Summer Fun Clothespin Bucket

Thank you Chick-fil-A kid's meal bag for this awesome idea. Every summer I see a lot of people making their lists for the fun activities they want to accomplish with their kids. I thought this clothespin bucket idea was a lot more fun. Ande helped us come up with ideas, which I wrote on the clothespins, then he ever-so-carefully clipped each one to the edge of our little red bucket. Every time we check off one of our summer activities, Ande will take that clothespin off and put it in the bucket. This will make it easy to keep track of what we have left to do!

Some of my favorite activities we chose include:

-making popsicles

-going to a splash park

-splashing in puddles

-making a fort

-going fishing

-finishing Ande's "chalkboard road" on the wall in his room

-a picnic at the park

-paddle boating

-movie night

-family bike ride

high five for friday!

It's Friday again, and so here are another 5 good things from the past week~

1. Two nights ago, I started feeling really bad. I was up all night with a fever, and ended up in bed all day yesterday. That was definitely not a good thing that I would high five about, but I was just really thankful for all of the help I received from Curtis and my mom. Being sick with kids is probably the worst thing ever. Luckily, my mom was able to whisk Ande away to her house for a couple hours, and Curtis stayed home from work to take care of Owen.

2. While home from work, Curtis didn't just watch the boys and take care of their every need (seriously, I was completely useless yesterday), he also started cleaning like a fiend. He cleaned out the fireplace, vacuumed with the really nice smelling carpet powder, and even vacuumed the air vent. What a guy!

3. We got a new dslr camera! It's awesome. We actually got it a few weeks ago, but we're still excited about it. Curtis has always been interested in photography (was the official photographer for the newspaper in high school...or something), and is now taking a digital photography class for school. He is learning all sorts of fun techniques. I'm excited to now have good pictures of our "daily life."

(PS- anyone want to buy our Canon G11? It's an awesome camera and in great condition. I kind of don't want to give it up...but with the cost of our new bad boy, we kind of have to. Just shoot me an email if interested!)

4. I love seeing what my boys think is funny, and watching their personalities come out. Ande always has "quiet time" for about 30  minutes while I put Owen to sleep and clean up lunch. He will either play quietly, read, or watch a show on the iPad in his "fort" that we made in his closet. He is in there right now watching a Korean cartoon on Youtube about buses (he loves it even though he can't understand a word of it), and about 2 minutes ago he busted out laughing. I love it when he does that.

5. This is my most exciting news of the week. A couple months ago, I was asked by Simply Crochet magazine UK if they could feature one of my patterns in an article that was coming out soon. Of course, I said yes! This week, they sent me a pdf of the article (the actual printed magazines won't be out for a few more weeks). It's awesome. It's an article about 30 different ways to use a "granny square" which is a crochet technique, and they used my Slouchy Bow Beanie  as an example of a 3D granny square. It is crazy to see my hat/name in print and even crazier that she called my baby beanies "mega-cute!"

linking up:

between him and me

During family scripture time:

Me: "We need to remember to always choose the right."

Ande: "Well, I am going to choose the left."

Me: "Choosing the right means to choose to do good things."

Ande: "Yeah, and bad guys always choose the left."

And when he's feeling a little British, he'll slip one of these phrases into a conversation:

"Do you like my turtle?"

"For later!"

(both spoken in a British accent of course)

Then, there's the days when he uses his construction worker, "gotta dump my load," voice. This voice is a little harder to explain, but just try to imagine a constipated, 40 year old, smoker dude.

birthday money!

My birthday was a few weeks ago, and I've spent a lot of time trying to decide how to stretch my birthday money as far as possible. Almost half of the things I wanted to buy were actually for Ande and Owen. Is that sad? What I really wanted to get for them were some awesome tighty swim shorts from Zara.com...

     

There is still a strong possibility that I will buy at least one pair. Who wouldn't want to see cute, skinny, little boy legs in those things?

But, I knew what we really needed were some new bar stools for our wet bar.

Ande decided to stab our current, milk and food stained, stools with the paring knife.

I figured we needed something without a fabric cushion that couldn't be destroyed so easily, so I bought these...

Walmart.com

In an effort to take better care of myself, I also got the Clarisonic Mia 2. This thing is amazing.

I have never been much of a beauty fiend, considering I never wash my face unless I'm in the shower.

But now that I have the Mia 2, I feel like my skin is fresh and soft and renewed. It's a good feeling.

Clarisonic.com

And, since I love the handmade world, and since my mom/husband have such a hard time buying anything handmade for me, I finally bought myself some bags that I have been drooling over for ages!

     

                              (Marandalee on Etsy)                                                      (GussySews)

And on top of getting all this great stuff, I got to go on a great date with Curt.

We saw the Avengers, which we absolutely l.o.v.e.d.! 

So even though my age is inching wayyyy too close to 30, I have a lot to be thankful for!

snapshots {summer sun}

I didn't mean to take such a long break from blogging.

The problem is that summer time is just too fun, and I am enjoying spending time with my boys!

I don't think that I have even turned on my lap top more than once in the past two weeks, and you know what?

It's been great.

I think it's good to take a little break from all this social internet stuff once in a while. 

How can I sit on the computer and blog when there is sunshine to soak up, pool water to splash, and sand castles to dig?

And when we are stuck inside listening to the sounds of a summer storm, it's just as fun to hang out on the floor and watch the boys wrestle, watch Owen practice walking, and watch Ande building "houses" with all the pillows in the house.

The boys are wrestling and giggling as I type this and it just warms my heart.

I don't think I'll stop blogging, because I love how it has become a journal of our life over the past few years, but I definitely have enjoyed taking a step back and enjoying being present with my boys.

Our summer has just begun and we have so many fun things coming up! 

I can't wait.