One of Those Days, We All Have Them

This is a link to Pioneer Woman's Homeschoooling blog this morning. My heart just went out to this poor woman. While I do not have the intestinal fortitude to attempt to homeschool the girlies, I have a lot of respect for moms (and dads) who do. Regardless, we all have the kinds of days like Mrs. G's below. I don't know about you but I take secret guilty pleasure in reading about someone else's!

http://thepioneerwoman.com/homeschooling/2010/02/how-dominos-pizza-saved-my-marriage/

Changeup

I thought it was time to pay some credit here to the other featured member of our blog, the Haggis. What do you think?

Holy Leaf Piles Batman!!

Our new house has a BEAUTIFUL large wooded back yard. It is going to be so pleasant during the sticky summers here to have all these gorgeous trees. One drawback to such splendor, however it the enormous amount of leaves! It may not be so bad later, but since the previous occupants left the house before fall set in, there was noone to do the raking. As a result, the leaf litter in the back yard was 4 inches thick in some places!

Summer very much wanted to try the rake. After a solid 10 minutes of pleading and pestering I finally surrendered it. This lasted all of about 2 minutes before she realized there was something she just absolutely had t otake care of on the trampoline and handed me back my rake.

These piles came out of ONE flower bed. There are equally large piles on the other side.

This is the row of leaf piles that we cleared out of the french drain that runs the length of the backyard.

I just thought I would add in this picture of the area of the backyard that Den fenced in for the mutts. They LOVE it. They have plenty of room to run and Diesel spends quite a bit of time perched on top of the dog house a la Snoopy so he can see what is going on on the other side of the fence.

What We've Been Up To (That Doesn't Involve Moving Boxes!)

On Feb. 12th, Dennis was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal.

Paige and Summer both got Straight A's on their report cards! I took this at Paige's awards ceremony.

Summer lost her first top tooth. For some reason I just think it makes her look so OLD! She lost it on Friday after school and insisted that I keep it in a glass of water on top of the fridge until Monday so she could show her teacher her tooth.

Aren't they just so stinking cute? By 8:30 tonight they were all passed out on the couch!

It's Moving Day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Florida Dreamin'

This easily has the potential to be my favorite room in the house! Brick floors and walls made up entirely of windows. There is even a great bench seat / shelf that goes all the way around the room for all the house plants that I will most likely kill. Or a selection of great sunny spots for Gidget to sleep the day away. Oh the possibilities!

Having Someone to Love is Family. Having Somewhere to Go is Home. Having Both is a Blessing.

The Family Room in the new house encompasses a living space and the kitchen. I don't plan on including a dining area in this room, but I would love to find a great old farmhouse table or large kitchen island to provide some visual separation. I found an awesome Ethan Allen farm table for $100 at our local thrift store. If it's still there when I go back it was meant to be! I would also like to mention the groovy 70's grasscloth wallpaper. At first I HATED it, but it has grown on me. It adds some warmth to the room. I would love to attack those built-ins with a can of bright white paint. That and some new hardware would make a VAST improvement.

This is a view of the kitchen from the other side of the great room. I love all the white. The current valance will be removed by the homeowner. I am not entirely sure what I am going to do in there. Most likely a couple of nice kitchen rugs and some new valances will be all I'll need.

If you go around the corner from the refrigerator in the picture above there is a good sized pantry. Just picture those shelves lined with clear glass canisters and some great bushel baskets underneath the shelves!

There is also this convenient little media center across from the pantry. I will be on the lookout for a great chair and maybe a new lamp shade here. I wonder if there is a way to paint or refinish the brass fixture.

One More Bathroom

This is the little half bath off the great room. It's painted the happiest shade of blue. It reminds me of the sky in my hometown in October. This is a great close up shot of the grass cloth that papers the walls in the greatroom. More about that later.

I'd Rather Be Able To Face Myself In The Bathroom Mirror Than Be Rich And Famous

Welcome to the master bathroom!

There is only one sink in the master bath, but check out the awesome built in vanity! I plan on using more white in here.

This is going to be Den's closet. YAY for not having to share my closet with his mess dress and wetsuit!

The other half of the closet

This is the lavatory / shower area of the master bath. I love the brown in here. There is a huge mirror that hangs on the hook that's in this picture. The awesome honeycomb tiles are in here too. I am planning on using lots of white in here.

This is the linen closet in the room. You can't see it in the picture, but it has the coolest vintage glass doorknob!

Shower. Pretty unimpressive, but it is lit!

LOVE those honeycomb tiles!

Splish Splash I Was Taking A Bath

Since I am cleaning the old house today in preparation for my landlady to bring a couple through to look at it (what they can see of it around our boxes), I thought I would share the pictures I took of the inside of the new house. This first set is the upstairs bathroom that will belong to the girls and whatever guests we might have.

A glimpse of the girls' bathroom from the hallway

The girls are extremely happy about having separate sinks and mirrors.

I absolutely adore the honeycomb tile that is on the floor. I also really like the vanity, which I think is original to the house. I don't care for the top of it, though. It's a little too 70's for me. However, since it is not my house I will be happily learning to live with it!

Help, I'm having a 70's flashback!

This is the decor currently in the girls' bathroom, which at the old house is painted white. I am not sure how it is going to look with the blue walls in the new house, so I will most likely either paint the walls in the new house a nice light pink or sell this and buy something else. I guess it depends on how much of the yellow tile the shower curtain hides!
OK, now it's time for me to go clean and pack the girls' current bathroom!

Never Fear

Never fear, I'm still here. I think. I can't really see around all these boxes.

It's Official!!!

It's Official!!!!!

The Hargises will be relocating as of February 15, 2010.

Our new address is:

Dennis, Sarah, Paige, and Summer Hargis

(Daisy, Diesel, and Gidget too if you need to send our pets mail)

5 Cowles Circle

Poquoson, VA 23662

The Yankees Know One Thing ....

Being a South Texas girl, I didn't get a whole lot of snow growing up. I don't know how to drive in it. I don't know how to shovel it. And I certainly didn't know you could make dessert with it! (well except for the maple syrup and snow candy that I read about in Little House on the Prairie as a little girl). Imagine my surprise the other day when I read that my girlfriend Jackie was making snow cream. What on earth is snow cream you may ask? Well, this is snow cream....

All you need is 1 gallon of clean snow, 1 Tbsp. of vanilla extract, 1 cup of white sugar, and 2 cups of milk.

Mix it all together in a great big bowl and Voila! - Snow Cream

It gets the Girlies' Seal of Approval!

I would like to take this opportunity to thank PDub for the idea to take pics of the ingredients and the actual steps of a recipe.