And On That Farm He Had A.......

Meet "Milkshake"

The Farm

Today we're going to tour our mini-farm. Come and meet our animals.

The Cats

("Cinderella", "Jasmine" & "Raja")

The Dog

("Chocolate")

The Goats

("Willow")

(Willow's Dan's favorite)

("Donkey")

The Pigs

("Babe" & "Ginger Pork")

The girls named the cats (obviously) and the dog already came with her name. If you've ever seen the movie "Willow" then you'll know where Willow gets his name from. Donkey reminds us of "Donkey" from Shrek, so that's where she got her name from. We're going to breed Babe and eat Ginger, so that's why we named her Ginger Pork, after some fine Chinese Cuisine.

I hope you enjoyed a tour of our mini-farm. Y'all come back now, ya'here?

Terror In The Treehouse

Operator: 911. What's your emergency?

Me: Uh...my daughter climbed up our tree house and is afraid to come down.

Op: Ma'am is she okay? Is she hurt? Is she breathing?

Me: Yes, she's fine but she's just afraid to come down.

Op: And you let her climb up ma'am?

Me: Yes. She's been afraid to climb it before, but she asked if she could climb it today and I said sure.

Op: So you let your daughter climb up and now she won't come down? Is that the situation ma'am?

Me: Yes. She was so darn determined to climb up and after about 10 minutes of crying and whining about it, she finally did it. Once she got up there though she got really scared and refused to come down the ladder. She's freaking out.

Op: "Freaking out" ma'am? Can you describe the "freaking out"?

Me: Well she's scared......and she's choked up on her tears. She wants my help, but I can't get to her. Can you help her?

Op: Well ma'am, what would you like us to do about it?

Me: Pardon me?

Op: Ma'am you let her climb up there. Now it's time to help her down.

Me: But I'm afraid of heights. I'm not going up there!

Op: Okay ma'am calm down. Just calm down.

Me: My daughter's up a tree house and I have no idea how to get her down and your telling me to calm down!

Op: Ma'am don't raise your voice at me. I'm trying to help you.

Me: Okay, okay. I'm sorry. What should I do?....oh wait, my cat is going up there to help her.

Op: Your cat ma'am?

Me: Yeah, one of our kittens is climbing up to help her. Good girl Raja! Go help Desiree! Good kitty!

Op: Ma'am are you still there?

Me: Yeah I'm here. One of my cats is up there now with my daughter. But she still won't come down.

Op: Ma'am did you think your cat was going to help her down?

Me: Uh.....maybe?

Op: What's a cat supposed to do ma'am? Carry her on her back. Perhaps grab her neck in her mouth?

Me: Your right. I'm stupid to think a cat would help her down.

Op: Ma'am don't put words in my mouth. I didn't call you stupid.

Me: I'm sorry. I'm just worried about her. She's still freaking out. - Oh wait. The other cat is climbing up there now. Good girl Jasmine! Go help Desiree!

Op: Ma'am what are 2 cats supposed to do? Carry her down around their shoulders? They don't have oposable thumbs ma'am!

Me: You're right, I know.

Op: No oposable thumbs!

Me: I know! I know! I'm stupid!

Op: Darn rights you are ma'am!

Me: Oh great! The second cat can't even figure out how to climb up the treehouse. Now she's stuck up the tree!

Op: You have a cat stuck up a tree ma'am?

Me: Yes!

Op: Well that I can help you with. We'll dispatch a rescue team to your tree house right away.

Me: But what about my daughter!?

Op: Is your daughter still up the tree house?

Me: YES!!!

Op: Well did you call your home teachers?

Me: .............Um.......not yet.

Op: Well don't you think you should've thought about them first, before you called us ma'am?

Me: Gosh I'm sorry. I didn't think about it.

Op: That's okay ma'am. I dispatch your home teacher up the street from you instead of our rescue team.

Me: Thank you! Thank you SO much!

Op: Is your daughter still okay ma'am.

Me: Well, she's still freaking out, but she's breathing.

Op: Did you offer her any form of comfort ma'am?

Me: Let me try that......Desiree, would you like me to sing you a song?....................She said yes.

Op: Okay ma'am. Ask her which one.

Me: Okay.......Desiree? Which one?........She said, "Just Let Me Cry".

Op: Is that the song by Hilary Weeks ma'am?

