RUBY AND HERBIE (2007)

FREE COUCH

Last year, shortly before Christmas, Woo was perusing the free ads on ksl.com (craigslist to you outta state folks) and found a couch. Well, he found a lot of couches actually. 

And they all looked exactly the way you would expect a free couch to look.

This one wasn't exactly a charmer either, but it was less bad, and I thought the color could possibly be ok as is. Plus, it was free, so we had nothing to lose.

Woo brought it home, and we ripped off the skirt around the bottom almost immediately.

And that's the way it sat for, oh, six months. Until I finally bought a roll of grey ribbon ($2.99), and glued it around the bottom.

Ta-da! Not super amazing, but not horrible either. (I don't think, anyway...)

P.S. Thanks for all the great feedback on the love seat. Welting is a great idea that I hadn't considered before, but if I can find a blend-in sort of braid or trim to buy and glue on, I'm going to go the easy route first. :)

PHOTO BLITZ: RANDOM

FATHERS DAY

Since I've never been one to do more work than I have to, here are the kids' answers to some questions I asked them about Woo.

What is the best thing you've ever done with Dad? 

Linus: Went for my Daddy Day for hot chocolate and for going swimming.
Ruby: Nothing.. I'm joking. Daddy Day!
Herbie: Have Daddy Days!
Moses: Having my Daddy Day.

What does Dad do that makes you laugh? 

Linus: Tickle me. He lets me stop and going again riding my bike and my skateboard.
Ruby: Daddy Day
Herbie: Nothing
Moses: Tickle. Be funny!

What is your dad better at than any other dad?

Linus: He better at riding. At riding his skateboard to the park.
Ruby: Nothing. Daddy Days!
Herbie: Snowboarding!
Moses: Working.

What does Dad do that you want to be able to do some day? 

Linus: He likes to go on a train. Like me sometime.
Ruby: Eat candy every day. Potato chips.
Herbie: Skateboard!
Moses: Play video games.

What could Dad be better at? 

Linus: He can be better at riding his skateboard.
Ruby: Not eating candy that much.
Herbie: Um ... Skateboarding!
Moses: Working.

What is your favorite thing about Dad?

Linus: He likes to ride his bike like me to the park and around the park.
Ruby: That he's my dad.
Herbie: He's nice.
Moses: He's nice to me.

What part of you looks like Dad? 

Linus: A haircut!
Ruby: My eyes.
Herbie: My whole body!
Moses: My lips.

How old is Dad? 

Linus: 4
Ruby: I don't know.
Herbie: 33
Moses: 33

What does Dad like to do when he's not with you? 

Linus: He likes to ride his bike to the park without me. And his skateboard too.
Ruby: Nothing.
Herbie: Work.
Moses: Work.

What does Dad like to wear? 

Linus: Ah, jeans.
Ruby: I don't know. Clothes.
Herbie: I don't know.
Moses: Clothes. Shorts.

Why did Dad marry Mom? 

Linus: Cuz.
Ruby: Because she was beautiful.
Herbie: Because Heavenly Father told him to.
Moses: Because he liked her.

How much money does Dad have? 

Linus: 4
Ruby: I don't know. 10 billion?
Herbie: I don't know. 25! ... Dollars! I mean cents!
Moses: 8. (watching me write it down) He really has eight?!

What was Dad like when he was your age? 

Linus: He likes his lawn mower when he was my age. Not a toy one. The one that goes.
Ruby: Little. A baby.
Herbie: Like me!
Moses: He played.

What does Dad want you to do when you grow up? 

Linus: He wants me to play.
Ruby: Barf all over the house. Get a job.
Herbie: Be like him!
Moses: Be a good boy.

Penelope and Archie are too young to answer the questions, but I think they like Woo too.

On days Woo works, he facetimes us from the train before the kids go to bed. The first time he did this, Penelope repeated, "Daddy! Choo-choo? Daddy! Choo-choo?" over and over again for the next half hour. And nobody can get Archie laughing like Woo can.

I hope you all had a good Fathers Day!

PRE-HAIR CUT WOO (1998)

SO CLOSE. AND YET ...

So far away. 

I got all the batting on the chair, all the fabric stapled on, 

The ricrac continued to seem like a good idea, as I glued it to the front of the chair.

