Home Improvement

Ever since COVID-19 shut down everything and made us stay home most of the time, we have spent a lot of time working on the house - mostly painting. I have loved the results. It's amazing the change a little bit of paint can make. Here are most of our projects in no particular order.

Entryway

Jalen's bedroom

Original wall color (gross)

Before the new bedspread

After the new bedspread

Baylie's bedroom

The girl loves purple! (I always wanted a purple bedroom.)

I redid an old chair that we bought at a yard sale.

Hallway

Kid's Bathroom - David painted the room and made frames for both bathroom mirrors. The kids painted their frame.

Our frame

Probably my favorite was the kitchen. I refinished the table I grew up with. It's over 100 years old and I've wanted to do this for at least 20 years.

I painted some chairs and it has added so much color to the room.

We painted a desk and a dresser and changed some of the storage bins. This picture shows that everything was brown.

But my absolute favorite is the navy we put on the walls. I love all these changes.

This is now the view from our entry way. The red wall was already there, but I like how it looks now with the white and navy behind it.

It's like a new house! We have now painted every room except our bedroom and the front room. Those are okay for now.

We have also done some outside projects. I built garden boxes with scrap wood we had in the garage.

And we've pressure washed all around the house.

We've also done a lot of yard work. Next we plan to paint the eaves and the shutters. I've been putting that off, but I'm excited to get it all done. 

Belayed Birthday Party

Back in March, we had an amazing Hunger Games birthday party planned for Baylie. We don't have parties every year. We do 5, 8, 12 and 16 - so she had been waiting a long time for a party. But then COVID hit and everything came to a screeching halt. She was so disappointed.

Recently, we have started getting together with friends that we know are following quarantine regulations. I decided that if we didn't have Baylie's party soon, we would never have it. So we decided to have it with these same few friends. It wasn't the group she had envisioned, but she was still excited. The major downside was that none of the guests had seen or read The Hunger Games. Baylie is crazy about the books so she still enjoyed it.

All the invitees were "tributes." They were selected to represent District 5 because that's our school district.

Each tribute was given a survival bag.

Each bag contained a lanyard, scorecard w/ pencil, bookmark, marshmallow gun w/ ammo, first aid kit, squirt gun, flashlight, hot hands (would have made more sense in March), Mellark Bakery cookies, tracker jacker, glow stick and a compass.

The food also followed a Hunger Games theme. The gazebo was set up as The Hob. 

I took closeups of everything and then realized I didn't have a memory card in the camera.

Here's what we had:

• Girl on Fire Balls (cheese balls)
• Grain in Memory of Rue (popcorn)
• Peeta Bread
• Contaminated Water (lime aid)
• Wild Game (chicken strips and chicken salad provided by Gale and Katniss)
• Nightlock Berry Muffins (blueberry muffins)
• Mellark Bakery Bread
• Mellark Bakery Cookies

We also had cupcakes covered in coal from District 12 (Oreos) and flames.

We had several games of survival skills. First was to shoot an arrow into a hula hoop.

Next was shooting a Nerf bullet at a target while riding the zip line.

Then we had a nightlock berry challenge. They popped balloons and inside each one was either a poison symbol or a mocking jay. If they got three poison symbols, they were dead. They got points for each mocking jay.

Next was water pistol accuracy. They shot a water gun at ping pong balls. The ping pong balls had different point values on them. 

The final activity was a scavenger hunt. These cards were placed in envelopes. They would either be worth points or they would be strikes. Three strikes and you were dead. Because we had so few kids compared to the original plan, we ended up having too many strikes so we made adjustments.

Last, but not least, they decorated their pvc blow darts with tape. Originally the plan was to use these to shoot marshmallows at each other, but because of COVID, we sent the marshmallows home in their goodie bags.

When the official party was over, makeovers began. Even Jalen had a turn in the chair.

He was pleased with the final product!

Shortly after the party, Jalen got a completely different do!