Halloween night.  Dorky mom made us wear jackets.

Lucy's own idea for a costume, blood woman.  

And a beautiful ballerina

Christmas gift bags!  I'm so ahead of myself this year.  I actually have gifts purchased!

Happy November!
Lisa

What I did this summer: Part III

: :  A special painting for some special people.

: :  I have done a lot painting this summer. I had big ideas for the girls' room paintings but so did they.  A cat eating ice cream?  A dog eating an ice cream sundae while sitting on a rainbow?  How could I not fulfill those requests?

: : I made a Superman skirt for a not-so-girly girl.  I love her style.

: : Another lamp! Pottery barn, eat your heart out.  I made this is just a few minutes (and a trip to target).  I had this sitting on the kitchen counter (note banana) on a grey day and it was so lovely.

: :  A trio of HP pillows.  This was a craft project with my niece who took 2 of the pillows off to college with her.

I have a little girl here requesting glitter. Gotta go.

Lisa

What I did this summer. Part II

And now for the scary adventures.  In June a quick and fierce storm blew through our neck of the woods.  It is the first time we have had to get in the basement during a storm.  Have you seen our basement?  Have you seen Silence of the Lambs?

These are just a few of the many, many trees in our neighborhood that fell during the storm and the one on the tree service truck fell two days after the storm. Most of the trees were 100+ years old.  One was 220 years old!  Our next door neighbors lost two huge trees that shade the east side of our house and we miss them very much.
Other than the truck and the tree LIMB that fell on our neighbors guest house, there was not much damage to our close neighbors homes and thankfully no one was hurt!

Lisa

What I did this summer. Part I

Our swimsuits are trashed, it was a great summer. Looking back, I can honestly say we didn't waste a day.  Some days were playing on the porch in our jammies kind of days, but that was just what we all needed. We had lots of adventures, some fun, some scary.
I am not making any apologies for the long blogging break, my time was better spent having a good old fashioned summer.  Don't you agree?
Lisa

Debbie

These photos, except for the last one, were made at my sister's house.  She has a way of collecting odd little things and arranging things and flowers...she's gifted.  I love to look at all of her collections.  She is a wonderful gift buyer.  The two dolls in the last photo are gifts I have received from her and I love them.  I love her a lot too.

Lisa

Anticipation

Sorry for the long break in blogging.  As many of you know I have had some health issues.  I'm feeling better and I hope to one day be back to normal. Well, normal for me.

There have been lots of end of the school year activities.  This is from field day.  Anna is in the pink shorts.  She came in second place in the 50 yard dash, the apple has clearly fallen far from the tree!  Here she's getting ready for a race called 'shoe find' or as I like to call it: a sock that will need bleach.

Lisa

The fast is fast approaching

My computer fast is here, well in a few hours anyway.  I was so worried about it last year and this year I am looking forward to it!  I have spent hours and hours on the computer working on a cookbook for the daycare at our church and now I'm OVER IT.

As promised:

Cute kids.  They both just learned how to swim.  Ahhhh.  I'm looking forward to a summer of " WATCH ME MOMMA".








































































 New-ish purse I made on a snow day.  It is great fabric though very hard to sew.




























My life = Babydolls everywhere

Rain of Biblical proportions brought on strange sproutings in the compost pile - kidney beans I think. 

Well it looks like I'm going to leave you all dangling with that great photo of a pile of ... garbage.  Nice. 

Call me! Come see me! Let's have coffee!

Lisa

For you Leslie Graf

This is where Barbie learns that Pooh Bear had a very tiny waist.

I'm not sure what prom this was from but I do recall the fella had on a ruffled tux shirt.

                                
























Lent is approaching and I am embarking on my internet fast again.  I would like to be saying my 'computer' fast but I have some work to do on the computer so I'm going to just avoid the siren call of social media, blog trolling and general time wasting!  I'll do some posting of the children (for the grandparents) and projects completed lately (for the rest of you) before I sign off for 40 days.

JC is giving up sweets and alcohol for Lent. He's telling me this one evening and Anna walks through the room and breaks into "Blame it on the a ah uh a alcohol..."   There goes my Mom of the Year award.

Lisa

This is what I get for being nosey

The house next door to us has been recently vacated.  I decided to poke around a bit.  (are you surprised?)

The moving out was entertaining for us neighbors.  Especially the water bed mattress that I was sure contained a dead body.  Thankfully my neighbor Elizabeth is up on her Dr. Bass non-fiction books and was able to ascertain that the water bed bladder only LOOKED like a head, shoulders and back.

So, I am examining the beauty in shards of broken glass from a patio table.





I turn to continue snooping and I see this:

yes, I screamed.  As you would have too.  The previous inhabitants were in cosmetology school.

At least the kitchen didn't look like a meth lab.

That is one BIG tree right on the west side of our house. It is the main reason why I don't enjoy storms.

Next time, cute stuff, not scary heads.  Promise!

Lisa

ta da

Jonathan has an old telescope which is very cool but needs a new lens.  In the meantime I took the neat old wooden tripod and made it into a lamp.  Yes, I did the wiring and did not electrocute anyone.  Fun.  Of course now I want to make lamps, lamps, lamps.

Lisa

That's better

DSC_0325, originally uploaded by lisacooper100.

I finally put a bed skirt on our bed. I have been putting this project off because I knew I would have to hem a king size bed skirt, ugh! It turned out to be so easy and elevates our bedroom from the "grad school squalor" look we were rocking.

Tomorrow I will show you the cool thing I made with electricity!

Lisa

Spring hopes eternal

After a brisk walk this morning I snapped some shots of signs of spring around the yard. 

Lenten Roses ready, daffodils peeking, foxglove holding fast...

Looking ahead but enjoying the moment

New things

Today I followed some great advice I received when Anna was a baby.  "Sleep when the baby sleeps".  I never followed the advice when my babies were babies so I decided to put it to the test today.  My girls still (thankfully) willingly take naps. I know, I know, don't hate me.  Well, especially don't hate me when I tell you that I took a lovely 2 hour nap with them today. 

New things:


Swim lessons and a note from Anna to her Daddy about what she "lund" (learned)

I bought an old suitcase at the thrift store and recovered the inside and added some ribbon trim.  As I suspected, the girls love it.  I am amazed at all the the things it becomes.

Lucy whispered to me the other night: "sweetie baby is half doll, half human".  (sweetie baby is up on the left)  I think Jonathan has been reading Stephen King to them at bedtime.

Why, why, why does she already give me this look?


See you tomorrow.

Lisa

Let's think about summer

Here are some photos of my yard from this summer.  I have plans for enlarging a flower bed this spring.  I need more sun in my yard for my plant taste.

I made the above photo to remind myself that the inpatients next to the hydrangea need to be white.  Those two colors together are like fingernails on a chalkboard.  Of course the hydrangea hasn't bloomed until this year and I wasn't even sure what color it might be. 

I still think about our great yard on East Scott. Wasn't it great??

Enjoy your day and for my friends in the blizzard, please be safe!
Lisa