A little ho hum

I really do like the summer, I really do. But at the same time I would like it a lot more if I spent three months in Lake Tahoe or at the ocean. About this time every summer I'm starting to feel ready for the structure and busyness of fall. That's my excuse for not blogging this time... anyway here are some pictures, mostly for my mom!

We had a pretty low key Fourth of July, but there were sparklers, always sparklers.


Roger had a business trip in Cincinnati and invited us to come along. We went to the Children's Museum while he was working. Luke is obsessed with lawn mowers. He was so pleased to see they had these in a toddler area of the museum. He tried to push it up the slide. I was a little sad to put a stop to it because I would have liked to see how far he could have gone.

We actually stayed in Covington, KY which is right across the Ohio River from Cincinnati. This huge bell was in the nearby town of Newport. I couldn't really figure it out, but it was huge so I took a picture. It was called the Peace Bell, so there you go...

In June we had to make this rather unfortunate upgrade. Our fridge just stopped working, so we had to replace it. We knew we wanted a new fridge, but I didn't want one right now. There's still the business of the furnace that we need to replace, but I guess your food has to stay cold too.

Before

After. We got this bad boy at the Sears Outlet. It's all dented, but who cares? The price was right and we have kids that dent stuff, it fits right in.

The gargantuan post of things I consider to be both fun and exciting

Here's my unintentional once a month posting and it's chock full of goodness.

May was one of the busiest months we've had. Ashby was playing soccer and softball, Avery was playing t-ball and having dance class once a week. Roger was working a lot and I went to Utah for a week. There are only a few pictures, but trust me we had a good month.

June brought the end of school (YIPEE!!!). Summer has already been eventful and fun. We look forward to more sleeping in, playing outside and doing other summery things.

Look at my all way cooler than me siblings. Aren't they all so beautiful and handsome. I went to Utah for a week because my sister Katie (far right) had some surgery and needed help with her rugrats. I'm not going to lie to you, it was so fun to be away for a little while. Roger took the week off stay home with our kids. Katie and I had so much fun and I got a good dose of my other sisters and brother too.

Avery participated in her year end dance recital. And look Kevin, Kelly and Ethan were there too. We were very glad to be done with dance class and the recital was a great note to end on.

Try not to shudder in horror, but this, people, is my bathroom. Yes it's carpeted, why? Who knows. Note the red towel near the toilet. We had a leaking toilet a few months back and that section of the carpet had to go. I mean really you can only go up from here right? Did you note that I said Kevin and Kelly were here? They never get to come with out being put to work.

This is what they accomplished. Isn't is so great you could cry? Maybe that's just me. There is more to do in this bathroom, but if nothing else got remodeled, I would still be happy. I feel so much joy every time I go in there, I can hardly stand it. Did you know tile could make a person so happy?

We went camping last weekend at Rocky Gap State Park in Maryland. The weather cooperated and we had so much fun. There was a lake so we spent most of the day Saturday swimming. The kids had fun, well I know the girls did and Luke well he's a different story. There was always something going on that made him unhappy, at least he's cute.

This was our little cabin and we also had a tent pad. The bathrooms were just off and to the right, overall it couldn't have worked out better.

Luke ate sand and drank the lake water.

See that canoe? It's holding Kevin, Ashby, Avery and Roger. I think they had fun and no one fell in.

I hope there's much more of this this summer. Being outside and sharing a snack, is there anything better?

Girl, you really got me now

Avery: Life is really hard sometimes.
Me: That's true, but it's also really good sometimes too right?
Avery: Yeah, like especially on pay day.
Me: Yeah that is pretty great.
Avery: Because then you get money.
Me: I like it when we get money.
Avery: But life is really bad when you get in a tornado.
Me: ?????
Avery: That happened to me once.
Me: ???? (comprehension slowly coming)
Roger: She's talking about the game of Life.
She had me going for a while there. Turns out my five year old is not turning into a tiny philosopher, thank heavens!

This happened

on Monday. I was downstairs, the kids were upstairs, I heard Luke screaming and went up and saw this.

It reminded me of this. Avery at exactly the same age fell and hit her face on the corner of the coffee table. Good heavens she's cute.

It also reminded me a little of this. Ok I wasn't exactly the same age, I was fourteen. Brienne Burkinshaw hit me with her shoulder and almost broke my nose, this was the souvenir. We were practicing a lift at a dance competition when it happened. There was blood everywhere and I had to sit out the competition. It made me look tough for 4.3 seconds in my life. On a side note, Roger likes to say I looked sickly skinny in this picture. For the record, I've never been sickly skinny, I was 5'8" already and weighed about 145 lbs. I've always been an ogre, but thanks for the thought Rog.

