Latest projects

I have completed quite a few projects lately and have many in the works!
Here is a project that I have been working on since January.  I found some dressers and night stands on KSL.com that were just right for the boys' room.  They had remodeled the Marriott in Park City and a man bought the furniture to resell.  They were a golden colored pine and had holes drilled into the top where the T.V.s were mounted, but otherwise good sturdy solid wood pieces.
I sanded and sanded and sanded and sanded....
Then filled holes and dings, and finally painted them.  Three coats of primer paint some distressing and a little stain on the distressed areas (because I knew our two boys would do some distressing of their own) got them looking pretty good.  Then two coats of polyurethane finished them off. 

 Here are the finished dressers.  (Sorry, I never seem to remember to take before pictures.)

If you look closely, you will notice the red one is missing a knob.  I know I painted and finished it but when I went to get them and put them on, one was missing.  I keep waiting for it to show up but I guess I will have to get a new one.  *Sigh*
The boys really like them and it sure beats trying to cram all of their clothes into one dresser!  I figure I spent about a third of what I would have spent to buy them at a furniture store and I got to choose the style and color I wanted.

Arabic to French to English

A couple of days ago Jenna was playing with the computer and managed to somehow translate my blog into Arabic.  I could not figure out what to do because not only did I not even recognize the alphabet but it seemed to be reading and writing right to left and possibly bottom to top.  I couldn't even find the settings button let alone figure out how to translate everything back.  I finally posted a question on the Blogger help page and a kind person counted and wrote down how many buttons over and how many languages down on the drop down list.  Unfortunately, the drop down list is in alphabetical order and in Arabic, evidently English doesn't start with E!  Through trial and error I was finally able to get it translated into French and with my little knowledge of French and my knowledge of Spanish I was able to finally get everything back to English!
What I can't figure out was how she managed to translate it so thoroughly that I had to change it on the dashboard as well as in the settings!  Who knew my 3 year old was more tech-savvy than I am?

Moosh in a baggie

Last night I cleaned out my 5th grader's backpack to find a ziploc baggie full of an unidentifiable moosh that made me gag from the smell!  I asked, "What IS this, and how long has it been in the bottom of your backpack?"  His answer? "I don't know"!!  At what point do boys actually become capable of organizing and taking care of things before they become moosh in a baggie!

The Leprechauns came again!

Did you know that leprechauns visit us at our house?  They do!  They come during the night.  This year we discovered a new secret... if you draw a picture of a leprechaun and leave it in your shoe outside your door, the leprechauns will take you picture and leave you a treat.  We should have copied our pictures before the leprechaun took them.  We will have to remember next year.   They were really cute!  The leprechauns left us rainbow licorice and Rolo gold.

They also left us a treasure hunt!  The night before, we always leave our little pot out on the kitchen table.  When the leprechauns visit they fill the pot with toys and gold coins and then hide it.  Their footprints lead us to the first clue of our riddle treasure hunt!

The excitement didn't end there!  During our green St. Patrick's Day dinner we had another surprise.  We were busy eating our green linguine, broccoli, asparagus, green grapes, apples and kiwi with sourdough bread, when from the chandelier, one of the light covers and lightbulb fell onto the bread plate in the middle of the table shattering everthing and spreading glass shards over the entire surface of the table!  It seems the ring securing the light cover failed and it all came down.  Needless to say, dinner was over more quickly than anticipated.

Jordan, future mechanical engineer!

Jordan recently had a simple machines fair at his school.  He worked really hard to design and build his machine.  He understood the usefulness of simple machines and demonstrated how they can be used.  And he did it all himself!  I am so proud of him!

Extra! Extra! Christian goes to District

Christian and his partner Gideon recieved a Superior rating at the school history fair with their amazing website that they designed and created.  As a result they had the opportunity to participate in the District Fair.  I was so proud of them!  Not only did they learn about their topic, The debate between Neville Chamberlain and Hitler, but they learned to create an amazing website! 

