Shut yer mouth we are INSIDE a tree!!! 

INSIDE A TREE Y'ALL!! 

This is like, a very big deal. 

S

Chuck's birthday came at a time when the dining room was in the living room and the rest of the house was in boxes in the dining room. So, we did the best we could. I said before, fabric makes a world of difference. Also, so do giant Jackson Pollock type art canvases. 

A tip: Cram everything you got into one corner of the 

house and it will look like a lot and is festive. 

No, no, no, not really. He knows as long as we have little ones, we'll be celebrating his birthday the same way we celebrate theirs. Maybe with a less mystery but with all the Chinese food and cookie cake a man (and his wife) could ask for. 

It seems that 3 candle's been used, 1 or 3 times. 

Fabric makes a HUGE difference. In a room, at a party, anywhere! Fabric is key.

Even though these prints weren't exactly gypsy, I thought hanging them together without frames looked totally gypsy-ish. Thanks Mom and Craig for always asking me before you let things go. 

You can count on me to hoard it up and put it to good use.

e.g. The drafting table! The table once belonged to Charley's Granddiddy. Prior to that it belonged to Leo, Craig's Dad. Now it's been passed down to the youngest artist in the family. 

Charley has, and continues to, use it well.

I blogged about the chair long ago. I found two of them at a thrift store in real ugly state. I painstakingly taped all the wood that wasn't concealed under ugly gray pads, and spray painted the metal. I pulled off the tape and pads to reveal the most beautiful natural wood ever. And for some reason, I let one of the chairs go when we moved to Alaska. :(  I regret that decision.

And it doesn't get anymore gypsy than this original painting that Craig was going to PAINT OVER until I guilted him into giving it to me. 

I love, love, love this painting. He painted it from an actual scene down in New Orleans. 

Ok so this HUGE buffet is missing and knob and has an obvious scrape down it's entire length because Charley continuously RAKED her chair along it (when it was in another room) 

but it's ok because...

#1 Who really cares?

#2 It's very functional and holds all of her art supplies.

#3 It's a gypsy room! Anything goes! 

And when I say anything goes, I also mean this dresser that was shabby chic'd to death. 

(I bought it that way, and NO I didn't feel like changin' it.)

Charley found the pictures of the gypsy children (they really seem like legit paintings of gypsy children) and painted the frames a beautiful maroon. I was so proud. 

Charley has always been an animal girl. When she was little she was ALL about animals. She'd straight read non-fiction animals books all the time. She's perfected every every wild cat roar. 

I'm serious. She'll make you jump with her wild cat calls. I bought this coyote face for her at a yard sale in Virginia and somewhere along our way she talked me into a thrift store mink. I don't like him because he's gross and his feet keep falling off but she loves him. I suspect the old footless thing will be with us for a long time. 

Charley is a child with many interests. (Did you see the Ivan Kolaff picture hanging on her mirror and the boxing gloves under the buffet?) It was hard for her to say goodbye to Virginia and all the friends she made there, but I left feeling confident she'd make her way just fine in a new place. She's a confident, charismatic, kind, loving, talented, interesting, hilarious, precious child. To know her, is to love her.   

I can't convince the family to geocache often. I think it stems back to when I didn't have the smartphone and I was trying to use a handheld GPS and I didn't know what I was doing and it was a hassle. These days though, I'm all current and use an actual geocaching app with a built in compass. On this day, that compass took us to the greatest cache hidey hole yet. It was a literal hole down inside a holly tree! (Holly TREES are also a cool non-Alabama thing that we've enjoyed discovering here in Virginia.) So anyway, I think Charley enjoyed this geocache hunt. 

I mean we are up in a tree finding treasure! 

And the loot? Junk. As expected. 

It's not the prize. It's the hunt. 

 And since all trees are all personal friends of mine, 

I loved having the opportunity to do a little bit of climbing too. 

And then we walked to the water and all took turns balancing on a beam and skipping rocks. 

Fun family times for sure.