For my son's birthday last year, I made him a train table.



I designed it after looking through a Pottery Barn catalog and then went out and bought the wood. Aaron and I created it together, although I did at least one part of each step myself. I'm not 100% comfortable with power tools, so I'd have him start and show me how to do it with his tool, and then I'd finish.

This year for Nate and Sammi's birthday, I have designed two carts to go under that train table with locks so that they can't get into them unless I open them. They will hold their Little People toys and their train toys.

I have also designed an easel that is adjustable to their height, with two sides so they can play simultaneously, and two double-sized boards. Board one will be a white board and chalk board. Board two will be a felt board and magnet board. On top with be a roll of paper that can go down either side (but only one side at a time). The boards will be interchangeable as well. I can also add more boards - I've thought of one side for a board, but not the other. I'd like to glue a bunch of pieces of fabric to a board and then have zippers, buttons, fish eye clasps, ribbons, etc to practice braiding, tying, buttoning, zipping.

My sister had the brilliant idea of trying to find some magnetic clips so that the magnet board can be turned into a way to hold on to the paper on the roll. I asked my mom to make the kids for their birthday a castle or fantasy-themed felt set to play with on their new easel.

I just finished drawing out the plans, so soon I'll have to go purchase the wood and try it out. I'm shaking in my boots.

Labels: random

On day three of our epic father-daughter Colorado trip, Dad and I tried to get over our disappointment of not being able to go through Rocky Mountain National Park. Dad's favorite part of Colorado is this park that I may never see. As I'm terrified of heights, I'm not feeling too bad about my apparent lack.

When we woke up this day in Glenwood Springs, Colorado - at an ungodly hour as my father is an early riser - we plotted out what we were going to do. We decided first on the list was to go see Doc Holliday's grave. Doc Holliday was a dentist turned gambler who had tuberculosis. In his final span, he spent time at the Glenwood Hot Springs in the hope that the miraculous medical water would help heal him. Instead, it is thought that it may have done him more harm than good.

When you hike up the trail on the side of the mountain to the Linwood Cemetary, you see some beautiful views of the town below and the mountains on the other side of the valley area.





When you get to the top and enter into the cemetary, you learn that they aren't entirely certain where John Henry 'Doc' Holliday is actually buried. He died in the winter when the ground was frozen and they lost track of where (and if) he was actually reburied properly in the cemetary. They say that they figure he's probably buried within twenty feet of where they placed the monument.



While walking around the cemetary enjoying different views and thinking heavily about the history that is acquired in the graveyard, we noticed a nest in a bush. Nearby was a tree whose bark had been stripped in order to make this nest. It's amazing how life continues. I remarked to Dad, as I'd heard somewhere or other, that the beginning and end dates on the tombstone mean nothing. Instead, I am endlessly curious about those dashes.



There were extremely beautiful flowers all over the trail.



We went back down the mountain and then had breakfast before we went on a cave tour (which I'll talk about tomorrow). It made for a very nice thoughtful start to our morning, and put me back in mind that Colorado wasn't settled by farmers trying to get a start on their life. Instead it was settled by people mining gold and other precious items, and that it had a very rich history with folk lore and stories. I think I'm going to have to add a book on the history of Colorado to my bookshelf.

And some John Denver tunes.

Last, I learned that while I am still not in very good shape, I'm getting there. I was, after all, able to hike up that (not so very steep) trail without dying or falling off in exhaustion.

Labels: traveling

I am back from Colorado and I'm settling back in. I hope to type up some notes and funny stories (complete with targeted pictures) once I'm not so frazzled from the trip. I had a really good time and I'm glad I went!

(Tera, I did not get to see Garden of the Gods, unfortunately.)

I am so.. very.. tired. No time to write a blog or post today's pictures.

I think climbing up a 32' ladder on the side of a cliff that's at 7,000+ feet in elevation and then walking around on a cliff dwelling floor that has no wall took everything out of me.

Did I mention I'm terrified of heights?

(Maybe I won't be so exhausted tomorrow. ;)

Labels: traveling

Phew. We're on day two of our epic Colorado trip. Day one took us from Des Moines, Iowa to Greeley, Colorado. Soon after we left Weld County on day two, it was hit by massive storms and tornadoes. Sounds like we brought some Iowa weather with us, which is unfortunate for the man who died in his RV.

On day two (Thursday - today), we were planning on heading through Rocky Mountain National Park. Unfortunately the road going through the park doesn't open until Friday. Tomorrow. Doesn't that just figure?

We were planning on going through the park, coming out the other side, and staying in Winter Park. From there we were going to head to Glenwood Springs, see Doc Holiday's grave, and do a cave tour (on Friday).

