Auction for Nie Nie

This post is quite a bit different than my normal, travel log of my family and mostly my kids, but it's all for a good cause! Nie Nie of Nie Nie Dialogues was in a plane crash last week. I don't know her, but as I have gotten a little into the blogger world, I have gotten to know her blog. Gabrielle, over at Design Mom started this idea to have a web auction. I wasn't going to do it (really, what would I auction???) Then I remembered that I have just won these fabulous earrings from Blue Poppy Jewelry off the very same design mom site. I could auction those off! So here it is....

The Succulent Earrings made of stunning blue-green algae set in sterling silver. Retail price: $78.00

Here's how it works:

Leave a comment by using the comment link below with your bid. Your bid must be higher than the previous bid. Make sure that you leave a way for me to get in touch with you if you are the lucky winner. The auction will end Sunday at 8:00pm eastern time. I will contact the winner Monday and the winner will need to pay via the Stephanie & Christian Paypal fund, then they send me an email copy of their receipt and I will send out the earrings! Pretty easy!

***Please note***

I won this giveaway August 13th. I have not yet received the earrings from Blue Poppy (they are custom, hand made items, I'm giving them some time!) I will send them out as soon as I get them. If the winner chooses to wait until I have the earrings in my hand to pay the paypal fund, that would be just fine.

Happy bidding!

Just wanted to let everyone know that my sister-in-law Allison is also participating in Nie Nie day and is auctioning off $500 (!!!) worth of photography stuff. If you live in or around Park City Utah, head over to her blog http://englishphoto.typepad.com/english_photography/ and bid. What she does is not just take your pictures, she creates a truely museum quality, they will stay on your walls forever becauce it is too beautiful to take down work of art. (Seriously, you could check out my walls for proof!)

What I've been doing

After I blogged about Olive going to school Katrina commented and asked what I do with my free time. Honestly, I haven't had much. The first two weeks of school I only had one day where someone wasn't sick. That was the day I blogged! But I have been up to something, and for many of you who know me, you may double check and make sure that this really is my blog, but I've been moving around the girls room and sewing. Yep, that's not a typo. SEWING! I dusted off the old sewing machine that I made Jonathon buy me 6 or 7 years ago (I'll try not to calculate the cost per time of use!!!) Now not to scare any one with my domestic skills, I haven't tried to tackle anything truly mind boggling, but I have made: two sets of curtains and a pocket pillow! Now, aren't I the domestic diva? I have been discovering the online blog world and am amazed at the talent that is out there. It truly has inspired me to try a few things!

Cedar's curtains (I suppose valance would be technically correct...)

Aspen picked out this totally cute material. I think that it will go great with her dresser and the wall stickers I got for AFTER I paint!

I also have been moving things around. I will be painting (just about every room in the house) but I couldn't wait for the paint to try a new look for the girls room. I already knew how I wanted to move things, I tried it and it looked great. The only problem was that the vent blew right on Olive as she lay in her bed. Not so good for my allergy prone croup girl. That only lasted a few days.

In true Tennessee fashion I decided that instead of going back to how it was, I would just move the vent. Here's the play by play of Olive's food storage bed with movable vent! One day we will get her a "real" bed, but until then, this is really a great way to store 10-15 buckets of wheat!

Now, just imagine the curtains on the window and that it's still clean!

p.s. Of course, we also made cookies!

Garden Party Frock GIVEAWAY!!!!

Garden Party Frock GIVEAWAY!!!!

Knock Knock

Dinner time at our house has been full of jokes lately. The kids especially love knock knock jokes. I thought I would share the family favorites!



Cedar's favorite:

Knock knock
Who's there?
Cash
Cash-who?
No thank you, I prefer peanuts!

(Cedar got this out of a joke book we got at the library. The other night he asked Jonathon to read him jokes instead of stories before bed. I was downstairs and after a few minutes I heard Cedar laughing uncontrollably and Jonathon joining in. For what ever reason, this cracked Cedar up for a very long time!)



Aspen's favorite:

(Well, she has a lot of favorites!)

Knock knock
Who's there?
Little old lady
Little old lady-who?
I didn't know you could yodel!



Olive's favorite:

(First, imagine Olives little voice and face. They really make the joke!)

