Decorating The Girls Room Has Taken A Unexpected Twist

The girls and I went browsing bedding isles to get ideas about colors. I showed them the colors I liked from the fabric and they liked it, but they came up with some shocking turns. At first I was against it....then, I thought it could work. It all started when they saw this deep aqua blue satin bedding at walmart. I would NEVER have been drawn to it... but they were. So, here is where we are heading.

Think French Provincial Princess.

French Provincial furniture passed down from my mom, to me, to them.

Think Focal Renoir Painting "Two Sisters" which I grabbed a few years ago for a buck.

Think painting above French Provincial dresser with two brass lamps found on clearance, one on each side.

Think of wall colors like this sample picture (only w/ all the trim on the top) :

Remember this is just a similar visualizer. I'm just looking at the colors. They wall looks like this right now:
So, the yellow would be on the top, and the blue/green on the bottom. I'm not completely sold on this combo. I am also considering some other combos:

This is one.


The bright blue pillow and throw represent the presence of what the girls found that threw us into this twist....Satin blue bedding from Walmart.

Which now that I'm looking, is lighter than the blue I picked for the pillow and throw in the visualizer picture.

So, were still tossing around ideas. I loved the suggestions you guys had! We won't be painting the furniture though except for the loft bed (lilo will be on a loft which is just the top part of a bunk, and Princess will be on just a Hollywood frame coming out vertically from under the loft above her) which I am painting the antique white of the dressers and may do some brass stencil work on somewhere.

I know the French Provincial Princess theme is a little gody, but It might just work.

Thoughts?

Perfect Bread Machine Whole Wheat

I am trying hard....hard to be frugal, and the wheat prices have finally trickled down to the supermarkets. The other day I bought some cheap bread and it was so sad, it was collapsed before I got home and it was not even near stuff to squish it! Sad. I love TJ's bread but I've noticed it dries out fast and even molds faster than my own stuff. It's had a few days traveling before it gets to me. I go through spurts when it comes to bread. I almost got rid of my bread machine because I was doing the multiple loaf in the oven thing through the fall last year. However, something told me to not be impulsive on this one and I'm glad I listened to that voice. See, when it's 107* you just don't feel like baking, so I've pulled out my little helper and she is turnin' out some great loaves.

The other problem I was having was with whole wheat not being fluffy enough for my little picky one who does not like chewing more than she has to evidently.

Here is my perfect formula right now for everyday sandwich bread:

3 cups whole wheat flour (I mill mine....store bought should work too)

1/4 cup gluten (you could leave this out if you just milled it because gluten levels are high...also, get in bulk if you can to make it cheaper)

1 1/8 cup warm water

3 Tbs. Canola Oil

3Tbs. Honey

1 tsp salt

2 tsp yeast

No, I don't use dry milk, and I don't use butter. Oil is cheaper and milk does not make enough difference to me and we would rather have it on our cereal thank you very much!:)

Order to put in machine is my own way:

water

honey

yeast (why? yeast loves sugar...makes it happy. it does NOT like salt so we want to keep it away from it's enemy)

flour

gluten

salt

I'm hoping to add this to the Cupboard soon. I've had so little time for my other blogs lately (like the past six months:). I'm also hoping to get some awesome home made ranch on there soon.
Oh, and I'm putting some local alerts on What's The Deal in an hour or so unless something else happens to me in life, which is a possibility.:)

(I borrowed the pic from Google, but it looks like that:)

I Found My Inspiration...Now What?

I've been debating on what to color the girls room. We have to do it because the old paint is very worn. I think the white part of their room is actually just primer because when I tried to remove crayon from the wall, the paint started to come off!

It has been white on top and light purple on the bottom with middle trim around the middle. I've wanted to go more bold because the room is big and can afford a darker color.

I was waiting for Rick to finish at the doctor (he dropped me off at Target shopping center) and ended up walking through Pier one where I saw this pillow pattern for some of their wicker furniture. I loved the color combos in it, it's just want I'm looking for.

So, from here I need to pic two colors. A darker for the bottom and a lighter for the top. Both girls are leaning to liking blues and greens right now and Lilo does not like pink. So, I'm thinking right now of pulling the yellow/orange and the aqua blue in it. Any thoughts or ideas?
(I think you can click to enlarge)
I also have this cute picture set of them when they were little that uses Gerber daisies...so that is another mental theme. Bold, but beautiful.

