Projects

This year for Mother's day I requested a little work around the house be done.  Well, my man delivered.  Not only did we finish up a few misc. projects but he also bought me a new one of these babies as a little extra Mother's Day gift!  Of which I am in love with, almost as much as some of the newly redone areas of the house.  Here's a little peek at why I've been missing from the blogging world.

Tyler painted the hallway.  I'm still working on making a chalkboard for inside the frame.  But I am tickled grey every time I walk down the hall {which is multiple times a day}.  Thanks babe, your patience amazes me every time.


We worked on our master bedroom a little as well.  I had Tyler hang another shelf that I've had for awhile, while I redecorated them.  I'm a fan of the outcome.

Then, I got an itch to create something and went to town on a massive canvas I purchased at Michael's.  Not sure if I'm completely done with it, but for now it will do.  I will have Tyler hang it up sometime this weekend.

I've collected these fun butterflies throughout my excursions to Goodwill and such.  I put a quick coat of spray paint on them and voila!  A fun {and somewhat unique} display for another wall.  I could use a few more, of which I'm sure will grow throughout the months as I find them. {Ignore the blue and white mirrors propped up on the side of my end table.  I'm still searching for a spot to hang them}

I had a little paint so I decided I wanted to paint the inside of my pantry door.  It's a fun little surprise that brightens my day each and every time I have to fish something up for the kidlings.  {Still a few touchups needed towards the bottom, another thing to add to the weekend list}

I made this fun little sign for the door that leads us into our garage.  Simple thrift store frame, spray paint, a little chalk board paint and instant cuteness.

We sold a few unused things lying around the house on craigslist and in return bought some storage pieces at Ikea.  I've wanted these for awhile and it's nice to have them along with all the toys {for the most part} organized within them.  I may end up regretting this in a few months, but for now it works great.  Eventually I will get all matching bins.

I got my Family Rules poster made into a canvas and hung up on the wall.  I'm loving it.  I want to make a thousand more of these.  So many ideas, so little time and money.  I did make this one, however,

as my Bunko gift for this past weekend.  It turned out cute and so easy to do.
I've also spent some time these past few weeks doing a little antiquing and misc. shopping for a client.  During which time I found this little gem,

Very excited about that.  I totally remember having this when I was growing up.  The kids love it.  Lola even tries to hide in it on a regular basis.  I've come to terms with the fact that she is going to slowly destroy it.  I wasn't really thinking of her destructive behavior towards anything of value when purchasing it.  Til then, we'll enjoy the fantastic vintageness it brings to the family of toys in the house.

oh yeah, and the best part of the week has been this new addition to the back yard.

Summer is here and I have a feeling we'll be spending a lot of time in this little puppy, with or without swimming suits.  As a mother to three children who don't know how to swim, this is a perfect solution {for now}.

Car Castle's

Tommy has rediscovered his "Cars" in a big way this summer.  He loves playing with them.  He drives them over every surface in the house.  Making little homes for them along the way.

So the other day while we were all crazy bored at home, I decided to build him a little castle for his cars.  I made all sorts of places for the cars to hide and park, sleep or even fill up with gas.  Whatever his imagination wanted.

Problem: as soon as we would complete one wing, Lola would somehow find a way to destroy it.  We learned to work fast and rebuild often.  I made her one that was destroyed before it was even played with.  Ahh, the life of a toddler.  Destruct everything and clap when your done. {of course, this makes Toms very irritated and doesn't help the whole "try to play with your sister" suggestion} But Thomas was surprisingly good to let Lola play and didn't seem to mind when she came for his castle to conquer and then destroy it!



{Lola going in for the kill}

Later that day after lunch I got a little crazy and made their handprints for Tyler's Birthday present from them.  Cause you know Tyler really cares about this kind off stuff {wink, wink}.

Raining Sunshine

I love it when it's raining in the sunshine.  It mixes the beautiful sun with the cool relaxing rain fall.  It makes the rain so cheery instead of dreary.  This is the sight out our back door.
{Ignore the untamed foliage in our back yard.  It's a full time job that we just can't find the time to do.}

Summer of '09, Greatest Hits

I figured I'd take a little blogger laxative and spill the memories for everyone.

