Liam's Tree House

Liam is completing his second grade year and he was asked to design a tree house.  He is just like me and has taken a lot of time coming up with the perfect design.  This is the type of project that I excelled at and it looks like Liam has given it a lot of thought.  Below you will find everything an eight-year old boy needs.

To begin your tour start at the bottom and walk up the stairs.  Thank goodness he installed a "sicrity sistum" for safety as well as fire alarm (you know how often tree house catch on fire!).  It looks like he sleeps in the "hamice"on the first floor, has a pool with built in shower and water slide on the top floor.  He was smart to include a toilet (his female classmate thought that was gross!) and a "Cooking Buttler".  And no tree house is complete without a TV, Kindle charging station and prison! Looks like he not only covered his basic needs (shelter, food, cleaning area and security) but also found room for some fun!  Do you think he'll build a mother-in-law suite?

Frugal Frederick

Frugal Frederick

I have always been frugal out of necessity and for the love of the environment.  I don't like tossing something that is perfectly usable (hence the reason we waiting so long to buy a fridge to replace the 17-year-old almond colored appliance in our home).  Here are a some ways to save while living in Frederick County, Maryland.

·      Recycling Plant-Ryan went to the dump to toss broken and over used baby items and the told him that most could be discarded (for free) at the Recylcying plant next-door.  He had plastics, metal and car batteries and did not have to pay the dumping fee.  With all the plastic items that are made for kids this is a good way to dispose of these things.  

·      Make your own compost.  You can pick up a compost cylinder for $20.00 from the Solid Waste Facility.  I put everything from weeds and yard leaves, kitchen scraps such as eggshells, veggies leftovers and coffee grounds.  It fills up fast if you have a big yard. 

They also have compost/leaf mulch for a reasonable price if you don't have your own.

·      Plant your own garden.  Then you can use the homemade compost. 

·      Use newspaper not landscape fabric to keep out weeds.  Place a layer of about 5 sheets and then mulch.  It is better for the environment and your garden.

·      Shopping in downtown Frederick lends itself to some fun thrift stores on Patrick Street such as Chic to Chic Consignment Boutique and Venus on the Half Shell and Select Second Hospital Thrift is worth a look too.  Check out Lucy’s Quality Children’s Consignment and Sweet Pea Consignment for children’s items.  I love to shop at Plato’s Closet.  It really is geared towards teens, but it’s worth a look.  In addition to the numerous antique stores in Frederick a new consignment store in Buckeystown just opened called,  Addison's Attic.

·      Free stuff include summer children’s programs in Baker Park, Library Story-times, visit each Frederick County Public Library for a tour of the county and a new perspective of sharing reading materials.  My sons and I love to visit the Earth Science and Space Lab (ESSL) in downtown Frederick for evening and summer programs.  It's a great way to beat the heat while educating yourself as well.  Tickets for the planetarium shows are reasonable and worth it!

·      Take out a map and locate all the children’s playgrounds owned by Frederick County.

·      Water Fun: We don't have a pool in which we belong to so we have to be inventive.  The Potomac River which flows next to the C&O Canal, Monocacy River (very shallow at Buckeystown Park) and Cunningham Falls ($3.00 per car) are all great places to cool off in the summer.  At Cunningham Falls we visit the aviary and then play in the shallow stair-step waterfall, and tire park (1st entrance from the South).  There is also a beach area, which I have not tried in the summer, but looks great-just get there early!  We also love a nice dip a Loyes Covered Bridge.  It has a playground but skip that for the water!  I'll have another post on the fun to be had there.

·      MARC train is a cheap, stress-free ride into Downtown DC if you can visit Monday through Friday.  Early morning departures puts you there in time for a quick breakfast and museum opening hours.  Kids under five are free.  Depart from Point of Rocks, Brunswick and Frederick.

Feel free to send a comment with more ideas.

