Projects

I have been working on some projects over the past few weeks. We may be obsessed with storage. Anyway, we found these series of 5 closets for FREE on Craigslist. I had to disassemble them, move them to my house, and reassemble them. They didn't have any shelves oe top to the closets so I had to build those too. After doing that I trimmed the whole thing out to make it look more built in and have it go all the way to the ceiling. One day, one far distant day, I would like to build new doors because this is not my favorite look and I am not for glass let alone see through. The whole reason why I wanted cabinets in the first place is to hide my stuff. However, it is hard to complain about free.
This is a dress up organizer for the boys I built. It is nice that their dress up clothes that are used daily have a "place". Now I just need to teach them how to hang up clothes........
This is a kids craft table and chairs I built for the boys. The plans for this and the dress up organizer come from this awesome website anawhite.com. This woman designs simple things with easy instructions usually knock offs from pottery barn. She is very inspirational and people who have never built anything are motivated and successful in building her plans. I think she is amazing. I love this website and want to build a bunch more things on her site. I have the cutes fabric I plan on covering the bins with so that their table can be adorable instead of only utilitarian.......I wonder when I will actually do it. Once the function of the project is completed I slow way down in finishing things. (Dang you Thompson trait!) The boys (especially Soren) LOVE this table and use it everyday. Ah, success!

Stackable chairs. You can't tell me that is not cool. These chairs cost me about 4$ each. The table I think was about $40. To build these things only takes a few hours. To finish them takes FOREVER. I often dream of Ryan doing some of the finish work on these projects like my Mom would do for my Dad. Although that has not happened he does sometimes clean up after me - a perk which I love.........unless it is while I am building.
These are the most designer shelves I have ever seen. Most the stuff I make does not come out this cute, so I am very pleased with these guys. This is in my laundry room. I now have black baskets on top full of cleaning stuff. The stuff I use often is on the lower little shelf and my favorite feature about these shelves is the rod at the bottom. We go through about 15 towels a day. Half from the boys cleaning up their endless spills, the other half from them being "creative". Anyway, I hang them here to dry so they don't sour and I don't have to do the laundry daily. It has been wonderful for us.
I have 4 major projects either in the works or all the materials collected and just waiting to be manipulated into something better. That doesn't include the fabric I have for the drapes and valances for 5 of my windows that I have had for several months. I often feel confused about which project I should be working on and what is more important because depending on what room I am in, dictates what feels most important. If only I had insomnia, the things I could do.......

Hawaii Heaven

Hawaii really is paradise. WOW. Ryan and I got to go to the Big island for a whole week - KIDLESS!! - Thanks to awesome family. I have never been and Ryan went when he was 12 so it was great exploration for the both of us. It was overcast most the time which you would think is a bummer but it is so gorgeous and warm that it was still amazing. This is the "Valley of Kings" - a gorgeous remote area that has only locals living there with no water and electricity. It is a steep climb in to the valley but it has a beautiful black sand beach, wild horses and gorgeous foliage. It was right out of lost with a awesome sandy beach backed up by a jungle. Here we are with a wild horse. He is hard to see but he is right behind my shoulder. We meet a local when we were hiking down here who was picking up his son and son's girlfriend who were on a 5 day backpacking trip. I immediately knew what I want to do the next time I come back which appears imminent as Ryan has 2 trips planned before the year is up and I am invited on one of them.
Hawaii the big island is the only island with active volcanoes. Although it is not activly erupting in a way we could see well, it was still spectacular to see all the landscape changes and steam vents and lava flows.

I went on a 4 mile hike loop that took you around and through what in the 1950's was a lake of lava. This lake of lava was 400 feet deep and took 30 years to cool. The above picture is the jungle on the ridge of the lake of lava. Below is the dried lake of lava that I walked across. This hike was so cool to me. It is interesting, lava destroys everything in its path, but then years and years later things begin to grow again and then eventually the lava becomes even more nutrient then regular soil.
This is lava flows that reached the shore.

