Summer Fun Update

At the beginning of the summer, we sat down a wrote a list of 40 fun things to do over the summer. I thought I would give an update on how we're doing. Mostly, the things I found most interested have already been completed. The ones I'm not so into, have yet to be done. You may also notice a trend that the messy projects have yet to be done. 

1. Family Picnic
2. Play in the Park
3. Go to the Library
4. Go Swimming
5. Take Swim Lessons
6. Blow bubbles
7. Go the to Zoo
8. Play with sidewalk chalk
9. Make cookies
10. Make ice cream
11. Play with friends
12. Go Camping
13. Go to Yellowstone
14. Run through the Sprinklers
15. Home Depot Kids Workshop (free on the first Saturday of the month)
16. Watch a movie
17. Build a blanket fort
18. Go to the Dinosaur Museum
19. Glow sticks in the Bathtub
20. Painting
21. Run a Race
22. Watch Fireworks
23. Play Playdoh
24. Balloon Tennis
25. Shave with Daddy (With saving cream and Popsicle sticks)
26. Balloon Characters
27. Write Letters
28. Act out a story
29. Go to Cabella's to see the fish and animals
30. Weeding
31. Potato Stamps
32. Make Pizza
33. Eat Popsicles
34. Hike Lake Mountain
35. Roast Marshmallows
36. Star Gazing
37. Buy a botanical book to learn about native plants
38. Target Shooting
39. Plant flowers
40. Watch a baseball game

We are making good progress! We also mapped out the remaining weekends of the summer with the things that need to be accomplished on a Saturday (like the Zoo). It's cool to see all the fun things we've done. I think we are going to extent our completiong date into September. Origionally I wanted to be done by the time school starts, but that may not happen. School is right around the corner!

Hookie Day: An Annual Tradition

Hookie Day first began in 2010, by accident. It was a July morning. JM and I were both tired of the monotony of getting up every day, and going to work every day. We both agreed to call in sick. Then we had the even better idea of taking the girls to day care AND calling in sick.

We spent that glorious day together. We shopped the Nordstrom Anniversary sale (love it!), went to a leisurely lunch at The Cheesecake Factory and just spent the day together. It was a great day of re-charging our relationship.

Fast forward one year: July, 2011. Similar situation, neither of us want to go to work. We both decide to call in sick. Then we recalled how great that one day was last year and we happily dropped the girls off at day care to spend the day together. This day had a de ja vu effect to it because we shopped the Nordstrom Anniversary sale and ate at The Cheesecake Factory. We also got massages and decided this kind of day should happen more often.

June 2012: Now that we have the basic premise down for what Hookie Day looks like, (and our lives seem to be more crazy) we booked Hookie Day a month in advance. Not as spontaneous, but effective at making sure it happened. JM requested the day off work and I re-arranged my schedule to make it work. This year we mutually decided that neither of us needs clothes so we would fore-go the shopping this year. We had planned on hiking in the morning, but JM has been sick for the last week and wasn't feeling up to it. Instead we went out to breakfast then drove around looking at and dreaming about huge houses we can't afford.

We went back to the house to clean up and take a short nap. Then we set off for a leisurely lunch. While I don't want to go into the details here, this lunch was/will be life changing. Not because of the food, but the conversation. We discussed our life, our goals, and what is most important to us. I may have cried, embarrassing myself in front of our waiter.

After lunch we headed to the spa for a couples massage. It was relaxing and a great way to end Hookie Day. What I love about Hookie Day is that it's a special day just for us. We do plenty of family activities, but often fail to take the time to nurture our marriage. This is a full day to just do what we love together. We take it slow and dream big. It always reminds us of our dating life when we would dream about our future together. It's fun to see how far we've come as well as dream about what the future will hold.

This is quickly becoming one of my favorite traditions.

