What Olivia has been up to

Olivia recently found an activity sheet in a Veggie Tales coloring book that required her to decode a sentence. She was quite taken by the concept and we've done quite a bit of communicating by codes lately. I don't know where she could get this fondness for written puzzles and such. (Sarcasm in case you don't know me well.)

Here is the code she wrote for me.



And here it is after I solved it.



Not only clever, but very polite too!

Funny Olivia-ism

Yesterday Travis and I had the song West End Girls in our head from Pet Shop Boys. Don't ask why. I think he had been telling me how someone had on a cheesy 80s radio station on at work. In any case, it was stuck in our heads and we were going around the house singing, "East end boys and west end girls. West. End. Girls." You know how it goes, right? Admit it.

Upon hearing us, Olivia had to clarify and told us, "I'm a girl, but I'm not west end." Ha! I'm not exactly sure what that means, but it's definately funny!

Reconstruction

I got on a little kick of making new things from old ones. I was taking pictures of Olivia today in a dress I made for her out of one of Travis' old shirts and I realized that in the background were the old chairs I reupholstered for our patio. I thought it was a good opportunity to blog about both reconstructions.

First, Olivia's cute little dress. It's actually probably more like a nightie with the light, white fabric, but I couldn't resist her wearing it to church today.



The front was the back of the shirt, the back of men's shirt has a perfect little bodice for little girl dresses. And adding elastic to the old sleeves, and cutting them up, makes nice ruffly straps.



You can see the buttons that used to be on the front now button up the back of the dress. Looks so nice and I didn't have to sew a single button-hole.



And on to the chairs. Here is what they looked like when I bought them for $20 total off of craigslist. I love craigslist. As you can see, they were in awful shape and of course couldn't be used, but great price for some nice wrought-iron which I love.



After buying outdoor fabric and foam and tons of staples here they are behind Olivia. Not bad and a lot cheaper than I would have paid for new ones.



Both projects were a lot more involved than I envisioned, so I think I'll be taking a break from reconstructions for awhile. Especially reupholstery. It's months since I jammed a screw-driver in my thumbnail taking the old staples out and it still is a long way from completely recovering and looks awful. But I think I'll leave that pic off this blog.

My exciting life

I bet you wonder what has been keeping me and the kids busy since I haven't blogged in forever. Absolutely nothing. I guess we have settled into a nice, little routine because the highlights of my days now consist of waiting for flowers to bloom. Literally. I have one oriental poppy flower that I check on a bazillion times a day watching the buds slowly open. They have the prettiest light, delicate blooms floating on tiny little stems. I spent all day yesterday waiting for the tallest one to open and then it tricked me and opened some time during the night. But I caught a picture of it this morning to show off the glamorous life I lead.



Here is the whole plant. You can barely tell, but it's growing in an old watering can. I love how it looks next to an oak barrel planter.



But I really can't complain about my hum drum days with my precious little shadow following me around whatever I do and making it fun. Here he is posing next to the poppy bloom. Always stealing the show.



Truth is, I have the gardening bug again and spending a lot of time outside trying to make a garden with as little money as possible and killing off lots of stuff. But it's fun. When I'm restless I occasionally wander around in back and admire the stuff that is actually growing. Here are a few more pics.

A little cosmos I grew from seed.



Calla lilly, dianthus, and my favorite fuscia I'm so proud of. It was a little $2 plant from a drug store, but it must be in the perfect spot because it's filled in nicely. Their colors are so bright!



Purple fountain grass, gaura, and yet another fuscia.



A close-up of the gaura. I love this plant. It has tiny little pretty pink flowers that attract butterflies and humming birds, is drought-resistant, and looks decent all year round. Really no down-side to it.



And if you are still with me, my sunflowers are getting really big! Somehow I timed them just right when I started them indoors and planted them out. I wish I had taken notes or something. I'm sure you'll be seeing more of these when they bloom, hopefully soon!



Well, that's it, that's how I've been passing my days in between the dishes, laundry, car-pools, diapers, and worse the potty-training! I'm sure you're glad I at least have flowers to talk about...

Hot Cross Buns

Olivia performed Hot Cross Buns for her first violin performance. I was very proud of her for being brave to perform in front of an audience. And if you turn your volume way up and listen closely you can even tell what song it is!