Amanda's birthday was yesterday. I can't believe my baby.. the smallest child I have, my last born.. my FOURTH child.. just turned two. Amazing. I don't give her near as much credit as I should however. The booger knew how to put the tokens in the slots at Chuck E Cheese, and she even said "Hey Cheeeeeeeeze!" when the huge character suit walked by. Ashtyn, Alliyah and their friend Elijah had the run of the place and of ME. While I was chasing wild children my mother in law was taking pictures of Anna CHEATING at skee ball. How do you cheat at skee ball? Well you grab as many balls as you can, walk up the lane and drop the balls in the slots that make the siren go off of course. =O)

I have decided I am going to do surprise decorating. About once a month (maybe longer depending on how expensive the jobs are)I'm going to redecorate a room. I'll buy the fabric for curtains etc., sew them up during the month sometime, then one night I'll get the in-laws to baby sit for the afternoon and night, and paint, put up curtains etc. while DH is gone to work. If I go ahead and nail up the curtain rods but don't actually put them up and paint the wall where they would go first, it should be dry enough to hang the curtains right before he gets home. Some things he'll have to know about.. like the small table I painted today for the bathroom. It's one that he made in shop years ago during his jr. high years. It only had a stain and looked well.. very nicely made but just sort of "there". So I painted it "Shade Tree Green" Then added a crackle texture to the top area and the front drawers. It looks great! I still have to wait a day before I can add the 'stain' that goes in the cracks to bring out the texture more, but there's not much work left. I'm proud! Next up will probably be the dining chairs. The chairs are from the 70's and super sturdy but rather sticky no matter how I clean them. I'm thinking the varnish is really old so I'm planning to strip them, paint them a funky color, stencil the backs and "antique" them with sandpaper. Maybe I'll do each one a different color just for fun =O). That means I'll need to do the table also. *sigh* So much work and only little me to do it!

The bookshelf could use some love too, it's small and no paint, no stain, nada. Clean slate. I have no idea what to do with it, we keep the kiddie books on it but I don't want it to look to babyish since it's in the living room for now. I'll have to think on it.

I am just barely on the computer lately. There's so much I want to do that I just don't have time. Mostly when I do get online it's to do research or work, not much fun. I think Saturday nights should be my free nights for computer time, assuming I don't have tons of late night cleaning to do.

I am off for now, I'm halfway through with curtains for the sewing room and I *think* I left the iron on!