1*0*1

Yes, 101, THAT was the temperature yesterday. When I went downstairs around 3:00 to fix the kids (oh, who am I kidding - when I went down to fix myself!) some popcorn for their snack, I took a little glimpse at the weather station. It was 100 on the nose. Are you KIDDING me?!! It was April 14! Anywho...I didn't look until last night to check the high of the day...a whopping 101. Now, by the beginning of next week the highs are back down to the upper 80's (thank goodness), but I just had to share!

Crafts and Such

So, here is a little look at what I have been up to the last couple of days (other than painting, laundry, parenting, getting donations for my class reunion, and the list goes on...)!! This super cute little lunch box is actually a gift for a sweet little girl that is going to be a big sis in less than a month! It is filled with goodies that all 18 month old divas must have...bubbles, lip gloss, bubble bath and lotion! Every time Gentry sees the box, she says "cute." I am telling ya, that girl thinks EVERYTHING is cute these days! I am sure you would NEVER guess that we tell her she is cute ALL the time!!




And here is a little craft that Huntler and I made today...a snack bucket. I totally stole the idea off of Super Nanny, but we added our own special touch! I let Huntler do most of the work...I just did all the decoupaging to make the stuff stick! Oh, okay, okay, my obsessive compulsiveness did kick in and I had to guide him to where and how "we" wanted the stickers placed! But, he thought it was all him, and that is what counts!! Anyway, the "purpose" of the bucket is that you are supposed to let your kids pick out three snacks each morning and put them in the bucket and those snacks should last all day. Of course, we have nothing in the house that qualifies as a snack, so there will be a shopping trip in the next few days to restock, but once we have some granola bars, fruit snacks and other goodies, we can put our bucket to use! Now I just have to whip one up for Gentry!




And here is a quick glimpse of something I have been wanting to do forever!! I have seen these ribbon covered clips all over (and quite expensive for no more material or time than they take!) and knew that I could make them! I have more ribbon than I will ever need, so yesterday I decided to dive right in. They are far from perfect (I am an extreme perfectionist), but they are pretty darn cute if I do say so myself!

Six on Saturday

So I have mentioned before that I am currently obsessed with Etsy, right?!! Honestly, I don't even know how I came to know about it, but it was love at first sight! And the more I "peruse the aisles" so to speak, the more I love it! There is an AMAZING amount of talent out there and I am going to share with you just a SMIDGE of it for my Six on Saturday this week! 

These are just a few of the stores I have marked as faves...I haven't bought anything yet, but once I have time to sit down and sort it all out, I am sure I will! I am including just one item from each shop, but I encourage you to check out everything they have to offer when you have the time! I am sure you will see why I fell in love!

(By the way...the "list" option was giving me fits, so there are no numbers, but you can follow along...I added extra spacing in to separate everything out!)

Check out this SUPER cute hat by Portland Beanie Company!! Oh my gosh I can TOTALLY see Miss Gentry sporting one of these! However, how do I ever decide which color or style?!! If you click on the link, you will see there are even matching scarves! Hello...you know where I'll be shopping next winter! If I could pull off a hat (which I SO cannot), I would order one for myself too!

Look at these little gems! Somehow I happened onto this little shop that sells hair accessories! I am currently digging fabric covered buttons. I am not sure where this love of everything fabric has come from considering I can barely sew on a button, but it has hit me! I guess that means I can break out that sewing machine I got two years ago for my birthday and give it a whirl! Anywho...this particular set is Peter Pan! Cute, don't ya think?! Here is the link for Coleta's shop...

This little album is SO darn cute! Wish I had a big trip planned for the beach sometime soon because the colors used just scream *s*u*m*m*e*r* to me!! And since I have not managed to find any time whatsoever to scrap in the last oh, two years, I think this is my best option! Check out Lemon Tree Studio for this and tons of other cute goodies!

Along with my newfound love of fabric is also my newfound love of whimsical birds! I know I have mentioned this before and how it is rather ironic that I am obsessed with these fun little critters considering I am deathly afraid of the real deal, but people, I LOVE them! And they are EVERYWHERE these days! Here is a super cute little shop I found as a link on a blog I discovered recently. Make sense?? Re-read it...NO ONE will know!! Check out her stuff...Little Bit Funky...it will make you smile!

