Just My Imagination

Analeigh has gotten very creative lately in coming up with new uses for everyday items. She's becoming such a clever girl!

Exhibit A: An empty dryer sheet box becomes a fashionable hat.



Exhibit B: A hook broken off from David's tow truck, now worn on her finger, somehow becomes a spider she can terrorize David with.

Refinishing Part Two

We finally finished our refinishing work on the dining room table that we found in the basement when we bought this house. It was painted a hideous green and required a generous portion of paint remover to get it to where we could sand it and stain it. Sadly, we never thought to take pictures of this process until we were all done. So, all you get to see today is the finished product.

It isn't perfect, but it does give us a larger table at hardly any cost, so the work was worth it.



The stain matches the work we did on the hutch. The hutch photo was a little too dark and these ones of the table look a tad too light. So, imagine them both somewhere in between on the darkness scale.

Firetruck Saturday

David woke up very excited today. We were going to go to Lowe's in Salina to build a firetruck as park of their Build and Grow workshops. Alas, when we arrived we learned that the project had been recalled from some unspecified safety concern. So we built puppet theaters instead. We would show you a picture of David's finished project, expect that he realized he could pull off the card-stock stage curtains on the car ride home, which leaves us with nothing worth taking a picture of. We hope they'll bring back the firetrucks for some future weekend because David was super-excited about making one.

On the plus side, Lowe's had already booked appearances by firefighters and EMTs, so David got to sit in a firetruck and an ambulance!

Homecoming Parade

Tonight was Ellsworth High School's homecoming game, which we won, 35-6 over SE of Saline (no, we don't have any idea what kind of name that is for a school).

Before the game was the obligatory parade, which David and Analeigh loved, because they got candy.





Hmm... that last picture said "Junior Class of '12." Gee, we're getting older and older.

From a Toy's Point of View

Have you ever taken the time to look at the world from a toy's point of view? Well now you can!

Refinishing Part One

The refinishing project on the hutch is now complete. The dining room table project just needs a little more tweaking, then we'll be unveiling it too. In the mean time, enjoy looking at our new hutch.



You may be wondering to yourself where the "before" picture is, so that you can compare and contrast and recognize what an awesome job we did. Alas, we failed to take pictures of the hutch or the dining room table (just trust us, the green paint on the table was a poor design choice).

Alas, we've combed the archives to let you see some pictures of parts of the hutch, as it appears in the background of photos.

Here is the upper-half, with its dark coat of varnish.
Here is the lower-half, with the gold leaf trim Liz was not a big fan of.
Here is another look at the "gold" trim.

Stay tuned for when we unveil the new and improved dining room table...

It Slices and Dices (Actually, It Doesn't Dice)

The Smiths gave us a bunch of apples on Sunday, along with Sister Smith's Pampered Chef Apple Peeler/Corer/Slicer. That thing is amazing! We're definitely going to have to get one. Especially since our neighbors have an apple tree and told us to come by anytime and grab as many as we want.

For now we're just freezing the apple slices, but pretty soon we'll be making delicious desserts - like apple crisp. Mmm...

Mud Day

With the recent rain, the yard has become a very fun place for the kids to play in. While Liz was working on refinishing the hutch and dining room table, the kids were playing in and around the "pool" in the sandbox. Needless to say, we're grateful for quality laundry detergent that can work miracles on Analeigh's white dress!

Being "Franklin"

David has recently become enamored with the Franklin videos at our local library. One of the films has a scene in which Franklin's friend, Beaver, knocks on the door and asks Franklin's father, "Can I speak to Franklin for a minute?"

Since then, David will often refuse to come inside our house with us when returning from an errand. Instead, he will insist that we close the door so he can knock and recreate the scene with us (with him playing the role of Franklin outside, instead of Beaver). Liz is very goodnatured about it and tells "Franklin" to come on in.

Sometimes David elaborates on the scene by having Franklin's sister, Harriet, outside too. This is set up by him pulling Analeigh back outside to fill the role. Alas, today's scene only involved Franklin.

Firsts

Today was David's first day of preschool. Today was the first day Ben gave him a father's blessing in preparation for school. Ben has fond memories of getting such blessings from his own dad, before each school year, when he was just a lad. It is kind of hard to believe that we're old enough to have a kid in school (even if it is pre-school).

David will be going every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for two and a half hours each morning. He is very excited. He's been begging us every day for the past few weeks to go play at Mrs. Haase's house.

Moving Pictures

Today we decided to start refinishing our hutch, as well as a dining room table we found in the basement. The table is painted green (for reasons no one understands). We're hoping it will have some good wood under the paint so that we can stain it to match the hutch.

The hutch is varnished black, but has been worn down in some areas, so we're thinking that sanding it down and staining it will make it look new again.

As we were in the process of dismantling the doors on the hutch, Analeigh noticed that the glass was out of one of the doors and decided it made the perfect frame for her to make herself into a moving picture (just like in Harry Potter). Its so life-like - almost as if she were popping out of the frame to touch you!

New Traditions

David and Analeigh have started a new tradition of going outside each morning to wave goodbye to Ben as he leaves for work. It is quite cute, really. We may have to start training them to stand inside the house, by a window, as the whether begins to turn colder. In the meantime, as we said, it is just cute.

Eight Lanes of Awesome!

As new residents of Ellsworth, we received a coupon in the mail for a free medium pizza and two games of bowling from the local bowling alley (which boasts a Gambino's Pizza inside). So we took advantage of the offer and paid only for David and Analeigh's games.

After squishing her finger between two balls in the return, at the beginning of our session, Analeigh decided she did not want to touch a bowling ball again. So she would sit on the sidelines or at the control panel- just so long as she could avoid the act of bowling.



We did eventually get her to participate a little when her daddy would hold her and help her push the ball down the ramp.

Anyway, when we ordered our pizza, we were surprised to learn that they weren't going to limit us to just one-topping - we could order ANY pizza on the menu! So we did. For future reference, the Chicken Bacon Ranch pizza is delicious. So delicious, in fact, that David joined Analeigh in quitting bowling halfway through the game, so they could both focus on eating pizza.

Overall, we felt the bowling quality was a little lacking. We'd like to argue that the lane we were on was uneven, but there is a strong possibility that our poor scores are more a result of our lack of recent practice. But, if you're ever in Ellsworth, stop by Coach & Four Bowling Lanes and check out their eight lanes of awesome bowling!

Preisker Park

One of the perks of Ellsworth is having three parks in the small town all within walking distance. Thus, David and Analeigh can have tons of fun playing in a variety of settings - just like they did today at Preisker Park.