kirstencan

Backyard - Monday

On a day when we had several friends over playing in our backyard.

So shady and green!  I'm really really glad I got the camera out on this day.

My mom calls my kids 'nerdy' and other random stuff

*That's right.  Their own grandma.  We've talked about this before, but she was just laughing because the boys ran out to get the mail yesterday and we could hear the redhead yell 'YES!  National Geographic!'

*I love the violins the boys drew recently.

*We tried another Russian recipe last night.  This time it turned out Russian, not Indian.

*Time for the garden to wake up.  We're trying to get the kids out there helping more this year. 

*Aw, cute fabric.  There are few things better to get in the mail.

*I found this book on sale at Evan-Moor and it has some fun thinking activity ideas.  We've done a few and the boys like them.  In this one, the eggs are filled with different things and they had to shake them and match which ones had the same item inside.

It was harder than you'd think...

*Bless the girl who wrote this post about bad baby names.  I've been wanting to write one myself and even have a page in my notebook dedicated to them.  But she did it for me.  And the names are horrific.  What are people thinking these days?

*This is what some of the boxes + makedo turned into yesterday:  An awesome cardboard fort.

In the living room.

Complete with turret, flaps for sticking out nerf guns, a door that closes...

And stocked with essential supplies, like a notebook and socker boppers.

And WHERE do we put this?  Because I'm kinda dying to vaccuum at this point...

*Oh, and Apple just sent me an email that my new ipad shipped.  I'm trying not to freak out and obsessively track it...

Pinterest Etiquette

How do you feel about all the Pinterest etiquette/drama/how-to's lately?

I read a good one the other day, I can't remember the site because it's not one I usually read.  It was well-done, but I didn't agree with all of it. I don't feel like Pinterest will be the next google-image search, and I don't do it to get lots of followers, promote anything, or come up with inspiring design boards.  I use it for me.  As a visual bookmarking tool.  For stuff I will actually do or refer to.  I don't feel that I need to ad 'tags' to all of my pins to help the good of Pinterest.  But I do try to pin responsibly.   Here are some things I do that are general good Pinterest etiquette:

1.  pin from the original source

        So, if you see something awesome on Apartment Therapy, or any of the other countless design magazine-type blogs, take a second to click to the source, THEN pin it.  It's fun to see what people are pinning from this blog, but I know that there are probably a few of 'my' pins that are pinned from Apartment Therapy and other people who have featured me.  It would be fun to track that down, but I can't. (BTW, I added a new Pinterest button on my sidebar if you want to see what people are pinning from here).

2.  pin from the actual post, not the site

    This is easy to forget if you're scrolling through someone's blog, but it's frustrating to see an awesome pin, and click through to the site and not be able to find the actual post.  If I really want to repin something and this is the situation, I'll take a minute to find the actual post, and correct it in my pin.

3.  click through to the posts!

    There's a couple of reasons for this: 

        1.  it gives the person who came up with the idea/photo/whatever a little more  traffic.  If you keep up with your blog stats/traffic, this means a lot.   It's a little pat on the back.   Also, they might be awesome and you might find a cool new blog or friend even!

        2.  You know what you're pinning.  I think often people just start repinning and don't  ever click through - it's happened several times recently where I've looked at a pin from someone I follow and click through the link to find.... it's just a photo!  Not a recipe at all!  Or that cool 'diy silkscreen' pin... it's an advert for a class, it's not a tutorial.  Did the person who pinned this ever check?  Probably not. Or it's from stupid tumblr.  Which brings me to #4:

4. Don't pin/repin from Tumblr or google images.

    Now I'm sure there are exceptions, but nearly everything I see pinned from tumblr is kinda anonymous - it's nearly impossible to find it's original source.  That's lame.  There are some really popular pins out there with fab ideas and the right people aren't getting credit for that.  I've found a few prints I've wanted to buy actually, and can't find where to buy them!

    A similar situation, but I also don't subscribe/read blogs that are 'rebloggers'.  There are so many blogs that just repost things that other people did.  I'm not talking of one photo and a link to the actual post, or a guest feature or anything, I'm talking they post ALL of the photos from someone's blog post with their own words.  Even if you link to the original site, this is LAME.  It doesn't give readers a reason to click on over to the actual site.

5. Comment sometimes!

    You know, when you click through.  Say thanks!  Or say hi.  Say something.

6. Don't copy/paste from the blog into the description.

    Instead of copying a whole recipe into the description, just type in 'yummy cake recipe'.  You can click on over to ge the recipe.  Typing the whole thing in gives pinners no reason to click over to the actual site.  Same goes with DIY projects - don't type in the instructions.  There's no need.  Again, if I find something that I want to pin (say a recipe) and it has the recipe typed in the description, I change that before I pin it.

6. Instead of saying in a post 'I got the idea from Pinterest', say 'I got the idea from this cool blog (name)'. 

    See how that makes a difference?  Pinterest didn't think of anything.

(edited to add)

7. Pin more than you repin

    You don't have to only pin things that are already on pinterest.  Pin what you really want on your boards, however you use them, not just what everyone else is pinning!

