Did you do anything fun for today? 9/09/09? 

I did!

I went and bought The Beatles: Rockband! I got to play it a little bit with my boys after homework and dinner. It’s fun to watch Owen play the drums and listen to Perrin sing what he knows as he’s strumming the bass! I’m really enjoying the set up of this Rockband addition. It’s a little weird to not select and create your own character, but you soon don’t care as you strum, sing, or drum along with John, Paul, George, and Ringo. It’s even entertaining for those watching the screen instead of playing along. Each song is like a music video and fun to watch on it’s own. Afterall, you already like the music and enjoy singing along if you’re buying this, right?

Unfortunately, I have to wait until Friday to go watch 9. Would have been awesome to see it today and complete my number nine day! LOL! I’ll share my thoughts on the movie during the weekend.

I love this little fish bowl. We bought these delightful glass sea adventure several years ago at The Block. I’m guessing these are about 8 years old - we’re both having a bad time of remembering when exactly we bought them. You know, doing the parent thing where you try to remember which kids you had or how old they were when you got something. LOL! That’s when you realize that time really does fly!

Anyway, we recently rediscovered our little trinkets when we were preparing for our new washer and dryer. These had been carefully wrapped in tissue paper, placed inside the fishbowl and stored in the washer and dryer area. Since the rediscovery we’ve enjoyed the whimsy of having our own sea life.

You can’t see all of them in this picture, but in this bowl we have an octopus, two starfish, a goldfish, a blue whale, a killer whale, a dolphin, a shrimp, a clam, a sting ray, and the little yellow submarine. Which is actually a blue and yellow submarine, but we won’t tell it that. I have no idea what each one cost, but I’m glad we splurged and got as many as we did. Sometimes it’s fun to get something a little spontaneous and a little whimsical.

Hmmmm, and it’s got me remembering why we bought them to begin with. Perrin’s baby room had an ocean theme. So these are 8 - 9 years old. Maybe my memory isn’t as bad as I think it is after all!

It’s just hard to hear it as I’m singing that song in my head every time I see my little sub.

It’s been a long time since I’ve picked up my paper crafting supplies to make something cute and fun. A couple of Saturdays ago I hosted a baby shower for one of my Sisters-in-Law (I have seven). It was a good “excuse” to break out my scallop scissors and dust off my paper trimmer. Seriously, I had to dust it off. How sad is that?

I wanted to make a cute decoration and with a baby shower theme of “baseball” I thought making a pennant banner would be perfect! I used the instructions created by Jenn in her tutorial over on Splitcoaststampers: Pennant Banner

As you can see, mine is a simplified version of the festive holiday one in the tutorial. I omitted letter embellishments and opted to string mine together by punching holes in each top corner and threading the twill tape thru them. This allowed for me to adjust the placement of the pennants. They are easily kept separated by the ribbon embellishments between each one. I found the cute designer papers in Michaels and the ribbons are various ones from my stash that went with the colors on the papers. I backed each pennant with an ivory cardstock and used my scallop scissors for the added design.

Yes, I love Martha Stewart.

Here you can get an idea of what it looked like hanging the full length of our ode to Ikea library area in the front room. We’re not addicted to these Expedit bookcases, why would you say such a thing? Just don’t look in any other of our rooms, or you’ll call me a liar. I blame it on Ikea for making them in such a variety of sizes and in white.

I’d also feel better if you’d ignore the poorly decorated tops of the bookcases. I’m working on it. Got some simple white frames yesterday so I can start adding more family photos. I’ll have to explain the photos that are currently along the top at another time.

The favors were very simple but I thought they looked pretty cute. After all, everything looks cute in a cello bag! Each cello bag had a pack of Cracker Jacks and sunflower seeds. I really wanted to do peanuts and Cracker Jacks, but couldn’t find individually packaged peanuts. So I went for the favorite “baseball” snack of my Brothers-in-Law and got sunflower seeds to add to the bags. I did use peanuts as the guessing game. They were shelled and in a very cute milk can container that I found and wished I kept for myself. Haha!

I created the simple “thank you” banner using scraps from the pennant banner and the sentiment from the SU! set Family Phrases. Then I punched two holes to thread the cake tester pick thru and secured them to the cello bag with the twill tape. I used a cake tester pick because they are longer than toothpicks so it gave me more area to work with when tying the stick to the bag.

