When you use your Cell phone to Call 911 it locks into Emergency Mode

It is true. When you use your cell phone to call 9-1-1 it will lock your phone into emergency mode and will not let you do anything. This is a safety measure and I get it. They want to be able to trace the call and keep you on the line. How do I know this? Well, since last September I have been lucky enough to use this handy emergency number three times. The reason why I tell you this is because it was the MOST excitement I have had this week AND it is difficult to remove Emergency Mode from your phone unless you are 8 and are J-Bird! :)

So the first time:
1. Wichita Sister some how managed to LOCK her kid in her car. She was spending the day at my house with the little guy and she was loading up to go get her other child from school. She shut the door and realized OMG her keys were in the car, Baby Boy was in the car and it IS HOT OUT. So, the Rose Hill Fire Department came and rescued the day! What a DUH moment.

So the second time:

2. This was in February when we were moving. I blogged ALL about that one! 

So the third time:

3. It was just this past week and boy was it crazy drama. I thought Wisteria Lane in Kansas was something, but this place has it beat! So, as I have mentioned the next door neighbor is building a house and has been burning his wood. Since our weather has been crazy, tons of rain, tons of wind, the builder/owner decided it was time to go get a dumpster. (Much to my chagrin!) 

I'm out in my yard most days now. I love to garden and enjoy the sun! Most days I do it with hammering, banging and a lot of Spanish music in the background. FOR once there was no one at the house next door. No dry wall guys, no electricians, no plumbers, No ONE! It was so peaceful and nice. I was outside from 3-8 when I noticed there was a rather large brush fire next door. WHAT? I walked over and scouted around looking for someone, anyone, to be there manning this fire. Nope, no one. WHAT TO DO??? Josh wa out there with me. He was LOVIN' him some neighborhood D-R-A-M-A.

(switching to present tense...it is too hard to write in past...or maybe I will switch back and forth to annoy people reading this who are in touch with the English language....)

I know there is a fire and it is close to a WOOD house and piles of scrap lumber that haven't made it into the dumpster yet. I flag down a car going by, get to meet a new neighbor and asked them what they would do. They tell me to call it in. I have texted my other neighbor and the Builder asking them what they want me to do. (Oh yeah---I also have realized my HOSE will not stretch to the fire. I did think about just putting it out myself.)  I get no response from the builder. I go ahead and call 9-1-1 to be told it has already been called in and the trucks are enroute! WOW.

The back story....

• Across the lake on the North side of the Knob is a guy who owns a Landscape business
• Said Landscape guy does work on neighbor across the street from new house--caddy corner to my property
• Landscape guy asks Builder if he can throw brush in his dumpster
• Builder says no
• Landscape guy does it any ways
• Builder tells him to get his brush out of his dumpster
• Landscape guy does AND proceeds to pile it in Builder's front yard AND LIGHTS IT ON FIRE!
• Fire chief talks to me and gets the builders name/number. I also tell him the builder is on his way as well. (Builder had since called me and given me this back story....)
• I go out 10 minutes later because I'm nosey to hear Landscape guy YELLING at Fire Chief that it wasn't his fault and he did nothing wrong....
  
  
  

Life on the Knob is going to be challenging. Did I mention we're invited to a KY Derby HOA Party this Saturday? Oh my! 

Knocking off the Pinterest Project To-Do List!

I have discovered if something doesn't have a home, than it needs to find one or go to the Goodwill. Due to my repurposing mindset lately I am having a hard time letting anything go. I can always find something to do with it, right? HA. I'm also finding Goodwill is a place to return EVEN if you did give something away to them chances are you can find it again at the Goodwill! (Garage sale season is right around the corner too!)

I wanted to create two lamps for J-Birds room and I wanted to figure out something for the master bath to hang my towels on. As of today I am merely hanging the towel over the shower door. SO not cool.

So, in working on my to-do list I have finished some things up and want to share!

