This and That

My Dad loves woodworking.  I have his masterpieces all over our house.  I haven't yet gotten my hands on his newest interest...carving.  Dad took Jaelyn out into the garage the other day and carved her a "Mountain Man."  He let her paint, glaze and varnish it.  I think it turned out great.  And even better, he put a magnet in it so it can go on MY refrigerator.

Jaelyn was out somewhere and saw faux painted birdhouses.  She wanted my mom to buy her one, but it was a big waste of money.  Instead, Jaelyn asked my Dad to make her one.  They immediately googled Missouri birds and learned the Blue Bird is the state bird.  They researched Blue Bird houses and within an hour, Grandpa and the girls were out in the yard collecting wood to build three bird houses.  Dan even put in his order for a faux bird house for a geocache hiding spot once we get to Missouri.  Shhhh...don't tell anyone.

We've collected a big bag of seashells from the beach and they've been screaming for a project.  I bought the kids cheap frames and let them glue the shells around the edge.  They picked their favorite beach picture to print for a great souviner from our fun summer.

Jaelyn has been jewelry making mode.  She's been making necklaces with seashells that had holes in them.  When she ran out of those, she had Grandpa drill holes in other seashells.  She's had an arm full of bracelets that's she's been passing out to friends. 

Allie has been building with Legos.  She's gotten really good at following complicated multi-step directions without any help.  Currently, she's working on a log cabin.

Allie also put together a 300 piece puzzle by herself the other day.  Several grown ups offered help, but she refused every offer.  I'm impressed.  She does puzzles differently than I do.  While Jaelyn and I have a very definite system to our puzzling (edge, then large elements, then the rest), Allie picks a starting point and works here and there until she finishes it.  There's no rhyme or reason to it, but she gets to the same ending point we do.

We realized that once all the kids have their own room, we'll be short one dresser.  My mom inherited my Grandma Molly's dresser.  It's in her guest room for us to use this summer, but after that she really doesn't need it.  She said Allie can have it for her room.  It's a plain oak dresser, but it needs some updating.  My mom is really into "updating."

Here's the before...

(sorry, my mom took the knobs off and a drawer out before she thought about taking a before picture)

Here's a preview mid-project...

I ordered pink glass knobs.  It's going to be beautiful and the perfect thing to compliment Allie's white iron bed.