It was a lot of fun and I was quite tired from being up so late the week prior to the baby shower. But I found that these simple touches helped to pull the theme together and I didn’t have to spend a lot on pre-made decorations. Which is why we spend so much on paper crafting supplies and tools, right? To safe money? LOL!!

I do love a yummy bowl of Cream of Wheat. Even during our crazy heat spike, it’s still yummy in the morning when you need a little something for a sore throat. Putting it in a cute yellow bowl helps, too.

These past few weeks I’ve been busy with the boys in school - doing homework and getting used to the new schedule, my days go by so fast now that they get out at 2:10 on Mon, Tues, Thurs, and Fri then out at 1:10 on Weds.

I hosted a successful baby shower for one of my Sisters-in-Law this past weekend. Couldn’t have done it without the help of my other wonderful Sisters-in-Law! It was fun to do some paper crafting for the decorations and favors! It’s been a long time since I’ve picked up my scalloped scissors! I’ll share a short post on the two projects later.

I also had a sick little boy and a sick big boy during my little “blog break” and it was my turn these past couple of days. After getting some rest today I’m feeling much better!

Got an exciting delivery today! How I love getting boxes from Amazon when I know there’s something in there for me, too! LOL! Today’s delivery included the books Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes and Layer Cake, Jelly Roll and Charm Quilts. I’ve already decided on the first cupcake recipe and almost have the first quilt pattern decided on. If I make it to the store today, I plan to pick up the stuff for the cupcakes! YUM!

I hope it’s not boiling in your neck of the woods this weekend. We are in the 100s, so this weekend’s activities will include things like taping ice cubes to our foreheads and standing by the air conditioning vents.

So far I’m not adjusting well to the new school hours. LOL! We went to 7:45 start time from the previous years of starting at 8:25.

To top it off, I have a horrible time sleeping in the hot! Apparently Owen does, too.

Wednesday hours are different from the rest of the week, so I need to remember to pick them up at the right time.

I’m hoping I adjust to this soon because all I want to do when I get back home is take a nap! LOL!

New School Year - 3
Me - 0

Today is the first day of our new school year for my boys. We are year-round over here, with I rather enjoy. We are particularly excited this year because we changed tracks and actually got s mock summer vacation by getting July off (on our old track, we would have started school after the 4th). So this morning was full of excitement to begin school, have new teachers and meet new friends.

Each year I like to take a picture of the boys in front of our front door. It serves as my way of measuring how they’ve grown since the year before. We don’t mark their height inside doors, something that I think is quite charming and secretly wish that we did, so taking a tradition front door picture serves as my “door marking”.

It also serves as a reminder for me to get those stupid curtains done! The lighting is awful and they are hard to see, but tradition doesn’t always make sense, right?

Note their keychains. Keychains are quite a rage for backpacks with many of the kids these days. I took them on Saturday to pick out a cool keychain and left with a Pokemon and a Bakugaun. Dang it, Jenna, I can’t spell these words and Owen has been so excited about Back-you-gone since Cody’s baptism. So they’ll have more to talk about next time they hang out. Hehe!

Perrin is starting 4th grade this year! I can’t believe it! Time flies and yet I still feel like he’s still my little boy who used to dance to the Wiggles while Mommy napped on the couch when I was expecting Owen. I don’t think he’ll dance to the Wiggles anymore and it’s a good thing because I heard Greg got replaced (willingly) and I just don’t think the group looks right anymore. But I still like Captain Feathersword. He’s funny stuff.

I hope 4th grade doesn’t kill him, because I like that kid a lot. I am a little worried since he had a pile of books up to the top of his head on his desk. It’s true! But I got other kids in the picture so I’m not going to share it here. I’m hoping the shock of text books isn’t too bad. We are blessed to have his teacher this year. She was his Kindergarten teacher and switched tracks and grades. She’s just awesome, can’t say it enough!

Owen is starting 2nd grade this year! He was really excited to meet his new teacher and had fun exploring the classroom before school started. I’m also really excited about his teacher this year, I’ve only heard good things about him and the room is charmingly fun. Owen was excited to see the Jolly Roger flag over their names and there seems to be a bit of a pirate theme for the classroom responsibilities. Plus there is Mr. Banana. You’ll hear more about him as the year goes on.

