SUPER!

Our church always has one Saturday a year that is called Super Saturday -it's a day to actually make things and learn how to create even more things. I love this day, although I have had a few bad memories - like the time I taught people how to make these:

After everyone was done and proud of their finished product, I took all the boards out to spray a sealant on them and RUINED them all! Ahh, what can you do....

Anyways, here are a few of my favorites for this years Super Saturday ideas:
I made a sample of the above but changed it to a chore chart that has magnets on the back to put on my fridge - a tutorial is at inspiremecrafts.com. It's a magnet board and a chalk board and you can make it for under 5 bucks.

And how darling is this:
The tutorial is at lilluna.blogspot.com - but when I made it I had some trouble with the paper and ink and so my friend said it may work better to have it sent and printed as a picture.

I love these on a wreath stand with a hip wreath behind it. You can do the above saying or "please remove your shoes" My mom has hers outside next to her front door and I think she gets compliments all the time on it.

And now for a bit of a pricier, but still great one:I love these watches and I believe you can order the faces for pretty cheap making it a fairly affordable project.

And then, I always think these countdowns are fun - a 'Birthday Countdown' is also a fun one to make with cute birthday scrap book paper mod podged to the frame.

A while ago I taught a glass etching class and a girl had a fantastic idea to do a bunch of plates for your neighbors with their last name initial etched on the bottom of the plate. The idea being that when you took them their plate of goodies for the holidays you would be giving them a gift as well - notsoidlehands.blogspot.com has a great tutorial for this.



And although not on my list of super saturday favorites, I do have full hopes (dreams?) of making these two projects for my house before October 1st (if I set a deadline for myself will it happen?) I have been wanting to make this tree for the past few years
And how about this....
Will somebody please teach me how to sew? Please?

Happy crafting!

Back to school

School has started and the boys are loving every minute of it.

Trey is in the 1st grade and doing well. I am constantly amazed at his little mind. He is a math wiz - he loves multiplication and division questions and can answer anything you throw at him. He is a fast little reader as well - this summer as we drove, he would finish a Junie B Jones book in an hour and start a new one. We love our Trey and can't wait to see him at the end of each school day!

And now for a funny story:

Trey's school provides a bag for each child. Each day a folder is sent home with homework and important papers to be returned the next day. Well 8 days in and surprise surprise, I forgot the folder. So that day when Trey got into the car I grabbed his bag to make sure the papers got sent home even w/o the folder - they did and low and behold there was a coke zero in there as well. Hmmm, then it dawned on me that JK (who is obsessed with Trey's bag and carries it around each day after school) must have put it in there the day before while she was in the kitchen - with the bag on her shoulder - "helping me cook dinner". I remembered that just a few days before I had found a pacifier in his bag as well. Then the dread set in and I had to ask:

"Trey, did your teacher see this?" Sodas are BIG NO NO's. Drinks have to be 100% juice, milk or water.

He replied, "Yes, but I don't want to talk abut it. It's too embarrassing."

Embarrassing for you or for me I asked him. To which he replied:

"For you - she said I need to teach you not to bring sodas for me!"

JULIA KAREN!!!!

So to review what this teacher knows about me.... I missed the open house when we were in Boise (and no one does that at this particular school), I forgot the folder within the first 8 days of school, and now I send my child to school with a DIET CAFFEINATED soda. I'd say we are off to an impressive start!


And now for my Toby! He has Mrs. Elizabeth this year and we are so happy for that. I believe she is THE BEST preschool teacher ever. It helps that she is one of my closest friends - but because of that, I know how much she loves her students. She has a masters in special education and we get to have her each day as our preschool teacher! We completely give her all the credit for teaching Trey to read. Already Toby is learning to spell words out loud and he loves going to school each day.

On the 2nd day of school Mrs Elizabeth told the students that the next day they would start using the green light/red light system (to help with behavior) to which Toby sang out in a dooms day kind of way for his whole class to hear: Duun, dun, Duuuun.

We love our funny Toby!

If you read this - you must like us, cause it's LONG!

