Week in Review

Yay! It's Friday morning. Weekends don't exactly mean what they used to now that we have little kids, but I still get excited out of habit. We've had a full week around here and I didn't manage to blog at all, so here's a quick run-down of the highlights from the past 4 days.

On Monday the kids and I had a front row seat to watch our neighbors cut down a huge pine in their backyard, which provided entertainment all of the afternoon and even into the evening. These guys weren't shy about pulling up their lawn chairs to enjoy an elevated view from the treehouse. 

On Tuesday we drove to meet Daddy at the river for lunch. Yes it was shorts weather! B Daddy was showing off his rock-skipping skills and only one of our children managed to get thoroughly soaked in the river (Blue Eyes). BTW Chick-fil-A is no longer a cheap lunch for this family of 5. We are going to have to lower our standards a bit now that all three kids can put away some serious food. 

On Wednesday my sister in law (who is back in town for a few weeks from Ecuador, yippee!) came and took my children for 24 blessed hours. I promptly skipped off to my happy place to use a gift card that has been languishing in my wallet since Christmas. I might have spent a tiny bit more than the gift card. I'm pregnant - when something looks cute on me, I feel obligated to buy it. 

On Thursday I slept in. At some point after I woke, I put on my new extremely comfortable maxi dress and then the kids came home.

Today is Friday. I am finally 20 weeks pregnant - woot woot! We are playing with stickers and hitting the gym. Putting away laundry and having light saber duels. Cleaning the playroom and making PB&Js. A very typical, very beautiful kind of Friday. 

Hope you have some fun planned for your weekend! Love you all so much and thanks for reading. 

Summer Pics Round-Up

I for one am THRILLED that back to school is here and the long hot days of summer are (mostly?) behind us. Here are a few photos from the summer madness: you'll notice a distinct lack of swimming pics.

Related: I just signed up with Carbonite for a year's worth of automatic back-up and can't even describe my peace of mind this morning about the 11,000 pictures on this little laptop. Why did we wait so long to spend this $60/year?? I lost half a year's worth of pictures last year (including Sweet B's birth pics!!) and you'd have thought I would have figured out a back-up system right away after that debacle.

Bringing Christmas Cheer

My sister has been doing this activity from Lil Light O Mine with her daughters to help them get in the Giving vs. Getting spirit this Christmas season. Yesterday we were the recipients of an awesome note from the Squirt fan club (number of members - 1. Cousin Kate.) telling the Squirt how much she liked coming over to his house and having him chase her. Honestly!

I love all the ideas Lil Light O Mine has. They are simple, doable things that help teach kids the joy of giving. So we decided to jump on the bandwagon and bring some Christmas cheer to our local children's hospital. (Which just so happens to be where Aunt Anna works.)

The Squirt and I mixed up some peppermint bark, dipped some buckeyes and then went to town decorating Bakerella's gingerbread heads (which turned out SO cute I squealed. For real.) to take to the nurses at the CHOA ER, who have been earthly angels to this family on two occasions already in our short time with kids.

It was really fun to talk to Squirt about what nurses do and why we were making goodies for them. He totally understood by the time we got to the hospital why we were there and what we were doing. Not to mention it was really fun to see Aunt Anna at work and see all the fancy ER equipment.

If you're looking for some fun (and easy. Seriously. You do not have to decorate cookies...) ways to spread Christmas cheer in your neck of the woods, check out Lil Light O Mine's Light 'Em Up Idea List. There are tons of great ideas even if you don't have kids!

Possibly the Most Stressful Morning of Her Life Thus Far

Also known as "Family Pictures in a Pasture in 40 degree Weather at 8am Whilst Pregnant and Wearing High Heels "

At 6:45am she and her husband woke their slumbering children and dressed them like porcelein dolls. By 7:15am they were rolling down GA-400 at 20 miles an hour with the rest of northern Fulton County towards the city of Atlanta. At precisely 8:00am on the dot they pulled into the (dirt) drive that led to the polo fields (read: dirt) on the far side of town. The car thermostat read 45 degrees. She rolled up her trouser jeans and delicately stepped out into the icy air to retrieve both her children, a diaper bag and her beloved red velvet peep toe high heels.

A lens-laden photographer greeted them as they made their way down the long drive (read: damp dirt road) out to the polo field itself where half a dozen thoroughbreds trotted through the morning haze towards them as if to say hello.

"How lovely," she thought, "what an enchanted place for pictures."

Her first mistake was the optimism. This being her first ever photo shoot with her family, we will chalk this up to naivety. A heart full of optimism and a purse full of Teddy Grahams would have better suited the occasion.

Her second mistake was the red velvet peep toe high heels. Polo Fields is not a place for heels, high or low. Especially not when the ground is quite soft from last night's rain. Some nice flats would be worn on future occasions. 