Ok...so this is the blog that led me to the blog and therefore the Etsy shop I just mentioned - Jane Says Fresh and Fun Stuff. She has tons of Fresh and Fun Stuff (hence the name of her blog and store!)! LOVE her style! And yes, here are some more fun little birds! However, she has tons of other amazing things for sale so I suggest you check her out!

Last but certainly not least is a set of photo mats I came across! These are mats covered in fabric and then you stick them in a frame of your liking! What a FABULOUS idea! I personally love the black and white images with the major pop of color on the mat! Talk about the WOW factor! They offer numerous other options as well...so click on over to Love and Squalor and see what you can find in your color palette! 

So...I just did some major advertising there, hunh?! I hope you have as much fun looking at all of this great stuff as I do!! Happy Saturday!

Flashback Friday!!!

I love a lil' guy in overalls!! Oh how I miss them...and this house! This was taken in our bathroom in KC...When I look at pictures from there I am reminded of all the love and great memories created in our happy little home on Summertree Court. Looking back, this seems like a lifetime ago...Oh how the years go by.

November 4, 2005 - 13 months

**Be sure to scroll down...I added THREE new posts today! WHEW! Can you tell it is nap time?!

Hatch Day

If you are a bug on Miss Spider's Sunny Patch (a cartoon on Noggin), Hatch Day is a B*I*G deal! It is like your birthday! Well, somehow Huntler has become absolutely obsessed with this idea of hatch day. It started out that he would take EVERY single cushion and pillow off of the couch in the family room and bury himself down in them. Then he started taking the pillows off of the chairs. Well, yesterday he started playing Hatch Day in his room...

This consists of taking his comforter, sheets, pillows, shams, blankets, etc... and shoving them down in the six inch crack between his bed and the wall. Then he proceeds to shimmy on down there himself. It seems that each day Gentry becomes MORE aware of the whole concept of Hatch Day and feeds into it...She is so eager that she has learned to climb up on Huntler's bed and shimmy her chubby lil' bod down into the crack as well! These two are QUITE the pair!!

A Whole Lotta Color!

Ok...so I apologize but I can't seem to get this fabric sample down by the playroom pics where it belongs! I am not experienced enough with Blogger to "make" it do what I want, so we all just have to deal with out of order pics once again!! :)

I figured since I have slacked off so much in my blogging lately that you all might want to take a little look-see at what in the world I have been doing that has consumed my life for the last couple of weeks!! Well here it is!!

So...this first image is the fabric that I ordered online for our playroom. The theme is vintage circus and I can't wait to get this fabric and finish up the room!!

Here is our bedroom...this was actually a February project but still isn't done! ALMOST though! I am having six images edited (I am not good enough on Photoshop yet!!) for me as we speak by a fabulous photographer and once I get the files back, I'll e-mail them to the company I am using to print the canvases and viola! 

This room took FOREVER!! See all those stripes?? Ay ay ay! Our walls are all textured and I had TONS of touching up to do on both sides of ALL the stripes. HOURS upon HOURS of love (and even more hours of hate!) went into that room! But, we ended up with a room that will be perfect once we get our photos hung! We are still planning on adhering a phrase of some sort in the yellow stripe above where the pictures will be, but the custom one I had picked out was pretty expensive, so we are waiting on that. No one knows it is missing but us anyway!! :)

We found our bedding at Kohls and it is great! It is such an improvement from the drab and "grandma-ish-ness" (totally made that word up!) of what we had before. Not that we don't love our grandmas, but we aren't in that age group yet!! We got lucky on the pictures above our nightstands...those came from Target's World Bazaar line and just happened to match perfectly!

Ta-da! The playroom! It looks a little bare without anything on the walls, but I wanted to share! Hopefully in the next week or two we will get our decorations up and the room will really come together! The colors are perfect and exactly what I was wanting though!

The *plan* for the big window is to create an awning with the vintage circus toile fabric I just ordered! Cross your fingers that we can figure that one out!! I'll keep ya posted!

These two little cubbies will also be covered with the same fabric... And in the background you can see the dark orange walls that were another of my recent projects! I have had the song, "Rainbow Connection" in my head for the last week because when standing in certain places in our house, you can see quite an array of different colors! So, there you have it!

Enrolled

This is from the zoo last March (2007). I LOVE this picture of the two of us! 

And one of my all time favorites...sledding in Flagstaff in February.