Because of the mess-up with the roads (Colorado has had snow later than usual, so while a lot of their passes would be open by now, one in particular is still under twenty feet of snow. They are trying hard to get them open for Memorial Day Weekend.) Dad and I had to replan our trip. Instead of going through the park (since we couldn't) and then heading to Glenwood Springs the next day, we dropped south from Estes Park, outskirting Boulder and Denver, and then meeting up with 70 to head straight to Glenwood Springs (where we are now). Fortunately, I didn't know the entire area was under a tornado warning and that tornadoes were touching down. We did get a bit of hail and some serious winds, and that was scary enough when driving on the side of a mountain.

It went from 80 degrees rapidly to 30 degrees, hail, and snow, as we climbed up and up and up. Reminds me of Iowa weather, except we don't have mountains!

Well, we got here a little late to do any of the tours, and Dad was wiped from struggling against the wind for hours, so we soaked in the 15-person hot tub at our hotel and ate some great food. I think tomorrow morning we're going to wake up early, head to Doc Holiday's grave, the cave, and possibly the hot springs if the weather is still bad. If it's good enough to drive tomorrow, we'll just hit up the first two and then drive down to Durango.

Our tentative plan is to hit up the Durango-Silverton, Mesa Verde, and possibly something else, then head home. On the way back, weather permitting and time permitting, I want to try to hit up Garden of the Gods (thanks Tera). We'll see how it goes!

I'm completely rambling, so this may make absolutely no sense. In that case, just go look at a few of the nearly-one-hundred pictures I uploaded and tell me your favorite one. (Or don't. You know. Whatever makes you happy. ;)

Photos

Labels: traveling

My beautiful daughter just loves to get ready to go outside.

This time, she pulled her dirty shirt on her head for a hat, grabbed a mitten from the bin (but just one!), and grabbed her sandals. She then stood at the gate to the office repeating, "Pweaaaase! Weeease!"

Man, she's got me wrapped around her little finger...

Labels: random

I wonder if this is what I look like right now after driving for hours and hours and hours and hours...

Labels: random

Tonight I leave to go to Des Moines to meet up with my dad before we take a week long trip through various regions of Colorado. I hope to be able to post while I'm on the road, but if not, I've made sure to put a couple drafts up. Hopefully Blogger will cooperate and post them on time. If not - I'll see you guys on May 28h!

Labels: random

There are two things that I like that will be highlighted in this post: 1) baths and 2) nature-inspired goodies.

When I still lived in Des Moines and went to college at DMACC, I took a human biology class from a woman named Donna Julseth. I thought she was a really nice, interesting, and intelligent woman. By the end of the class I learned that she had her own business called Prairieland Herbs. Donna and her daughter grow a wide variety of herbs and flowers which they then turn into herbal products such as bath teas, lotions, chapsticks, shampoo bars, massage oils and more. I hadn't actually tried any of her goods until we went to Living History Farms a week ago. While I was there, I bought a lavender and mint bath tea. It was fabulous! It colored the water just like a tea you'd drink, and the smell of lavender and mint wafted through the air as I relaxed. Now I really want to try more of her products, or perhaps learn to make a few of my own.

Already I buy soap from a local soap maker. She doesn't have a webpage (what a shame!) but you can buy her products, Plant Me A Garden Soaps, at Indian Creek Nature Center. Her soaps smell wonderful and get me squeaky clean. She also sells lavender cookies from her herb garden at our local farmer's market. They are amazingly good and fragrant.

One of my friends, Julie, is currently working on her social work masters degree. She works at a gift shop that uses mentally disabled individuals to create soaps, lotions, and other products. Shamefully, I don't know much about it because my big trap never closes long enough for her to get a word in edge wise. I'm working on it. This shop sells their products at Living History Farms as well, and I picked up a luffa lavender scrub. I have no idea how they made it, but at a wild guess I'd say they took a cross-section of a luffa fruit and filled it with lavender scented soap. It works as an excellent exfoliater as the luffa is a little scratchy and coarse. I wouldn't use it on any delicate parts.

Of course, for the past year since I watched a gardening show about the luffa plant, I've wanted to grow my own. I'm also interested in growing all my own herbs and drying them. So, perhaps some day in the future, I'll be making my own luffa soaps and herbal lotions. Wouldn't that be fun?

Labels: crafts, environment, gardening

Nate is a good big brother, and he really tries to help his little sister out. He loves her quite a bit, you see. The event sequence that I'm going to show you below was not at all malicious.







She's thinking: Mommy, I don't want to go down!



Nate, "I can give you a hand!"



And what do you think happened next? (No, I don't have a photo of that. That would be cruel.)

