School update

I haven't updated in quite a while about school, so here's to now.
We have really enjoyed our "storytime." We've read some great books so far this year: A Lion to Guard Us, Little House in the Big Woods, and we are currently enjoying The Cricket in Times Square.
Today, after we finished reading an extra "keep reading" chapter, the kids wanted to play "Cricket". Bounce was Chester Cricket, Ketchup was Mario, I was Tucker Mouse and our dog Bella played Harry Cat. I have to say that Harry Cat stole the show and we all had a great time.
One more story to share. The book A Lion to Guard Us is about a family that is trying to sail from England to Jamestown. The book is actually based on a true story about a ship that was shipwrecked on an island for several months before finally sailing on to Jamestown. It was interesting because the people were so frustrated that they were shipwrecked for so long. However, once they finally arrived in Jamestown they found very few survivors left and those who were still alive had little to no food left. That winter, while the others were shipwrecked, most people died of illness and starvation in Jamestown. The once shipwrecked people were not only saved from death and disease, but they brought food from the island they sailed from.
It reminded me of how God was working behind the scenes. Those shipwrecked probably saw no reason for their situation. They probably thought they were doomed there on that secluded island, but God had really saved them and used to save the lives of a few others ultimately saving the colony of Jamestown.
Isaiah 55:8-9 and Ro. 8:28 in action.

Christmas 2009/New Year 2010

We were blessed to experience the first white Christmas here in nearly 80 years. It started snowing on Christmas Eve and the snow stayed around until later in the day on Christmas.
We made a miniature snowman when the first snow fell. He's little, but he's a snowman.

The kids were excited to make snow angels and catch the snow on their tongues.
Their big gifts were a Wii, DS for Bounce and an American Girl doll for Ketchup.
Here's a pic of Ketchup asleep w/ Felicity (her doll). Ketchup received some pajamas that had a matching sleeping mask. I couldn't resist taking this one.
Bounce and Ketchup have also enjoyed playing with the Batman Castle he received from Nana and Tata.



As the end of the year came, I wanted to give myself a gift - new counters. Well, that is new-looking counters. I took on the project of painting our 1970's laminate counters to look like granite. There were several steps involved in the process. Here's a summary of what I did.

Step 1 - I painted a base coat on the counters. It was suggested to use a metallic paint, but I used paint we already had and sprinkled glitter on it while wet.

Step 2 - Sponge on your mid range color. If you have 3 different colors (lighter, medium and dark), it would be your medium color. The sponging didn't take that long and was fun (at least to a painting freak like me).


Step 3 - Sponge on the darkest color of the three you've chosen. This was the scariest step for me because I was really afraid I was going to end up with black airbrushed looking counters.


Step 4 - Sponge on your lightest color leaving some spots of black in random areas coming through. As you can see this really covered the black a little too well for my tastes, so I needed to do step 5 to darken it a little.

Step 5- I sponged on a caramel colored glaze to warm up the counters while letting the other colors come through.


Step 6 - Cover with a poly-acrylic top coat. This step took the longest because we had to apply 3 coats and each coat took several hours to dry.

Here is the final product although Ozzie and I agree that they look better in person than in the picture.

I am very pleased with my $50 faux-granite counters. Merry Christmas to me!