Master bedroom

Moving on to the master bedroom now... (There is more to tour!  To see our classroom, click here.  To see our entryway, click here. To see our guest bedroom, click here)

Here's a shot of the downstairs master bedroom before we moved in:

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And here is the same angle on 7/7/11 (a little later at night):

Nice and cozy feeling, right?

And again, a before from the other side of the room:

And a few shots from that side on 7/7/11:

We're still thinking that we'll paint that room a nice soft blue, but it already feels like home with just a few of our photos and our furniture.

OK, now a before shot of one of the 2 identical closets:

And now my closet and then Vinny's closet. 

It's official that I have too many shoes and formal dresses, and the shot of Vinny's really makes it sink in that he's in the military

Now a before of the big master jacuzzi (surrounded by crazy amounts of mirrors):

And now the tub with all of our blue glass around it...magnified by the mirrors:

I'm thinking we'll maybe use temporary tile decals to cover all that pink sometime soon.

And this is the supply shelves in the bathroom, which were an utter mess once I put all of our stuff on them.

So I added a tension rod with one of our extra curtains to cover it all up and give it some glam.

So that's where the current master suite sits now.  What do you think?

House Tour - Foyer, Foya, Foi-yay

The tour continues to the foyer, fo-ya, foi-yay, or entryway...whichever you prefer.  To tour our classroom, click here, to tour our master bedroom, click here, to tour Bella's bedroom click here, to tour our guest bedroom, click here)
Here is the before shot from when we first came house hunting:

And here is the same shot on 7/7/11:

Not much that you can really fit in a foyer, but we've done what we can with it.  I'm hoping to paint all of our extraneous frames in a cream color and do a photo wall eventually.  Here's from the living room looking back.  

Hanging that flower bucket on the door was fun.  I'll be doing a post about that soon.  The buffet there is technically from the dining room.  The dining room was feeling crowded and so I tried it in the foyer.  It opened up the dining room and gave some class to the foyer.  But as you can see from the shot below, it's right across from the dining room, so it still feels like part of the room.

Here is a current close up of what's on top: a bowl of silver and white seashells and some photos that we can't put into the photo wall but that we l-o-v-e:

House Tour - Our New Classroom

It took me a while, but I finally got our new classroom ready for learning.  In our old house, when we decided to do the Montessori curriculum we just worked with what we already had.  In this new house, we had a blank slate to work with and it was a really fun experience to set up the new curriculum.  We set up different areas for each of the areas of the curriculum.  I didn't set up an area for math since that doesn't start until late in the first year.  The first year is very heavy in the practical life curriculum, so I dedicated the math shelf to that instead.  So, without further ado, a tour of our new classroom (to tour Bella's bedroom click here, to tour our entryway click here, to tour our master bedroom click here, to tour our guest bedroom click here).

You'll notice the nice big windows that give us lots of opportunities for natural light and an awesome view.  This is from when we toured the house initially, so it's a 'before' shot:

Here is what walking in looks like now:

I put the table and her chairs right in front of those windows to give her the best workspace.

To the immediate right when you walk through the door is the area dedicated to geography.

 I set up our calendar (I had to remake the numbers and such since the movers lost the original ones), the globe, the land/water/air containers, some flags, and the little house that was a gift from her godparents when they went to Guatamala.  I'm planning on changing out what is inside so it will have little cultural artifacts from various places around the world we can talk about.  Right now it has some weather sticks which we've been adding to the calendar to note the weather each day and an African elephant, which we've discussed in some detail now.

To the left of the door is this wall:

The left half is the sensory section and the right side is the language arts section.  The sensoral cubes contain some touch boards (top far left), touch fabrics (top center left), color tablets (bottom far left), and 2 sets of sound shaker cylinders that she's just started working with (bottom center left).  The language cubes contain 3 different sound object boxes (top right cubes and bottom center right) and the materials for using the metal insets on the top of the shelf (paper and a color pencil).  The sound object boxes that are currently there are A, G and S.  (For more on what is in each box, check out this post) The white checked on the top of the shelf to the left is our placemats for messier activities.  The door to the right leads to my new teacher's supply closet (such a luxury) and a bathroom which is convenient for water activities.