Mommy's First Day In Kindergarten

This morning was fun. It was my first day in Superkid's class. Wow, you really appreciate your teachers when you do that. I will be in the kids classes at least one day a week.

It was good to get to know the kids, and see what my son does in a morning. I was amazed by some things. One was that the kids do so well sitting still for the first hour being instructed in what they are learning for the day.

Mrs. E demonstrating before, between and after. Superkid coloring his theme for the day, the pig. He was to choose five colors since he was five and make sure to use that number on his pig. One of his was white and at first I thought he was trying to opt out of having to do another color, but I looked close and he did actually color it white. These packets are what they go to do in groups (I got to be in charge of a group of five kindergartners) after their instruction time. They include a page to practice their name writing with lowercase letters except for the first letter of their name, practice of the number three from the instruction beforehand, a page to follow hop lines and loops to practice writing, a worksheet to practice before, between, and after, and their pig page. Then, they were to take colored math blocks and demonstrate a pattern of aabb.

Outside after recess they line up on the little dots in boys and girls lines and wait to go in. I got to see Lilo too, and they get to play together at recess. Lilo has been known to come help little brother with his snack bags. :) Notice his shirt is hiked up? He has been sucking on his shirts for the past few days. His permanent bottom teeth came fully in behind his baby teeth and we were very distraught because that meant we were going to have to have the baby teeth pulled. Then, a few days ago, that big tooth started to move forward and the baby one is loosening. Hopefully it will continue to progress on it's own. It is making him want to chew on his shirt though:*.

One of his favorite things is to play in the playhouse in the classroom (notice his head nearly touching:)

On that note:

These are the chicks that they painted the first week of school. Most of them look like that.

Here is Superkid's:

Post Comment if you can tell me the irony (or for any thing else too if you want:).

Thoughts For The New Week

Some of this is random, some purposeful. All is over a late morning of coffee on a lazy Monday "off".

Why would anyone WANT to live in New Orleans anymore?

It's driving me nuts to know that my country is about to become an "Obama-nation".

Rick and I are talking about whether we should go to a church closer to home. It's getting harder and harder to drive that 25-30 min drive. Soon Princess will need/want to be in a youth group and we won't be able to do more than one trip. There are bible studies we have to forgo, especially Rick. If it was in his work town, he could hook up with some fellowship before or after work. There are friends that the kids are going to want to have over as they grow up. We are just too far away right now for all that. The hard thing is that our Pastor is the best teacher we have ever had, and he is right on. Our church family is wonderful. It is hard to even think about. We are praying.

I'm going to dive back into MSM study this week. I'm going to take on developing her 40$ a week budget by way of coupon shopping, and CVS. We are elated that come the new year, all our Longs Drug stores will turn into CVS!! So, I gotta get on a roll! I'm not sure MSM's budget is doable for us with three kids in school and my husband needing a cold lunch too. I am however trying to pull small thermos dishes from the goodwill to put hot food in for all of them that will be just right by lunch time.

I'm using this month of Superkid being only in half day, to develop a rhythm for my life at home. I'm wanting to beef up on bread making, granola making etc. I've done it before but burnt out before Christmas last year and never really got going again. It's a huge money saver. I'm planing exactly what I will do each day so that my time while they are in school is not wasted and I'm ready for family every moment they are home.

We are going to be painting the girls room in the next few weeks. I can use some ideas. Their furniture is mine and my mom's old french provincial. Their wall is white on the top right now with a middle trim and lavender on the bottom. We are headed toward bold but not primary colors. Aqua blue and hot pink, or Aqua and Sea green on the bottom....hmmm. Help? Does anyone know of a website where you can try out colors virtually to see what they might look like?

Rick was hit by two drunk teens last week in his mail truck but he is just sore. I'm thankful he is okay. He has all ready had a huge problem with his back. I'm praying this does not cause problems later on.

We put our dogie on craigslist to see if we can find her a home with a bigger yard. There is a lady wanting a photo this morning. It's hard to get rid of her, but she is just needing more time, space, and training.

I'm frustrated that our new laptop is broken on the screen. We can't close it. Thankfully we are insured but I'm not looking forward to the transfer of files and loading of programs AGAIN.