But, when I got it around the rest of the chair, it was just too ... cutesy. Like embarrassingly so. I thought maybe I could just live with it, or maybe it would grow on me, but it didn't and I can't. So I tore it all off, and I'm now in search of new trim.

I'm actually thinking something that just blends in, because I really like the chair with no trim (other than the fact that the staples aren't covered).

What do you think?

PHOTO BLITZ: HEY, MOSES! LET ME TAKE YOUR PICTURE!

SUMMER. FINALLY.

This week started to feel a lot more like summer, in that it was relaxing and the weather was lovely. Well, my week was relaxing. Woo's was not. The good news is his new job is interesting and challenging enough for him that he's gone all in. The bad news is he worked over 70 hrs this week on a 25 hr/wk contract. There's probably a lesson to be learned here somewhere.

Penelope and the potty have finally clicked. She's not completely potty trained yet (and Woo always teases me because I announced Ruby potty trained about two days in), but for us it's a process that's difficult to pinpoint exactly, and Penelope is getting herself on the potty when she needs to go most of the time, so for me, that is definite progress. 

Moses has really been looking forward to this summer, because the summer before kindergarten is when I let the kids stop taking naps, and have quiet time instead. Except that he's really been taking the transition hard. He's had to take a couple of naps the last two weeks, because he's just been too cranky, but we'll keep going a week or so more and see if he adjusts. I've heard that some kids even take naps into kindergarten, and I'd think he might be a candidate for that, but we found out this week that he has afternoon kindergarten, so that won't work out too well.

We had the ol' your-spirit-might-actually-be-older-than-our-spirit conversation with Herbie, that he was very, very pleased to consider. But, later that night, he told me that he hoped his spirit was taller than my spirit.

Me: Don't you mean older?

Herbie: No, taller. I want to be taller than you!

I can only conclude that Herbie is still trying to make sense of where the authority lies (a very important subject to him), and he seems to have decided recently that height trumps age. I think this might be because even though his teacher is older than us, her age hasn't made us back down whenever he invokes it.

P.S. If you'd like a 7 yr old boy to listen to your entire Sacrament meeting talk, just start with a story involving lawn mowers.

Archie is really, really ticklish in his armpits, and a bit on his belly and neck. It's pretty easy to get him laughing, and it's Woo's favorite thing to do right before I put Archie down for bed. He has a sweet baby laugh that sounds like half a laugh, forced out of a rubber toy. Woo calls it a fat-man laugh.

Last year Ruby had a hard week or two going through school withdrawals, but this summer she has been wonderful from day one. She runs and helps any of the other kids when they ask for something. She's burned through lots and lots of books, spent time folding paper and playing outside, doing her chores happily. Except today. She had a hard day today, but still pretty darn good.

Linus loves his little Skuut balance bike. He's still super slow, so he only gets to ride to the park and part of the way home, but he picks up his feet to glide, loves to ride off of any dip in the road, spends his whole time at the park riding his Skuut around the playground, tries to ride up the front steps, and wants me to see all his tricks, "Mom! Did you see me go super fast?!?" He really is good at skidding out in the gravel and kicking up dirt, though.

I've spent the first couple weeks of summer reviewing with the kids how to correctly clean a toilet, vacuum, empty the dishwasher, etc. I've gotten some higher quality work out of them. We've also decided to stop relying so much on cold cereal for breakfast, and I've been working with the kids on some other options they can get for themselves. So far, so good, and they actually seem to be more full during the day? Or maybe they just aren't as hungry this summer as last for some reason?

Anyway, that's all I've got for the week. Hope you had a good one!

NERDBERT (AND BIG SISTER) (2006)

LOVE SEAT: TAKE II

I had originally thought that this chair had gobs and gobs of paint on the body, but when I actually took a closer look, I could see that it had only been painted once, by someone who had actually done a very good job. She (I'm assuming here) had applied a light even coat, there were no drips anywhere, and I decided to just spray paint over that.

I did patch up a few dings with wood filler, and then we were good to go.

I primed first, which almost made me wish I was painting it white. But, not for long. I remembered all the fingerprints the white would be showcasing.

Here's the purple,

And the dark grey velvet on the bottom cushion.

Oh, and the reason the previous upholsterer had used such long staples? They're necessary.