Me: Yeah that one. It's one of her favorites.

Op: Okay go ahead ma'am.

Me: Oh gosh I can't sing that song! I'm about to cry just thinking about it.

Op: Look ma'am, just sing the song as best you can, alright? Your daughter needs comfort right now and singing that song is the best thing you can do until help arrives, okay?

Me: Okay, I'll give it a shot.........."Just let me cry......I ......know.......it's hard....to see."........That's all I could get out. I'm all choked up.

Op: Good job ma'am. You did you best considering the situation. I'm proud of you.

Me: Thank you............Oh! My home teacher's son just got here.

Op: Okay ma'am I'm going to stay on the line until I know everyone's okay.

Me: Alright thank you.........Desiree go with Chris........Okay she's safe on the ground.

Op: Well that's good ma'am. How are the cats?

Me: Chris is getting them down now..........Okay Jasmine's down. Raja is stuck in the treehouse and refuses to come down with Chris..........okay he's got her!

Op: I'm glad everyone's safe now ma'am.

Me: Me too. Thank you soo much!

Op: You're welcome ma'am. Now there's a few of things I'm going to suggest, before we disconnect ma'am.

Me: Okay. What's that?

Op: The first one is give your daughter a BIG snuggle. The second is make sure you make Chris a big batch of Chocolate Chip cookies as a thank you. And last but not least ma'am......don't let your kids climb up the treehouse for a long time. Can you do those things ma'am?

Me: Oh don't worry, THOSE are already on my mind......Thanks again!

Op: No problem. You have a nice day.

Me: Thank you. You too.

Op: I will. Bye bye.

Me: Bye.

This is our treehouse

Okay so you've probably figured out that it wasn't a real call to 911, but that was a very real situation that happend yesterday. This conversation was pretty much the internal conversation I was having with myself as Desiree was distraught with severe fear of coming back down the treehouse ladder.

I swear that girl's first name should've been "Determination", cause when she's determined to do something, she'll do it at all cost. For ten minutes she fought with herself to climb up to the treehouse and even though I told her to just come down (she was SO full of drama the whole time, with the tears and bemoaning that she couldn't do it). But she was determined to climb that treehouse yesterday and with tear filled stubborness she did!

Coming down.......was another story.

I hope this made your day as much as I had fun writing it.

I Know What I'M getting For Mother's Day!

Yesterday my dear hubby told me what I'm getting for Mother's Day.

I'm getting.......

Pest Control

No..........seriously

He really is the best and ever so thoughtful.

For those of you who don't know me well, I hate pests. Spiders, wasps, bugs of any kind, etc... Well where we live, these critters are around in full force. Because our house wasn't lived in for at least 6 months, before we bought it, they took over. We didn't call it the "Spider House" for nothing. Even our realtor refered to this house as the "Spider House".

Well my Lovey decided that he would grant pest control to me as a gift for Mother's Day. What a sweetheart. It truly was a great thought.

TIMBER!

If a tree falls in the forest and everyone's around, it makes a really big noise and it shakes the ground!

There's been a lot of action going on around our place these last couple of days. Dan hired these tree guys to take down some trees on our property and it's been really cool watching them work. The girls have enjoyed it a lot. My oldest now says when she grows up, she wants to climb trees with "spiky shoes" and cut them down.

Dan and I were both home sick yesterday from church and we're kinda glad we were, cause we would've missed all the action. I'm sure people thought we were home "sick" as an excuse to be around, but we really were.

There are about 25 trees that we wanted to come down, so that our property can feel more "open". There's about 3.5 acres of our 5 acre property that we can't touch, due to it being classified as a wetland. So with the rest of the 1.5 acres we decided we wanted it mostly cleared so that it can not only be more usable, but it can clear the way for the sun to shine. Even with the couple of trees they took down yesterday in the front of our house, our property looks so much bigger. I love it!

Anyways we took a lot of pictures and video of the trees coming down. I've posted one for your viewing pleasure. (It's not as exciting as being there in person) If you've never been around when I tree comes down it's pretty exciting and freaky at the same time. I kept thinking it was going to fall on our house......but it didn't.

Before and After~Living Room

I'm done another room in my house. Thank goodness for my great friend Leighann who came and helped me with the "high" parts of the walls. I couldn't have done it without her.....not only cause I'm afraid of heights, but because I didn't have a ladder that was tall enough. I've got REALLY high ceilings in some parts.