The wall to the left contains shelves of practical life activies:

 From top left to right then going to the middle and lowest row: cleaning up a spill, sorting shapes, a basket with 5 starfish and 5 urchins to organize and sort and count, a telephone to practice telephone manners, a piggy bank to practice fine motor skills and also to begin discussing various types of money, clipping clothespins, cutting paper with scissors, cutting vegetables with a knife, stringing beads.  The tray on top is now on the floor being used to collect things from our outdoor nature time.  Her work mat lives between these 2 shelves.

Using tweezers, an alphabet puzzle, pouring water, stacking cubes, tissue for blowing her nose, and then pouring dry goods (currently plastic jewels that she is enamored with).  On top of this shelf is my bell for starting and stopping class, a lamp and a glass candle holder that I just like a lot.  Just to the right of that shelf is a basket with a few selected musical instruments:

I plan on switching this up a bit, but I'm trying to keep these instruments more 'musical' rather than just 'noisy.'

To the right of her little table is a reading basket:

So there it is, our new classroom!  What do you think?

Beach on Base - Onslow Beach

My family and I decided to check out the beach on base on the 4th of July.  I had heard it was pretty good, so it's something I've been looking forward to for a while.

Camp Lejeune has something like 11 miles of beachfront, some of which is training area, but a lot of which is recreational area.  There are separate sides for officers and enlisted.  Lifeguards on duty, areas for fishing, a store with food and supplies, restrooms, showers, and cabins that you can rent beachfront.  I hear the vacation houses are really reasonable too, something like $30 a night.  Plus, you get to avoid the summer tourist traffic on Emerald Isle.

We drove 2 cars, so we had to get a visitors pass for my family's car.  License, registration, and insurance are required for that...which turned out to be a good thing because my stepdad was driving around with an insurance card that was out of date.  Got that fixed :)

Then we headed on down to the beach.  I got a kick out of these signs along the way.  Anywhere else this would be a joke:

Yeah, that's right...tank crossing!

Anyway, got to the beach, put up a tent so we had a shaded area, grabbed some food and ate lunch then I sat back and let her grandparents play with her on the beach.  She got whammed by a few waves but rather than being scared or deterred, she thought it was hilarious.  

Bella, Papa and I only stayed a few hours before Bella had a meltdown and needed to go back to some non-sandy surroundings to take a nap.  It was plenty for me.  We were there long enough for me to remember why I don't like the beach...sand sand and more sand.  UGH.  We're going to be doing sandy laundry for a while.  But Bella got her requisite summer trip to the beach, so I guess it was worthwhile.  Here she is 'jumping' some waves with her grandma.

4th of July Strawberries

In honor of the 4th of July, and a visit from my family, I decided to make some white chocolate strawberries, with blue sprinkles to make them red white and blue.  Like this:

First, there were no blue sprinkles at the grocery store...problem 1.  So then I decided that blue icing would work.  So I was going to do white chocolate dipped strawberries with blue icing stars.  So, step 1, wash the strawberries.  I know it's really important to get all the water off of whatever you're going to dip, because any water can cause the chocolate to seize up.  So I washed the strawberries and then let them drain on paper towels.  Then let them sit in the fridge on paper towels overnight and then I blotted them again before we got ready for action.

I figured the fondue pot would be a good way to keep the melted chocolate nice and stable at the right melting point.  So we washed our hands and got ready to pour the chocolate in the pot.  

Well, after we had a few test morsels

So we tried and tried...and the morsels didn't melt.  They just sort of, got brown.  Problem 2.

Bella got bored, which was ok with me because I was frustrated and frustration doesn't work well around toddlers.  So, I read the package directions, which recommended a minute in the microwave to melt them.  So I tried that.  After a minute, they still looked the same.  So I tried another minute...nothing.  Another minute...burnt.  Problem 3....ARRRRGGGGHHH!  

So I ended up with this instead:

I used the icing can to put the blue icing stars on the strawberries with the leftover white chocolate chips int he center.  When serving them to people, I plopped a chip on top of each star, which held it in place for them to eat it.  Yum Yum!  Problem solved.

Anyone have any ideas about what went wrong with the chocolate?