So. Get. Comfortable.

Here we are on the weekend after the fourth. We go to see our fireworks show on the back nine at Encanto Golf Course. We are right up in the action, it's almost scary how close we sit.

Seriously, we were that close!

We went swimming with my fam for the fourth of July at my Mom's neighbors house. Toms LOVED the water that night.

He could jump in fast enough. He must have gone off the diving board 15 times.

My Brother Johnny and a naked Lola. She too loved the water.

The crazy jump competition. I thought this was a great action shot of Jimmy.

Love Joe's head just barely sticking up out of the water.

We also attended about a hundred All*Star games for Tyler's nephew's. Cody even made it to State. Good job to all who played. It made for some great entertainment for the family. Hot, but fun!

We hosted a couple different "Spend The Nights" at our place. Toms loves having his cousins come over to play. On this particular occasion we had SEVEN different kids spending the night. Not including our own two. Needless to say it was a full house! It's all about making memories though.

We also went to the public pools a few times. Here we took Toms{of course}, Buffy, Gracie and Emma. They love playing with each other so I try to get them together as much as possible to build their relationship. Buffy is my niece, from my side of the family and the others two are on Tyler's side. They love each other and even refer to each other as cousins. I think it's just so cute! I love 8 year old girls and all the fun they have!

Then we celebrated what would have been the 58th Birthday of my dad. He passed away on his Birthday so every year we get together as a family to celebrate his life and legacy. This year marks the 9th year he's been gone. Crazy how time flies. We sure do miss him.

{Dad and Cami at High School Graduation, 1997}

Next we spent a few different days at the mall playgrounds. Hey, it's cool and it's free! This is Jack, Tessa Toms and Seth {as well as some kid I don't know, apparently the other boys go to school with him}. They have a blast and it occupies them for hours and Tiff and I get to catch up. Good times!

Toms having way too much fun on the play train.

Lola not knowing what is going on.

Seth giving the kids a tour of the mall. "Keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times."

"Sup?" Lola in the hood!

Another trip to the mall with cousins. This time with Audrey, Joey and William. I loved this pick of sweet Audrey. You can tell she's having a good time. Thanks for calling us Jimmy to play. We need to do it again.

Picture time with Ashley and friends. You can see more of the shots HERE. Thanks for such a fun tradition Ash!

Toms was quite the poser!

Just hanging around the house, A LOT!! Here Toms is playing with Lola. She loves bouncing in her bouncer and he loves watching her.

Lola's First taste of food. Yum, cereal with Prune Juice.

Tommy FOREVER wanting to hold her! He really is much more gentle then I expected. ...and she loves him playing with her, go figure.

I finally bought Toms his own pair of big boy scissors. He's been begging for months. So he has his own little set of school supplies. Hey whatever keeps him occupied for 15 minutes at a time is great with me.

We also took Toms to the play place at good ol' McD's. One day we stopped and picked up little miss Provence to join us. They played and ate then played then ate. It was fantastic. They are still too small to climb up the play equipment so they just play around the bottom of it. Perfect, that means I never have to go up there after them. This was the best shot I could get. Toms was being silly and not posing for me. So I picked the one where P looks darling!

Me being bored while they played so I thought I'd play with the camera a bit. and yes, this was the best shot out of like 20. Sad, I know.

Wow, a lot, huh! Told ya. Thanks for all the memories. Goodbye Summer and Hello school year. Too bad we can't say goodbye heat yet!

Has it been that long?

Wow, time flies. I mean to post update's, but then the time gets away from me.

Toms is having a great summer so far. Really every season is summer when you're a two year old. But we have enjoyed doing a lot more with all the cousins. Going swimming at the public pools, having play dates at different houses, seeing the summer kid movies at the theatre, playing in the splash pad's all over town.