Goodwill Lamp ($2.00) and a Darth Vader/Anakin doll of Josh's inspired this:

 I was impressed and so was J-Bird! He lit up like a Christmas tree in April. It was cool to see his reaction. As I was drawing on the face he told me I need Dad's help. I had to cave in to the request as Prince Charming has a talent for drawing and I do not. Luckily, Prince Charming was home and was able to sketch Darth for me. I painted it on and it was a great team effort!


The other project was towel racks. I bought some wood things at the Good will for a total of $4.00. I had a Hobby Lobby shelf that was going in the trash, so I stole the hooks and the hangers off of it. With a little help from some vinyl used on my Silhouette Cameo, I made these little gems for my master bath. I hung the "hers" lower by accident, but it works as I am a foot shorter than Prince Charming.

My last item on the Pinterest list was a Terra Cotta Pot light house and fountain. The fountain is coming along and the Lighthouse was not accurate enough for Prince Charming, so I had to repaint the top and will have pictures by Saturday. I should also have my Terra Cotta Pot Fountain complete as I am waiting for Amazon to ship me my fountain pump. Amazon is SO much cheaper than the rest of the world! I hate to always support the "BIG BOX" company, but when it comes straight to your door and is 1/4 of the cost, why wouldn't I?

So, that is me today. How are you?

Sisters are good Motivation.

So, along with the ability to have multiprojects going at the same time, I'm also really good about finding stuff cheap or better yet FREE. As luck would have it my next door neighbor is building a house. He is the general contractor and the home builder. When Wichita Brother was here he noticed the builder/workers were burning the scrap wood. WHAT?!?! How dare they! I was aghast to see perfectly good wood, okay, maybe not perfect, but wood being BURNT. I went over and asked him if I could have the scrap wood. He said sure. GREAT! So, I became a raccoon. Every night I would go over and dig through his pile of wood. It was wonderful! I got 6, 8 and 10 foot 2x4s. I got half sheets of plywood. I got TONS of wood and it just wasn't stopping....nor was I! You can always use wood. Now the problem is there are TONS of nails in this wood. Taking out construction grade nails kinda stinks, but it is free! No pain, no gain. (Or as Prince Charming said, CHEAP ASS.)

The day we left for St. Louis, Friday, April 17, I needed to find some movies for the road trip. One problem, all my movies were still in boxes in the movie room. I have been hunting for months now to find a DVD rack, but to no avail. Best Buy doesn't even carry them. WTH? How can no one have a shelf? Portland Sister asked if I had gone to Goodwill---IS THE POPE CATHOLIC? So, here I was with all this FREE wood and I needed a DVD shelf. I needed to do a 101 things to get ready to leave, but I also needed to organize and give my DVDs a home. So, I went out to the garage and went to work. I measured a DVD box, had some thick pieces of wood and 2x4s for legs. I was set. Okay, so STUPID, stupid me. I know the rule--

Measure twice, cut once 

Silly ol' me. I assumed the four pieces of 4x6s that I picked up were the same size. NOPE. I was 1/2" off on the shelves. Oh, I was ticked. I walked in and quit. It just so happens Portland sister calls about this time and I tell her of my frustrations. She says something along the lines of, well that is what you do when it gets difficult....quit. You hate putting together furniture.....

Good Sister motivation. I no more than hung up the phone with her and was back at it again. I was going to beat this game of shelf building and tell her where to stick her apples....

Pinterest Project List is longer than the days....

So, I have around 3-5 Pinterest projects in the works. Prince Charming got home Friday around 5 p.m. and was not leaving again until Sunday 5 a.m. He kinda made a comment about how many projects I had started around the house....WHAT?!?! Unfinished projects? It kinda runs in my family. Nana cuts out patterns to sew, and they are still in a pile. Papa Jeff starts a million things and often times never finishes them. I come by it naturally....

