Painting this week

Even though Spokane is enjoying a wonderful indian summer, I will be in my house painting this week. Yes, I finally broke down and convinced myself that it needed to be done and by dang (you like that?) I am going to do it. Todd is off for 6 days straight and he is going to help me, although he doesn't know it yet. I'm not painting any crazy colors this week though, mostly covering up the crayon, pencil and the other ugly colors I have chosen to paint in the past, with primer. I am thinking though, we might paint our basement an antique white with a denim treatment under the wainscoat. We'll see how ambitious I get.

A Crafting Fool

In between all the other things I have been doing (Enrichment, Family Fun Night...Nothing) I've been feeling kind of crafty. It's not really my strength and I can copy anything, but I enjoy it and it's kind of a creative outlet. I used to do floral arranging, but I prefer fresh flowers and they are expensive and hard to find.

Last Thanksgiving/Christmas, I got a Cricut from Provo Craft (www.cricut.com). In case you are not familiar, they are a personal die cutting machine. Basically, I plug a cartridge in and it will cut shapes and letters up to 5 1/2 inches. Trust me, it's really fun. I would imagine that if you are a frequent scrapbooker/papercrafter/crafty person you would appreciate this little gem. Anyway, I found this great craft idea on pccrafter.com that uses Martha Stewart Crafts Halloween Test Tube Pen Sets. These are so cool. You can put candy in the test tubes and then use the little pens to embellish the fun stuff you make to go with them. As soon as I get mine finished I will post pictures. I love them and think they are perfect for visiting teaching!! The best thing about the Cricut...it also cuts vinyl. That's right. For a fraction of the price, I can hop on the "I decorate everything in my house with cute vinyl sayings" bandwagon. I apologize for the sarcasm there, but some people just go way overboard with a good idea.

I also am making some cute wood signs for Halloween, Fall Harvest and Christmas. Super Saturday is coming up and I am all ready for 8 straight hours of crafting and chatting...mostly chatting...I don't really have much more crafting to do.

It's Raining

It's raining here!!! I know I am weird but I get sad when it doesn't rain for awhile. Maybe because I grew up here and got used to it, I don't know. Fall is on the way. I can live without the winters but I love, love, love the Fall!!! It's time to get out the jackets and head up to Green Bluff for apple cider, pumpkin patches and corn mazes. Fall is Fun!!!

Bums in the Park and Hearts of Gold

Yesterday Kim, Traci and I decided that would take the kids for an afternoon picnic at Balfour Park. It's the perfect size for the smaller kids, plus there is the sand volleyball court which doubles as a sandbox. Usually this little out-of-the-way park is quiet and pleasant. When we get there and see the homeless men sleeping along the west fence, we are a little shocked. We chalk it up to not having been there for awhile and go about our business, keeping our distance and a close eye on the kids. Pretty soon though, as we're enjoying our conversation, this guy runs full speed out of the bushes, yelling at the top of his lungs. This of course gets our attention. Following right behind him is a sheriff's deputy. Apparently they came from across the field and into the park. This guy was putting up quite a fight so the deputy whipped out the pepper spray and totally doused this guy in the face. It slowed him down a little, and increased the volume of his screaming. At this point, they are totally fighting. We decide it's probably time to call it a day, even though all of the other homeless men have gotten the heck out of dodge when the cops showed up. Fun at the park!!
Kim and I, the gluttons for punishment we are, also decided to take our kids to the Valleyfest Hearts of Gold parade. The guys were out of town and at work, so we packed up our 6 kids and headed down to Sprague and Bowdish to stake out our seats. This parade is pretty close to small town as you get. The elementary schools all get their kids to march, the shriners are there, there are fire trucks and cop cars and hot rods and I swear just random people walking down the street for the exercise. The best part about this parade...they throw candy. Everyone does. Our kids had so much candy by the end of the night that they could barely carry it home. They have almost as much candy as when they trick or treat. I don't know if I'll ever be able to take them to a parade again where they don't throw candy. They'll be so disappointed. It was a great distraction though. Only 1 hour and it only took about 5 minutes to get out of the parking lot to a clear street to get home. How can you beat it? I complained when they moved the parade from McDonald and the Valleyfest from Terrace View, but this wasn't so bad and I think we might do the parade every year, it was fun!! We're still skipping Valleyfest though...too many people in a little itty bitty space.

