Changes

I decided some big changes were needed around here, which is one of the reasons I've been absent from blogging lately. I tried a million different ways to do these projects by myself but it turns out a 5 year old would rather paint than watch all the cartoons and eat all the candy she wants. :)

Hope and I painted the porch (part of it anyway)....

The picnic table and benches.....(we agreed that she would paint the bottoms and the backs, and I'd paint the tops and the fronts)....worked out pretty well.

Truth be told it wasn't as bad as I feared it might be. Next time I'll take Mandy's advice and give Hope a bucket of water and a paint brush and tell her to go paint a pretty clear coat on the fence.

I do not regret my decision to let her help. Although there was quite a clean up afterwards, including black dog prints all up and down the sidewalk, I have to say it was awfully sweet to hear her say over and over again, "Mommy, aren't you glad you have a helper?"

And while we were changing things up a bit........I'm a brunette!!

A funny but sad story from last week. One of the kids came in one evening calling us to come see the opossum playing dead in the front yard. We all went out and marveled over the way he could be laying perfectly still, yet breathing, and apparently aware that he was in danger and able to protect himself by pretending to be dead. Fascinating. It seemed like a picturesque moment. So, well, I took a picture. We went out about an hour later expecting him to have gotten up and walked away. Well he hadn't. He wasn't playing dead after all. He was actually dead. How sad. :( I think the Nelly the dog was playing a little too rough with him. Which I suppose is the reason we vaccinate our pets against rabies.