Her third mistake was the cream-colored leggings she had foolishly dressed her 10 month old daughter in. Putting a crawler down at Polo Fields in cream-colored leggings guarantees leggings that are quickly streaked with red Georgia clay. She would now be holding her daughter all morning long. 

Her final mistake was telling the photographer she would be happy to climb down into the creek bed if it would make a nice shot. She seemed to have completely forgotten she was in fact, quite pregnant. And wearing red velvet peep toe high heels.

If however, in spite of her folly, you'd like to see how the photo shoot unfolded, please visit Alea Moore Photography.

Bless your heart Alea Moore. May she learn from her many mistakes in the future. 

We Survived! (Camping with an Infant and a Toddler)

We did it!! I'm thrilled to report that everyone survived our mini-camping trip and I'll venture to say we even had a good time. A few tips from our experience if you want to take your (little) kids along for your next camping adventure...

Bring a BIG tent. Our loaner had room for an air mattress and TWO pack-n-plays. It was seriously big. I'm pretty sure the kids slept as well as they did because it was so similar to being at home.

Pick your camp site wisely. Ours was at the far end of the campground next to the playground (clutch!) and faced the lake. We had a gorgeous view, only one set of neighbors to annoy and the white noise from the water lapping against the shore helped put everyone to sleep. Oh yes and we were a short walk away from the bathhouse. Very important when you have the newly potty-trained with you.

Make peace with dirt. Your kids will be dirty. Your tent and gear will be dirty (our kids never quite mastered taking their shoes off before coming in the tent.) You will be dirty. Get over it. This is camping. It's just a day or two and clothes and hands can be scrubbed up.

Keep meals simple. For dinner my sister pre-prepped chili, so all she had to do was throw the dutch oven on top of the fire while we were setting up camp and dinner was ready. For breakfast I made muffins ahead of time, brought bananas and cooked a big skillet of scrambled eggs in the morning. (My mom had the brilliant idea of cracking and whisking the eggs together in a gallon Ziploc ahead of time, which was key in getting breakfast served quickly.)

Make S'mores. Duh.

Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst. Sweet B has been in the habit of waking up SCREAMING at approximately 4am for the past several weeks. Here at the house we just let her cry, as she's not sick and there's really no telling why she's doing it. We crank up the white noise in our room and she quits eventually (she's silently sleeping when we wake up). We figured this might not go over well at camp, so we mentally prepared to get up with her immediately and walk her around camp. This was my privilege at 5am. And I think I handled it rather well (if I do say so myself) because I was expecting it. She fell asleep after 10 minutes of walking, so I headed back to the tent, where she woke and started screaming again as soon as I tried to lay her down. So off we went again...this time accompanied by B Daddy. It was actually quite romantic, walking in the dark early morning, holding hands and looking at the stars. The best part was the sleep I got after she went down at 6am...I think it was the soundest sleep I had all night.

Bring your Camera. I forgot mine. So the only pictures I have were these, taken on my iphone.

Do any of y'all have a camping trip planned soon? Or tips of your own to share about camping with little ones? The weather in so many places is absolutely perfect for camping right now! In fact, B Daddy and I enjoyed it so much, we're skipping a hotel one night on our upcoming long weekend away and pulling out the tent again.

A Weekend Away

So this past weekend B Daddy and I had the awesome privilege to head up to Sharptop Cove in the North Georgia Mountains with the high schoolers we work with at Buckhead Church.

What a blessing! The weather was perfect. Warm in the sun, cool in the shade and positively chilly at night. My favorite combination.

And the best part? No kids! :) My amazing in-laws volunteered to watch them from Friday to Sunday so we could head out and enjoy this time with our freshies. And did you catch on Facebook that #2 came down with hand, foot and mouth disease on Thursday?? Yeah. Lots of fun for Gigi and Aunt Allie. Isn't hand, foot and mouth disease the worst name for a virus EVER? I felt like she suddenly had the bubonic plague or something.

Today she's feeling much better and I've recovered from a weekend of no sleep and high school drama, so I'm debating housework or project progress during nap time. Decisions, decisions. B Daddy has put the kibosh on starting any new projects until I've finished the ones in front of me. Namely: the slipcover and car seat cover. Boo. He's no fun at all.

I think what I really need is to host an event here in the near future. Nothing motivates me like trying to impress a few guests. Remember my fancy baby food jar centerpiece?! :)

Playmates

When the Squirt was #2's age I was constantly wondering what to do with him. He was mobile, but really too young to "play". So he'd crawl around after me as I did things around the house and when I'd sit down to play with him, I'd be bored in about  5 minutes. Luckily this has not been an issue with #2.

She LOVES to "play" with her big brother. He entertains her just by being around, such a huge blessing. Unfortunately he doesn't always appreciate her company.