Late 9/11 Musings

I watched this great documentary on the history channel last night after the kids went to bed and Todd went to work. It was the story of 9/11 as told by regular people who just happened to have their cameras and were filming the whole thing. At the time, those of us here could just watch in awe, shocked that it was happening. We did not even comprehend the reality of what was occuring there. As I watched this documentary and listened to the people comment on what was happening (23 people on the ground were killed from people falling out of the building and landing on them) the true magnitude of the devastation, destruction and loss of life really hit... 7 years later. It was a tragedy that I hope this country never forgets.

Monkey Cheeks are eatin my nuts

For years, I have watched this awesome tree grow in my backyard, it produced a "fruit" or something but we (meaning I because Todd doesn't care) had no idea what it was. I couldn't figure out what these strange green things resembling an unripe kiwi were that were growing on this tree. I knew there was no way that kiwi would grow in Spokane and they didn't ever change color. Every year they would fall off the tree and then just disappear. I really didn't have time to figure it out before, but this year it became an obsession. The easiest method would have been to take a branch of this tree to Northwest Seed and Pet and ask. They always know. Again, that would have been the easiest and not my style. What do I do? I dig through some Western Gardening book that my mom has (Similar to a medical dictionary only for plants if you get my drift) and hope that I stumble on some picture that looks like what's growing in the backyard. Scary thing is, I do. I convince myself that it is a Walnut tree. Why? I cut one of those "fruits" open while it was still soft enough to cut and saw what could have been something in the shape of half a walnut. It also hit me that all those walnut shells I was finding in my lawn were from my tree and there was a force of nature at work.

Preston and I decided to test the Walnut tree theory. We removed a couple of the green "fruits" and placed them on a large lava rock we have in the backyard. I knew my theory was correct when Preston ran in the next day and proudly exclaimed.."Mom, come look. The squirrels are eatin' my nuts!!" Oh yeah, we went there.... and laughed until our sides hurt. There you have it...true science at work in the Devenish household. My niece Piper calls the Squirrels "Monkey Cheeks", like chipmunks only not. Now if you want a good laugh at our house, just come in and say the Monkey Cheeks are eatin' your nuts.

First Day of School

Wow!! I can't believe it's finally here. I am really excited and believe me, they are too. It's the first year that I get to send 3 (count 'em 3) children off to school every day. Robbie is in 4th grade this year in Mr. Dobney's class. He is really excited and ready to be working again.

Preston is in 1st grade with Mrs. Winkler. he and Landon Rehkow are in class together so that works well for him. We kind of feel bad for Mrs. Winkler. Preston is so easy going though that he doesn't really care what happens, he's just excited to ride his bike to school.

Riley is in Kindergarten. She is really excited and luckily she knew Mrs. Hillstrom from last year. She was not wanting mom to help her get to class. She knew where she was going and didn't need my help.

She then found her seat, which was on the side by the cubbies. She sat down and started to "read" her book. There was a little boy who had a broken arm and who was crying and didn't want to leave his mommy. Mrs. Hillstrom suggested that Riley move to sit by him because she had big brothers and wasn't afraid of boys. She said she had 2 brothers and she would sit by him and be his friend. Todd and I were taking bets on how long it would be before he was her "boyfriend."

Now it's just Cassie and I at home (at least for a couple of hours a day). I think I'm going to appreciate only lugging one to the grocery store, appointments, quilt class, etc. Cassie also takes naps in the morning, so Todd and I get to pretend it's like we don't have kids!! So hooray for school and all the joy it brings to our family!!!