So, after admitting (ONLY TO MYSELF) he was kinda right. I decided to hunker down and get some things finished. On the list:

• Terra Cotta Fountain
• Terra Cotta Light House
• Fountain for front garden--level the paver with sand
• Table for Scrapbooking Room
• Make towel hooks for master bathroom
• Pea Gravel for garden
• Plant seeds in raised garden/transfer kitchen garden to real garden
• Make shelves for garage
• Make shelves for basement
• Create R2D2 lamp & Darth Vader lamp
• Finish the Star Wars Room makeover
• Put new IN license plate on car---oh what a sad day!

So, to get things started I knew I had some projects that required paint. You must do this first so it can dry while you are doing other things. I requested the help of the Jedi Knights, only to be denied by Obe Wan. Go Figure! J-Bird was ALL over it. As we are painting he even proclaimed, "I'm just like Vincent Van Gogh, but I have both ears." WHAT?!?! I exclaimed. Where did you learn that? He states matter-of-factly, at school mom. Our Art teacher is WAY better than Rose Hill. (The RH teacher is now retired and this is a blessing for all his students who learned nothing....)

What we did while he was home:

• Learned how to use a Dremel tool to create my Terra Cotta pot
• Forget the plant and 3 saucers in the cart at Home Depot cause I was too busy unloading the pavers and sand -- have to go back to Home Depot and admit I forgot my stuff in the cart--this was DURING our date night and he did make a few snide comments about my memory
• Go on a Date to Red Yeti Brewery 
• Build shelves for the garage
• Finish Scrapbook table that was commandeered for the garage! 
  

Update on Walking & Sodium Free Life

Did you know that most pasta is sodium free? I bought gluten free pasta not realizing that all pasta is sodium free and so is oil? This has made life a bit easier. I also discovered so is wine. LOL! Obe Wan crashed the diet last weekend when we went to St. Louis. It is hard to travel and be on a diet. Well, it is if you refuse to precut and prepackage anything. AND most theme parks will not allow you to bring anything into their park but water. Super bummer on that one.

I have walked everyday this week. My FitBit is the best exercise tool ever! However, I did not time myself. I made myself garden and walk while the boys were out playing in the yard. For whatever reason the previous owners left behind over 30 cinder blocks in the basement and garage. I figured they were a gift and I needed to use them! I started and finished a raised garden this week. Talk about some steps and weight lifting. Gardening is a great work out! I was pretty impressed by this little garden; it is 4x6 cinder blocks long! I will put plants in every whole--I specifically put them skyward up! I can't wait to see how it turns out. The bad news is it is VERY far from the house, so dragging water to it will create a challenge. Hauling ALL the dirt out there was foreshadowing of how hard it will be to keep it watered. DUH.

How is your walking going? I know several of you have texted/called me and let me know you were joining me. It is not to difficult to fit it in. The hard part is making me do it! 

City Museum Night vs. Day

Me and my boys! 

Like I said on Sunday--Mother of the Year award goes to me and my memory! Geez. It all worked out great and the boys had so much fun! We did go on Friday night for a couple hours and returned again on Sunday we Ms. Music Teacher and her choir. We became the choir groupies and it was super fun! Her choir is amazing! Haysville Campus Mixed Choir Group: singing at the Baslicia in St. Louis.

On Friday night the outdoor area was open. It was a nice 75 degrees and was awesome. We played outside and didn't even find the 10 STORY slide until Sunday. (On Sunday it was rainy and cold. The outdoors was closed....) Super glad we came back! 

Obe Wan watching from the ground

He is part monkey.

Obe Wan is now 4'8", so you can
see how he had to bend over. I had
to crawl!

This was one of the taller areas. And yes, he is almost as
tall as his Mama. YIKES!

So much fun to be had. I couldn't believe how many adults were here crawling all over the place. This was one time where I was glad I didn't know a SOUL.

These are two of the planes. All
three of us actually did this one! 

Life size tops!

J-Bird going down a slide! 

Another fun shot of him climbing!

He has lost 5 pounds on our new
diet. We bombed out on the diet
this weekend, but we're trying...