Labels: outdoors

On this past Saturday we dropped off the kids with their Aunt Christa and her boyfriend Javi in their new apartment, which of course meant the kids had a wonderful weekend of debauchery with much spoiling. Meanwhile, Aaron and I plus our friends Jake and Julie, Paul and Patti, and Brent went off to celebrate Aaron and I's upcoming marriage with a joint bachelor/bachelorette party. First, we saw a matinee of Iron Man. I really liked the movie although I think it is a typical comic book-to-movie type of flick. Next, we ate at a restaurant in Ames of Aaron's choosing. Aaron went to college in Ames, and that is where we held the majority of the bachelor(ette) party. Unfortunately, this particular Mexican restaurant no longer gives you a t-shirt if you drink their two of their mega-humongous margaritas. It would have been nice to get a couple of commemorative shirts... We followed up the food by visiting Aaron's favorite Ames bar, where we played darts. My favorite memory of that was when the person who was kicking all of our butts (Patti) accidentally threw the dart OVER the dartboard, and her and Julie had to crawl around on the floor trying to figure out how to get behind the machine. I think that cost her her lead, because Brent ended up wiping the floor with all of us. We finished off the night by driving 45 minutes to see one of our friends play in a band in some obscure bar, where my friends Sara and Eric met up with us. All in all it was a smashing good time, and I'm glad I had such wonderful company at our party.

The next day was my day, and I chose to spend it at Living History Farms. I can remember visiting the outdoor museum when I was in elementary school. We were instructed on how to make brooms and set type for newspapers. Even though Nate is not yet four, and Sammi is not yet two, I thought they might enjoy it and maybe have some memories in the future. Also, Aaron had never been, having grown up on the eastern side of the state. My sister helped us out and came along with us, and we all had a lovely time (I think).

Living History Farms has two major parts. The first is the "Farm" section where you go on a tour of an Ioway site with a bark lodge, tepee, and winter lodge. They tell you how the Ioway farmed and talk about how they went on the great buffalo hunt in the summer months. They show some of the utensils they used and how they lived. You walk on a trail through some nice woodlands to an 1850's farm complete with a log cabin, barn, smoke house, and other exhibits. There are real people completing tasks that would be done on such a farm such as wool spinning, field clearing, etc. It's a working exhibit. Next up is the 1900's farm with a barn, house (hey, our house was built in 1900...), animals, and all the necessary buildings. You end this section by seeing an exhibit of today's agriculture. The second part is an 1875 town with over ten different buildings, each manned by someone talking about how people lived and worked in that time period. The entire trip is extremely fascinating and one of my favorite places to go.

You can see all of the pictures at our Flickr site, but I'll highlight a few here.


Sammi's very first drink from a water fountain. She succeeded in getting a lot of water on her face and very little water in her mouth. Maybe next time?


A creek on the walk between the farms.


Some fencing at the 1850 Farmsite.


Aunt Christa & Nate, walking the trail. Someone is getting spoiled rotten...


This duck looks like he is drooling all over, but really it is water from the trough below.


Daddy & Sammi having a good time.


Windmill at the 1900 Farm.


The kids on the drive back home. I think they had a good weekend - and they are definitely exhausted!

My favorite part of the entire trip, however, had to be near the end of Sunday when Aaron went to change Nate's pull-up and the surprise he found. Nate had not been changed for nearly seven hours, and he was dry. That's right: I think my boy is finally toilet-trained. I asked Nate what he wanted to eat for celebration. The answer? Pizza. Num, num.

Labels: random

Why is it that stuffed animals are so prolific in my house? Are they running around doing the nasty and having babies? All I know is that everywhere I look, I see stuffed animals, and currently I have no way to corral them. For over a year now I've wanted something similar to Boon's Animal Bag. I've scoured ebay on a sporadic schedule, searching for the elusive "cheap" animal bag. Alas, I have not found anything. I've searched via google for a cheap knockoff, and that too has not gone well.

Now I'm asking you, yes -- YOU, to help me. Have you heard of another version of the stuffed animal bean bag chair? I think this is the best solution, as the children love to steal any of chair or pilates ball they can get their hands on to lay and sit on, we have plenty of space in the playroom for two bean bag chairs, and yet I don't like the stuffing they put in those chairs. I have too many stuffed animals (and I've pared down the pile many times), and nowhere to put them.

Do you know if it would be cheaper to make this chair by hand? Would it be hard for a novice to make? (I don't even have a sewing machine yet, but I could purchase one for less than it'd cost to buy two of these chairs). Do you know of anyone who makes these chairs for cheaper than the Boon price?

Help a woman out, here. Please.

Labels: random

I have a love affair with the color blue. The more bright and nearly electric-like, the better. When I was a kid (probably around 10 or so), my dad built a room in the basement for me. He asked me what color I wanted the walls. I'm sure my parents expected pink or some other fluffy bunny color, but no, I wanted electric blue. I think my mom was not in favor, but my dad argued on my behalf that a girl should have what a girl wants.