"The Golden Orb" re-told by Liam Williams

Afterword: By Andrea Williams
We just returned from a family trip to New York City.  On our first night in the city we invited our friend William back to our hotel room and in order to get the kids to go to sleep we turned down the lights and began to tell a progressive story.  The story traced the way of Liam and Luke, two brothers who found a secret passage/portal into the underground of NYC via a small closet in the hotel corridor.  From there the boys went on an adventure, first finding a shining golden orb and then with the task of placing it in the Statue of Liberty's unlit torch as they passed through caves and over water.  It was a fun night and obviously the story made an impression on Liam, enough for him to re-write his own version.

Children's Room Contest for The Washington Post, photos by Andrea Bagdy Williams

Many items are handed down from the boy's great grandparents.  The coonskin hat once belonged to a great-Uncle, the desk was made by a great-grandfather and momentos were brought back from trips out north and west.

The lamp was made by the boy's great-grandfather using his father's cane.   The photo behind the lamp is of great-great-grandparents.

Quilts from family in Kentucky, the dream catcher and wolf mask from Alaska and Canada and family pictures decorate the room.

A room perfect for two boys.  Their parents painted the walls to reflect the outdoors. A friend, KB VanHorn,who runs Kokoleo Designs created the curtains from family quilt pieces.

Welcome to the world, Baby Hope

Hope was born on March 21, 2011 at home with her parents.  They live in my community of Point of Rocks, Maryland. I visited with them on Sunday to commemorate her on her first seven days in the world.  She wanted her mother for her milk and her father for his cuddles.  They say babies don't smile out of happiness at such a young age, but each time she turned towards her father her eyes smiled.

Contours

We have been living in our house for nearly eight years, which means seven summers of lawn mowing. We spent a good portion of these summers pushing trusty hand-me-down mower on our 1/3 acre property until I ran over something and broke it. So we bought another push mower, until we realized mowing the lawn took up too much time in addition to raising two little boys, so in entered the riding mower. Now I do all the mowing. I have recently noticed how over the years the contours of our yard have changed, partly due to an excavation project a number of years ago, but also due to the gradual change in the land. Dirt moves and settles, followed by rains, digging dogs and moles and the process repeats. There are areas that I can no longer take the riding mower for fear of toppling over, and that change has only occurred in a two year stretch of time.

So I shouldn’t have been surprised when I pulled out my prom dresses the other day. It’s been over 20 years (GULP!) since these were worn. I threw a bridesmaid dress into the mix for fun and I am glad I did. It is only about 12 years old and is the only item ever made custom made for me and it fit me perfectly back then. Guess what? Two babies since it still fit like it was made for my figure (thanks in part to the A-line cut). I was feeling pretty haughty when I went to try on the dress I wore as a junior in high school. It fit, but it was a little big on me, back then. And my how styles have changed since the late 1980s. So with great confidence I stepped into my royal blue prom dress with the asymmetrical cut that I wore as a high school sophomore, as my sons looked on. The shock must have shown on my face when I could not get the dress zipped up all the way. It came to my rib cage and just stopped. I sucked in and as I thought of asking my oldest son to pull the zipper up, I took one good yank and it was zipped. Of course I couldn’t breathe, but I was in it. The dress still made my legs look awesome, but it had lost a bit of the magic it once had. Maybe it was simply due to the lack of oxygen traveling to my brain. Who knew that ones rib cage could expand so much after childbirth? I paraded around in it for my sons, realizing that I would never try it on again. At least I got the fantasy of slipping into my prom dress out of my system and even feel ready to give it away to some very lucky high school drama department.

During the very same week my sons, 5 and 3 ½ were asking about how small they were as babies. I pulled out a preemie outfit, they had both worn as newborns, but that did not seem to make an impression, so my husband and I pulled out their baby photo albums. As we flipped through, it wasn’t how much the boys had changed so much as how much the parents had. When my oldest was born we looked so young. My husband’s grey hair was just starting, yet not recognized on film. We looked fairly relaxed , if not sleep deprived. Now, I notice the little lines on our faces, and the grey hairs are there. It’s all part of growing up and becoming a parent.

It all goes back to contours of the land. Nothing stays the same or looks the same forever. So I use my Oil of Olay (now just Olay) as I have since I was about twelve. That may be the only thing that has remained the same.