Memorial Weekend

We are just starting to recover from Memorial Weekend, I almost have the laundry done and the kids are getting back to their sorta normal selves.  We had a good time at Mom's house playing outside and just relaxing.  Everyone arrived on Friday night (Stacey, Jeremy, Emery, Bekah, Mark, and Bryce's parents).  On Saturday the guys headed out golfing and we all relaxed around the house.  We played Skipbo in the afternoon with Laurel being the big winner and Bekah being the big Loser (just kidding Bekah!)  And then I threw a small fit about how long the guys were gone golfing...sorry about that.

Here is Dietrich super excited about the fire on Saturday night.

 Trying to get the baby monitor to come in so we could hear Emery and Lenorah if they woke up.

 My Little Ponies in the morning.

 Cupcakes for breakfast, of course!

 Kid's table.

 And then we lucked out with a gorgeous day on Sunday and Mom and Steve put their new pontoon boat in the lake for our enjoyment.  It was amazing!  I could lay around and relax on this boat anytime...of course I would have to go without kids because I was up and down a lot, not exactly relaxing, but still fun!

 We made a pit stop for the bathroom and got out to throw rocks, Lenorah decided to head right in the water.  She went clear up to her chest, and I tell you what that water was C-O-L-D.  I'm excited she is a water baby, but I also think she will have to live in a life jacket because she has no fear.

 Bryce built Mom a new sandbox last time we were there and then he fixed up the old backhoe toy that was in it.  He repainted it and put a new seat on and replaced all the bolts.  The kids loved digging, even though the sand is pretty rocky.

It was a lovely weekend as always, now we are looking forward to another long weekend up there for the 4th of July.

Super Hero Capes

Last week while at a friend's house Lenorah found a hooded cape that my friend had made for her daughter. She wore it all over the house dragging it behind her.  So I decided maybe the kids needed some super hero capes!  I looked for a pattern on-line and found this pattern which I especially liked because it had measurements rather than a pattern that I had to print out.  I changed the measurements slightly because I wanted my capes to be wider at the bottom and longer than what she did.   I just held the fabric up to the kids and marked where to cut it so that it was the length of their bodies and I made the bottom 15 inches instead of 11. 

We went to the fabric store and I found the hot pink satin first, it was on sale half price!  But then I was totally stuck on the satin look and had to pay quite a bit more for the red for Dietrich.  He was so excited though, he was telling everyone in the store that he was getting a super hero cape.  Although, he struggled to understand that I had to make it, it wasn't a cape yet...

Then while wondering around at Wal-Mart I found the polka dot fabric that I decided would be perfect for making letters!

 I cut the letters out without any sort of pattern, my printer couldn't make anything large enough so I decided to wing it.  Then I serged the edges, which wasn't very easy with the curves and corners, but I figured it out.  After that I used a fun stitch on my sewing machine to zig-zag the letters in place.  A quick seam around the capes and some velcro and they were ready to fly!

 "It's the Moon!"

Lenorah especially loves it and asks to wear it and then takes Dietrich his so he can wear it too.  I will probably be making an extra one to have around the house for when friends come over, we had a friend over earlier this week and sharing the capes was kind of hard.  While we were outside trying to get these pictures we had several people drive by with big smiles.  I kind of can't wait for the day they ask to wear them out to the store...

Last Week

Last week went something like this:

Mopped the kitchen floor-Dietrich spilled a glass of Apple Juice on clean floor.

Mopped downstairs-Dog with muddy feet runs across clean floor.

Washed kitchen rugs-Lenorah squishes banana into clean rug.

Vacuumed-tried to put Lenorah's shoes on, they were full of sand, all over clean carpet.

Vacuumed the car-Dietrich spilled and stomped on a whole container of goldfish in freshly cleaned car.

Washed bathroom rugs-discovered poop on clean rug.

Washed windows-Dietrich smears food on clean window.

Hoping for a less messy week this time around!

edit: By 10:00 this morning I had an entire broken glass of apple juice on the floor and 5 minutes later another glass was spilled on the table.

One Saturday

Bryce and I had the most productive Saturday that we have had together since possibly before Dietrich was born.  We got up early and filled in ALL of the spaces around our house that needed bark.  When we first moved in (4 years ago) we removed all the red lava rock, and then we added a little bark to a few places.  This is the first time in 4 years that everything has been filled in.  It feels great!

 Stepping stones to the gate to the backyard.

