Santa

Another tradition we have is Santa pictures. For 14 years, we have gone to the Woodlands Mall and to our local fire station for Santa pics. I have warned them that this tradition will continue on for a very long time : )

These pics are from the fire station. The girls wanted to dress all 'festive' for Santa and the boys just wanted to get hot chocolate and cookies. A sweet friend gave the girls these cute, cute, cute skirts!! They look so grown up don't they? and well the boys look like they are ready to hit the snack table!!

Annual Gingerbread Houses

We spent yesterday working on our annual tradition of gingerbread houses with our friend Miss Pat. Each year the crew amazes us with their talent and imagination. This year was no different. As usual, it was a great day!!


This is the final result - WOW!


Alyssa made a church - it looks just like her style.

Amanda made a house that is for sale. (The sign is in front of the snowman)

Adam made a gun range with targets hanging off the candy canes. Targets were eaten by bedtime.

Andrew made an energy efficient house with solar panels.

Raymond made his as a log cabin. The blue icing to the side is a waterfall rolling down rocks. He is very detail oriented.

Girls Who LOVE Pink!

How is it that my girls LOVE pink so much? I never recall ever liking pink. So in keeping with their love of pink they begged for this pink Christmas tree. I agreed only since they paid for half of it. I wish the picture had came out a little better to show how truly pink this tree is. And just to make sure everyone knows that its a girl tree - the ornaments have Princess characters on them. Gotta love those girlie-girls!!

Last Picture at Disney

This is the very last pic that we had made at Disney. We were at Animal Kingdom and there is a really big tree in the background but its kinda hard to see here. It was so great to find a fun photographer and even though we were all so tired - the kids were great sports!!

Still in Recovery

We are all still in recovery mode - who knew Disney could be so exhausting. But we did hit 4 parks in 4 days - woo hoo!! The boys rode all the really cool roller coasters and rides. The girls and I hit all the good shows!!




Mr & Mrs Potato Head were right by our hotel room - they always make me crack up!! (Especially in all the Toy Story movies)

Adventures in Florida

Want to get more comments and stares than you know what to do with - go out-of-state and have all 7 members of your family wear UT colors. We were harassed and cheered all in the same day (in good humor of course).

We have had a busy week - checked in hotel and have ran non-stop. We will need a vacation from our vacation!! We have been to Epcot, Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios AND are heading to Animal Kindom tomorrow.

The kids are SO tired of pictures being taken of them - I think we have taken about 400 pictures in the last few days so I was too tired to look thru them all and well... I really like Woody and Jessie!! : )

M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I

Only thing that could make this picture better would have been if we were dressed in burnt orange!!

Happy Little Girls!!

After many years of being 'loved' on - Sarah and Nellie got new hair! It has been a long 2 weeks of being gone. Finally the Fedex truck brought their babies home. Oh how happy they are!!

Refinishing Furniture - Part 3 - Completed

Here they are - I am so excited to see how beautiful they look in the girls room. They are so ready to fill them with girly stuff! After staining, I applied 4-5 coats of tung oil. Its my favorite finish - it makes it almost look like it has a polyurethane finish.

This is just perfect for my girls. I know that they will have many years of making memories as did the Tucker family who previously owned it. We are just so thrilled to have it as a part of our family now.

The chest is also just the right size for the girls. They have already filled it with their clothes.

And because I have had so much fun working on these 2 pieces - I couldn't resist getting these to refinish for the boys. The name stamped inside the drawers is Heritage Henredon. Many of the drawers have dividers and trays built in. It is a really neat piece that I am hoping to refinish the same dark color as the girls furniture.

This chest is about 5 feet tall. The 2nd drawer is actually a double sized drawer that has dividers built in. A friend said it was a mens chest and the dividers were to keep their pressed shirts stacked and separated. I just love little tidbits of info like that!

The dresser is 5 feet long so this set should take care of all of the boys storage needs for many years!!

Furniture Refinishing - Part 2 - Bleaching Wood

The hardest part of this job was trying to figure out how to get the stains off the top of the dressing table. They appeared too deep to sand off and I couldn't find good consistent info on bleaching the wood. So...I got a little adventurous and used clorox bleach and water. (1/4 cup bleach, 3/4 cup water). Rubbed it on and let it dry - being so hot it took about 10 min to dry. I did this twice, then rinsed with a vinegar/water combo. This did the job and removed the majority of the stain. The only downside was that it also removed some of the 'red' tint of the wood. The grain wasn't changed though.



I also found out that I splashed when I didn't mean too. Apparently some bleach mixture ran down the side. These drips also removed the red tint. So if you decide to use the bleach mixture be more careful than I was. Also, make sure you research a little online. The bleach will completely remove the grain lines from some woods.



I am restaining the pieces with Minwax English Chestnut stain. The chest stained beautifully. The dressing table was a different color since the red tint was gone. So for it I added another coat of stain - Minwax Red Chestnut . It added enough red to it to make the match almost perfect.

I am now adding tung oil to both pieces - hoping to get 4 coats on each. Will post the end results as soon as I am finished up.

Furniture Refinishing - Part 1

At a neighbors estate sale, I was blessed to be able to find these 2 older pieces. One is a dressing table (or vanity table) and a tall chest of drawers. I bought the chest first and then the next day they had added the matching dressing table. The daughters talked about remembering it from their Grandmas house. I remember my Grandma had one too. After seeing it and all the memories it held, all I could think about was my girls sitting at it making their own memories. So my sweet family made it a birthday present. I was so excited that I didnt take very good before pictures before I started working on it.

This is the dressing table. It has a large framed rectangle mirror that goes between the upright bars. The top has a large area of water damage and that has been a very good learning experience for me.



This is the chest. I love the lines - not too many but just enough to add to the character of the piece. Both pieces have spindle like legs in the front.