If you are interested in checking it out, go to: http://www.greatdebates.moonfruit.net

Emma on modesty

I was listening in on a conversation from the backseat between the two girls.  They had the Ariel Barbie and Jenna asked why her tummy was showing.  We have been working to teach our girls about dressing modestly and I have wondered how to handle the competing world views.  As I scrambled in my brain to come up with an explanation they could understand and accept, Emma beat me to it with a much better explanation than I was preparing.  I was ready to dive into the fact that not everyone has the same standards that we do and the fact that the makers of the doll don't think or believe the same things we do etc etc.... 

Emma's explanation was perfect.  "She is a mermaid and lives in the water.  If she wore a long shirt in the water it would get very wet and heavy.  When she becomes a girl she covers her tummy."   I need to retrain my brain.  Perfect simplicity!

14 Days of Valentines

I started a tradition a few years ago that we really enjoy. From the first day of February until Valentines Day, I give the kids a small treat or gift. I just finished putting them together for tomorrow. I try to have all of them ready in advance so I am not scrambling every day. I still have 2 or 3 that I still need to get but the rest are ready! Even though they are almost the same every year, the kids don’t care and they get so excited. One year I even made a giant heart shaped puzzle with a message on it and gave a puzzle piece each day. The kids really had fun using sticky tack and putting it together on the wall. If I get a chance tomorrow before they get home from school, I may do that again this year.  This year I found a cut little mailbox at the Target Dollar Spot that I will put them in and raise the flag. I wish I had one for each child to have their own. I will allow them to open the mailbox as soon as everyone is home from school!  Here is a list of the fun treat and gift ideas that I use. I just print out the little message on colored paper and cut them into hearts to tape onto the item.

I love your little tootsies! (tootsie rolls)

You’ve always “mint” the world to me! (Andes or York mints)

You always help me out when I’m in a (Crunch bar)

You are the greatest - Bar None! (granola gar)

You Warm my heart! (hot chocolate mix)

Let it be posted, you’re the best! (Post-it pad & pencil)

“Soda” you know I love you? (small can of soda)

Kisses, just for you! or Smootches, just for you!(Hershey's Kisses)

You’re so cheesy, you cracker me up! (cheese & cracker pack)

I couldn’t bear to live without you! (cinnamon bears)

You are my sweetart! (Sweettarts)

I don’t mean to be “gushy” but, I love you! (Gushers fruit snacks)

You make me smile! (Walmart fruit snack smiles)

No TWIX, I love you! (Twix candy bar)

You're worth more to me than 100 GRAND (100 Grand candy bar)

You're EXTRA special to me (Extra gum)

Don't SNICKER, because I love you. (Snickers candy bar)

HUGS & KISSES, just for you. (Hershey Hugs and Kisses candies)

I love your BUBBLY personality (bubbles)

Just POPPED by to say Be Mine (bubbles)

Valentine you make my heart float (bubbles)

I’m BUBBLING over with love (bubbles)

The other tradition we have, is that Paul brings home a balloon for each of the kids. They sure love balloons and Paul loves to pick them out! What do you do to make Valentines Day special?

Projects made for Christmas

This past Christmas, I took on a couple of projects that I think turned out pretty cute.  The first is a tea party table.  It started out with a natural top with forest green legs that I founds at the DI.  I painted and painted to cover that green.  Then I got some old calendars with art from one of my favorite illustrators, Mary Engelbreit.  I cut out the pictures and used Mod Podge to glue and then seal them onto the table.  I chose as many girls that looked like sisters as I could find for my 2 sweet little girls.  They love it!

The second project was a Lego table for the boys.  I found this REALLY sturdy table with edges all around on KSL.com classifieds, and painted it black.  I also gave them the set of drawers underneath to organize their Lego sets.  As of yet, they haven't done too much organizing because they are busy playing.  The boys are loving the work space and I love that I can say, if it doesn't fit on the table, it has to be put away.  No more half broken Lego displays all over the house! 

Diversity in pain

Last night I found myself marveling at the diversity of pain in our household.  This epiphany was brought on by a sharp pain in my foot as I pattered around in the dark checking on the kids and closing down the house for the day.  I thought I had stepped on a Lego piece, yet again, but then I discovered it was Cinderella Barbie's glass slipper that she must have lost as she ran to beat the bedtime clock chimes.  It's positive proof that we are an equal opportunity household when it comes to pain inducing toys. 

