Durango Palmers: projects

Showing posts with label projects. Show all posts

Monday, January 23, 2012

Fun on Friday 33 - {swimming. again.} and Semi-homemade...

Nothing too exciting to report about our Fun on Friday. Swimming again. The kids have been swimming deprived so we are trying to make up for it. And since we have a pass...well that's what we're doing while it's cold outside. Although I have to admit that swimming isn't my favorite thing. Well let me rephrase that...sitting in a shallow kids pool watching my kids splash around while I freeze my tail off isn't so fun. Swimming itself is nice...in a hot tub! I swam a couple laps (4) while we were there and was saddened at how out of shape I am and how truly difficult it is to swim and swim and swim! And I was on the swim team at 6 years old for crying out loud! Maybe that's what I'll do when we go to the pool. I'll swim and get a work out and let Mark watch the kids. Hmmmm. Wonder if I could convince Mark? Doubt it.

Anywho. So like I said, not much to report there. But I thought I would show you a couple things I've been doing lately.

First off, I got this awesome Bible (an Inductive Bible) for Christmas from Julie and Mike.

I saw that Mark's mom owned one and decided it looked amazing. So I've been doing Bible study everyday and marking the snot out of my Bible. I'm in highlighter heaven! I used to study my notes in college this way and it's taken my Bible studies to a whole new level. It feels like someone gave me a shovel and I'm discovering stuff way beneath the surface. Seriously. You look for key words, phrases, concepts. Ask the 5 W's and the H. Mark names, dates, places. It makes you think! I love it. Have I mentioned I love it? :)

Anyway, I get up. Read it. Drink coffee. And see this.

Perfect.

We also did a little semi-homemade project that's been going around in my head for a while. We really needed a coat rack. Really. So I looked for one to buy and was appalled at how much they were! $100 for one?! No way! At least for a decent one. So we tried to figure out how much it would cost to build our own. We figured we could make it for $50. And that's what we did on Saturday.

Mark bought the wood and the hardware (paint made the project more expensive but it was under $50 for the wood and hardware) and had them cut it to length.

The kids and I painted it. No pictures of that since I was trying to monitor 3 excited kids while Mark was outside fixing the steps of our front deck. These are the legs at the base.

Then we attached them to a 6 foot 4x4 post. Drilled in the hardware.

Fixed the cap on top.

Voila! (is that even spelled right?)

And that was our productive weekend!

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Oh yes we did!

We did the WWE haircut last night. The mullet/boy band/unloved child hair-do is gone. Although no matter what kinda hair this kid has I can't help but think he's stinkin' adorable (clearly an objective opinion :) )

Here's the before. In this shot all he knew was that he got candy (yes we bribe). By the time we were done he'd had M&Ms, singing, dancing, Diego on the iPod and lots of begging. Seriously. Mark is the entertainer and I'm the fast-as-I-possibly-can-head shaver. I think both of us have difficult jobs. The outcome of mine is just more obvious. Ya know, stray long hairs that kinda twang out to the side or straight up. Yes he has some but overall he'll live...and so will we.

I couldn't take an after picture last night because by the time we were done he was so wound up and mad at us (and also had a touch of a sugar rush) he wouldn't look at or smile at the camera. Today was slightly easier but you'll notice he still wouldn't look at me.

Before we went to the Chiropractor this morning Kate was playing with my iPod. Jack just had to get a closer look....

We finished up school this morning (at least the bulk of it) and I sent them out for recess. That's why I have a minute to blog then I'm headed to make lunch. I go from teacher to lunch lady in a matter of moments.

Oh we also went to Walmart yesterday to get a preschool school book for Kate and also some art projects for all our sanity. We came home with a clay art project. Tried it this morning. Jack tried eating it, Kate rolled it and played dolls with it, and Kale tried to make every animal on the box. He did pretty good.

Friday, July 23, 2010

Our little house on the prairie

Ok so it's not really a prairie...more like a little house in the mountainous desert. I first saw the plans HERE and fell in love with the idea of a fun outdoor playplace. We don't have any parks closer than 10 minutes from here and the kids need something else to do OUTSIDE! :) So this is part of our solution. Since it was/is a big job we enlisted Mark's parents (who wanted to come down for a visit anyways and apparently like to be busy doing stuff around our place while they're here...) who built the house they live in now. We figured they'd have some know-how. And they did. So here's a little of what we did.