We spent a good portion of our summer in Boise again, and as always it was glorious! Someone recently told me to enjoy doing this while my kids are young because they will get older and it will become hard to keep up our summers in Boise. I sure hope not, because I will really miss them while I am there each summer!

We started out with a BANG - firework style to celebrate the 4th.

Can I just talk about the weather there - oh it is AWESOME! Perhaps you can only fully appreciate it when you come from the heat and humidity, but either way it makes for the PERFECT place to be in the summer. The weather AND the fact that it doesn't get dark until close to 10 each night. (To be fair I should include that while we love summers out there, we sure love our cozy winters here in the south:)
These guys were thrilled to be together, and together they stayed for 5 weeks - inseperable!

We tried to plan "adventures" for each day. Trips to the fountain downtown, picnics at the park, a day at the zoo, days at the pool, trips to McDonalds, bumper cars on ice were just a few of our weekly activities.



We were able to celebrate my cousin Kinzie's wedding in Eastern Idaho - it was beautiful. Being with cousins was a blast!

On our way home we stopped at Shoshone falls - who knew how awesome it was? I didn't, but it was!
This summer, us girls decided to take some time during the week to be together and have adventures of our own. Getting pedicures, going to lunch, and shopping were just some of our fun.

Celebrating Natalie and her baby bump made for one of those perfect days! We went to Cheesecake, then on to Motherhood where we made her put on one of their bigger bellies and try on clothes. She always looks great, but some things she put on made us laugh and laugh - she was a great sport though.Oh and another thing I can add to the long list of great things Tammy has taught me to make is this diaper cake - so fun to make, and cute right?

We also took family photos - if you want to see more check out Tammy's blog at tammyhawkinsphotography.blogspot.com. And if you live in Boise - she is by far the best! I didn't even know when she took some of my favorite photos - she just get's awesome shots and makes it seem easy (is that even possible when it comes to family photos?)

And then just because we always like to spice things up - our little girl fell down the stairs and broke her arm. She was a total trooper though. It was just a buckle fracture, but she was very proud of her wrapped arm. She even started using it as a little billyclub to hit her cousins with - aawww, that's our little sassypants.
(after noticing my double chin in this picture, I went to edit/crop it, but then I thought, "no that is just all the more proof of the fun I have in Boise" - 10 lbs in a month baby!)

Because of her arm, Lars and I decided to take her with us to Palo Alto to enjoy our friend Marisa's wedding! It was a wonderful weekend! Friends, travel, food, late nights - ahhh, it was great!She was beautiful and I don't know that I have ever seen a tinier bride - everything was magical.
This is how we all look when asked to say cheese, but really this is how we all are:
obnoxious and loving every minute of it!

While we were in SF, my parents had the kids - adventures continued and I think the boys loved every minute of having alone time with their grandparents. Trey recently told me (through tears) that he thinks he didn't spend enough time with grandma and wants her to come as quick as possible for a visit!

The below picture is of Toby and pretty much sums up how he handled the love/tease relationship that only our cousin little T can display so perfectly. Hug and then tackle was his way and JK learned it well - oh we miss you little T man!

Last but not least we celebrated D's bday at PoJo's - a fun place if you ask me, especially on a week night when you get double tickets and dollar rides - to bad this was the same night the kids had to say goodbye. A bittersweet night.All in all it was another successful trip! Did I mention we drove? I think I will try to do a post of the great things we saw as we came across the country. It's hard to believe our summer is over, but I hope and believe that we are making important memories for our kids (and us). We love our family - we love being so close to the the Longneckers and looking forward to our summers with all of these guys:

And these guys always make it hardest for me to leave:

(This pic was taken at 2am at a dive called Merots that Kelsey and Tammy woke my mom and I up to go to)

Thanks everyone for a great summer! It always goes by way to fast.

Happy Birthday To ME

A couple weeks ago my friend Tomicka told me she wanted to take me out to dinner and a movie for my birthday. So this last Friday when she picked me up I was surprised to see a few of my other friends were coming too. I was even more surprised when she handed me a card that told me they were taking me to dinner at the BEACH!

