Summer has Begun!!

So summer has officially begun. School is out! The weather is nice and sunny and warm-for the most part anyway. We have had a storm or two. But that has been in the evening or at night. Overall, I have to say its been a great start to the summer! So far its been almost perfect!! [It would be completely perfect if our house will sell. But don't worry I won't rant on and on about that....in this post anyway. :)]

So far, I think the majority of my summer has been spent out in our driveway watching the boys ride their bikes. This has been their favorite thing to do this summer. And I don't mind one bit! They are having great fun! Much better than watching TV and playing video games. I love it too because I am able to read books while sitting in the sun! Alex is starting to become a little bit of a dare devil on his bike. He likes to stand up on the bar while whizzing down the street. He is very proud!!

We have also been doing sidewalk chalk. We meaning Zach mostly, Josh quite a bit and Alex NONE. :) Zach created a Spongebob scene of Gary the snail, Spongebob, Patrick and a fish. I think he is so creative!!

We've also had some family in town. Matt's aunt and uncle from Seattle were here and we had a BBQ here with them. It was really great to see them. We wish we could see them more often!

Josh discovered his love of black olives. I am not sure if he loved eating them more or playing with them.

We got out a kids table for the first time and that was AWESOME!! Matt and I decided we should do that more often- even when we don't have company! :) It was a really nice evening!

We have started to let the boys stay up a little later since its summer. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. I suppose when you run hard all day you eventually just drop. Now if we can just teach them that if they do stay up late, they should sleep in and not get up early!!

We have also gone swimming a couple of times. I blogged about going to the lake HERE. But we have also gone swimming at Prairie Life. Josh, Zach, and Alex are in the hot pool in the picture above. They want to do this after we are done swimming each time. Even when its almost 90 outside. Weird! Although I do see the appeal. Its a "deep" pool their size that is nice and warm.

Katie and Andi even went with us one time. That was fun! Isn't she the cutest?!?!? She had fun in the water and loved watching Josh. Its always more fun swimming with friends!

So far the summer is off to a great start!! Can't wait to see what else is in store for us!

A Baby Shower and Birthdays

This past Saturday Genna and I threw Allison a baby shower. We are all very excited to meet the new baby and wanted to celebrate it. Genna was awesome to host it at her beautiful new home.

It was your normal shower. The guests came from near and far. My aunt Jane came from Kansas, as did Wade's aunt Melba. Another cousin came from Des Moines. Allison's mom and second mom came from Iowa. Add all the locals and Allison is very loved!! :) When everyone arrived we ate brunch together.

And it was delicious! My aunt Mary Carol and my mom helped with the cooking. That is why it was good. :) Next we gave a little advice to Allison. I really hope we didn't scare her! We were only trying to help. :) Next came presents.

Like I said it was a normal and lovely shower. After the shower the men (well, not my men...they were busy doing other things) came over to Genna's. The men I am talking about are my cousin Wade (the father to be), my Uncle Harry (grandpa to be), and my Uncle Bert from Kansas.

We all decided to go to the Hot Shops. I have never heard of this place before. Which evidently means that I have been living under a rock!! It is a warehouse downtown that holds a bunch of different artists' studios. Since it was the weekend of Berkshire Hathaway they were holding an open house.

It was a fantastic three floor showing of various artists and their work. There was welding, jewelry making, paintings, paper making, photography, woodwork, and I am sure I am missing so much more. They had various artists creating what they did best. SO COOL to watch!! I could have spent thousands of dollars there. Lucky for me (and Matt) I didn't have money with me.

My uncle Harry enjoyed this piece of art. I think he should make some of these as he has gotten into welding as well. I also think Genna should put some of her art into the gallery there as well.

It was an awesome couple of hours. I wish that they had open houses more often!! Definately a place I would like to go to again!

And because that wasn't a busy enough day, we all decided to go out to my aunt and uncle's farm for dinner. Some relatives had come into town for Allison's shower and it was Harry's birthday that day, my mom's birthday the following day, and Matt's and Jon's birthday coming up in a couple of weeks- so we decided to celebrate all the May birthdays that evening. The weather was so nice that we spent time outside doing things like playing catch....

