My first how to . . .

I am not very good at giving instruction, especially in written form, but I had a friend that wanted to know how I made my blog title/header and how I put my blog address on my pictures. For both questions my answer would be Adobe Photoshop. I am not very good at using photoshop, in fact I find it kind of confusing, but I can do simple layouts. However, I just found a free program, called Gimp. It does quite a few of the same things that Photoshop does and you just can't beat FREE!!! And it's available for Mac and Windows. So if you can't afford Photoshop, no worries!! I highly recommend Gimp. As for my background papers and pictures I try and find free scrapbook papers online. One of my favorites is Shabby Princess. There are lots of others, but this is just one of my favorites. There are also sites out there to get free cute fonts. My favorite on is Kevin and Amanda. Once you download your free papers and your favorite font you can start using them on either Photoshop or Gimp and let your creativity go wild. When you open a new document on Photoshop you will need to adjust your size so it will fit your header space. I believe the width I used is 880 and height was 220, but that's off the top of my head. You might need to play around with it a bit to see what works.

Once you get your image created you just go to your blog layout and click the header section and upload your image. It's quite similar to uploading a picture to your blog post only you are doing it under your header.

I am sure I am forgetting something, so if you try it and you can't figure it out, let me know and I will try to help.

Boxes for Katje

We recently read this book as part of a unit study we are working on in school. I highly recommend it. The first time I read it, it brought a tear to my eye. The fact that I was tearing up could possibly be the pregnancy, but it really is a touching story. If you are a fellow homeschooler or looking for just a good story check this one out. If you want materials to help study this book check out our homeschool link at the top of our blog.

Tulips . . . and more tulips!!!

If you ever have an opportunity to visit tulip fields I HIGHLY recommend it!!! We have been studying Holland in school and how they have lots of tulips. We decided to visit a tulip field. The colors were so incredibly brilliant. Here is one of the fields . . .

And the pink tulips . . . these were the girls favorite.

Could you imagine planting all of these?

I have a hard enough time with our square foot gardens.

Porkchop was way more into the cedar chips they laid down to cover the mud than he was into the tulips.

This is Porkchop on my husbands shoulders. I couldn't resist taking a picture . . . or two.

I love my kids, especially when we can get away and have moments like these.

Found Treasures

I was going through pictures on my computer and came across these! We had so much fun last summer going to our usual family spot. The kids had a blast with their cousins.

Here they are enjoying smores . . .

This is a make shift raft that the kids floated around on the lake . . .

Ready to help mom

The kids and their gear! If you haven't already checked it out, Lowes does free clinics for kids. They get free protective eye wear, aprons and a project. This time they got to build a table top basketball hoop. Not bad for a free outing.

Happy St. Patricks Day

I know this is a little late. Sorry! But here is our St. Patricks Day spread. We had green pancakes, green eggs, and green potatoes.

The kids each got green glow stick necklaces.

And there own little can of green soda.

And what else for dessert other than mint green ice cream!

And we finished off by watching a movie about green frogs!

More Projects

I decided to paint the dining/school room. Because the kids spend so much time in there (and paint cleans up off tile really well) I let them help.

Look how happy he is to help!

That night after we had started painting I saw the coolest thing on a blog. Don't ask me which one, because I don't remember. But she had found bead board wall paper and had fallen in love with it and so I HAD to try it. I thought the school room would be a perfect place to try. And after using it I have to say I am in LOVE!! It is so easy to use and if you can't afford the real stuff or have the tools or patience for the real thing then this is for you. This is my first time hanging wallpaper and it went really well. It's not perfect, but I think it looks awesome and I will definitely use it elsewhere. The wheels in my head are already turning. As for cost, I got two rolls at Lowes and they were 14.99 a roll. So $30 to do a whole room. A huge cost difference from the real deal.

This is the finished product. Again I am totally in love! And the kids love it too. Honey said, "Mom, I think I am going to have a hard time doing my school work because I am just going to be looking at the walls and thinking how beautiful they are."

Oh, and this is the table and benches I built. I love how it all turned out. It has knicks and scratches and is totally rustic.
And it's HUGE!!! Which is what I wanted. There is plenty of room for us to spread out so kids won't say, "she's touching me!" I also love that there is room to have other people over for dinner. I just need to find two end chairs and NO I am not going to build them.

I really need to build two tall white shelves to go on either side of the window for more school storage. Hopefully I can get those done soon. I just finished these for the family room so I don't know if I am ready to build two more just yet.

But hopefully soon . . . maybe I can talk my husband into doing it for me . . . maybe not! :)