Friday Fragments

(Somehow my scheduled post, didn't automatically post, so you get Friday Fragments on Monday.)
It's been a while since I did one of these and we've had lots of things going on in the last few weeks. In fragment form, here's an update:

We went the my niece's baby blessing last week. At the family party after, BG had to go potty. I went with her since she didn't know where it was. She asked me to go into the bathroom stall with her to untie her dress (she was wearing a halter dress). I told her she didn't have to untie and pull down her dress, she could pull up her dress to go potty. She looked at me with amazement and said "Mom! You are so creative!!" Made my day.

*****
BG has also been praying lately for a baby brother. I figure either way life turns out, it will be a good lesson. Either 1) God answers prayers or 2) We don't always get what we want/ask for.

*****
There have been lots of fires where I live this summer. Many have left people evacuated from their homes. A few homes have been destroyed. It makes me nervous for the long, hot summer we still have ahead of us. I'm very grateful for the firefighters who are working non-stop. It also makes mad at the stupid people who are still target shooting in hot, dry climates and those using fireworks irresponsibly. Most of the fires have been human started.

*****
We went camping at Yellowstone a few weeks ago. It was a lot of fun and we survived! It's a beautiful park with incredible views and wild life.

*****
I'm running a 5K this weekend. I'm excited for it, but also a little nervous. Mostly, I'm ready for it to be over so I don't have to run anymore. It also makes me think I need to sign up for another one to keep up the motivation.

*****
Blanche burned her arm pretty bad on Father's Day. She bumped into the hot grill while running around. She is a tough kid because she hardly cried. After the initial tears, she only cried one other time about it- when the nurse tried to take off the bandage and it stuck to a blistered area of skin. Other than that, she's been all smiles about it. It's taken a few weeks, but it now looks like a sunburn vs. charred flesh. Poor kid!

All I Want for Christmas

Just for humor's sake I've been mentally compiling a list of things that are difficult to eat when you are missing your two front teeth. We know about all of these from first hand experience around our house lately.

• Corn on the cob
• Snow cones
• Ribs
• Drumsticks (the ice cream variety, but I imagine the meat variety would count too)
• Apples
• Pizza

 

One of her top teeth has finally made a appearance so I'm sure it won't be too much longer before she can enjoy all these foods again. In the meantime, I do love that toothless grin!

The Morning Grind

It's been a while since I participated in a writing prompt from Mama Kat and with this last week's topics I just could resist. (Yes, I'm a week behind. Sorry of my life.)
1.) Is your child a morning person? Share a story, picture or list of reasons that supports your opinion.

After some of the mornings we've had at our house, I couldn't resist. BG is NOT a morning person. Must take after me. If it was socially acceptable, I would probably cry and scream and throw tantrums every morning too. But alas, there is no one at my house who would care. Here is a little insight into mornings at our house.

Tuesday after Memorial Day: Back to school and work. I layed in bed longer than I should have and it was 7:30 before I went into BG's room to wake her up. She was still asleep so I gently patted her and told her to get up. After my shower, when JM was leaving, he went in her room again to tell her it was time to get up. 5 min later I go in again, put her clothes ON her bed and tell her to get up and dressed. Another 5 min and she is at least sitting up and buttoning her shirt.

At this point I get Blanche up, dressed, do her hair and put shoes on. I also finish my hair and makeup. BG has finished buttoning her shirt and is staring lazily out the window. "Finish getting dressed Sweetie" I kindly request. I'm answered by a shrill noise, her burrowing her head in her pillow and a barely understandable "Don't LOOK at ME!!!!" through shrieks. I take Blanche downstairs, get her breakfast, pack lunches, start the crock pot.

Upstairs BG is finally dressed but no socks or shoes. I ask if she needs help and she burst into tears and shrieks at me for talking to her. I tell her that I am leaving in 5 minutes and if she isn't downstairs I will leave her. This only escalates her sobs. I go downstairs (which really gets her going).