So the walls of this house were what I like to call, "The color of pink sick", or "pukey pink", or a "really ugly nutral pink". There's really no words to decribe it. The previous owners were obviously afraid of some color, because the walls lacked any sort of color, besides a pinky neutral colorless color.

Well I'm definitely a colorful person and color makes me happy. Bright & bold. That's my taste. Well the color of my living room is called Toasty Fireplace. It's a an orange tone. I would describe it as being a pumpkin color. Like the color of pumpkin pie, but brighter. Anyways the pictures don't do it justice, cause it's really not as orange as it looks.

I LOVE it and Dan thinks it looks good too. Anyways here are the before and afters you've been waiting for....

Before:

This is my crazy friend Leighann, up on the....I don't know what you call it....but it's up there.

This photo has a partial entry way wall painted. It's not as warm of a color as it looks. It's more of a warm Kahki color.

Anyways....here's the After:

The only thing that's lacking is filling the walls with pictures and getting rid of that hideous brass light fixture, in the dining room. I've already bought the ones that I want, but I have to paint them the color I want first (which is black....they're currently brushed nickel)

So other than that.....what'chya think?

Before & After~Girl's Room

I'm officially done painting my first room!

Here's the Before:

Plain white ugly walls (gag, barf, blah!)

And..........

here's the After:
Positively girly in every way!

I’m not quite finished decorating, but you pretty much get the idea, right?

It was surprisingly easy to do. Here was my inspiration.

It was some random photo I got online. I knew what colors I wanted to paint the girl’s room and when I saw this picture, I knew that’s what I wanted to do.

Mine’s obviously a little different and not so “free-handed”. If you’d like to copy it, I’m including a tutorial.


Paint used:

GREEN: 3 coats of Behr’s Grape Green (400B-5)
LIGHT PINK: 2 coats of Behr’s Hopeful (690A-2)
DARK PINK: 2 coats of Valspar’s Pink Burst (1003-1A)

I started by outlining the waves. I measured 48 inches from the baseboard as the peak of my wave and then 8 inches across to where my lowest part of the wave would be, which was 45 inches high, from the baseboard. Pretty much the peaks and valleys are 16 inches across from each point.


Once I measured the peaks, I free-handedly connected my waves together. I then made the bottom line of the wave 5 inches wide. That was the easy part. All I had to do was measure 5 inches from where I drew my line on top and it was perfect.


I then “cut in” the green and light pink areas of my wall.





When each coat was semi dry, I then painted in my first coat of the dark pink wave. In order to get my green bold enough without looking too fluorescent, I needed 3 coats of paint. Other than that 2 coats of each was sufficient.

If you have any questions about it, let me know. Also let me know if I’ve inspired you to paint a room this way. I’d love to hear from you.

I’m going to paint the other girl’s room pretty much the same, except with the dark pink on the bottom, the light pink on top and a wave of dark brown.

One Room Down, Lots More To Come!

I don't have any pictures yet, but my girl's room is done! I'm so proud of myself. I look at it everyday and sigh that I'm such an awesome painter.

No seriously I do. I need a serious kick in the butt to bring me off my high horse.

But it does look awesome and I can't wait to finish another girl's room! I'll post pictures soon!

13 Gallons Of Paint, 5 Rooms, 1 Entire House, Two Weeks Vacation and a Partridge In A Pear Tree

It's like it's already Christmas. I have a new house. I bought gallons of paint last night and their ready to be spread across walls that are so ugly I could barf (okay so that's a little exagerration) and I woke up at 4 am, cause I can't sleep from all the excitement.

Stay tuned for A LOT of before and afters!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Christmas Is A Time For Giving

There's a family who is in need this Christmas. Our hearts have been touched and we so desperately want to help them out.

They've been seen wandering our property in search of food. I'm sure they make their home in the outskirts of where we are; in the woods. Cold & wet.

Well, we are going to help them out by giving them something that says, "You are welcome here", "Please come again soon", or simply, "Feliz Navidad my dear friends".

I posted a picture of the gift, since I'm all about, Look at me! Look at me!

Merry Christmas Deer Family

I didn't get my camera in time to take a photo of them, but we see them so often in our side yard, that we know we'll see them again soon.

~Happy Holidays!~