When a Tree Falls, Make a Lamp (it's totally a saying!)

 So last spring we saw some pretty heavy winds and guess what of our neighbor's ended up in our yard? (ugh don't look to close at the actual yard, this is one of the last things we have to finish with the money pit we call our home).  Our fence was fine, the neighbors came and cleared the tree out of our yard and all was fine.

But then that next morning I was watching HGTV (surprised, anyone?) AND Sarah's house, the beach cottage edition was on and guess what she was doing? She was making lamps out of a Birch tree she had to cut down.

Fate!

and Brilliant!

So I sent Jason out there to cut some pieces out of the Aspen (with the okay of our neighbors)

 I sprayed them with some polyurethane, bought the lamp kits and let them dry.

 Jason drilled a big hole through them -- he had to buy a new drill bit.  We have an understanding, I give him projects to do, he gets to buy stuff for said projects. This drill bit had something special about it, but for the life of me, I can't remember what it was. Just know you need a big bit -- Jason likes big bits and he can not lie (hahaha, I amuse myself, greatly).

 He 'screwed' in the light holder and gorilla glued it in to stabilize it. He loves, loves gorilla glue -- almost as much as he likes duct tape. At first he wasn't going to scrape the excess glue off because as he puts it, the lamp shade would cover it up.

I gave him a look.

 And so the glue is scraped off. So then he wired them. Then realized he needed to add another part and had to take the wires out and wire again.

 We put felt on the bottom.

 Drilled a hole in the side to meet up with the main hole and the cord comes out here.

 All finished....whoot

 The other one

 And all together now----ahhhh, look how cute our dog is...

 So -- back to the neighbors -- it was their tree after all and they were pretty upset they lost the tree so we made them a lamp too

They liked it.

Linking up Here:

Creations by Kara Linky Party

 

Tatertots & jello

An autumn day

I love autumn! It's my favorite season.  It's been unseasonably warm here in Denver, seriously, we had our windows open yesterday.  Thankfully (and most of my friends may be upset with me), we are going to get some snow this week!  This past weekend we went to nick's garden center to get some pumpkins and roasted chilies. We've been doing this for the last few years.

If he can lift it and carry it, he can have it...this one wasn't it.

He actually got this one on to the cart and into the trunk.  Strong kiddo.

Same rule.

oh my gosh they're getting so tall.  Not sure how many more years we'll have left doing this.  I had to bribe them with candy to do this this year.

My car still smells like roasted chilies.

Our cart was so heavy!

Another fun halloween/autumn thing we do, is booing the neighborhood.  We leave a little bag of goodies on neighbors' porches and then 'ding dong ditch'.  The kids have a blast....didn't have to bribe them to do this one.

Jack's been guarding  our porch.  I wanted to dress him up in a Bronco's shirt with a sign that said 'will sit here until the Broncos when the Super Bowl' but Jason was afraid our house would be egged.

Linked up here:




Go visit her, she has some great pictures of San Francisco.

It's been forever

I have not been blogging lately, but I've been really really busy and have the pictures to prove it.....But what's been keeping me really busy, well besides, children, home, school and work is....extra work.  I finally landed my dream job as a school nurse.  So excited about that, still get to do nursy stuff, get to hang out with kiddos (OMG they are so cute when you get a group of them together and they try to diagnose each other), build up my assessment skills (getting a health history from a six year old is...well...challenging).  Anyhooo, when I went to quit my dialysis gig (which was an awesome gig, loved dialysis, the schedule just sucks for being a mom with two active kiddos), the look on my boss's face was so forlorn.  I do believe I started channeling my Catholic grandmother and I offered to work Saturdays and holidays (WTF --uh, okay that would not be my Catholic grandmother).  As the words were coming out of my mouth my brain was screaming up a storm, "stop stop you idiot".  My friend Martha (who helped me get school nursing gig) was nice enough to claim that I did this a just in case the school thing didn't work out or if I was just subbing dialysis would help supplement.  But Martha thinks I'm smarter then I am...it was purely, "ohmygoshpeoplearegoingtobemadatme  AND gasp, mightnotlikeme" angst.  I'm soooo over that (I think) and when I've finished my agreed upon Saturdays in September (by the way will have worked 9 Saturdays in a freakin' row!) I will gladly say, "I'm really quitting this time.

Our neighbor's daughter (and the kids' babysitter) got married this summer and Jake was asked to be in the wedding  Oh my gosh he was so cute in his tux and the wedding was gorgeous.  Kate was a beautiful bride.

 Dressing up for the rehearsal dinner

James Bond's got nothin' on Jake!

 Jake and the father-of-the-bride, Tom

 Jake and the two flower girls, he can't even touch them because they're girls!

 Jake and the groom, Brian

 Oh my gosh they're so stinkin' cute.  They're Kate's cousins

 a jar full of jelly bellies, cute party favor

 I hardly got any pictures of the bride...but here's Isaac dancing with Kate.

 Isaac dancing with the mother-of-the-bride

 Isaac dancing with a flower girl

Isaac dancing with his dad

Isaac likes to dance

Also in the last month, Isaac got his Orange Belt in Karate.  Orange is the second earned belt in the dojo where he attends.

For Jake's 12th birthday he wanted a camping trip with his friends.  But it had to be a hike in and camp, not car camping (that's for sissies -- by the way, I'm such a sissy that I only camp in hotel rooms).  They went to Mohawk Lake.  

 Jake and his two buddies starting their hike in.

 Upper Mohawk Lake

Continental Falls

So what's in store for us in the Autumn months?  Well we got a bunch of retaining wall brick delivered to our house and we're redoing the back yard.  Unfortunately all our Saturdays are filled with me working and Jason carting around the kids that this may be more difficult then I originally thought....Jason did then the brick moved to the back yard at least.

Anyone want to volunteer to help?

One post in August.....not bad?  Unlike Colleen who is going to make an effort to blog more....I am not making any promises (oh and Colleen, I got that email, but your last post was in July......).