My absolute favorite thing on this trip was swimming with dolphins. We rarely do the expensive tourist stuff, but Ryan talked me into it and boy am I glad he did. Wow what an experience. I mean I really swam with the dolphins. We found several pods of wild dolphins - they estimated about 200 or so. Then we got our snorkel gear and went swimming. It was neat to see the dolphins when they came to the surface of the water but the real action was down below it. The dolphins would play tag with a leaf picking it up with their mouths or catching it with their fins and passing it off. For the first 15 min I sat floating on the top of the water looking below but then I saw this woman dive down and really swim with the dolphins. "Holy Cow!" I thought. "Now that is what I want to do." After watching for a few more minutes I abandoned my "noodle" and quickly got the hang of diving down and in a way that didn't scare the dolphins and coming up and squirting the water out of my snorkel. I was so close I could have touched the dolphins at least a dozen times. I would literally be in the middle of the pod swimming making eye contact with a dolphin for 20 -30 seconds. It was phenomenal. These animals are so gentle and non threatening. The coolest part about it is these dolphins could out swim me at any moment but they were letting you swim with them. I have never been a dolphin lover, but I could just feel of their goodness. I now know why others adore dolphins. They are truly amazing.
We also saw humpback whales. Two sets of mom and baby. One did almost a full breach out of the water (the classic jump out and land on your back.) It goes so fast you just want them to do it again and again to really soak it in and study the image but alas, once is all we got.
I wish I could have dedicate a whole day going from waterfall to waterfall, but this is all is all we could get in. Pictures just don't do it justice.

My boys were so good to all the homes they went to. On day 3 Soren told my Mom he missed me, but true to himself Xander quickly exclaimed, "I don't miss Mom. I don't miss anybody. I like lots of sleepovers." Nice to know they are handling change well.

Christmas lives on

Xander was playing "the Christmas story" with a 3 year old boy twist.

He made a manger out of legos. He had a Mary, a Joseph, and a baby Jesus. You can't tell me that is not awesome.

A Thompson Christmas

We had a great Christmas this year. It was a "Thompson year" meaning my side of the family gets first dibs on get together. Both Ryan and my family is in the area. Thompson Christmas's always entail a "gingerbread compitition." Past compititions were

Gingerbread bridges - the bridge who could hold the most weight before breaking won

Gingerbread towers - the tallest one won

Gingerbread catapolts - farthest throw won

Gingerbread race cars - fastest won

ect.

There are always a bunch of rules typed out a month or so before but the number one rule is and always have been, everything you use has to be edible. EVERYTHING. No glue, tape or anything else. If there is any question you have to eat it on the spot.

This year we did an egg drop. We made contraptions or protection covering for our egg and then dropped them at varying heights. The one that could be dropped at 16 feet (our tallest rung on the ladder) and the lightest contraption won. This was a great competition because in years past we have had time issues where now that we have little kids it is hard to find time to design and engineer and build your gingerbread entry which you usually had to leave a day or more to fully dry or cure for full function. For this competition we made our egg protectors right then and there and for the first year no one used gingerbread. Most the grandkids could make these too and so it was fun for all.

Here we are putting them together. We all brought a bunch of ingredient and it was a free for all. I had several nieces and nephew defect to my team. This is not because I am the best at these competitions. Actually contrary to what some of you are thinking I bring very little competitions to the table. Even though I am somewhat handy and build thing and am somewhat mechanically minded, I don't compare at all to more then half of my siblings. Those are not my talents in this family. As a nurse I can't compare to the mechanical engineers and computer geniuses that litter my family. Family members have been known to draw up plans in Cad for these things. Luckily everyone having kids has muted the playing field a little.

Most the entries. Marshmallows were really handy to have. Just sticking a bunch of marshmallows all over your egg and using a bit of fruit by the foot or won ton wrappers could get you to the 16 foot level......of course it wasn't the lightest.

You can't help but love the designs.

