Vampires....

Wierd title...I know.

My sister Katie has been reading the Twilight book series by Stephanie Meyers. I was not interested when she said it involved a vampire. That's not usually my cup of tea! But I have noticed so many of my friends are fans of the books, so there must be something to it...so I borrowed Katie's book...and now I'm hooked. I've read books 1 and 2 and soon #3 and woo hooo, book 4 comes out this week! Yeah!

The movie comes out in December! Diana and I have a date for the midnight showing....any one else want to join in?!

9 Years...and counting!

If you don't like pictures of married people kissing...consider yourself warned!

Sean and I have been married for a total of 9 short years as of today! If I could have imagined how wonderful married life was going to be...I wouldn't have waited two years to marry him! I am truely thankful for such a loving and kind husband. I won't gush but I will say that I feel like the luckiest girl in the world to have dibbs on this guy!

Happy Anniversary Sean. I love you.

Just engaged.















Wedding Day.

Playing in the park!

My best friend!

I love you.

My kids have a great Daddy!

I love Sean. I love my dad and I have to confess that I didn't think anyone could ever be such a great daddy. But I was wrong. Sean is so awesome. He is the "calm one" in the family. He comes home happy -no matter how long, hot and messy his day has been. The kids usually get excited and run and hide when they hear the keys in the door. (I love this tradition, even though they usually hide in the same places!) Ty can't keep his excitement in and runs up to give his daddy a good punch in the mid-section. (Luckily, Sean has learned to expect this and will dodge the well placed punches!) The boys, of course, have had enough of us girls and immedietly demand some wrestling time. Sean makes some mean pancakes (which Ridge requests for 3 meals a day lately). He plays with the kids, watches Star Wars and Indiana Jones with them. He plays in the water, takes them camping, and has even painted Carly's fingernails. He has also been helping to coach Ridge's t-ball team. I haven't mentioned that he does all this and still manages to work with the boy scouts and fit in a few other projects of his own.
We are so thankful for a daddy that is so unselfish, kind and loving.
We love you Sean!

Carefree days of summer...

I love summer. I remember loving it as a kid. I could play with my sisters all day long and most of those days were spent outside. We grew up with a trampoline in our back yard and we spent countless hours jumping and living in our own little world. When we were very young, our trampoline had an imaginary dome on it and we lived inside. In our world, we were always under the attack of the mischevious "beastie boys" and luckily the brave and cute "beach boys" always came to our rescue! We jumped with the sprinkler spraying us from underneath and slept out under the stars.

We were amazed at the tricks our dad and uncles could perform on it and as we got stronger and braver, attempted our own amazing stunts. We played hours of "add-on" and "seat-send" and spent many more on a blanket in the sun with our homework or a good book.

We had our own little "secret signal" that we would flash in the house to call each other out to the trampoline. Sometimes we used it so that we wouldn't be followed by the younger ones, and occasionally, we used it to "quietly" sneak out and get out of doing our chores! I'm sure my mom never guessed! We grew up outside with plenty of room and encouragement to grow strong and free and confident.

Naturally, I have wished for the same experiences for my kidos, so I was so pleased to look outside today and see them enjoying the carefree days of summer!

Butcher Paper Stencils

I saw this technique out in blogland. I can't remember who's blog...but it is so much fun. They did this project on onesies and t-shirts. We used it on our reusable grocery bags we made from some scrap fabric. I think this would be a great way to personalize a backpack to get ready for school...oohh, or on the pockets of a pair of old jeans!

This is a really fun activity to do with your kids. It's a little time consuming cutting out the design, but it is so much fun to lift the stencil and see the final product! Very gratifying.

Instructions:

Trace a pattern onto butcher paper (glossy side down) and then cut it out with an exacto knife. (The samples from the site where we got the idea included elves and simple silhouettes found on the computer. A lot simpler than what we did. I think we went a little overboard!)

Iron the paper (again, glossy side down) onto your project (fabric).

Now paint the design with fabric paints. (We only had white paint, so we added some glitter to the butterfly's for some fun color!)

Peel the stencil off and let it dry and you're done!

(Follow the paint instructions for painting on fabric. You may need to set it by ironing when it's dry).

It really is that easy and it's so much fun!

Hope you're enjoying your summer, Lisa

Feeling Crafty

Right around the holidays, we start feeling a little crafty. I recently borrowed my mom's sewing machine and Carly and I have been sewing like crazy! (The kids help me run the presser foot and Carly loves ironing!) Carly helped design her own apron last week and it turned out so cute. Yesterday, we dug out the fabric scraps and made some reusable grocery bags. We want to add a few things to those, so we'll post pictures of them later if they turn out cute. Today, we dug out some red, white and blue fabric and set to work making a little patriotic flag banner to put on the mirror in the entry. The kids gave it a thumbs up, so we made a few more to give away on our family night. While we had the red, white and blue out, I got an idea for an apron for Carly. It's reversable to red and white. I liked it and thought it turned out sweet, so I had to try to make an apron out of a vintage pillowcase I picked up at Savers. I think it turned out cute!
Not too bad for a bunch of scraps!