The Backyard

Here's a little photomerge shot of the backyard from one of the uncovered side porches. (There is a big screened in porch off the center of the back of the house, and a smaller uncovered porch on either side, one off our master bedroom and one outside the kitchen window.  This photo series was taken from the one in front of the kitchen)

This is the 'before' shot.  My family has already been down one weekend working on the overgrown patch of whatever-all-that-mess-is that's in the way of our view.  I know my stepdad cut down a small walnut tree, a bunch of crepe myrtles that were out of hand and took care of a ton of poison oak.  By an incredible stroke of luck, my stepdad doesn't react to poison oak...so I put that job in his hands.  He tracked down the vines to their source in the center of that little wilderness and found that all the vines were coming from a single parent plant that looked to be about 6 inches in diameter.  I've never seen poison oak so big.

There is still a lot to be done, but I've trimmed up a bunch of bushes and I'm still slowly working on them.  My grandmother found a nice bunch of freely growing impatiens and replanted some of those in pots around the yard (using a butter knife as a spade...Nanny-Macgyver) and those look great, though I have to actually water them so they may not last long.

We've found a number of fire ant hills in the process of all the cleanup.  Only one wasn't spotted in time to back off and get the bug spray to destroy it before they got the upper hand on us (Bella found that one, poor little thing).  I can't wait to get all this stuff trimmed back and see the glory of this yard.  After pictures will come soon!

Looking back at Father's Day 2011

This post is a bit belated, but better late than never.  Father's Day this year was bittersweet. Bella and I were away from Vinny, which was very difficult.  Vinny actually wished me Happy Father's day since I was having to serve as both mother and father for the time being.  I almost cried. (Vinny only recently got his Father's day present, so our Father's Day has been extended as a result, but I digress..)  

We were, however, blessed to spend the day with my Papa, Bella's great grandfather.  It's been a long time since we were able to spend the day with him, so we felt very fortunate.  A long day spent relaxing on the back porch, a handmade card from Bella, a simple dinner out and a jaunt down to the base to give him a little tour made for a great day.

I enjoy finding the right thing the buy the men for father's day.  Some years it goes well, others it is a total failure.  This year was pretty good.  My stepfather, Bella's Grandpa, is an avid hunter and has been going on about getting an exotic animal head for his wall at home for a while now.  My mother has, understandably, put her foot down and said no.  So I found this great little guy at a little place called Cardboard Safari (See their site here):

He came flat in a box and I put him together because there were some small parts that I didn't think my stepfather would appreciate putting together, but I can certainly see the man with a taste for model building really enjoying the process.  It was a little tough getting the center nose piece in place, but totally worth the effort.  I ended up hanging him on the wall as a way of presenting him when my stepdad visited, but I sort of liked how he looked on the mantel too.  Made me a bit sad to see him go:

I still don't know if my mom will let him put Robbie Jr. the Rhino (No, seriously, that's his name on the website) up in the house, but it made me immensely happy to find something that I felt was so fitting for him.

For Vinny, the choice was easy and one we sort of discussed beforehand. We've always been a bit lacking in the tool department around the house, so I told him I wanted to start him on a nice set of tools that we could build on over the next few years.  The first thing on the list was a set of screwdrivers or a screwdriver with bits that wouldn't strip the first time he dug into a tough screw.  After a chat with the older tool wielders in the family, and by unanimous recommendation I might add, I went with Craftsman.  I got him one that was a professional grade handle and came with a nice set of bits (that we can use with our drill too...bonus! Here it is on the website).  Then I decided I wanted to get a second handle so we could both work on something if necessary, so I picked up one that was a quick change screwdriver.  Actually, it was a Craftsman Autoloading Multi-bit Screwdriver (see it on their website here).  So we can use the professional bits with it, or we can use it for quick jobs around the house.  I didn't realize quite how cool this screwdriver was til he opened it upon his arrival and we started using it on Wednesday.  It's definitely one of our new favorite things.  Basically, it has a chamber inside the handle that holds all different sizes and styles of bits.  You pull the chamber out, rotate it to which one you want to use and slide the chamber back down.  The new bit slides up the shaft and into position, ready to use.  Here it is in action:

So, those are our new toys. I hope all you father's out there had a great Father's Day.

Did you get anything fun for Father's Day or do anything memorable?