I forgot to take a complete before picture, one of the empty space, but this is still quite before. The playhouse will sit on top of the deck which is 4ft off the ground. Underneath will be a sandbox.

Here are the 2 main worker bees. Margie and I were the lovely assistants.

And because this is such a cool picture I had to include it.

And this darling one also. She had been running her dolls head through the sprinkler so she could fix her hair.

Kale wanted to really help so he and Mark put some screws in. He eventually got a bit tired of that so he followed Doug around. Doug would drill a hole, Kale filled it with a screw and Mark screwed it in. A good team actually.

Then the she worker bees came in and primed and painted the wood. Margie is on the ground and our friend Ashley (who was hanging out with us for the day) helped too.

Kale, Margie and I

We found an unopened can of bright blue paint so we decided to paint the trim that color. We may eventually need to paint the white part of the house but for now I think it's pretty cute.
Doug, Margie and I assembled the house while Mark was at work on Wednesday. Then Mark came home from work and helped put part of the roof on.

Here's the peanut gallery celebrating Margie's birthday with popsicles and watching the guys work.

This is from Kale's perspective. Thought it was a neat angle.

For now it's just a dirt box...

We need to complete the roof - we have a metal roof to put on - as well as complete the railing, put sand in, add on a swing set - that may be next year - and finish painting. We have a ways to go but it's coming along!

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Per your requests

Here I am posting pictures of my afghan that I crocheted last week. I had 4 different people request a photo so I thought I'd share my project. I'm debating about putting a brown edge around it. I didn't put tassels on the edges cause I think they just get tangled and in the way. Plus they tickle your face when you curl up in the blanket. So I X-ed the tassels. But now I think it could use some kind of edge to make it stand out. So we'll see. I may put a little dark brown around. We'll see.

Here's the full shot.

Close up of the pattern. Very simple. A good one to practice on.

Two of my favorite models to show the size.

After I finished working on this post yesterday I decided to go ahead and put the brown edge on. I'm so glad I did. I love it with the edge! It looks finished. Waaaay better than tassels :)

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

A few before and afters

I took a couple before pictures of my living room before just so you could see the amazing transformation. It may not look like much to you - especially if you've never seen the inside of my house - but it feels like a totally different place. I'm actually starting to feel like I live in an adult's house instead of a college-thrown-together place {no offense if you're still in college and throwing things together}. It's just different when you've been married 9 years and in the same house for almost 8 of those years and you are finally putting it together.

Before

After: What is now our homeschooling area

Before: Clutter, video game stuff, broken chair rail...etc...

After: Put up my shadow box, brought in a book shelf for our
thousand books + homeschooling books. Yikes! We love to read.

Before: Computer stuff, small book shelf, nothing really happening...

After: A beautiful, wonderful place to sit and read books and more! {BTW, those are the pictures that I said yesterday were a bit of a challenge to put up - they turned out pretty awesome I think}

I wish I had a before of this area. Basically the clock and picture weren't up. The TV sat on the top of our entertainment center because there were shelves inside the open area and it made the TV place too small. We removed the shelves, hid the clutter and now we have a grown up entertainment center.

Margie {my MIL} hung this picture up and decluttered my buffet.
It looks so nice now.

Here are a couple cell phone pics of the kids' rooms. It was difficult to see because of the light coming through their windows so forgive the crazy lighting.
You get the idea though.

Kale got a loft bed. It's more like a ceiling bed. We need to build a ladder for it. Right now he looks like a monkey climbing up in it. He can't sit up or he'll get a face full of ceiling.

Kate got a new bookshelf, a new picture and new curtains.
She was thrilled.

And I really wish I had a before and after of the garage. That place...well you could barely walk around in there. After a winter and a summer of going through things in the house and just putting them in the garage to "deal with later" it was overwhelming. After 3 hours of organizing and arranging and sweeping and somewhat dusting and sneezing and listening to Sean Hannity we accomplished this monumental task. It was a job worth posting pictures!

That's where we store our cow :) I mean steaks and ground beef and roasts and stuff.

They even pyramid stacked our paint!

And our stuff to give away, fix or sell. We've got quite the pile!

So whether or not you wanted the full tour of our newly cleaned, painted and rearranged house, you got it. I hope you survived!

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