--

What else?  Did I cover everything?  Do you think even this is overkill?

Okay, I'm going to add a little graphic here - so if you feel like pinning this post you can, and maybe we can have some better pinning going on out there!

This is more like two quick tweets

1 - The turn signal in my husband's car blinks to the beat of Coldplay's 'Yellow'.  I learned this today when it was on the radio.  There have been many times that I THOUGHT the blinkers were in time to a song, but then they weren't.  Today they were. 

 

2 - You know when you pause a show and sometimes you catch the actors in a seriously funny or awkward moment?  I love a good pause.  Got a great one a bit ago when I went to brush my teeth:

The show may kinda suck now, but Rainn Wilson is still awesome.  Apparently.

Have a good weekend!

The End.

Random

I laughed when I saw in Sarah's post she said: I got nothin'.

Because that's what I've felt blog-wise this week.

I'm not making anything awesome at the moment, but I'm pretty feeling pretty successful with the whole kids-dressed-fed-educated thing.  That does keep me pretty busy.

I have been brainstorming for the girl's spring birthday party (can you believe it will have been two years since her 80's one?) and I'll need to pare down my ideas for sure.  At least a little. 

Did you see the Target weekly ad this week?  To that I say: REALLY, Target?  REALLY? 

Downton Abbey is still amusing, but way more soap-opera-y this season, don't you think? Last year's was better.  Plus there is no sense of passage of time.  It's been six years?!

Speaking of TV, I have a few newer shows that I don't love, but are amusing enough to watch while excercising or folding laundry.  For example:  Alcatraz, Suburgatory, Parenthood.  Sadly, Castle just got bumped to that list, too.  Do you have shows like that?

We did School At The Library yesterday.  For some reason Monkey really wanted to spend the whole morning at the library (actually, that's not surprising - what he asked for for his last birthday was his own library card) so we took our backpacks loaded with what school is portable and headed off.  I'm not doing that again.  It was too warm for me, and smelled funny.  Also, it was a good reminder as to why Thomas isn't in school.  That kid could NOT concentrate at the library.  Oh well, we tried.  Back to our quicker weekly library trips instead.

And OK GO?  You always amuse me (and the kiddos love you).  Just showed them your newest video (wow!) and we had to watch it twice in a row.  You can't watch it just once.

Not Just Pinning Stuff

Facebook, Twitter, I don't get you or like you.  But Pinterest...

Oh, Pinterest, you are wonderful.  And invented just for me, I'm pretty sure.  Visual bookmarks that you can categorize - yes!  But all those pretty pins of things I want to make all together can be pretty overwhelming.  I've heard of people making a point to actually DO some of the things they pin, not just look at them (but they're so pretty!), so I'll show you what I did last week that I originally had pinned.

First up:  A rainy day art project.  I took the kids outside (on a clear day earlier that week) and took photos of them holding umbrellas.  Then I printed them just on regular paper, trimmed them up, and waited for a rainy day.

BTW, my kids look like they have hobbit feet because they were standing barefoot in the grass.

We glued the picture down on watercolor paper and I showed them how to drip watercolor paint (liquid was recommended, but we used what we had) onto the paper...

... and then blow the paint around with straws.

Fun stuff, and they all turned out really differently!  I kinda love these.

Last week I also made a pipe-cleaner bottle (using a lid-lifter magnet - it would work better with a strong one, but the kids think this is fun), and a calming glitter jar.

And then yesterday I made DIY Surf Spray for the girl's hair (which always looks awesome and curls beautifully at the beach.

Oh yeah, and a while back I did this, which is surprisingly awesome.

You can find me on Pinterest here.  Often. ;)

(Are you pinning?  Anyone still need an invite?)

My haul from The Name Store

So there is this store around here which is a Downeast Home outlet.  Always fun to make a visit there.  They sell clothes from DownEast Basics, furniture, linens from Pottery Barn, Williams Sonoma, other high end brands. My parents call it The Name Store because many of the items they sell are monogrammed with someone else's name.  Fun, right?  We have backpacks, luggage, beach towels, aprons (Williams Sonoma $1!), bathrobes, lunch boxes, and all kinds of stuff with random people's names on it.  And we don't think it's weird at all.

I got to go last week and scored big time.

In the above: Three beach towels for gifts.  They're PBKids and great quality. CUTE PJ pants for the girl, plus an awesome shirt (actually, two, one as a gift) and a cute skirt for her.

Awesome polka dot sheet (curtains?  skirt?  pj pants?) and four cami's (two for me, two for the girl - they were $2.50 each!)

My favorite find of the day:  cloth napkins!  Haven't found those there before, but we needed new ones, so I went through and picked out 48(!) of them.  Half are Williams Sonoma and half Pottery barn and all were 25 cents each. Yay!

Freshly laundered and folded, I like having our napkin basket full again!

Or maybe this is my best find...

