embroidery.  She finished this. (sorry about the poor picture)  It is a butterfly she drew and then embroidered.

I put it in a frame and then created a paper pieced lighthouse (Thomas Point Light) to add to a matching frame.

 

So now there is one more frame to fill.  It has an old construction paper project in it now, but I need to put something else in it.  It is nice to have something on the wall of my sewing room. 

Air and Space Museum

We got to be tourists and headed to the Air and Space Museum, but not the normal one on the Mall in DC.  We went to the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy center on the Virginia side.  It was amazing, bigger than the museum on the mall and lots more plans.  We did not know it in advance but we showed up on a special weekend where all sorts of planes were that people had flown in for the day.  Including the President's helicopter.  It was all pretty cool.  It was more crowded than usual but totally worth it.

My favorite - The Discovery... super cool to see this up close.  It is a little bit bigger than I expected.

This is the tail and the tiles that you used to hear them talk about all the time on the news.  Those tiles are small.

 My patriotic girl.  I just love this picture of her looking cute.

 My girls playing airplane... lots of fun for little ones, going down the runway.

 This was outside on the runway. They were allowed to climb in some of the planes and move the controls to see what happened.  The owners of these plans were standing around talking to us and were some really cool people.  There was even a wing walker they were able to talk with.

 The Air force had a plane there that the kids got to climb in.  We laughed because it was an Air Force plane, but the crew was mostly Navy.

At the end of the day, the battery on the camera died, so I don't have pictures of Port Discovery Children's museum, The National Aquarium in Baltimore, The Patuxent Natural Wildlife Refuge Center, The visitor center at the Naval Academy, Downtown Annapolis, or Quiet Waters Park. We went to a lot of different place too, but I can't remember them all.

  Each place we went had some really cool stuff, but we don't have any pictures.  Actually it was kind of nice to be able to see all this stuff and not worry about the camera.  We enjoyed all our adventures and spent time just being together. 

We don't need toys

I have learned that my kids can entertain themselves very easily with a few toys.  While moving they did not have very many toys, yet they always managed to keep themselved entertained. 

They played "Lava game" where the floor is lava and they had to stay on the furniture. 

They made forts out of everything, they even made a store and sold ice cream. 

 Scout's favorite spot, on the table, he learned how to climb up there all by himself and he was up there often.  I gave up and just let him climb... he would cry when he wanted to get down and never fell.

 This one tried to join in the forts and pull all the towels down.

 I don't know what this was about, but she put baloons in her hair and was playing with the dolls. It is just a strange picture that I love.

The Coolest Art Museum

I took the kids to the American Visionary Art Museum in downtown Baltimore.  It was free as part of the Blue Star Initiative and was the most unique art museum I have ever seen.  It defines visionary as the following: (taken from their web page)

• Visionary art as defined for the purposes of the American Visionary Art Museum refers to art produced by self-taught individuals, usually without formal training, whose works arise from an innate personal vision that revels foremost in the creative act itself." In short, visionary art begins by listening to the inner voices of the soul, and often may not even be thought of as 'art' by its creator. 

They don't allow pictures in the museum, but these are the cool ones outside.

 The museum is immediately adjacent to Federal hill park with a playground on top and a great view of the entire Inner Harbor.  We had a lot of fun rolling and climbing down the hill.

  It also has the coolest gift shop around. With items like the ones we bought. It also had a great book section but I can't look at books with 4 kids playing around me. For now we just got cool toys and I will definitely go back.

PS.  If you ever go make sure you check out the Fart Machine on the lower level between the bathrooms.  It was my son's favorite part.

Violin

At the end of the school year the kids had to have some final stuff, their final violin lesson with this teacher and a final recital. 

I will completely miss their violin teacher she is wonderful and the kids have had lots of fun with her.  It amazes me how much they can learn.

Moving

Yes, I am still here.  The last few months have been a little bit crazy.  We just packed up a house, moved to a hotel, moved to a friends house, finished school, moved to a temporary appartment, moved into 2 hotel rooms, had a major storm roll through, moved to the grandparents house, FINALLY moved into our new house in a new state, unpacked and finally got set up with phone, internet and all that jazz. 

So did you  follow that.  We are finally in a house and only have a few boxes left.  We are missing a dining room table, the movers lost 2 pieces of it, but we are feeling a little bit more settled.  More to the point, I finally found the charger for my camera so I can again take pictures.  I will get back to posting more of our events over the last 2 months, because we have been busy. 

Give me a few more days, but I will get there eventually.