Another example might be a comparison between the obnoxious princess cash register noises and the whine of the remote control monster truck.  Or maybe, the screams of children crashing off of the cool rip stick vs. the pink Barbie bike. 

Paul also added that it is difficult to determine whether the pain from an unexpected football thrown a little low, or a knee from an exuberant child leaping into his lap registers higher on his pain scale.

Not to be forgotten is the earsplitting pain of the equal and competing volume of four children running laps while playing chase on a Sunday afternoon.  (For those of you who thought we spend our Sundays reading scriptures and thinking of kind words to say to each other, you just keep right on thinking that, OK?)

So... it turns out it is not a competition between boys and girls or their toys.  The pain competition is between children and parents.  I'll let you guess who  is on the winning side.  However, when it comes to blessings, lessons learned, love received, and joy filled hearts, the parents sweep!

Rat update

Well... True to the Bruderer family curse.  We are unlucky with rats too!  We have successful gone through some of those decorative goldfish, a lizard and 2 frogs.  Now we have to return the rats and try another pair.  We have determined that Shadow is too aggressive, may never be trained and is possibly crazy.  Sparkle was making progress, I could hold her and feed her out of my hand.  But, she is sick with a respiratory infection, possibly pneumonia.  And no, I haven't been kissing the rat.  So, we will be returning the rats and then going on Sat. with my nephew Trenton to let Jordan choose some new ones.  Wish us better luck with this next batch.  It just doesn't seem like our house is a very healthy place for animals!

New additions to the family

First, some background.  I served a mission in Guatemala, in a very primitive area.  Think National Geographic.  No electricity, indoor plumbing, or air conditioning.  In one house, the walls didn't even meet the roof.  So...we had our share of critter adventures.  We had tarantulas, scorpions, bugs of every kind, including fleas.  And, we had .... RATS.  They were big, ugly, mutant rats.  In one of our houses, the rats tunneled through the concrete cinder blocks to build nests in the walls.  In another house, a mama rat had her babies in my companion's suitcase, chewing through all of her expensive sweaters.  Don't ask me why she had sweaters in Guate but they were pretty before mama used them to cushion the nest.  The stories behind these critter adventures bear telling at a later date along with a frog and cockroach stories from Puerto Rico.

Fast forward to a viewing of the movie G-Force in which Jordan gets the idea that having gerbils would be the greatest thing since the invention of disposable diapers (my comparison of course). Which, by the way sits at the top of my list of accomplishments.  Man on the moon?  pshaw, that's nothing compared to industrial poop catchers.  Anyway, I am sure he pictured his gerbils running around all over the house in the gerbil exercise balls.

So... I am trying to get used to the idea of small rodents in the house, trying to picture them as SMALL, furry, cuddly, little things when my sister Laurie tells me a horrific story about one of their gerbils chewing the face off the other gerbil.  Now I am picturing my sweet, tender-hearted 8 year old making that discovery and the nightmares that would follow!  That would be MY nightmares I am referring to.

Then my loving, helpful, sister proceeds to inform us that the best pets they have ever had were...RATS!!!  She told us how friendly and intelligent they are and that they would sit on her son, Trenton's shoulder and snuggle up to his neck.  This picture in my head, sent such shivers up my spine, my head just about spun around like the unfortunate girl in the Exorcist!  Given my history with mutant, scary, disease ridden rats, I am sure you have an idea of the extent of my reaction.

  Since Jordan was able to talk, he has been asking for 

a pet that he could play with.  He used to pray daily for a dog, but Paul and I are allergic to both dogs and cats and frankly, I don't want a dog.  As any parent can tell you, if you buy a pet for your child... you personally have a new pet.  Over the following couple of days, I became more used to the idea of rats.  Well, Santa must have taken that as an agreement and brought "Shadow" and "Sparkle" for Jordan.  



Shadow is dark brown and Sparkle is white and brown





It's amazing, but the idea of having rats in the house on purpose is more shiver inducing that actually seeing them and trying to interact with them and train them.  I have to admit, they have very distinct personalities and are soft.  Jordan loves them and can't wait until they are trained enough to play with him. 

Now, if only Shadow would stop biting me every time I get anywhere near her!  My fingers are full of holes and bandaids!