Give me an 'A'

In our quest to rid our house of clutter, we decided to have a yard sale. As most of you know, when you are getting rid of stuff, and finding crap to sell at a yard sale, things turn up that you forgot you where storing. In this case, when it was snowing outside, I failed to take some wrapping paper back out to the garage, and it found it's way to our living room while I was searching for yard sale things. Hailey, of course, found these new "toys" and started tinkering with them. On a side note, Hailey has been learning her letters. She played with them for about 5 minutes before she called to me to "look at this". I hadn't been paying attention, then I looked down, and she said "Look, an A" What a funny girl to take 3 wrapping paper rolls, randomly sat aside, and create a letter she had been learning! Clever kid.

Chores

I'm back from my blog-cation, and with an adorable story:

I know my kid is only two years old. I don't expect a lot out of her when it comes to helping around the house, but she loves to help. And I would be a dummy not to let her. Things don't always get done my way, but they get done. I grew up having chores, I had to earn my keep, and I don't see anything wrong with Hailey helping me and learning responsibility. And let's face it, when she's helping me with chores, she's not getting into trouble, that is priceless!

This particular day, I had a LOT of things to get done, and Hailey was eager to help me out. She attempted to help me empty the dishwasher, which quickly proved to be a bad idea. After a small dish was shattered all over my floor, and made sure my reactions were not out of control, I decided that perhaps a different chore was more suitable for my 2-year-old. So I assigned her the laundry. The task was simple, "can you help mama by getting all the clothes out of here and putting them into the blue basket?" Now, normally she puts her arms in, gets whatever is within arms range, before I know it, she's off on another task, and my laundry is only partially pulled out of the dryer. Which is fine, I want her to learn that helping mommy is a good thing, but she doesn't need real chores just yet. While I finished emptying the dishwasher, I realized Hailey was not about to let her little arms and the giant dryer get the best of her today. Today would be the day that she finished the chore that mama had assigned her. Today she would get ALL of the clothes. My tiny girl, climbed into the dryer and got every last piece of laundry. I laughed to myself, and asked calmly, "do you need mama's help?" A very quick "NO!!!" came back at me. When she is finished, she will not allow me to even help her take the laundry to the living room, another defiant "NO!!!" came my way. Okay.... I thought to myself, get the camera and make it a part of your blog... quickly!!! So here ya go, the pictures of Hailey helping mama with laundry:

Scentsy & Mary Kay

I'm doing a Scentsy book party, this stuff is awesome. Check out the website: http://www.scentsy.com/mccraw don't order online, email me your order and mail your check to me, and we'll get your order in with the party. Party starts today, July 6th, and ends Friday, July 17th.

Also, I'm doing a Mary Kay party for my sister-in-law: http://www.marykay.com/charlottewinder Same thing, don't order online, email me your order and mail your check to me, and we'll get your order in with the party. Party started July 1st, and ends Friday, July 17th.

Email: tmwinder@gmail.com

Campign with Nana and Papa

Hailey got the oppertunity to go camping with my parents this week. They took her up to Wallowa Lake and she had a fantastic time. Hailey left Monday morning and stayed until Wendesday afternoon. She watched Mickey Mouse on the way there. She rode on her little car, ran and played, and had a campfire. She walked Libbey, and chased Papa around the campsite, and even saw a deer in the nearby campsites. She built puzzles too. She had a great time, then slept like a baby, both at nap time and bedtime.

This was the first time that Hailey had been away from Trevor and I for more than a night. I have to admit, while it was troubling not to have any control over what happened to her while she was gone, and we missed her immensely, it was kind of nice to have a break. I love my kid, don't get me wrong, but every now and then, I can stand a break for a few days.

Hailey came home and was a little brat for about 24 hours. But she shaped up real quick with the rules fully enforced at our house. She seems to have transformed back into our normal little girl, and the demon spawn seems to have vacated the premises for now. ;-) Before long she will be off on trips all summer long, with not only Nana and Papa, but before we know it, with friends... how the time does fly.

Exploring the campsite

A campfire with Nana and Libbey

After only half a day of camping

Chasing Papa

Loving papa

We going home

I missed my Hailey!!!

Finished Braided Rug

The monster rug is finally finished. YAY! This rug came out to be 79" long, taller than me. But get this, I've decided to take on an even bigger rug. I am starting a braided rug/runner for my mom's very large hallway, and making the rug a ginormous 15', yes that's 1-5 feet long, a little under 3 of me. I started that rug last night and it was just ridiculous how long it is going to be. I finished my first strand, and thought that I had to be close to 13' (my starting distance, because it will just get wider and longer as I go), the strand was long. Nope, it measured at 7'. Wow, am I really rambling on and on about a rug... uh, I'm going to get to work now. =)

4th of July, 2009

We had a great 4th of July, Nana and Papa came over for a bbq'd chicken on the treager, then fireworks. Hailey got to throw pop-it's and then light sparklers (closely supervised, for you firework police out there) We got to watch the fireworks at the University from our back yard. The fireworks don't start until 10 PM, because it doesn't get dark here until like 9 or 9:30 PM here. Hailey got to watch the fireworks and go right to bed, which was really nice. We had a really great day. Hope you did too!

Throwing pop-its

What does this do?

Thank you Daddy

Throwing pop-its with Daddy

What is this thing???

I'll just sit with Papa

Wait, this is fun!

Trevor, the fireworks are supposed to be for Hailey... silly boy!

Remodel--Phase 1

We've made some changes to our house, and I don't think that anyone has really seen the transformation. Here are a few before and after pictures of the house. One of these days we'll get to Hailey's room and the guest bathroom. After that we have a few adjustments for our kitchen, a covered deck out front, a patio out back. These are all small changes, that have created some sweat equity. We are proud of the changes that have taken place so far. Tomorrow I'll post some pictures of our backyard, that has really changed for the better so far.

Office before

Office after

Kitchen/Dining room before

And after...more to come here

Silly serving window in our kitchen

All gone... and much better we think

Almost finished with this project