We're Officially Moved

Well, it's over. At least the moving part.

Well, almost the moving part. Vince is coming with the final load today.

But I got here yesterday! I seriously thought the packing would never end. I mean, who know we had so much....ahem.....stuff. By Tuesday night when I finally crashed in a hotel bed after midnight I could no longer feel my feet~they were just numb!

I wish you could have seen me today, driving our pickup truck with a backseat full of 13 potted plants: 2 houseplants, 1 pot of flowers and 10 tomato and pepper plants. It was like a garden nursery in there! They seem to have fared well on the trip and I really do hope so because they have been doing great. There are the cutest little tomatoes and peppers growing all over them.

(On a sidenote: I'd love to know what you recommend for an organic/all-natural pest control for the veggie plants. Please tell me!)

I am so ready to get crackin' on the unpacking now! My sweet mom went over to the house this week and cleaned all the cabinets and lined them with shelf paper for me. So they're all ready for me to fill up:) And fill them up I will!

Just thought I'd show you a pic of the house we have leased. It's a downsize for us~we're losing about 400 sq. ft. in the house, plus a tool shed and a huge attic. But we are gaining a garage and I do like the house. I think it's going to work well for us for now. The yard is sort of the sad part. It's really tiny and there are NO trees. No anything really. Just a few shrubs and a bed of weeds in the front. We've definitely got some yardwork to do! It's always fun to have a clean slate to do whatever with though, right?! And there's all those apple seeds that my kiddos have insisted on saving, too....

I promise to not be so scarce from now on. Now that most of the crazy part is over, I can get back to regular blogging. I've really missed it! There are lots of post ideas in the cooker:)

The Making of an Egyptian Death Mask

We are learning all about the ancient world this year with Story of the World I and loving it! We've been learning a lot about Egypt, of course, which is completely fascinating. Most recently we have studied the New Kingdom of Egypt, which includes the story of King Tut. So we decided making an Egyptian death mask in the style of King Tut's would be a fun project. First since it was too cold at the time to paper mache in the garage (it probably would have frozen instead of dried-ha) and it was too messy to do it in the house, we decided to pick up a couple of cheap craft masks at Hobby Lobby. Next we cut out cardboard shapes to complete the shape of the death mask, attaching them with hot glue. Vince even put a little detail on the *beard* with the hot glue per The Princess' request. Then the kiddos started to paint them with this metallic gold tempera paint. It worked okay for the cardboard, but would not coat the plastic of the mask. We thought maybe a second coat ...

Door Hanger Chore Charts

My kids have had a chore chart for a while. It's one of those magnetic boards and they share it. However, it's not by their rooms and often they (and I) forget to update it. Plus it's a little bulky. When I saw the concept of a door hanger chore chart on Pinterest, I loved it! It was compact, right there were the kiddos could see it coming out and going into their rooms, and it costs almost nothing to make. I headed over to one of my favorite stores: Hobby Lobby, of course. They have these little wooden door hangers for .79. I also grabbed a couple of packets of decorative buttons for $1.99 each. I already had the clothes pins and the paint so those cost me nothing. I began by painting the door hangers (I used tempera paints because that's what I had). Then I grabbed a fine point Sharpie and the clothes pins and started writing chores on them, making sure to write them correctly so they will ...

Making Notebooks

Recently I tried out a new craft idea~and it was SO much fun!! And extremely frugal, too. That's always a bonus, right? So here we go: 1. Take your basic composition notebook (purchased at the back-to-school sales for .99 each). 2. Go to your craft supplies and get your Mod Podge ready, along with a good paintbrush. 3. Look through all those scrapbook papers you've been randomly collecting and choose some. 3. After choosing your paper for the cover of your book and trimming it to fit, start *painting* the cover with the glue. Next, give the back of your paper a good coat of glue, too. (I left the binding uncovered so that I could use a contrasting paper there later on). 4. Glue it on! Remember to smooth out any air bubbles under the paper. 5. Flip the cover open and make a few cuts on the corners so that they will fold over nice and neat, then add a little more glue to the edges of the inside cover and a little more to the paper edges. 6. Fold them over and press...

my blessed life

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