One of my many entries. This one was in Soren's name. What I lack in engineering I made up in sheer quantity. Lets face it, the funnest part of the whole event is dropping eggs from 16 feet up in the air and I got to do this a lot. This is an orange who's center is scooped out and the egg is placed inside with a marshmallow cork and some fruit by the foot tape to keep it all together. It survived it's first fall in which the orange partially split ruining the integrity of design. This wasn't our best one but the best picture. Soren took it well.
Everyone loved watching the eggs drop........except we did have a few nephews who got upset when their eggs broke. Not my boys. They were like, "awesome, destruction!" I had to grab a few eggs from their hands to prevent an "egg fight". Known potentials
I didn't get a pic of the winning design. It was by my brother Shem and it was truly awesome. He made a mold out of cardboard that had a cone with an inverted umbrella on it. Then he covered it with soft rice paper and let it dry. He put the egg inside with no padding. The thing gently floated down and the cone protected when it hit the floor. It was awesome. Upon impaction it broke part of the umbrella part making it lighter. So he re-weighed it and sent it down again. It survived 3 falls and came in at just over 3 oz of weight. His other design was also cool, sucessful but a bit heavier. It was a part of a baguet with the bread scrapped out and the egg placed. Then attached 2 semi circles of rice paper around the bread top at angles. The contraption twirled as it fell. Really cool to watch. My brother Corom made this awesome trophy that we will pass down every 2 years when we have the competition. My Dad was the one who started all of this and he would have really loved this year.

The real Santa

Soren's school had a little christmas craft night and Santa was there. He completly looked the part and was quite jolly. He tolerated all of Soren's touching and all of Xander's questions. I think he just might be the real thing.

Xander has been asking a lot of follow up questions about Santa Clause. Questions like, How is he going to go down our chimney? Where is our chimney? But there is glass blocking our fire place (it is a gas fireplace). Do the reindeers really fly? How does he get to all the kids in the whole wide world? This is my 3 year old. Soren has asked no such questions. I love Soren's blind belief in everything I say. Xander on the other hand argues about everything. I thought he just likes to be contrary but here is proof that he thinks through some things. The last question blew me away. I thought I would face this much later. Xander asked, "Mom, is Santa real?" Quinae, "Uh, Uh, why do you ask? Where did you hear that?" I don't care to lie to the boy but really I have to field that question now? Xander, "Nowhere. I just want to know." Luckily I was able to side step the question with, "So, what do you want for lunch?" Next year I may not be so lucky.

May I have this dance?

I don't know if I have already told you, but Soren has a thing for the ladies. He just likes them. Every day he is debating which one he should mary. It is pretty funny and a little concerning. Anyway, last night at our church Christmas party we had this great Christ centered program with lots of musical numbers. Most the kids started out sitting on the floor in the front watching, but by then end most of them are on the edges of the gym or running circles around the building. Too many brownies I suppose. Well, I was standing on the edges trying to keep the reverence and not start a full on revolt when Soren came up to me and verbatim said,

"Mom, how do you ask a lady to dance?"

Too curious to derail his plan and encourage him to watch the program I simply replied, "You say, May I have this dance?"

He then excitedly said, "Great! Thanks!" and dashed off.

Hmmmm, this boy is on a mission that I must watch. One of his favorite lady friends is his 5 year old neighbor named McKenzie. She is adorable and adventurous and I don't blame him. He dashed off to where she was twirling around to the music.

Soren then said, "McKenzie, may I have this dance?"

McKenzie just kept on twirling.

"I said may I have this dance."

She starts twirling farther away from him.

Not willing to accept defeat he runs after her proclaiming, "Dance with me! Dance with me!"

By this time it is not only quite evident he needed some additional pointers but he was also quite loud and beginning to disturb the program. I get McKenzies attention and ask if she wants me to show them how to dance together. She happily obliges which I was relieved and not sure she was going to do. I put them in ballroom dance position and tell them to twirl. It was soo cute and I was lucky enough to have my camera on me.

Here Soren is running after McKenzie asking her to dance while she is twirling.

Look at how happy he is. They were both giggling and really loving it.

Soooo cute

A blast from the past

This suit was Ryan's when he was little. Xader wore it to church last Sunday. Soooo cute!

Here is Soren in the same suit when he was 3.

This suit was Ryan's when he was little. Xader wore it to church last Sunday. Soooo cute!