As you can tell this is all Friday night. On Sunday J-Bird deserted me and went to hang with the choir boys. He had WAY more fun with them. Obe Wan and I hung out with some pretty good lookin' ladies. They were patient and kind. It was on Sunday we discovered the caves and the 10 story slides. You did figure out that we had to WALK UP 10 FLIGHTS of stairs to go down, right???

Looking down from 5 flights of stairs

Looking up at around floor five

Looking down at his Mama!

Help! I'm Stuck. JK!

Outside saying goodbye. They were sad to go....

Coasters are the newest FAV!

OBE WAN RODE EVERY COASTER AT SIX FLAGS ST. LOUIS!!!

Yep!That's Obe Wan in front of a CRAZY coaster!

While Obe Wan was riding the above thrills....J-Bird was riding his size thrills!!

I  couldn't believe it, but Obe Wan rode every coaster they had....they even have one that made the Roller Coaster hall of fame---you are free falling for several seconds and completely out of your seat.


Take a look at what Ms. Music Teacher and Obe Wan rode. After this ride---he was hooked. They made it their personal mission to ride every coaster there!

Ms. Music Teacher and Obe Wan

I was able to find them because of her shirt and his shoes!
This is actually them doing a loop! 

The most thrilling and one J-Bird was too short to ride. (Of course it was his height that stopped him. It had NOTHING to do with fear....) This one, Batman: The Ride,  was inverted, meaning your feet are dangling, and you do loops upside down! Woot! I was impressed with both of them and was fine hanging with J- Bird. He convinced me he needed a slurpie drink and a cape. I can't say as I blame him as the games were awfully cool looking AND if you played this one water gun game EVERY player got a cape. How can you go wrong with that??? He proceeded to wear the cape for the rest of the day!

He thought he was pretty sneaky when he caught me snapping his picture!
It was a 30 minute wait for the coaster peeps! 

Waiting, and
waiting...

 I'm Batman

(Make sure you are saying the above caption correctly! I'm Batman as said by Christian Bale) It was such a fun day at the park. Obe Wan asked me when are we going to the next one? HA! If only we could be on a roller coaster exploration team. Well, not me. I'm getting too old for the G-Force drop! We did manage to ride a few other rides and pose with some Looney Tunes characters!

Ms. Music Teacher braved the carousel. No way Jose!

Josh meets Daffy!

What a fun time! I believe there are several amusement parks around here and our weekends are pretty open. Now I just need to find someone to ride the coasters with Obe Wan because I'm out.

Wrong Museum, but got it figured out.

 So, as I am "Mother of the Year" I decided to take my kids to the much talked about St. Louis' children's museum. Ms. Music Teacher and I have been talking about taking  the boys there since our trip to Sturgis. She thought the boys would love it. My Wichita BF went to the Magic House, Children's Museum, St. Louis over spring break before she came to my house. I put the two together and thought I just HAD to take my boys....so we get out of school on Friday and head straight to the Magic House in St. Louis. The website says it is open until midnight. Due to the time change we are going to make it by 5 and have SIX hours of pure joy. We pull up to the Magic House and I realize due to the traffic something is going on---on the entrance door it says " No remittance on Family Free Nights." OH NO. Every brother and their kid is here....ahhhhhhh.

I asked at the front desk where their ball pit and outdoor slides are. They tell me the website shows old pictures. Their slides are inside now. (WHAT? Ms. Music Teacher told me there was a 10 story slide? The one in here is like not even a story??!?!?)We stayed for all of 1.5 hours and we were out.
We have been to seven children's museums across the nation, and my boys were totally over the seen of rude children and parents on cell phones. We left ONLY to discover we were at the WRONG PLACE. We showed up to the hotel to find Ms. Music Teacher (she is the reason we went to St. Louis--her choir kids were having a choir weekend and we were her groupies!) and she asked me what is this Magic House you speak of? I thought you were going to go to City Museum. Arg. So, the boys and I grab a quick bite, say hello to Ms. Music Teacher and hop back into the car to go to this 'City Museum.' WELL WORTH IT. OMG! City Museum, St. Louis, MO is AH-mazing! We had such a good time.

