Two down, one to go...

..and, as much as we love him and know it'll be so quiet when we take him home on Wednesday, there is something else we realize too....it'll be so quiet when we take him home on Wednesday!! Wow - we do forget how much energy they expend, don't we? Not to mention that we've been getting scary previews of what Brogan, the teenager, will look like just by watching Brogan, the 5-year -old. It seems that every 10 minutes or so we find him with his butt sticking out of the refrigerator!! I have no idea how our daughter and son-in-law are going to afford to feed him in another ten years! Oh well, that's why it's nice to be the grandparents - we do get to send him home.

I did get a little done, in between long Jedi battles where everyone seemed to be the bad guys and the good guys at the same time. It really was hard to tell the players without a scorecard! We had a busy day of game-playing, walking to the play park, going to McDonalds so he could play in the play room, coming home to play some more, then, finally, bath and bed. Ahh - quiet time....until early tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow evening is the monthly meeting of our mini-group, F.A.M.E. (the Fredericton Area Miniature Enthusiasts) and we have adopted a feature of our Camp Mini Ha Ha experiences: each meeting we bring a "tidbit" for exchange at the end of the evening. Spoiler alert to any F.A.M.E. members - you are about to see what my tidbit for this month is!

I wanted to try out one of the basket tutorials from Kris Compass's site and also, I really like the towel tutorial I found on Elizabeth's site as well. So, I made up the basket last night. I didn't use the handle from the tutorial because I wanted the basket wide open the fit the towels in. Instead, I used two staples. I couldn't get the staples in at first so I took a sewing needle and made little holes first, then I dipped the ends of the staples in a little glue and pushed them into the mat board ends of the basket. Then I used three strands of brown floss to wraparound the staples to look more like wicker or rattan. Finally, I painted the basket with Brown Iron Oxide acrylic paint, including the handles. Tomorrow I'll check the paint for needed touch-ups then spray it with a sealer.

Today I also took a few minutes to do up a couple of towels and a few bottles to add to the basket. Elizabeth uses baby facecloths she buys at a dollar store to make her towels since the cloth is quite thin, but still looks fluffy enough to look like towelling. Unfortunately, I can't find those packages of baby facecloths anymore. All the ones at the Dollar Store here are brightly coloured, if they're a solid colour, and have large baby-inspired patterns on the others. So, I bought a terry-cloth baby sleeper. I would never actually wear it on a baby since the fabric is so thin, but it seems to be a good weight for the towels. Plus, it also provides a lot of material to make a lot of towels! I've shown you the pieces here. Tomorrow I'll finish it off and put it all together. Then I will post a picture of the final product. It's a little more than I would normally do for a tidbit but the members of our little club are worth it!

Also, over the last couple of days, I glued together the 3/4" MDF I am using for the floor of the greenhouse. Then, trying to use what I had on hand so I didn't have to drive to the store, I used bathroom caulking to affix my stone and glass tiles on the subfloor and, after several hours, I "grouted" by using drywall compound I found in DH's workroom. The picture I've included here shows part of the tile washed off after the grouting dried. I still have to wipe down the rest of it. Unfortunately, once this dried, there are "holes" at every corner of every tile where the drywall compound dried and shrank (shrunk? - whatever!). If I try to fix this by grouting the whole thing again it'll take forever to clean off all the tiles. Therefore, I think I'm going to use a glue syringe filled with the compound and just "inject" it into the corners where it's needed. Much less mess and clean up - I think....

Once this is done I will start fitting in decorative frameworks around the perimeter of the green house, overhead beams that will allow me to hang lots of plants in addition to the plant tables that will also be full, a "misting system" to provide much-needed moisture in the greenhouse, bits and bobs - you get the picture. Then I will move on to the potting shed that will be attached to one end of the greenhouse, and finish off by landscaping around the whole thing.

March is a very busy time for us since we are so heavily involved with the local Irish Association but I will still try to find time to do some minis. It's hard to go cold-turkey when you're really addicted. Have a good evening everyone. TTFN!!

My Favourite mini....

...is also the reason I didn't get much real mini-ing done this weekend. He's 5 years old and goes from 0 to 60 in 3 seconds flat. First, after picking him up this afternoon, we took him to watch the young kids learning how to play Curling, then we took him skating - which lasted all of 10 minutes before he'd had enough, then we took him shopping for "Brogan food". $86 later we headed home where, after putting the groceries away I showed him how to make instant pudding using a Tupperware "quick shake" and he showed me how to make fruit salad by putting all his blueberries, strawberries and pineapple chunks into a big bowl with a lid and rolling it around the kitchen. Then we played "Ninjango", which is a game he made up. I'd explain it to you but, trust me, it wouldn't help! Then we played Jedi knights where he repeatedly allowed himself to be killed by his grandfather so I, the medic, could bring him back to life by using the magic tickle spell. These games have a lot of rules! We finally persuaded him to let us cook our supper. I say "our" supper meaning for DH and I because his eating habits are just as mysterious as his game rules. While we waited for our supper to cook he ate two chicken wieners, 10 slices of cucumber, 6 cherry tomatoes, a large helping of his fruit salad, a yogurt drink, two chocolate chip cookies, a glass of milk, and a tube of "cheese string" - only the stripey kind of cheese, not the orange one! He reluctantly let us eat our supper when it was cooked, all the while commenting that "dis gonna take all da minutes!!", then pushed his large container of Lego out into the living room where we, once again, played another "game" with them. Again, I can't tell you the rules, or even the name of the game because it's all very confused in our heads. His head was, of course, completely clear. That must be why he kept winning the game and, according to him, his grandfather and I kept losing. I guess we're just really bad at playing games! We never win! As that game was drawing to a close he announced he was hungry. WHAT??? You've got to be kidding! Since it was getting close to his bed time anyway (which, mercifully for us, is quite early), we suggested he have a bowl of cereal. Although he agreed with that idea he wasn't happy that the bowl was only 3/4 full of cereal and figured he should also have a banana to make up the difference. After munching everything he could lay his hands on we managed to chase him down the hall to brush his teeth then herded him into his bedroom. Going through his backpack we found there were no pyjamas. Of course not, he explained. His Daddy doesn't wear pyjamas so he figures he shouldn't either. After all, Bubba (his grandfather) doesn't wear pyjamas either. It's a guy thing, he tells me. And since I'm not a guy, apparently I'm not meant to understand. Three books later and a rousing chorus of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, and it was the end of Day 1 of a three-day sleepover at Bubba and Binty's house. Please - somebody come rescue us!!!!

Tomorrow I hope I can get a little more done on the floor to the greenhouse. If so, I might have something to show you tomorrow evening - depending on how much energy I have left after a day full of hard-fought, but ultimately unsuccessful game battles! I'm off to rest up for the long day tomorrow. TTFN!!