So yesterday morning I enrolled this sweet little guy, my baby, in preschool. I look at him and I honestly can not believe how quickly the last three and half years with him have FLOWN by. I remember VIVIDLY the night I was in labor and the drive to the hospital. I remember when he was four days old and had jaundice and had to be put on the bili-light how much I cried...how overwhelming those first days home with a new baby were. I remember his first hair cut, his first Christmas (in a Santa Suit!)...SO many firsts. Yesterday was another one of those firsts. Enrollment in his first school.

I cried...I won't lie. We drove up and he was SO excited about the "school house" as he calls it. He marched into the office and when asked his name, he replied. Then of course, he followed up with his last name, his age and sissy's name and age. Can't leave her out, ya know?! And oh yeah, "That's my mommy." (the afterthought!!)

Anyway, we peeped into a couple of classrooms as the leader of the school who was giving us our little tour. She told Huntler he could go on in. So...he did. It was story time and he marched in, found a place in between a couple of kids on the rug and nestled in for story time. That is where I lost it. Tears were pouring down my face as I watched my little guy assert his independence. Heck, tears are streaming down my face again now as I type this!! :) 

OF COURSE I am glad he was excited...I would much rather him not miss me and be happy and carefree than miserable and crying because I had to leave him. But, that doesn't make it any easier to imagine leaving him!! For so long, we have been the ones to shape who he is. We have watched him grow and thrive. In that process, we have grown more than I can even begin to express. It is hard to imagine that once he goes to school next fall, our lives will never be the same. Admittedly, he will only be gone two days a week for three hours each day, but it is just the start of real life. After a couple of years of preschool is kindergarten and then first grade...I am so used to spending my days playing "Hatch Day" (a current make believe game around here!), Lincoln Logs, Tinker Toys, reading stories and watching Noggin that I wonder what I will do with myself once he is in school full time? I mean seriously, I spend 24 hours a day with these munchkins! I know...I am getting ahead of myself here...that is still two years off! And some of you probably think I am being overly dramatic, but I have really been struggling with this.

Several of you know that if it were totally up to me, I would hold off on preschool for one more year...and keep my sweet Huntler home with me and all to myself! However, Chris has strong opinions that he needs to be going next year. And he is right...Huntler obviously LOVED it and he is ready...it is me that isn't. But...I can't be selfish and I have to share him with the world...I know they will love him every bit as much as I do! 

Back to the school...my tears were short-lived as I had to help wrangle the little man in during story time. He is not used to having to SIT for an entire story. And be quiet? Are you kidding?! He likes to narrate along with you as you read! So...while all the other kids were sitting quietly listening to the story, Huntler hopped up and was playing with a kitchen.. Then he was talking - loudly. The teacher had to tell him to be quiet. She of course did it nicely and he listened and sat back down. So then we move on to another classroom...where they were playing. Huntler was on the floor right in the middle of everything...asking if he could share and acting like he had been going to school for weeks!! Needless to say, he did NOT want to leave. He kept saying, "I'll stay mommy, by myself." He wanted to stay...

As hard as it will be for me, taking him to the school and observing his interactions with the other kids and seeing the pure joy in his eyes, I KNOW he is ready and it is time. I still have a few months until school starts up to get myself together. I can pretty much promise though that the day I have to leave him there for the first time, I will be a crying mess.

**I added a new song to the top of the playlist...rather fitting for my thoughts right now!!

Go Cart Races!

Besides the fact that I have tackled THREE painting projects and a couple of craft projects in the last week, we also worked in the yard Sunday night. So you see why I haven't been blogging much?!! Holy cow we are busy right now! 

Anyway, the kids drug out this wagon that has lost its handle and Huntler started having go cart races! How does he even know what go carts are??? I sure didn't teach him that! Anyway, they were grubby and dirty and hot and just total little ragamuffins...and of course I had to document it! Our video camera is having issues so we didn't get any video, but they were being HILARIOUS! They were taking turns pushing each other and having a truly wonderful time! :)

Anyway...I am going to forget about my Six on Saturday for last week! It is Tuesday afternoon and I still haven't gotten to it yet! So maybe you will get lucky and get two installments this weekend! My birthday is Saturday, so maybe I'll feel nice and share more!! :)

Now I am off to play with my kids for awhile!

Oh...the serious faces of Huntler!

Wish me luck guys...Bubby is a crazy driver!!

I LOVE this one!! He looks so darn cute!!