It is only $10 after 9 p.m. Kids have to be with an 18 year old as it turns into a social date scene for adults. It is like a McDonald's Play PLACE ON CRACK. There are tunnels and wire cages and stuff everywhere. There were places I was pretty sure my buns were going to get stuck and the boys were going to push me through. I felt kinda like this....

It was so cool. I'm glad we went Friday Night. Since I had already won the 'Mother of the Year' award once this evening, I went for twice! I looked at my watch and it said 11:45. They close at midnight and I was hot, tired, sweaty and ready to be done with the tunnels. I told the boys it was time to go. I no more than sit my chubby buns in the car than I look at the dash and realize we left an HOUR before we needed to. Sigh. I asked the boys if they wanted to go back in, but after looking at how tired they were (IT WAS 11:45 our time....) it was okay to leave. J-Bird was asleep within 10 minutes and I had to carry him into the hotel.

We went from LAME-O Magic House to this!

A straight 2 story drop. Yep, I did it too!

Wire tunnels connecting the airplanes.
We are every bit of 5 stories in MID freakin'
air. Obe Wan and I did as much as we could without
wetting our pants. J-Bird did it all!

Huge Ball pit. I watched.

He was LOVING this place. Half monkey this
kid is.

I will probably have to post more pictures as we had such a good time. These are the few pictures I took with my cell phone.

Lava flows....

I have a problem. A lot of Lava Rock problem. Every Spring I would envy my neighbors in Sienna Ranch who had rock gardens as I was hauling bag, after bag, after bag of mulch to my flower gardens. Well, I got my wish. I have gardens chocked full of rocks. They are HORRIBLE. I'm trying to plant some stuff, but having a horrible time because the rocks keep creeping into my holes. I also inherited a beautiful tiered fountain on this garden, but as you can see in the picture it is without a pump, the tubing and is cracked. Prince Charming swears he can glue it/cement it back together, but I'm not convinced. So in the mean time I have disassembled it and have it all in pieces. I'm pretty sure I can put in the Pinterest fountain of kiddie pools.....

Zach is shouting that he needs a
sodium free snack! LOL!

The good news is under the layer of rocks is the black weed control crap. So, once I dig up the rock it seems to stay out of my way. I believe I am going to do this once. I am not going to be doing much of anything after this year with this garden. Nana told me to order from Brecks, so I will be doing some online plant shopping this next week. Lowes just doesn't provide the variety I need. I have ventured to Home Depot too, but to no avail. We have a nursery down at the bottom of the Knob, I may brave it and go there. I have never bought a plant from a nursery. I'm too cheap. I will let you know how that goes.

So, I'm going to walk again this week. I think I will step it up a notch and walk from 35-40 minutes six days this week. I think I will break it into 2 sessions on Monday and Wednesday. I'm not sure if that will be easier or if I will blow off the 2nd half. Um....I'll get back to you on that one.

Have COOL toys = making new friends

They all wrestle. I think that is why Obe
Wan is a bit more cautious. I'm fine with that!

So, we have friends. There are THREE 2nd grade (8 year old boys) in the neighborhood and J-Bird has finally started hanging with them. Our neighbor to the South of us is a just-turned-12  year old in the 5th grade named Zac! He is a lot of fun and extremely athletic. J-Bird is loving it! He is riding up and down the street all the time. Obe Wan will join off and on. He is not comfortable with the amount of testosterone the rest of the boys exude. LOL!

They play tag and Marco Polo.
It makes this Mommy nervous!

A spankin' from Gabby! I'm going to make
sure the freezer is stocked with cool treats!

I'm so happy to hear their little voices running all over. They are welcome inside and out, so they are usually running every which way but up!