Knock knock
Who's there?
Blue
Blue-who?
I'm sorry you're feeliong so sad. What can I do to cheer you up?



Jonathon's favorites:

Knock Knock
Who's there?
Atch
Atch-who?
Bless you.


Knock knock
Who's there?
Impatient cow
Impatient c-
MOOO!
...ow who?



My favorite:

Knock Knock
Who's there?
banana
banana who?

Knock Knock
Who's there?
banana
banana who?

Knock Knock
Who's there?
banana
banana who?

Knock knock
who's there?
Orange
Orange who?
Orange you glad I didn't say banana!



Now it's your turn! What is your favorite knock knock joke?

Olive's first day of preschool!

Today is Olive's first day of preschool!

She has been ready to go since the first day of Cedar's jump start kindergarten always asking if today she goes to school??? So today, when it is FINALLY her turn she pulled it off in true Olive style. She was the first one up. She was up and dressed in the outfit of her choosing at 6:30am. She packed her lunch (snack) box by herself, put everything she needed in her backpack, put her backpack on her back and was ready to go at 6:45am. We managed to get her to sit down and have some breakfast. (The special ocasion chocolate chip pancakes!) and do her hair. She was a little impatient and thought that maybe pictures would take up too much time, but finally consented.


So here they are! All of my children have gone off to school leaving me sitting here in front of the computer all by myself! Honestly, I don't know what to do. I keep expecting to hear my name called out! (I'm sure I can find SOMETHING to do. I don't know, it might be hard...:)


Horray for Olive!

Three cheers for the birthday boy!

Today we celebrate one very special boy! (Well, yes, he is a man, but if you saw him on the trampoline, in the pool or playing computer games with the kids, you'd say boy too!)



Jonathon Clairmont English was born exactly 35 years ago! We, at this blog will always be eternally grateful for the little bundle that John and Marie brought into the world!


Three cheers for Jonathon! We love you!

Cedar's first day of kindergarten!

It's official, Cedar is in kindergarten! We weren't sure if he would make it today. The fever he came home from church with stuck with him until last night when it finally broke. Kids are sure funny when they are sick. He had a really high fever (104!) and was laying around acting truely sick. I gave him some medicine and he's up, jumping around like normal....Tuesday, I thought he was better. He was .5 hotter than normal, but that's not much more than wearing a hot shirt in the sun... Until mid morning when I took his temperature again and it was back up to 102.5. I thought for sure the poor little guy would miss his firts day of school, but he started sweating like crazy in the night. (That means the fever broke, right?) He wasn't hot at all but he was sure wet..I even thought he wet the bed. The big nod of "I'm better" came this morning when he was up before seven, like normal and a chipper little man. (Except for the butterflies in his stomach!) I may have to revise this post if his teacher calls me to come and get him early, but for now, he's my little kindergarten boy!

Aspen's first day of 2nd grade!

So here she is! Her first day of school was yesterday. She was a little nervous, but when I picked her up she couldn't stop talking and telling us all about her really nice teacher, the new girl that just moved here who she made friends with. The funny song they did in music, how some of her friends from kindergarten are in her class, how she got to see her friend Abby, and on and on! It was a great day!

Some random thoughts

Here is an update on the sunflowers in our swimming pool garden. This is the biggest one. It is about 15 in. diameter. It is so big and heavy it can't stand up anymore. These are really the coolest things! It is amazing to watch the bees and butterflies work and they go through each little flower that will become a seed.



Thursday we took our last summer trip to Dollywood before school starts. Aspen, Cedar and I all brought friends. It was a really fun day and the kids now have a new favorite ride. It's called "Thunder Road" and it's a motion simulated "ride" about a car chase. I was thrilled because there was no line and it's indoor with air conditioning.
Here is a cute picture of Jonathon and Olive.

My random thoughts today are that I can't believe that school starts tomorrow! We went and did all of the final registration on Friday and the kids all know where their classes are, where they will sit and who is in their class. Kindergarten has a staggered enrollment for the first week so Cedar doesn't officially start until Wednesday, which is good because he came home from church with a fever! Olive starts next Tuesday and we are set. I will have no more excuses as to why my house doesn't look better! (I'm sure that I can think of something!) Other new things are that I cut my hair! I had gotten a cute little stylish "do" at the end of the school year, and found out that I just can't keep up with much style.