Here are both pieces stripped. I used Minwax Furniture Refinisher on the dressing table and Zinler (name may be wrong) on the chest. Love the Minwax but it was 3 times as much as the other. I used 0000 wool pads and the refinisher to remove the finish. The color of the natural wood is gorgous - has a beautful red tint to it.




The dressing table, the top is going to be a little tricky as I have never redid a piece like this. I did a good bit of research on bleaching the wood but never found the same answers. Everyone has a different opinion about it. I also didnt trust my self to sanding not knowing how deep the stain went.




In a couple of days, I will post more on what I did with the pieces.

Rainbows

Rainbows always make me smile! This is what we were blessed to see last night. Part of the sky was very pink. The last pic is of the sky opposite of the rainbow.

Adventures with Hank

We were looking at houses in East Texas the past few days. As usual, Hank the Cowdog was along for the ride. Being a city dog, he has had great fun running thru woods and pastures. He has learned lots of new smells - fox holes, hogs, and who knows what other creatures - but he really likes to stretch his legs out and run thru the clearings.

We are packed up and looking at houses on the way back to Houston. The last house we are looking at apparently had some old bag of food/cheese laying near the house. (We dont think it was an animal) What does Hank do - what dogs do best - roll in it. Not just once but twice. He is covered with slime and it is awful smelling. We find a water hose and get the slime off of him but of course there is no soap anywhere. We have to get in the car with him - and we are all gagging and holding our nose. We go back the the carwash in Alto - its a very old style carwash. He hook Hank's leash up and put our quarters in the machine. First we use the soapy scrub brush. Then he gets a good rinse and then just for safe measure we repeat. He cleaned up quite well and we only smelled him a few times on the way home. Where he also got another bath just in case we missed any stink at the carwash.

Now the whole problem with it all was that I had no camera of any kind with us. It was classic - how many times do you get to have that much fun when you are traveling ?

Now if I could only find the people who stopped and took a pic of us with their cell phone.

Dog Days of Summer

What do you do on these super hot days of summer? Our family gets 'creative' in ways to stay cool. Who knew how much fun you could have with a sprinkler, ice chest, a garden cart and straws.

Girlie Time

What is a trip to Dallas if we dont hit the American Girl Doll Store? This place is so much fun to take the girls to. The boys followed us in but we ran them off into the mall. First, Nellie and Sarah hit the beauty shop for new hair styles. Afterwards, we looked at EVERY outfit in the Bitty Twin section. Luckily that area is smaller than the other dolls.


Amanda and Sarah


Alyssa and Nellie

Two very excited girls after a tough day of shopping!

Roller Coaster Crazy

The boys have turned into Roller Coaster Maniacs - they rode every ride at Six Flags this week with Dad in tow - and many of them 3 - 4 times as the lines were short. Mr. Freeze, Titan and even some oldies - Judge Roy Scream and the Shockwave. They are already making plans for the next trip there. The girls cant wait to join them.... as for me - I will continue to be the non-rider who holds all the stuff.

Cow Appreciation Day

This has become a favorite tradition - Chick-fil-A's Cow Appreciation Day. Dress up like a cow and get a free meal. We were a sight for sure - Im not sure if we resembled cows at all but we did have a lot of fun making the costumes!!

Travel with A Large Family

This has always been a tough one for us and we generally had to have 2 hotel rooms. I found this website today and thought I would share it as it list hotels that have rooms for more than 4 persons.

http://www.sixsuitcasetravel.com/

Personally, we recently found Homewood Suites. Large rooms with kitchens and they offer a full breakfast (a big plus for my growing crew). Their rates are especially good on Friday and Saturday nights.

Thank A Veteran

My dh saw an elderly gentleman getting out of a car yesterday with 'Disabled Vet' license plates. He stopped and thanked him for serving our country. The man was surprised and told him that no one had every told him that.

How sad is that? An American injured while serving his country should have been thanked a hundred times. So when you see a veteran - thank him! You could make their day!!

Awanas

We ended our 5th year of Awanas last month. This year Raymond volunteered with Cubbies, Andrew received his Timothy Award (completed 4 books in 4 years in Truth & Training), Adam finished Book 2 in Truth & Training and the girls finished their 2nd book in Sparkies. As always, it has been another great year for the Fryes at Awanas!!

Another Birthday Boy!!

Andrew's 12th birthday was Saturday. (All three boys birthdays are spread over a 5 week period so birthday celebrations have been non-stop since April 30.) One thing continous about Andrew is that he never quits smiling. He is also continously growing taller - about 3 more inches and he will be taller than his Mom!!

This is his 2nd bday!


Want to know anything about airsoft guns? Just ask any boy in my house! One unnamed boy, can tell you to never take one apart - there are about 100 little pieces and springs inside that never fit back together.



Happy Birthday Andrew!!!

Hungry?

Good thing this wasnt supposed to be for lunch! : )

Patience

Our dog Hank has more patience with the girls than anyone (or animal) I have ever seen. This is as close as I could get without 'disturbing' them but the girls are burying him in the dirt. Hank will be very happy when we get grass down and he won't be tortured anymore. HA HA!

Big Red Hits Double Digits

Our Big Red Firecracker hit 10 today. He is still full of spunk and adventure as he always has been. God has grand things planned for him!




This smile is for the big bowl of seafood gumbo he is about to eat!

How can he be 13??

It was just a few days ago that he was this cute little guy!!



Today he is 13. I cant wait to see what all God has planned for him. He is growing up to be such a fine young man.

This boy loves his momma...

(WARNING - Snake pics are below)




How do I know?? He killed this snake for me - actually he didnt even come tell me - he just killed it. I dont like snakes!!


And to save you the time - here is the rhyme - Red & Yellow Kill A Fellow...