Well, hello friends!

I'm back!
Kind of.
I'm here, but I feel like my brain and body haven't quite caught up from a week at a family reunion and then the 4th festivities. I did manage to find some treasures though~I have to show you this:

We had a family reunion with my husband's side of the family in Allen, Texas. (Any of you from around there? It was beautiful!) Anyway, they rented out a big house with a pool for us all to get together and as we were driving in, look what I saw:

Okay, and now look at the houses that were having the sale:

Aaaahhhhhh! Stop the car! Stop the car!

I should ask, got shutters inside?

Miss Layla has been talking about using shutters on the inside over at the Lettered Cottage

photo from BHG.com flea market finds

this week when she shared how she framed out her living room mirror with shutters.

Anyway, it reminded me what my cute neighbor did in her boys' room with some old shutters. She painted them a dark brown and screwed them in on either side of the window. I love the way they frame the window and just give a pop of color and texture to the room. Oh, and do you just love those little cowboy boots her son used to wear on top of the dresser? They are the cutest, and yes, we are most definitely in Texas.

I tried to get the whole window, but being the photographer that I am :), it didn't turn out, but you get the picture, right?

And of course, Nester has shutters inside. Look at them as a perfect backdrop for that big ol' star:

No, it's not a new feature, but it sounds good~maybe it will be, or should be. I was going to share a cool trick for bedsheets for WFMW, but these words from Anna Quindlen touched me deeply and are on my mind this week.
Maybe because it's summer.
Maybe because I have kids the exact ages she speaks of.
Maybe because I'm a big "get it done-er. "
Thanks for letting me share:

“The biggest mistake I made [as a parent] is the one that most of us make. . . .
I did not live in the moment enough.
This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of [my three children] sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages six, four, and one. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed.

I wish I had treasured the doing a little more
and the
getting it done a little less”

(Anna Quindlen, Loud and Clear [2004], 10–11; emphasis added)

Thank you Ms. Quindlen.

Marty at A Stroll Thru Life is having a cloche party! She is one of the sweetest, most sincere people I've met through blogland and I adore her.


Here is a cheeseboard with a glass cover I found for $1 at a yard sale:

It now sits on a stand from a Target clearance

with a sweet nest inside:

I also have one in my bedroom with a (fake) flower pot inside:

Here are some other glass fillers I've used throughout my home:

Summer is in full swing!

Holy cow! I was a little taken aback to have all 5 running through the house again (okay, the baby doesn't run, but still...) with their friends all day. I was going crazy and then I remembered a delightful little thing I used to use called chore cards. My friend, Lynee introduced me to them when we lived in Idaho, and I have been using them in the summer since then. It's a fun way to get your kids to get their work done before you all go out to play.

I made up a list of all the chores my kids help me do. Walk through your house and see what you would like done. Maybe you want dusting to happen at least once a week. Maybe your glass screen doors are covered in fingerprints like mine. Maybe everyone's shoe baskets are spilling into each others and you need to organize them and distribute them to the rooms. Or better yet, why couldn't your kids organize them?

Your kids can do more than you think~it may take some time to teach them how the job needs to be done, but in the long run it will pay off for years and years on both your parts.
You all live in the house and you all need to help take care of it, right?
Right. :)

Then, I typed up the list in Microsoft Word and added clip art pictures with them to make them a little more fun and also for the younger ones that can't read. I printed them off on different color of cardstock for each child,

cut them into cards,

and then took them to Mardel to get them laminated (I've found teacher and homeschool stores the least expensive for laminating)

The kids cut them up,
(if you're type A, you can straighten up the cutting when they're in bed :)

Then I punched holes into them and put them onto a ring.
Remember that frame I turned into a bulletin board? Turns out the hooks are a perfect place to hang chore cards on!

I uploaded my chore cards here. Feel free to copy, paste, and change away to fit your family.

This is how we use them:

The "essential" ones like getting dressed, making bed, brushing teeth, etc. are done every day. I put a little star with a sharpie on those ones. Then, each day I add in one or two extra jobs that I decide need to be done that day. It makes a world of difference to divide the jobs up. Our big rule is that no one plays with friends, outside, on the computer, tv, or wii, nothing until their cards are finished. It's amazing how fast they work when their friends are waiting for them outside and their "cards" aren't finished yet. Now, lest you think my kids wake every morning and come in and ask, "how can I help you today, mom?" I need to tell you that there will most likely be opposition. There will be some days of wailing, whining, protesting, gnashing of teeth, crying, howling, BUT

If you look...you'll also see some fun cards. I don't throw these in every day, but they just love these. It's a fun way to make them look forward to something and the chores seem to be done extra quick on those days.

I like to change things up every few months to keep the momentum going (especially with chores) so in the fall, we switch to chore charts. Also, I would recommend making some blank cards to write on with a dry erase marker for new ones you think of and want to add...

I hope these help you out!

Have a great weekend~

ETA Again!: I uploaded it to 4 Share. Hopefully this works. I tried to fix the Google Docs link~ It may or may not work for you here (the formatting isn't there, but you get the idea)

I bought this sweet little bundle of sticks at Rod Works in Utah for $2.50:

As I was playing around with where to put them, my husband saw it and said, "more sticks?"
I said, "what do you mean, more sticks?"
He raised his eyebrows.

Then, I looked around and had to laugh:

sticks in nests

topiaries made out of sticks

balls made out of sticks in glass jars:

more stick balls in stick baskets

sticks with starfish

wreaths made out of sticks

sticks in the bathroom

sticks in pots

Yea, I got sticks.
I like sticks.


What about you...
got sticks?