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I was out in the backyard hanging laundry and then helped the boys make a fort (plastic lawn chairs + picnic blanket + sticks). They wanted me to come in, but it wasn't big enough, so I layed down next to it. The boys left the fort and went on playing, and I went on watching them from my spot next to the fort. They were being so goofy jumping on the mini-trampoline and climbing on the toy car. Lots of giggles.
Such a funny view of such a funny evening.
More flowers. Wow, these are fun.
I was going to go to the fabric store and buy small cuts of synthetic fabrics in a variety of colors, but my mom said she had a whole box of scraps from sewing us dresses growing up.
A whole box! Oh, the possibilities!
Of course my mom remembered what each scrap was from: homecoming, Christmas, and Easter dresses plus a couple of Halloween costumes. Some worked better than others for this.
I went a little nuts, and my mom and sisters and I were singe-ing our fingers off. While watching Project Runway. A good combination.
Also, I burned my fingers with the glue gun approximately 27 times. About normal for me.
Not all of them got attached to a clip or headband that afternoon - and some I want to put a clip AND a brooch pin on.
I actually made two each of the pink and green headbands (some for the girl and her friend). I wore the green one on our date night.
The middles are seed beads I had around and the little white beads (from I-Spy bags) my mom had around. Got the idea for that from here. But I did my own thing for the flowers - cutting them irregularly and scrunching them up to singe them so that they curled up more. Oh, and a few have buttons or vintage earrings for the middle.
And that was how I made a big mess at my mom's house on Friday.
The end.
Even if it's in your own backyard - under the laundry lines.
Right before church last week as we were getting ready I decided the girl needed an accessory. So I made her a headband to wear - no, that wasn't the best time to craft but do you ever NEED to do something creative RIGHT NOW? That's how it was.
I found my only synthetic fabric, singed the edges (fire = fun!), broke out the glue gun and some seed beeds for the middles and stuck it all on a headband.
I dig the vintage-y feel of these flowers.
Not bad for five minutes. Though I do wish I'd used a stretchy headband.
And it was so much fun that I found some yellow lining and netting and made one for me - I glued it to a little clip.
Hmm, I didn't think it looked this big on me... and this is not how I wore it - I placed it more to the side - but you get the general effect.
So fun! More on the way - this could be addicting.
(P.S. I didn't post yesterday, but it was our 14th anniversary! And we went OUT! Hired a babysitter and everything. Love you, Aaron!)
This is our last week of 'Squeeze an entire summer into one month since I was sick.'
I'm glad we're almost done with this, the schedule's been a bit nuts for me.
M, W, Th, we're here:
M, W, F, we're here:
T, Th, we're here:
And today we start back at speech AND coaching volleyball. Check out this calendar, it's literally impossible! Awesome.
You should see my Wednesday - yikes!
Glad this was only for a month - it has definitely felt like overscheduling for our family (although some of you will say 'rookie' to that maybe) Good thing I put off the girl resuming piano lessons until September!
Our neighbors got a puppy.
A teeny tiny puppy.
I was torn between: "Oh, great, now our kids will really want a dog" and "Thanks, now we don't have to get one, they'll play with yours."
And play they did.
Especially Thomas. He is such a dog kiddo. We go on walks around the neighborhood and he'll usually find a dog to visit. We are lucky to know nearly everyone in our neighborhood, so it's easy. He used to love stopping at a huge german shepherd's house. He's not scared of any dogs, even if they're HUGE or jump.
Anyway, Thomas talked of two things all week: the new puppy, and the dog at swimming lessons who will jump into the pool.
He knocked on the puppy's door wanting to play, and frequently got to.
He learned to smack his lips or pat his lap to call the puppy, who didn't know his name yet. He got nipped by the very excited puppy and didn't mind. He went for a 'walk' (where the owner's kid carried the puppy) with him and came out in his pj's to play first thing in the morning.
True puppy love.
After one week, the family sold the puppy.
Their son told my boys during church right before Sacrament meeting. They came in saying 'Cody's gone?' and I knew this would be bad. Monkey sat next to me, blinking his eyes really fast with a lip quiver. Thomas started crying louder, so I took him out to the foyer.