 We even did the space all along our outside fence.  Dietrich was really helpful with his cute little shovel throwing bark onto the sidewalk for us to sweep up.  Lenorah played in the truck and somehow managed to disconnect parts of Bryce's stereo.

 I planted new pansies along the driveway a few weeks ago and added this very sad looking rose bush on Saturday.  I'm hoping it perks up with some more water...it looked good when I bought it. :(

 And then I went and bought all of my flowers AND got my garden and flowerpots done.

It feels so nice to have the outside feeling good and ready for spring/summer!

Entertainment

This project has been completed for a few weeks but it was a pretty slow process.  Not because Bryce wasn't getting things done but because we had a very busy and expensive early part of the year with a trip to Hawaii with the kids and the family.  So he just slowly worked on this as he had time and money.  In November when we put in the new carpet upstairs we moved our TV to the basement.  We had plans of someday putting in an entertainment center and having a nice TV room in the basement. Here is the "before" picture from way back when we moved in:

 Where the fireplace is, that is where this beautiful new entertainments center is located:

Bryce even added this cool touch to frame-in where the TV is.

 Nice big, sturdy, deep drawers to hold DVD's

 And cupboards to hide all our "stuff"

 As always, I am super impressed with Bryce's ability to think up something, design and build it.  I painted of course.  Since we know we won't be staying here forever we didn't want to spend huge amounts of money on fancy wood, so we decided to use pine and paint it the same color brown as the fireplace and stairs upstairs.  We are loving the new organization and the actual USE of this room.  It often turned into a storage space since we never hung out here.  We also now make TV a special thing since we have to go clear to the basement to watch.  And we also maybe went and bought a huge TV, I mean our little TV just didn't look good in that great big space...

Oh nap time

I just spent an insane amount of time getting Lenorah to look like this:

 She has spent most of the morning looking something like this:

 And I need her to sleep so that she can look like this again:
                                      
I do not understand why children fight sleep so much.  The kiddos have been exhausted this past week and when I looked at my diaper pail vs. the amount of diapers in plastic bags (which means we were not at home for those diaper changes) it's no wonder.  We have spent much of the last week and most definitely all of the past weekend away from home.  Kids are so weird in that they need routine to be happy, oh wait, adults kind of need that too huh?  Anyway, we had a great weekend that started really early with my Mom and soon to be sister-in-law staying the night on Thursday.  Then we spent all day Friday helping her with wedding planning.  Saturday was a birthday party and Sunday was church and dinner with the in-laws.  So apparently my kids haven't been home lately and it is infringing on their sleep and ability to fall sleep.  At least that's what I'm going with, because if that isn't it then Lenorah is clearly possessed.

Dresses

I wasn't a terrible girly-girl growing up.  I did the usual girl stuff, Barbies and dress-up and playing house, but I also played in the mud and the dirt and despised wearing dresses to school.  I always wore them for special occasions of course and enjoyed feeling all dressed up and pretty, especially since I went through a lovely phase of being a giant with an Afro wearing glasses and braces, a pretty dress seriously helped.  I remember my mom always telling me I would never steer you wrong, I want you to look your best too!  But you know how hard it is to believe our mothers when we are young, it takes having your own baby to know they are the smartest humans on the planet!  

My good friend Stacey recently commented on what a girly-girl Lenorah is.  I reminded her that is just because I dress her that way, so far she only plays with cars and seems to be a bit more on the rough-and-tumble boy side then the sweet and calm girl side.  And I'm not complaining believe me!  I love a good tom-boy and I'm sure she will have no trouble learning to mow the lawn, change a tire, and change her oil (kind of like her mom, not to brag or anything).  So back to the dresses, I love them, I love playing dress up with my little girl and I know that someday, like me, she may grow to despise dresses so I am going to put her in one every chance I have until she tells me not too.  

So here she is in her lovely birthday dress from Grandma Jane.  I know she is actually holding a doll in her hand, but it goes with her very own car.  I love this bright dress with polka dots and pink and butterflies!

 And last night I put her in the dress I wore on MY first birthday, so sweet!

 Oh yeah, but she hated it....already...

 Okay, really she was mad because by this point I had changed her dress a few times trying on ones she hasn't worn  yet, and I put a few more on her after this too...mean mommy.

 This, this is how many dresses she has.  Everything you see here is a dress.  I actually get stressed worrying that she won't have time to wear them an adequate number of times before she grows out of them.

 So today she is in a dress from Grammy Laurel, looking sweet and trading in her doll-house motor home for a hammer.