A few minutes later she comes downstairs with socks and shoes on, still crying uncontrollably. We go back upstairs together to do her hair. She hasn't put on shorts under her skirt so I ask her to do that - more sobbing about how hard it is with her shoes already on. I help her get her shorts over her shoes and ask her to pull it up. I go downstairs, start the car and get Blanche strapped in. BG finally makes it downstairs, shorts on, red-faced and sniffling. She gets in the car with her bag of cereal and we head off to school, 20 min late.

Admittedly, this was a particularly rough morning, but it's not too far off from our typical routine. Unless of course you count  this week where BG has finally figured it out. She has been up and dressed before I even go into her room. She does her own hair and brush her teeth without being asked. All in time for school to end on Friday and the whole summer to slide backwards.

Lipstick Kisses

My daughter loves lip stick. She knows right where I keep it in my purse and will bee-line to it when I'm not looking. She also knows that I hang my purse on the inside of the closet door. It's never a good sign when she has locked herself in the closet, or when she gets too quiet, or if there is sunscreen within reach. All these things lead to messes that mom has to clean up.

Clearly this has happened on more than one occasion, with different tubes of lipstick. I love how proud of herself she is in the bottom picture- what a little turkey. I'm kind of hoping to get a nice collage going of her in different shades of lipstick that I can use against her when she's a teenager.

Bathroom Remodel

When we bought our home nearly four years ago, I told JM, the first thing I wanted to do was paint the upstairs bathroom. It had one red wall which I hated. I'm not opposed to a red wall, but the color of red was just off. He was fine with the idea of painting the bathroom but wanted to get some organization to the garage first. I agreed to that.

Four years later, we still haven't painted the bathroom and it grew on me. Not that I ever liked it, but I tolerated it. Plus when the door was open (which it is most of the time) it covers about half of the wall. I sort-of tried to make it into a patriotic theme. I hung the shower curtain that I've had since college (that was a LONG time ago) along with a few other accessories and left it alone. We already had navy towels so it was tolerable.

The towel rod had fallen down a few months ago and we hadn't gotten around to putting it back up. Besides, it had been poorly installed and there was a quarter size hole in the wall. I didn't want to rehang it since the kids tend to hang on it or pull on the towels.

I finally had enough. I decided one day (really all on my own, didn't have input or permission from JM) to do something about the bathroom. I loaded up the girls and hit Target then Home Depot for supplies. I nearly forgot to take before pictures, but managed to snap a few while I was prepping for paint.

I liked how it turned out, but after a few weeks of watching it, I REALLY like it. I love the grey. It's a great neutral and not too dark with all the white accents.

I painted two and a half walls a medium grey. The other wall and a half, I painted white. I also had to re-paint the ceiling white because after I painted trim white, the ceiling looked like a hideous sun-bleached off white.

Instead of putting the towel rod back up I did board and batton on the lower half of the wall and installed three hooks for towels. This also helps with the little hands hanging towels. They couldn't reach the rod, meaning lots of towels on the floor. Now, they can reach!

I'm really kind of proud of this corner. Silly as it may be, it took that extra effort that means I really cared how it turned out.This is the corner where the two mirrors meet and it was a pain to get the grey wall grey and the white all white.

I bought new hooks or the shower curtain. These were on sale for $5, so I couldn't go wrong. Speaking of new shower curtain, I improvised with this one. It is actually a flat bed sheet. I did take a short-cut here. I really should have taken the time to make button holes for the hooks, but I didn't. Mostly because I don't know how to make button holes and didn't want to wait until I learned. So I just cut slits with my rotary cutter in the fabric.

I also had to hem it since it was too long. The nice  thing about hemming it was that I could make it longer than a normal curtain and hang it really high. The width was perfect so I didn't do anything there.

A closer look at the board and batton. Love the hooks!

Here are the side by sides. I'm really love the way it turned out!

 

I really like that because the grey is neutral, it won't be a problem for re-sell value. I was trying to avoid anything too theme-y. What do you think?