But at least I get some time to myself, right?

Christmas in July Craft Party

Last month most of the girls on my mom's side of the family (we missed you Erin!) got together to do some crafting. The idea was to make little Christmas gifts for neighbors, co-workers, etc. and have some gifts already knocked out before the insane holiday season got started.

We decided to try our hands at glass etching, figuring it was an easy way to make a custom gift. As usual with this group, we did a lot of talking, a lot of eating (my sister made Christmas cookies!) and a little bit of work.

The process is super simple. You need a bottle of etching cream, craft brushes and a stencil.

We used Contact paper, which was pretty easy to position and re-position until you had it just where you wanted it on your piece. The Cricut machines made cutting the stencils super fast, but I've seen stencils around blogland cut out with an Exacto knife as well. (I have no where near the patience needed to do that.)

Once your stencil is cut, you just position it, paint on the etching cream and wait. We found that waiting longer than the bottle recommended worked out better - we waited about 10 minutes. And I don't think you can go wrong waiting even longer.

After your time is up, wipe away the cream (Use gloves! Etching cream is nasty stuff.) and remove your stencil. Voila! Simple, quick and so pretty.

These goblets were my project. B Daddy made fun of the idea of having numbered glasses, but I LOVE them. No more, is this my glass or yours?? 4 is my favorite number. Drinking from my Four Glass makes me smile. And I am sure I've seen etched glasses like these somewhere expensive before...

I loved my aunt's sweet country-esque design. Perfect for the kitchen!

And we all loved Mom's Laugh Often vase...who wouldn't love to see that on their desk?!

My cousin made monogrammed beer steins and wine glasses for her neighbors but I somehow failed to get any pictures of her pieces. I think she was the only one of us who planned to gift any of her projects anyways, the idea of parting with any of our beautiful projects was too much for the rest of us to bear. Guess we'll be needing to have a Christmas in September party too...

Shark Tooth Beach

Last week while y'all were being inundated with Craft Room posts from Yours Truly, the kiddos and I took a break from our normal routine and drove down to Savannah with my mom for some extended family time.

Thank heaven Mom came along or I would have turned the car around before we reached Turner Field. (I realize now that parental threats of "Stop that this instant or I'll turn this car around!" were not in fact threats at all but rather desperate pleas for a good excuse to forgo the road trip altogether.)

Anyway...we left Monday, came home Thursday and managed to squeeze in two trips to the pool, a day at the beach and a boat ride to a deserted island. We had a great time, but it was not in the slightest bit relaxing. I think I need to adjust my expectations on what it means to "vacation" with two littles. The character Claire from Modern Family summed up the trip perfectly, "I'm a mom traveling with my kids. For me, this is not a vacation - it's a business trip."

So back to that deserted island thing. My wonderfully chivalrous and Elijah-adored cousin agreed to take us out on his boat one afternoon along the Savannah River. Once we got on the boat he asked if we just wanted to cruise around or go look for shark teeth.

Um, hello!? Was I or was I not the kid who wanted to be an archaeologist? Suffice it to say I had no interest in merely cruising around.

We came.

We dug.

We discovered. (Literally dozens!)

We got buck-nekid and splashed around. (Ok so, only one of us did this...)

We pooped out.

Now I'm trying to decide what to do with E's collection of shark teeth. Right now they are rattling around in a baby food jar. (Enough with the baby food jars already Katie.) I was thinking of creating something like this and putting it up in his room (using shark teeth, not cereal. Duh.) Any suggestions?

A Cars Party

A certain someone turned 2 earlier this month and appropriately we celebrated with two parties - one at our house with my family and one at the lake with B Daddy's extended family. The one at our house was the one I took all the pictures of apparently.

One of Squirt's (and our) favorite kiddo movies so far has been Cars. Clearly a Cars-themed party was in order.

We kept it simple and spent under $30 on everything non-food related which I thought was decent. (My splurge was $3.80 for clearance priced Cars plates that I completely forgot to use at the lake party. Awesome.)

The guests were greeted by a checkered flag balloon arrangement.

More balloons and a homemade birthday banner festified the inside of the house. (Balloons = cheap + festive. Does it get better than that? This party planner says no.)

I painted yellow stripes down the middle of some black wrapping paper, added a few cars and voila! a tablecloth that matched the party theme for a few dollars.

After lunch we played a Cars-ified version of cornhole in the front yard, using tire inner tubes and homemade bean bags.

The bean bag toss somehow morphed into toddler bumper cars...which was more fun for everyone involved anyway.

Back inside there was a song to be sung and a Cars cake to be eaten.

Presents were given and received. What a joy to watch this face light up over shoes and a ball!

And finally, a movie was watched to end the afternoon. Has it really been just two years since our life accelerated into this new phase called parenthood?