I had a friend ask me if I cry when they go back to school. My response, No - I pray that they are behaving themselves! LOL!

Then they come home and give me this:

Then I cry.

Thankfully I have a magic pen. It’s true! My brother made it for me so I know it’s magic!

I’m just hoping it is magic enough to keep me from getting a hand cramp.

I really feel badly for all of you with more than two kids this time of year!

It’s hot dogs for dinner tonight, kids! Mommy has homework.

I get some of the biggest surprises during my just-before-bed rounds that I make to check on the boys. I go in for normal stuff, like fixing pillows, fixing covers, kicking toys to the side to make a path just incase the end of the world happens while we’re sleeping and we’ll need to run in and get them in the middle of the night - because who wants to step on a toy when you’re trying to save somebody? Not me, especially not on G.I. Joes. Those hurt, I know.

Yes, I get paranoid at night.

That being said, opening up the door to a little boy’s bedroom in the middle of the night is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get. My Momma never said that.

Last night I saw this behind Door Number 1:

Goose has a bad habit of not going to bed right away. Some days I go in a billion times to tell him to stop playing (by the light of his nightlight, mind you. He’s learned that I know when his bedroom light is on). Other nights he’s quiet enough to fool me to think that he actually went to sleep. Last night was one of those nights because wearing praying mantis eyes to bed is not normal.

It makes me laugh. He got these as a gift for Christmas this past year, and at least I can show my Sister-in-Law Jenna that she scored again! I can’t imagine it was very comfortable to fall asleep with those on, he must have been pretty tired by that time.

Behind Door Number 2 was this:

Apparently Mister hasn’t gotten the memo that’s it is hot and not fleece blanket weather. Make that “two layer fleece blanket” weather.

I get all sweaty just thinking of him being wrapped up in his fleece cocoon at the end of July.

But it doesn’t stop there.

This one may not get up and rummage around his room after I close the door for the night, but he does sleep with a tower of stuffed animals above his head. On his pillow.

Personally, I’d shove all those guys on the floor and sleep on my pillow. Then I remember what it looks like under his pillow. Apparently “under the pillow” is a treasure dumping ground full of toys (G.I. Joes, Transformers), books, pencils, zippered pencil pouches, and money. The only time the underside of his pillow is cleared out is when the Tooth Fairy comes because there is no way she could find a tooth in that mess. That’s when I realize that it’s probably more comfortable to sleep on the mattress and shove the tower of stuffed animals on the bumpy pillow.

But the fleece blanket is still making me sweaty.

You know those patterns I just love? The ones that tell me how to make this:

and this:

Well, she’s having a fun give-away every day this week on her blog found here:

Bit of Whimsy Dolls

This could be your chance to win one of her patterns along with other fun prizes each day!

You won’t want to miss out, so check in each day!

It’s been getting hot over here and my blogging slowed down, mostly due to the boys taking swim lessons from their Auntie Heather. They’ve been having tons of fun, making lots of progress and it’s been a great way to start the day with the temperatures rising!

Unfortunately the other little boy around here can’t join us in the pool, but when we get home he gets his own water fun.

Ice.

He gets so excited when he hears the ice crusher on the fridge. He’ll run over to watch us fill up a cup and then follow as we take him outside for ice fun.

This is the face I get when he gets that first piece of ice.

Ahhh! Refreshing! See the watery snout!? Don’t you love it?

Then begins “Ice Face”.

If only you could hear the crunching noises that occur in the next few photos. We still haven’t gotten tired of his chewing noises and giggle as we watch his mouth. LOL!

Then when he’s done with that piece, the faces start all over again.

Sometimes it’s followed by a very wet and very cold puppy kiss.

Which is another good way to cool off.

The boys have started swimming lessons with their Auntie Heather and are having a blast! On the first day it was nice and relaxing after lessons because it wore them out. Then I realized it was a little too quiet, and every parent knows what that usually means! So I went looking for Owen only to spy him in the backyard and sitting in the shade with Sammy. It was so sweet to watch him talking to Sam and giving him hugs. It’s rare for me to catch just Owen and Sam so I snagged my camera and took some candid shots of them together. This one just melts my heart!

So sweet!