Summer, School and a Smart Kid

So, summer is over. We've been on vacation, it's been a difficult summer. I don't really want to talk about it right now. Maybe when it's a distant memory and we've overcome some of the hurdles in our way right now..maybe then I'll talk about it. Anyway, we went on vacation to the Iowa State Fair and Adventureland...it was mostly fun. The first grader had a really great time.

We went to Adventureland first and the first grader rode two roller coasters pretty much all day. Until the adults with her could no longer stomach another lurching ride. She's just brave and grown up, in a flash.

Of course there's face painting at the fair, which I promised we could go straight to so they'd have paint all day long. They loved it.

We also discovered the oldest needed glasses. I took her to the eye doctor and while we were waiting she was looking at the letters on the mirror/screen and reading them oh so very wrong. I was surprised...and I guess I'm really glad that flute lessons showed us she needed glasses. The left lens is prescription, the right is not, but I imagine as she ages her bad left eye will bring down her good right eye. Heh. She looks great in them.

She couldn't stop grinning when she got the glasses.

It's been a long summer. It's been beautiful weather, but not really great for swimming, until today, when it's super super hot. Today 91F, tomorrow 72F...honestly I'm glad they're back in school and learning and scheduled and in a routine. Next summer will be better.

And this first grader of mine, is smart as a whip. Obviously all parents think that of their children, but I got confirmation today from her teacher. They've done reading assessments and she came home to say she read at a 2nd grade level, which I wasn't surprised to hear. She's been reading Junie B Jones   over the summer...but it turns out she's actually PASSED the 2nd grade assessment, so she's really closer to 3rd grade reading skills. So she'll be taken out of her class four times per week for 20 minutes with a special teacher that will challenge her in reading. I couldn't be more proud.

 

Face painting at the state fair. Elsa of course.

To be fair, the 11yo is also very smart and a really great reader, she just wasn't this far ahead at this age.

Deck Expansion

The husband has been working on this for the last three weeks, pretty steadily. Our house was built with a 10x10 wood deck, which works ok to hold a grill and a small table. But the weather has been so perfect lately, we thought it would be really nice if we had more space to sit and maybe even entertain out there.  It's not 100% complete, we still need to trim the 4x4 posts and add a top rail to the stair rail, and potentially stain all the non-composite to match, but generally speaking, it's usable. And we LOVE it.

Also as a sidenote, we put in a paver patio down below the deck a couple years ago, which we use, but the sun beats on that spot in the afternoon so it's a little difficult to use. This new expansion shades that area now so it's much more usable. 

The BEFORE:

 The AFTER:

I also spray painted the small iron table and chairs I had up top and I'll show those in a later post when they're placed. I went with a teal-blue seabreeze color and I love it. I'm hoping to find or make some small cushions for the chairs so they'll be even more usable. I also have a ton more pictures of the process this deck took, but I haven't quite figured out how to embed just a slideshow into a blogger post, so I dunno if that will happen.

UPDATE: I downloaded picasa and used that to create a youtube slideshow video of the process of the deck build.

Bedroom art

I hunted for a long time for artwork or photos to go above my bed. With the newer furniture and new bedding I wanted to choose something that went well with all of it. I didn't want anything too crazy and I didn't want to have to explain anything abstract. I also decided that photos wouldn't be the best idea, because those would be outdated pretty quickly. So, I was reading Linda's blog about her experience with Prowl and figured I'd give it a try.  I got a lot of really great ideas about what to put there, how to make it matchy or not matchy and then I saw these and knew that was it.

My bedspread is green, brown and cream, the walls are cream and my curtains are brown, so finding this comforter set was awesome. And now, these wall art pieces match the starburst pattern I have on the bed perfectly.  I love how simple it is and how well it goes. Now I just need to find a way to pad the back of them a little bit so rumbly thunder doesn't rattle them so much :)

Next up, dip dying my lamp (maybe!?) and an attempt at long term meal planning.

Summer catchup

Really, truly I am the worst blogger. I always believe summer will be fun and relaxed and slow. It is not. Summer is a mad rush to do as much fun things as possible, while still working and doing home improvements and anything else you can't fit in during the school year. I really think I would hate (and my children would) year round school, but sometimes it seems like it'd be a little more predictable for planning breaks and vacations.

So far this summer we've done nothing. We'll be taking vacation in August and then we'll likely visit the state fair and/or an amusement park. The oldest really wants to horseback ride again, so I need to look into that. We're expanding our deck, which is looking amazing and we're trying to get into the pool as often as possible - which has been difficult with the coolest July ever.

I'm subscribed to the HGTV Handmade channel on Youtube, which has given us a few cute ideas for storage and display items this summer. Here's the bracelet holder the oldest and I made, it was fun and cute and pretty easy. I also spray painted my iron table and chairs that were on the upper deck, but will now be a beautiful sea breeze blue/teal and moved to below the new deck. I'll get a picture of that when it's all done.

Two paper towel rolls, a dowel cut to length, platform

Don't Stop Believin'

We've just had a general music concert and a band concert for the oldest. She is not a fan of the singing class, but loves playing the flute.  Feel free to watch the other videos in the channel. I've done some catching up today...

Speaking of too grown up...again

Finally got back the Kindergartener's spring photos. I swear, it's some conspiracy between the photographers and my cute kids to force me to buy all the pictures. Fine. They win. She loves this shirt with it's tank top under and the pretty flowy top.