{Tempe Beach Park with Kiki and the Kids}

You know, fun summer stuff. Yesterday we went and saw "Kung Fu Panda" with Kiki, Jimmy and ALL the kids. It was crazy but fun. The theatre was filled with other kids and a few old couple's {Random} so if the babies started to get fussy it didn't really matter. That was nice. Plus when it's only $1 to go to the movies, that's a fabulous way to kill two hours of our day. Then everyone came over to our house to hang for a bit. It was nice to catch up with my siblings, even if we were surrounded by screaming children. We had some lunch and Kiki and I tried to figure out my sewing machine while the babies slept {We never could get it to work though, bummer}. Then they left, we took a little nap and then we had Taco Night at our house. My In-Laws host "Wednesday Night Taco Night's", and it's usually at their house but last night it was at our place. So we had another house full. It's always very entertaining and fun to have all Tyler's family over. Needless to say it was a very busy day.

We have also been trying to do a new rewards system with Toms. I made this cute board to help keep track of Tommy's tokens. {Thanks for the idea Sherrie!}

Once he gets all the Tokens we are thinking maybe we'll take him to Sea World? We'll see. I personally don't think he'll ever get that far. He either loses them too fast or uses them for little prizes. He doesn't quite get the concept of collecting all of them for one BIG thing. He'd rather cash them in as we go for a bunch of little things. This is a picture of all the little things:

Lots of fun from the dollar store. Anyway, the most he's gotten at once is 12. He needs like 40. We'll keep you posted on his progress. Of course, if Tyler doesn't get a bonus this summer like he did the last three summer's then I'll make it so Toms never gets to 40 simply because we won't be able to afford it. So it can go either way. Until we know it gives Toms a little bit of incentive to help out around the house and get rewarded for good behavior.

Father's day was great. I got Tyler a Massage from this lovely lady as his gift from me and the kids. Toms made this for him:

He had so much fun painting it. This was his first time using paints. I figured I could break out the messy stuff once in awhile. It of course, didn't last very long. I thought it would keep him occupied for a lot longer. But it was still a good time for him. Then he got to play in the water for a bit. I mean, he was already naked. That always a good time.

Tyler did great on his triathlon. He was able to recruit a friend at the last minute and they both finished at just about the same time.

{Richard & Tyler right before the race}

He finished in 1:44 minutes. Not bad for a first timer. Way to go Babe, we were so proud of you {and glad it's over}!

{Get your tickets to the gun show ladies!}

In Lola news:

She is doing great. Always happy! Getting SO fat! and not quite sleeping through the night. She had a couple of really great nights where she slept for like 5 hours straight, but those have become a thing of the past {insert sad face}. But it's still ok because even though I get up three times in the night she sleeps in until 9 or even sometimes 10. So I can handle it. She is close to 12 pounds and a little over three months old. She has started talking up a storm, it's so cute and loves to smile and get attention. She's getting a little spoiled with being held all the time, so I need to try and curve that a bit. I don't want to end up with another Tommy. He's still too much of a handful, I don't want to end up with two spoiled kids. I'm getting close to putting her in her crib soon. She's getting old enough to know her surroundings and I don't want her getting used to being in our room {another mistake I made with the first one}.

Anyway, I've been working on a few fun projects around the house. I've got before and after pics to show once I finish. I'm also trying to get my Binky Clips up on a website to get some more sales with them. I've made some really cute ones lately and need to try and sell some more of them to help pay for some odds and ends around here. I need to get my Photoshop back up and running before I can get that blog gong though. Hopefully that will happen next week sometime. I hate not having my Creative Suite. I'm so lost without it!

So I just saw that Farrah Faucet & Michael Jackson died today. Neither of which makes any difference in my life. Crazy, really makes you think. Or not. I'm sure we'll hear about this in the news for weeks now.

Alright, well I'm gonna try and get some exercising in tonight. I still have about 7 pounds to lose before Monday when "The biggest loser" ends. Probably NOT going to happen, but I'll still semi try. Have a great night and try to stay cool in these HOT summer days!

Later!