And riding bikes.....

And taking pictures of various things...

But I think the highlight of the evening was Wade giving us a tractor ride.

He took us everywhere!!!

On a farm, you have a lot of space you can go to!

It was all great fun!! It is so nice to get together with family and celebrate events like baby showers and birthdays. We are looking forward to getting together again and meeting the new baby at the end of June!!

Fun with the Boys

This week the boy's are on spring break. I wanted to so some fun activities with them. I started to think (uh oh) and realized that his would be the LAST spring break we will have together. This fall they are starting kindergarten and I am thinking about going back to work (fingers crossed). So this was it. Its the last one we will have together. I got really sad. So i started to plan something fun for us to do each day they were off.

Well, after thinking about it a little more, and being really tired by Thursday due to packing in "all the fun", I have rethought my thoughts. Even though the boys are starting kindergarten this fall, they will still have a spring break every year. AND what is more- even if I do go back to work this fall, I will get a spring break too! So if everything works out, our spring breaks will be the same and we can still do fun things together. I am too extreme in my thinking sometimes. :)

Anyway- Monday I took them shopping. A little toy shopping and a little clothes shopping- sounds great right? Alex and I enjoyed it. Josh and Zach aren't shoppers. So it wasn't the hit I was hoping it would be. But it was still fun for a while.

Tuesday I took them to paint pottery.

It was...hmmmm....I don't quite know how to explain it. It was fun, but stressful. Creative, yet exhausting. Does that make sense? They have never done anything like this before. I personally find painting pottery very zen like. Yeah, there is NOTHING zen about painting with the boys. My expectations were WAY off. However, it was really fun. I think picking out the item to paint was the most stressful part. Too many choices. Then we had to pick out the colors. Again lots of choices, but this time they know the colors they like so it wasn't such a painful process. Plus they could choose as many as they wanted. Once we started painting- it was enjoyable.

Josh chose to paint a butterfly. Alex chose a cat. Zach chose a fish. They really seemed to enjoy painting each of their items. Of course they each had their own ideas and ways to do it.

Josh wanted his butterfly to be really colorful.

Alex wanted his purple. It looks blue in the picture but the paint changes after firing it. He then put red dots all over it. But he assured me the cat doesn't have chicken pox, he is just a normal red spotted cat.

Zach chose two different shades of red. Painted the tail fin orange. Then he lined and spotted his fish green.

Picture taken by Alex

When Alex was done he asked if he could take some pictures of his cat. I said sure. I needed to keep him busy while Zach and Josh finished up. He got some decent shots and I was really happy my camera didn't have paint all over it when he was finished! We are all very excited to see the finished projects!!

Yesterday (Wednesday) I took the boys swimming. Now that was fun! And I knew it would be. We have done that several times before. It is so great now that they can swim a little bit better. There are no more death grips around my neck (times 3) and no more grabbing onto my swimsuit for dear life (times three-which may involve flashing the other innocent swimmers in the pool-never fun). We actually get to play and swim now. We have come a long way!! With that said- they still have a ways to go.

Today I was planning on the zoo. But to be honest I am tired. I think the boys are too. I think a day to hang out sounds much better for all of us. I figured if we get bored later I will take them to the park or something. After all this isn't the LAST spring break we will have together. ;)

Amazing Awe-inspiring Art

Last night the boys preschool had an art show. It was fabulous!! Each teacher had collected art work throughout the whole year from each student and then displayed it for the show. It was so cool!!

The walls were filled with art. Tables were filled with art. The classes had made various types of sculptures that were in various places. They even had decorated the sidewalk out front with chalk drawings. AND if that wasn't enough-they even had a little snack bar. Unfortunately for me it wasn't wine and cheeses, but that wouldn't have been appropriate for a preschool art show now would it? :) The boys were so excited to show off their work.

