Bend It Like Beckham

Paige and Claire started winter soccer. You can see from the pictures, one girl was a bit more into it. One was a bit more into not messing up her hair. Hmmm. . . Oh well, we all have different gifts.

Ava's Room -- week 4

MY SHELVES -- Are these awesome or what? I love the new shelves. There are supposed to be baskets under the bottom shelf for stuffed animals, but the chairs just look so charming in the "library" section of the shelves that I left them for now.

All the trim is up, the doors are up, and the paint is done. We are moving right along. There is still a ways to go before she can move in. The closet is still full of tools. There is no bed. No curtains. Just a bit more finishing to do.













Ava loves the fireplace in her room. I, on the other hand, hate it. I love the fact that it warms the whole downstairs to a toasty temperature, but it's just not my taste. It will stay because, in Iowa, we do have some extremely, chilly evenings














The doors are all hung and trim is up, but you can still see all the junk laying around. We'll wait and see what week 5 brings.

Beautiful Brownies

Troop 46 did so well on cookies sales that they earned an extra special day out. The local beauty school gave all the girls a make-over. This is the nicest beauty school I've ever been in, very classy, glass and chromes feel. Not at all what I'd expected. Each girl got their own beautician, who did hair, make-up, and nails. It was such an awesome day for the eight-year-olds. I chatted up the beauticians about whether grown-ups could do this. One young punk, er, lady answered, "We've never had any as old as you. Maybe 13/14 year olds." What? Old as me?!!! Grrr! Granny should just spank you right now, whipper snapper.



Anyway -- Claire went for the dramatic updo and full blown make-up. Paige got a softer, curly do and some sparkles. Very cute. Each girl just gleamed over the McDonald's happy meal after all the make-overs.


Beauty school makeover: $16
McDonald's happy meal: $4
Giving your little sister a make-over: priceless

Wee Bit Bluesy

I had to go register Ike and Ava for Kindergarten Round-up today. *sigh* I'm feeling rather blue about this. I mean wasn't it just three short years ago I went through this with Paige and Claire. Where did the little girls with their bus number taped to their shirt go? I knew this day was coming, and, honestly, I was a bit excited by it. Now that it's here, I'm just a bit weepy. I even welped up at the library over a book I was getting for our preschool unit this week. Oh, time is just zipping by far too fast. Hope this wave of blues passes, so I can get out of the kitchen. Somehow hot tea and far too many cookies isn't remedying my sadness.

Ava's Room - week 3

O.k. It is now pink, and we have a closet door up. My family was up this weekend, so we worked them like borrowed mules. Dad and Brant did all the hard stuff. Becca and I painted Ava's room and the hall. Mom and Sarah just kept the masses out (maybe the harder job). It's coming along nicely. The pink is not too pinky and will look better when all the other elements are added: curtains, bed, trim, etc. We decided to keep all the trim dark. This is a different move for me, usually I paint it all cream, but the entire house has dark trim. Since the house bleeds all into each other (very open), I'm just overwhelmed at the thought of painting it all.
Here are my shelves. No trim is up yet, but aren't they going to be lovely. Big baskets full of stuffed animals on the bottom. Books and board games on the middle. Quilts piled up on the top. Can't wait for all the little finishing touches to be set in place.

Still cold here -- and unlike all of our Illinois friends, we had school on President's Day. To make up for snow days, they are taking away two of our three day weekends. We only had two, and they are taking them away. So sad.

Bird's Room -- week two

Avabird's room is now shaping up. You can see how it went from a big den to a bedroom. Brant, ever the handy man, framed up and wired everything last week. Fishing wires is so tricky and time consuming. The kids were having a hard time understanding all the work Dad was putting in and yet no real change was being made. Change was occuring, but wiring doesn't really "show". As soon as the drywall went up, the whole thing started to come together for them.


A cool aspect of Ava's new room, is that it created a hall space that wasn't there previously. This new space will be home to some built in shelves. Shelves are always most welcome in my mind. All of the books, board games, and scrapbooks will be so at home in this space. I am more excited about my shelves than Ava is about her room.

Claire has been home with strep for two days this week. Today doesn't really count as a sick day. It was the day where her antibiotics had made her feel great, but that she was still contagious. The one day of great weather, had to be spent inside. It really would be "bad mommy" to send your sick kid out while the others were at school. But once school was out we headed out to enjoy this one glimmering 55 degree day before winter smacks us back inside for a few more weeks (darn that groundhog!).

A "Normal" Week

This past weeks seems so crazy for the wee Hamby house. Someone at our church preschool got the flu, so I worked four mornings until noon. There was a few babysitting swaps to "re-pay". Paige and Claire had some friends over for dinner and play. Basketball practice and games for P & C. Grocery shopping, because, oh my goodness, we were down to a crust of bread and two cheese singles. Plus the regular work for Brant and church and church meetings. Brant got Ava's room wired and one sheet of drywall hung. Just plain craziness crammed into seven days. I know this is a mere normal week for the rest of the world, but we are so unaccustomed to the rush. Is this what the rest of my life is to look like? A swirl of taxi-ing kids and eating in shifts. Lordy, I hope not.