knock-off picnic table

1. I MADE this. like bought the wood (with kids in tow). cut it. screw/glued it together. made it.

2. at lunchtime we were at our friends' telling them about my dreams to make this table. that evening they came to dinner and it was sitting there (though not painted yet....come on)

3. our small-town lumber store did not have 1x3 boards. they looked at me like I was crazy. but they always look at moms like they're crazy in there. grrrrr.

4. I switched the 1x3s to 1x4s and only had to figure out one remeasurement because of the substitutions

5. sanded beautifully. spray painted (guess which sparkly princess chose the color). didn't bother filling in the countersunk screws. lots of poly.

you should do it too. the feeling afterwards is one of immense pride. but not like 'I'm better than you pride'. more like 'I'm better than I thought I was and you should try this too' pride.

and then have lots of picnics.

my plans were from Ana White of Knock-Off Wood

wonderful wonderful. I will be back for more.

cure for a bad day

potty jokes with a 5 year old.

even if the bad day is partially caused by that 5 year old.

i'm thinking about turning these into some wall mounted canvas magic.

with delicate white vinyl lettering decorating my wall that will say:

"what does a poop do when its boring? nothing!!"

ya I don't get it either.

but she's cute.

we ♥ dads

especially this one

thanks for taking kids to the rodeo (radio if you asked Lily), not minding the furniture-musical-chairs constantly going on around here and giving the thumbs up to put turquoise paint on anything, planting plants and mowing the yard the old-fashioned way, doing the Little Einsteins dance with Lily (or both of them) whenever it comes on, Max+screaming+church+you in the hall, transporting Max back and forth between our bed and his bed for nighttime nursing, suggesting pizza on just the right nights when we're been busy all day, telling me to breathe during Lily's under 4-hour all-natural labor and birth, laughing about the bowl of cafeteria gray spinach during Max's easier-than-flying-a-kite 3-hour-labor, helping my sisters+mom+dad take the recycling or give late-night xrays or clean out the raspberry bushes or learn pointless soccer facts, being a fantastic student and worker, being my grandparents' favorite grandchild, buying me a piano and then saying nice things like you had no idea I was that good (actually I'm not that good), late night quick texts haha, coaching soccer but especially doing the hokey pokey during practice and the made-up handshakes and cheers for the dragonfairies

and I must say that despite the 1982 moustache/grapefruit sized glasses...I'm rather fond of this dad too

thanks for buying Thelonious Monk cds just because I was in jazz band, camping memories (save some for dippin), handling a house with 6 females+you, teaching me about tools and driving (that took a while to sink in obvious by the amount of work you had to do on my yellow geo storm), teaching me about marriage and family and sacrifice and forgiveness and love without saying much about it, still being the smartest person I know, coming to dragonfairy soccer games, scheming about Max's nacho libre blessing day costume, Sunday pancake night with the perfect scrambled eggs, welcoming my then 14-year-old-looking husband as your sports buddy/snickers question stealing/crazy grandma visiting husband, giving us daddy blessings on each first day of school

i spy 8 lollipops

these are some pictures I'm working on of a cute Evanston family (nearly there, Smiths)

once I'm done the whole shoot will be over on allietakespictures.com

and boy oh boy will there be plenty more

(shown in much better quality too....blogger's not too hot at that kind of thing)

jaime's bib tutorial

if you know a wee one that happens to be messy during lunchtime, go make a bib! i followed jaime's super-tutorial. she rocks.

but since I'm not friends with lots of laundry, I used some of this here iron-on vinyl before I stitched my pieces together. it wipes clean! boo ya!

cancelled due to rain