I just kept saying; What? Really? and Are you SERIOUS? Then Lars handed me a bag that was packed and ready for a night away! Tomicka had even packed a beach bag for me with a new towel, float and a picture of JK and I framed from our last trip to the beach.

And then I almost cried - I was so overwhelmed, surprised, grateful, happy and SURPRISED!


JK really wanted to go. But this was a NO kids trip.




This birthday may go down in the books as the most surprised I have ever been.

Thank you girls. Staying up until 2, sun-burning myself, learning how to do new things, California yogurt, and swimming in the ocean without a child in my arms - it was fantastic!

I am already getting excited for Time Out for Women in Atlanta this fall - whose in?

Oh Dear!

Back when we first moved to Alabama and were pregnant with Trey we went to church one Sunday and I fell in love with three little boys sitting next to us in the pew. They were everything little boys should be: freckled, shaved heads and mischievous looking. Every time I looked at them teasing each other and squirming in their church clothes it made me more and more excited to have a little boy.

I have always loved a little boy and his shaved head during the summer, so as we are getting ready to head west for the summer it was time to get my boys ready! First up a hair cut - or shave. We couldn't remember which length of clippers to use - but given the way Toby screams during a haircut I thought the shorter the better.

As a side note, I honestly would not have been surprised if the police had shown up during Toby's haircut due to calls from concerned neighbors. He can throw a massive fit and haircuts put him OVER the edge! At one point during his hair cut he was in a crazed rage and yelled out "hot like bologna" we think he was referring to the clippers?)

So out came the clippers and off went their hair - the problem with hair clippers - there is absolutely NO GOING BACK! All I could say is "Oh dear" with every pass on Trey's head. A quarter of an inch would have been just right - NOT AN EIGHTH OF AN INCH!

OH DEAR!

What did we do? My little boys are BALD! WHAT DID WE DO!

Now of course I think my boys are beautiful no matter what - but yikes this is a far cry from Toby's fluffy head of hair just a day ago.

Oh dear! Hot like bologna is right!

To the beach

I don't know what it was, but the second I heard that the oil was going to hit the Gulf I panicked - I felt like we HAD to go to the beach immediately before the oil washed ashore. Too bad Lars' work schedule and the Gulf's impending oil doom didn't seem to matter to each other because we were going with or without him we couldn't wait for the weekend.

So me and some friends loaded the kids up and headed to the beach. Aaaaaahhhhhhh - I have to say - the Gulf has the BEST beaches. White sand for miles, very few people and the cool water, what could be better?


Trey was WILD. He doesn't know how to swim well but with his boogie board he was fealess - which made me full of fear.

Toby is a little more reserved. In fact as we stated to walk towards the ocean he may have thrown a fit because he didn't want to get sand on his feet - all I could say is good luck with that one kiddo - he warmed up to it though and was happy to play and then all to happy to head to the pool at the condo.

Thanks friends - so sad the tar balls have started to come ashore now, but happy we went when we did!

Boot Camp 2010

Boot Camp 2010 was a huge success this year full of fun and, as always a few miracles. We had 78 kids this year and I think they all had a great time.



Vacation Bible Schools are huge down here - in fact just today I heard of one with 800 kids in attendance (those Baptists sure know how to party:)) We are building each year and I believe getting stronger as we take what we learn from the previous year and add or subtract as needed.

I will share that I was worried that we didn't have enough boards for each child to paint in camo colors for "craft detail" one day. (They put vinyl on them after they dried, the vinyl read Did You Pray? and then they attached ribbon through holes so they could hang them in their rooms reminding them to pray each day.) I knew I had only cut 68-70 boards and I felt happy for the good turn out but sad that some kids would have to go without. At the end of the first day we had two boards left over. The next day two children came that were not there to paint the boards on the first day using the two left over boards. Ya'll I KNOW I did not have that many boards - every year something like this happens and I love to see it.

These little faces make all the work so worth it!