Here is Josh with a painting....

and his play-do sculpture.

Alex wanted to show off his sculpture more than his painting- and here is why-

Its batman! I thought his painting was cool too but he didn't want a picture of that.

Zach, my little artist, had two paintings and his sculpture is of a snowman.

We were pulled in- well three different directions to see all the art! Then who showed up?!?! But Grandma and Granddad!!

The boys were so excited to see them AND be able to show their art off again!! Matt and I were happy that they came to.

It was really nice. Not only did they show off their own art, but they wanted us all to see what their friends were doing too.

You can tell it was a lot of work to put together and, in my opinion, it was well worth the effort! Best art show I have ever been to hands down!

After the show we went out to dinner and of course had to celebrate a little with shakes!

So Yummy!!

Day 6 of Seven Days

Earlier this week I came down with a cold or have allergies or something like that, so I wasn't feeling the best. Now that I have found the right medication I feel fantastic!! It must be allergies. Anyway, the boys kept asking to paint or do aqua sand and other various messy activities. I kept saying when I feel better we can do that. Today the allergy meds kicked in and I felt great and the boys did not forget my promise.

So we got out the spinning art, only to find out that the spinner part was broken. Bummer!! We were all a little sad about that. Its kind of a cool thing to do. So we moved onto the next messy project- aqua sand. Between you and me- I HATE AQUA SAND! It is NOT worth the mess. (I also hate moon sand if anyone cares.) I have decided that any type of sand is an OUTDOOR activity....not indoor....ESPECIALLY if you need to keep your house clean because you are wanting to sell it. Anyway I am a woman of my word and let them play it. However those toys may get "lost" in our move. :)

Here is my Day 6 shot:

My alternative shot was this one....but I thought it was too blurry to use.

Josh and I went to the eye doctor to check up on his eye. We were being goofy while waiting for him. The doctor was very happy how much vision he got back in his bad eye, but it wasn't perfect yet so Josh still has to wear a patch for another 6 weeks. Then he will be checked again and see what we need to do from there.

Hooked on Dottery

This morning Bethany and I went to paint some pottery- or should I say dottery. I have always admired Bethany's dottery in her etsy shop. Today I was lucky enough to get my very own lesson in it! And can I just say how much I LOVED it!! I can't wait to do it again. We began by picking out a piece of pottery that we wanted to paint. I chose a plate and Bethany chose a coffee cup.

Next we chose what colors we wanted. Of course we had to have a hot beverage of choice to go along with it! Have I mentioned how much I love chi tea lattes? Man those are good.

I think that was the hardest part of the morning. Choosing what you wanted to do. There are so many choices and possibilities!! Once that decision was made, the rest was all about the dots.

My first dot! :)

My first circle.

Bethany working on her mug.

Of course while we are painting we are chatting away.

Dottery is very zen like. I was so relaxed doing this!!

My first dottery plate!! I love it! Since I am a huge copy cat I decided to write something on it too. Bethany wrote "be mellow." on her mug. So I wanted to write something too. However, she mentioned that most people don't try to paint words on their plate. Most people aren't brave enough to try. I decided to be a dare devil and paint words! My hand was shaking the whole time, but I am proud to say I painted words on my plate!


Fitting don't you think? You know, because I have tripled my fun in life for very obvious reasons! And here is a picture of Bethany's mug.

We had so much fun doing our cup and plate that we decided to make a little magnet too. Again we needed to decide on colors, design, etc. What to do...what to do....

We made our decisions and began painting again. Bethany did a swirl thing and I did a dottery V. I have to admit not a cute as the plate, but not too bad.

These are our finished products, which wont look much like this after they are fired. The paint changes color and gets all shiny. I can't wait to see them when I pick them up next week!!


On a side note. I have also decided to use my creative juices in participating in 7 days. Its where you have to take a picture of yourself everyday for seven days. This is my best shot of today.

This was my runner up. I love that I look so happy and Bethany looks mad or confused. Am I really that hard to teach dottery!? Ha ha ha