It took half an hour to calm him down. He was completely heartbroken. He was sobbing and sobbing and asking 'Why did they sell him?' and 'Where did he go?' and saying 'My heart is broken' and 'I don't like dogs anymore'. He was also very concerned about he puppy's safety at his new place: 'Robbers will come!' and 'There will be a fire!'
One of those times where I wanted to cry with him, but I also wanted to laugh.
I reminded him of the other dogs* on the street that he loves to play with and the swimming dog. The former owner was in the foyer too, so he was trying to answer the 'why' question and tell about the puppy's new big brother dog, and someone walking by us stopped to tell him to come visit her dog.
The rest of the day was a nightmare. Tantrum city. That continued Monday. Tuesday was better, but not good. Finally he calmed down. I really think he was grieving.
It kinda sucked.
I have frequently felt guilty about not getting this kid a dog. Because he LOVES dogs and because supposedly it's good for spectrum kiddos. But I just can't do it. Up till now I don't know if Thomas was ready, but mostly I just can't handle that on top of everything else. Also, I hate touching animals, and going down the pet aisle at the grocery store makes me want to gag. I am the farthest thing from a dog person.
I wish I could, that puppy was adorable. And for the first time I'm saying 'Maybe someday'.
*We visited the best and most favorite dog on our street the other day and the owner told me that poor Bailey has cancer. Great. I think I need to prepare Thomas for this one so it doesn't come as a shock. Poor kid.
My kids are not bike riders. It doesn't come easily to them.
The girl... well, I thought we were past her bike issues. But we weren't. She also outgrew her bike and needed a new one - which of course threw her off even more. She did name her new bike 'Gladys' though, which is kinda awesome.
Everyone got a summer bike chart. They each get a prize when they're done. The girl and the monkey have both earned theirs in the past week - one more kiddo to go (who is probably regretting refusing to ride a few days now, huh?).
Thomas should earn his Lego set next week - I got him a nice set because I knew it'd have to be good for him to want to ride -which proved true.
Monkey is the only one who hasn't at some point fought me on this. And now he's zipping and zooming and loving his bike. That's one.
Thomas is still struggling, which is not a surprise, but he's made great progress. He started out very reluctantly riding twice around the circle, with us holding on to him and is now doing six times around, with Aaron or I lightly touching his back (or taking off by himself for a while). Way proud of him.
The girl had a bike riding goal every day. It started as 'ten minutes around the circle' and then we added in 'up and down the street once and then ten minutes around the circle'. In the past week she's left the circle and has been riding around the neighborhood whenever she wants. She loves it now Yeah! That's two.
Really I just want them to be comfortable on bikes for when their friends want to ride, or if there's a church bike riding activity. We're getting there!
I LOVE popcorn. Love. As soon as I was old enough to use the stove by myself, I started making popcorn as an after school snack nearly every day.
I brought an air popper to my college dorm (which people thought was weird, I don't know why) and made popcorn all the time.
It recently died (nice run though, huh?) and we wanted another one. Looking on amazon (because we buy nearly everything from there - our UPS guy must hate us), we found that most people who were looking for air poppers ended up buying microwave popcorn bowls. Huh?
I'm not a fan of microwave popcorn because of all the ... yellowy 'stuff' in it. Really, what's IN those bags? Also, they all have butter (with the exception of this, which has NOTHING added) so my dairy-free kiddo can't eat it anyway. So I usually air pop or stove pop some corn, take out Thomas' share and add just a little butter and salt(if air popped - just salt if stove).
Anyway, we bought the bowl. And LOVE it.
We put in about 1/3 cup of kernels (more and you end up with more unpopped ones at the bottom).
3 minutes 45 seconds later, we have a bowl of delicious popcorn:
Since we all love popcorn, I usually make 2 or 3 batches at a time, adding them to a big bowl for a touch of butter and salt (or nothing).
I actually think it tastes better than air-popped corn (higher temperature or something?) it's crisper somehow. You can also put oil in the bowl, which I didn't think you could do in the microwave, but I've tried a couple of times and it works. I wonder if you could do kettle corn in there...
We got this one (only $7.99!) because it had tons of good reviews - which we agree with!
Just sharing because new toys are fun, and popcorn is yum.