This gorgeous white jewelry box!  (photo from Pottery Barn)  It retails for $89 but I got it for $6!  It will be a Christmas present for the girl - we might have the glass replaced (it's monogrammed with someone else's initials) or cover it with cute fabric or something.  Or nothing, she'll love it.

My total for the day was about $60.  Heck yeah.

How would you feel about monogramming that isn't your own?

Park City

So for our 15th anniversary, Aaron and I planned a little getaway.  Not too far away, but far enough to feel 'away'.  We had so much fun!

We started off by dropping the kiddos off at Grandma's house for 'Grandma Camp'. Actually, only two of them, we needed to take the girl to Costco to order her new glasses.

After we dropped her off, we had lunch at Los Hermanos - for sentimental reasons.  When we were poor college students we went out to eat there (what, twice?) for special occasions.  Still Yummy.

Then a trip to our favorite used book store.  Love the guy who will plan a used bookstore outing for an anniversary trip!

Unfortunately, my allergies acted up in their pretty quick, so it was shorter than we'd wanted.

Since we had some time to kill, we just pulled over in Provo Canyon and spent a little time by the river.

We stuck our feet in (ICY! Pretty sure this stuff melted off the mountain like that morning), read, chilled and watched the people tubing the river.

Then tubing went on our 'to do' list.  If we still felt like it on Monday.  Cuz that's how the weekend went.  Awesome.

Park City is super cool.  We'd never explored there before and had a blast.  Really, we just hung out, people watched, shopped a little (scored hats for our ginormous heads!  Woo!), watched a movie (The only downside of our trip!), and ate lots of yummy food.

MMmmmm.... Good Kharma.... drool....

We tried to eat at local spots all weekend and were able to eat outside most of the time, too - the weather was perfect.

Mainly, just spending time together was awesome.  Being able to take a little break and enjoy each other's company and stuff - for FOUR DAYS!!!

Monday we did the Alpine Slide &  Coaster - fun stuff!

Then we did go float the Provo.  It was a blast.  Mostly.

Things I learned:

1.  Wear cheap sunglasses.

2.  And shoes.  Aaron lost both flip flops.  We found one, but couldn't catch the other.  A fisherman caught it, though, 20 minutes later and when he saw us tried to throw it back.  Missed.  That would have been awesome, though.

3.  Go with people you like, so when you're in life jackets and swimsuits and smushed up together in the shuttle van and your skin sticks to the person next to you - you're okay with it.

4. Once your butt freezes in the river everything is okay.

5. It was less relaxing and more constant course-correcting - resulting in flipping Aaron once and knocking me in the head nicely.

6. Don't be fooled by the $10 per person price tag.  Once your husband loses his prescription sunglasses, the real price is WAY higher.

So our romantic getaway ended where it started: the Costco Optical department. 

Oooh baby.

Our kids didn't miss us at all, but we sure missed them!  We were originally going to go farther and for longer, but decided that what we did ended up perfect.

Thanks for a great weekend, Park City!

Oh, and Mom, Dad, and Kellie, too!

Even the kids have blog friends...

Nikko and her 5 boys came to visit last week!  Can you count all 8 kiddos?

The boys were super excited to see their 'friends from Texas' again.  They all get along really well.  I loved when K walked in the house, got a big smile on his face and said 'Oh, yeah, I remember this place!'.

We're glad they had time to stop by on another of their epic roadtrips (so brave!).

Houseguests

*Note, I just found this post that I wrote in the fall and had saved as a draft - I don't know how I never pushed the 'publish' button, but oh well!  Better late than never!

I have this friend Amy, who I've known for about 4 years.  We have a lot in common, she's pretty amazing and takes awesome photos.  She even sent us Pip!

Up until last month... we'd never met in person.

But she said they were heading out this way for vacation, so of course we had to get together.

Our three boys patrolling the neighborhood.

The day they arrived was a busy day for us, and because they got stuck in traffic we ended up having about 15 minutes to chat while I tugged boys into their martial arts uniforms.  Basically I showed them where they'd sleep and where I keep my laundry detergent and then had to leave for a while.

Some people might have thought it weird to leave 'strangers' in your house while you weren't home.  But they weren't strangers.  Also, I immediately got the feeling that they 'got' us.  The whole chasing the boys around to get their uniforms on, giving step by step directions to Thomas (they deal with some similar issues) was nothing new to them.  That was refreshing.

At the dinosaur museum.

They were terrific houseguests.  The kids loved Zach, and they all got along.  I was super excited to take Zach to the dinosaur museum.  Dinosaurs are his THING.  And it was awesome.

The boys posing with their 'scared' faces.  ?

They stayed until after church on Sunday, and Amy even subbed in my primary class when my co-teacher had to bail at the last minute.  Cuz she's cool like that.

I was glad about that, because Thomas was a bit overwhelmed having houseguests, but I think on Sunday she saw the 'real' him.

After not 'meeting' each other for years, it was pretty awesome (and cute) to see our kids walking to church together.

 

Amy also gave me lots of pointers on cub scouts, which Thomas will be starting soon.  Now I'm excited about it!

Amy, it was nice to 'meet' you (you know, four years ago - but also lately).