When Aaron and I bought our house, I took pictures of every room.


This is our bedroom when we bought the house.


This is our bedroom now. Eventually, the nightstand will go and be replaced by something else, or at least moved over next to the bed. Right now we have a rickety old ceiling fan that shakes and wobbles and makes me scared it's going to fall down. We are going to replace it and then we won't need the monster fan at the foot of the bed. There is a book on the left side of the picture, laying on the floor next to the bed. That's Calvin and Hobbes, volume two. Aaron reads it to me sometimes before we go to sleep. It took us over a year to get through volume one, so I have high hopes of lasting entertainment for the next year and a half or so. The glow-in-the-dark star hanging from the ceiling is my way of creating a pull for the light. The light switch is BEHIND the door when you open the door, which is exceedingly annoying. We leave the switch flipped up and we pull the star to get lights.

The white spot on the wall is where Sammi and Nate got into the paint cans and poured paint all over Sammi and the floor, then left perfect brown foot prints on the carpet all the way to the bathroom as well as a perfect Sammi hand print on the wall. I'm keeping that sucker on the wall and framing it in some color of paint. No, I'm not kidding.


This is the other side of our bedroom when we bought the house.


And after. Eventually I'll be redoing the closet to the point that we will have no dressers at all. So that will move out of this area, and in its place I want to put a rack for hanging used-once suits or other clothing items we plan to rewear, so that they don't get wrinkled laying on the floor or use up my chair space. I am also crocheting an afghan that is the color of the walls that will be over that chair for when I want to read in the winter. Last, I need to put a floor lamp in that corner.

Once I get a sewing machine, I want to create curtains for all the windows that are the brown color with a matching blue lace over the top.

Apparently our closet was too hard to get a picture of, but it was the same color scheme with absolutely nothing on the walls.


When you stand at the door and look in. Aaron built that shelf for me and there is a closet rod smack dab in the center of it for hanging clothes. Right now all of our blankets are on the floor, but I want to build a blanket box/window seat that will stretch along the left wall (from this picture). Then those blankets will go in that box, which will double as a cushioned place to lay down, read a book, and look out the window. Or a place to sit to try on shoes, etc. Under the clothes will be an open-faced shelving unit with baskets of clothes. On the shelf housing the closet rod will be more baskets of clothes.


This is the wall you see on the right side of the above picture. The two (originally shoe holders) wall containers are housing my socks and other delicates. Between them are hooks for jewelry and a ribbon which I've put my earrings on. Smack dab in that middle area there will be a long and tall mirror to see what we're wearing and how it looks. A last check before we walk out the door to go to work, if you will. On either side of the mirror will be hooks for belts. This utilized that space the best way I could think of, beacuse it lies flat against the wall which is good because the doorway is nearly flat against that wall, and we didn't want anything we'd bump into when we walked into the closet. (Also, I have no expensive jewelry or earrings, so don't get excited.)


Here's the doorway and wall leading back into the bedroom. There is a dresser there which will eventually go to make space for more open faced shelves with baskets of clothes. Also, the blanket box will stretch all along the base of the floor and wrap around. (In this picture, the window is on your right.) On top of that dresser is my prized coca-cola lite bottle that I brought home from Germany. :D

So, now you've had a tour of Aaron and I's bedroom and how we've changed it and plan to change it more since we bought our house a year and a half ago.

Labels: random

I'm a wet blanket, lately, so I'm going to clue you in to posts that I hope to make soon.

• Taking the kids to the ren faire
• Aaron and I's joint bachelor/bachelorette party
• Faces my kids make
• Living History Farms
• Updates to my garden (filled out all the beds with compost, things have sprouted, and plants are being planted)
• Updates to my yard (fence is finished on three of the four sides, want to put in natural prairie grass near AC)

They don't sound very interesting, but I'll try to make them interesting. After all, I'm sharing my life with you, and sometimes my life just isn't that interesting. Right now it's nearly finals week and I'm struggling to stay afloat with school, work, and life. I've got massive writer's block, too. So I think this week I'll be leaving you with lots of pictures of things that we've been doing lately, while I work on getting the above posts fleshed out, thought about, and written. Maybe I'll even pester Aaron to get on and write one of his extremely witty posts.

For now, though, I'll leave you with pictures of Mount Vernon's Chalk The Walk Festival, held this past weekend. Once a year they close down main street and let a bunch of artists chalk up the street. It's supposedly the largest Madonnari festival in Iowa, and it is lots of good fun.

I apologize for being too lazy to straighten, boost, and crop them. However, you can click on them to see bigger shots. :)

Here the community is given squares to create this huge painting replica.

Labels: random