I'm off next year

This year on and around Easter we:

Wore new garb to church,

dyed and glittered eggs,

hunted for eggs at Avery's school and

at Brackenridge Park.

Did you notice the girls' haircuts? Have I ever mentioned how much their hair vexes me? I've finally come to the conclusion that since it's a little curly it will never look polished, it refuses to be tamed. They both wanted their hair short and I've never been so grateful. It's easy to comb and looks OK too.

Not pictured was Ashby's First Grade Easter Party. Turned out the room mother was out of town and the ONE other mother that will volunteer had to work. I was all alone on this one and it caused me a large amount of mental distress. It was this party that I'm blaming not one, but two forgotten Visiting Teaching appointments. Straight to Hades for me, but at least the first graders had fun. (I think, I didn't do an egg hunt for them and many of them voiced their displeasure, but they got to squirt water out of big syringes, that's got to count for something right?) This level of activity for a holiday that isn't Christmas is very much an over achievement for me and is unlikely to happen again. Good thing I have the pictures to prove it to the Future Therapists of America!

On another fun note we celebrated Roger's birthday

and went to Buck night at the Bucs game. Even though your $1 tickets are at the very top, we still enjoyed ourselves and the Pirates won!

Look, I was there too!

P.S. Would anyone be interested in me sharing the games and crafts I've done for school parties? I always have a hard time coming up with stuff, even on the internet. Let me know.

Freezer Paper Stencil Tutorial

Degree of difficulty: Easy
Time from start to completion: about 1 hour, that includes drying time (and cleaning faces and getting snacks and laying babies down for a nap)

First, you will need: Freezer paper that is located by the foil in most grocery stores, paint I'm using acrylic paint because I haven't been to the store to get fabric paint, iron, ironing board, x-acto knife, paint brush, the image to stencil and something to stencil on, I'm using a onesie.
Trace the image onto the freezer paper. Freezer paper has two sides, one shiny, one not. The shiny side is what fuses to the fabric, so trace your image with the shiny side down, matte side up.

Cut the image out to create the stencil. I'm using three colors for this image, but I only needed two different stencils.

One for the body and the letters. The body will be yellow and the letters black, you just have to be careful. Another stencil for the legs and beak which will both be orange. For the letter P's, I cut out a tiny square of paper that will fit in the circle of the P so it won't be painted on and it will look like a letter p, not a stick figure with a big nose.

Next, turn your shirt inside out and iron a piece of freezer paper on that is big enough to easily cover the part of the shirt you will be painting on from the front. This prevents any bleeding through the front onto the back.

Turn the shirt back to the right side and iron on the first image. I am doing the body and letters first.

Immediately call your five year old in to do the painting. Paint the body yellow

and the letters black. Just be careful not to get black on the yellow.

Let dry. While waiting read and marvel at The Invention of Hugo Cabret.

Peel the stencil off and yipee, it's starting to look like a chick.

Iron on the second stencil. I traced the body of the chick so that I could line it up with what is painted underneath.

Paint orange.

Let dry and peel off.

Almost done, it's not perfect, but I like it that way.

I used the head of a pin to paint an eye.

Now the chick can see properly. Peel off the paper from the inside (I save this paper to iron on the inside of another shirt.)

All finished and waiting for a new baby!

Have fun and beware, once you start it's very difficult to not imagine things to stencil!

Here are the directions again for easier printing.

You will need: Freezer paper that is located by the foil in most grocery stores, paint, iron, ironing board, x-acto knife, paint brush, the image to stencil and something to stencil on.

Trace the image onto the freezer paper. Freezer paper has two sides, one shiny, one not. The shiny side is what fuses to the fabric, so trace your image with the shiny side down, matte side up.

Cut the image out to create the stencil.

Next, turn your shirt inside out and iron a piece of freezer paper on that is big enough to easily cover the part of the shirt you will be painting on from the front.

Turn the shirt back to the right side and iron on the first image.

Immediately call your five year old in to do the painting.

Let dry. Peel the freezer paper off and throw away.

Iron on the second stencil.

Let dry and peel off.

Peel off the paper from the inside of the shirt. Set the paint with an iron or by putting in the dryer.

yipee

I'm so pleased that so many of you haven't done freezer paper stenciling... because I get to share it with you! I've never done a tutorial, but I want to for this. I'll try to get it up in the next day or two. Yipee!