Crazy Days Are Almost Over...

We have one more week of the crazies around our house and then summer can begin. Kelsie is in the middle of final exams, then next week is all practices for graduation on Friday the 18th.

It certainly hasn't been boring around here this past week or so...We are experiencing lot of "Lasts" around here...

Last dance recital. She was beautiful. She danced in 10 dances and was perfect in all of them. (proud mama!). I never took dance when I was little, so I am still amazed when our girls remember 10-15 dances for a recital or competition. I must confess, I cried after every dance. I think it was the culmination of all the dance classes since they were 3 and now to have it come to an end. I even cried when the little girls who were about 2-3 years old danced. It reminded me of Kelsie when she was little.

I never mentioned before, but Kelsie has been through a lot in her short life. She was born with congenital defects of her shoulder and spine. Her first surgery was when she was 2 years old to move her scapula down in the correct spot. She then wore a body and neck brace forever. Her last surgery was 5 years ago. It took 11 hours. She has 2 rods, pins and screws and her spine is fused from the neck to the lumbar. The way she moves you would never know a thing. I think this is the reason for the extra tears this recital.

Here she is en pointe.

Ballet. She's the one with the leg extended. Sorry so blurry. I had other pictures of the other dances, but they move so fast they were too blurry.

and here she is at the end right after they celebrated the 3 seniors graduating from the dance school.

Then we had her last parade for Memorial Day. That's her waving away.

Right after the parade we drove the family to Newport, Rhode Island for the day. Beautiful day of food and shopping. This picture's not mine, but isn't it pretty here.

I took these in a candy shop. Those huge logs are FUDGE!!!

These are freshly made ice cream cones.

Chocolate covered Twinkies.

and here are the slabs of fudge cut from those logs. It was ridiculously delicious.

Then June 3rd was Courtney's 19th birthday. Can't believe she's that old. She's grown into a beautiful woman right before our eyes. Smart as a whip too. Just finished her freshman year of college with a 4.0. Here she is with her boyfriend Courtland.

Bite of birthday cake...

and blue teeth from the frosting.

Annie wanted to give her a birthday kiss too.

This past Saturday was Kelsie's senior prom (last prom for us). She was so pretty (tears again).

Here is her date for the night. Very nice boy.

This last pictures is with one of her best friends Sofia. Kelsie put together this split picture of the two of them in first grade. They were both in the play The Wizard of Oz. Kelsie was Dorothy and Sofia the Scarecrow. This makes me cry again. Where does the time go?

We have one more week of activities and I'll be back in full blogging swing. I have some snowballs to show you and other projects in the works...just bear with me. I think my last day to cry is next Friday!

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See you in a little bit,

~Karen~

Yahtzee Anyone? Lazy Susan Remake

Games...high tech or low tech they are popular around our house. Our girls have lap tops, ipod touches, ipods, wii and all the latest what nots, but once in a while they still go back to the basics. Yahtzee is big at our house right now. Our daughter Courtney and her boyfriend Courtland have matches all the time. We came home from Kelsie's last dance recital today (pictures later) to find the 2 Courts on the porch playing Yahtzee. Then they asked us if we wanted to play...lots of fun and Courtney won with 280 points! I wanted to share something I made for them.

When they would play on the table, they thought it was too noisy and would roll the dice on a magazine. Here's what I came up with.

I took a wooden round tray, some fabric and Mod Podge glue. I used a round tray, because the table we have it on is round so it looks cute. However, any tray would work.




Cut the fabric to fit your tray. Brush a layer of Mod Podge glue on the tray and then place the fabric on that. Once you have the fabric positioned, brush on another layer of Mod Podge.




The glue is milky white until it dries.




I added an antique box for the score cards and pens, a matching mug instead of the plastic cup it came with and cute wooden dice.

and look...I rolled a Yahtzee!!! (yeah, right)

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Here it is on the game table. I gave them each their own mug and 2 different sets of dice. You could definitely customize to your own with fabrics and colors.

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Now go through some old board games and steal 5 dice or look in that junk drawer, they've got to be in there! Go to the computer, print free Yahtzee score cards and have fun with your new homemade Yahtzee set!!

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Have fun,

~Karen~

Woo Hoo...She's Done!!!!

Last year I did a post on my oldest daughter Courtney's Senior Project. Do you remember the Under Ground Railroad Quilt that she made? Well, that year flew by and now Kelsie just presented her project today!!

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Our state has rigorous graduation requirements and one major part is the Senior project. You can pick any topic, but you must have a learning stretch and expand on what your topic is. Kelsie chose "What effect does color and interior design have on the mood of a room."

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The room she decided to redecorate was the Senior Company Room at her dance studio. It's an honor to finally be in Senior Company and she was chosen in 1oth grade. There is the thrill of a select group of girls having their own room separate from the other dancers. However, that room is the storage room for supplies, props and all in all crap. They just like having their own space.

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Unfortunately it looks like this...just gross

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After she worked her whole April vacation...it now looks like this!!!

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This is the view from inside the room looking out.

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and now that corner looks like this!

She took that big old desk top and had her father cut it down to a smaller top.

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Now it's a smaller desk for homework, doing their hair or makeup.
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All the following pictures are projects she did to fill up the room on a budget.
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This disgusting couch was in the first picture. It was in the room, but no one sat on it for obvious reasons. However, there was no way we could afford to buy another couch.

So she scrubbed the heck out of it. She used every chemical we had, bathroom cleaner, Simple Green, Spic and Span, bleach...you name it.

Here it is with the tar getting kicked out of it.

It looked great, but she wanted to jump in the shower.

Can you believe that was a white leather couch under all that. From the 1980's, but clean enough to sit on now.

Then she painted.

and painted. One of the things she learned during all this is...she HATES painting. Cute smile though.

Here are some craft projects...blow up a balloon, dip string in glue and then wrap it up. Let it dry and pop balloon.

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Decorations to fill up a bowl.

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She went into Joanne's for fabric with a whole different color scheme and came home with these. She made pillows, wall hangings and decorations.

One wall was really large and needed something big to fill it in, so she used wood from her father's wood pile and some fabric.

There were some large card board tubes that the flooring for the dance studio came on.

More decorations for the shelf.
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Then there was the large wall over the nice WHITE leather couch. She just nailed in the straw paper plate holders.

and here it is again. She presented today with a power point of 30 photos and a 12 minute speech in front of a panel of 8 judges. She did GREAT!



One more thing checked off the list for this year!
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Take care,

~Karen~