Ssshhhh!!! Don't Tell

We are meeting my parents, 3 of my sisters, 1 brother-in-law, and 1 niece in Nauvoo, IL tomorrow (Tuesday) night. We will be spending 2 days there and Thursday night all will be at my house. So today I am trying to get ready to provide (hopefully) comfort and fun for my family.
Needless to say - I am a Procasinator Extraordinaire. So today has been full of choices!

This is what I have so far avoided doing (and it is after 3 pm).

But there is a load in the basket to be folded and one on the line and one in the washer (so I am slowly working on it...)



Super Gross Floor!! Why does it have to look like this 3 times a day - I just cleaned it this morning? (Mom, it will be clean when you get here - Promise!!)


One day I know they will happily and without my asking clean up the toys!! Right?


What is the trick to keeping him out of my office?

This is what I did instead!!

Extremely unappealing strawberry jam - what went wrong? Who knows!!


So, I went outside and picked a bunch of these!! Yum - my fav.


Grabbed these out of the fridge!!


Smashed them all up together!! Oooohh-looks better already.


Don't you think this is a better way to take care of your guests than clean towels and sheets?

Garbage to Education?

I know that none of you have this kind of poison in your pantry's. However, occaisonally it makes an appearance into mine. It seems to be a Thanksgiving necessity - on my celery sticks.
Well once Thanksgiving is over what am I to do with the rest.....?

This summer (not the same can from Thanksgiving - but it would probably last that long!!) I decided that instead of answering their requests for funny faces, tornadoes, Mickey Mouse, Batman or whatever else they could think of. I would do this...
Grahm has to tell me what the letter is and give the sounds before he can eat his snack. Soon I think we will try some short words.

Since Jayce is doing lots of other summer reading we are working on his math.

He has to give the correct answer before he can eat his.

Here he is pretending to think, just for my pictures!!!

I will have to think of other educational snacks!! Keeps snacking intersting.

The End!!

The last of my summer clothes sewing is done (I think - it might need an applique or something...). My dear Mother made this one a challenge for me - she said I had to do piping. It is definitely not perfect - but this dress is for slides, swingsets, flower picking, firefly chasing, mud pie making (if I look the other way) and whatever else summer brings.





I love the colors and of course the ruffle bums!!

Bad Mom or Brilliant Mom?

Since Jayce has been home from school there has been way too much sibling bickering going on. It is completely driving me up the wall.
You think everything is going great and suddenly Grahm starts screaming! And yes, Grahm needs to stop screaming and it takes two to fight. Every time I get on their case about something - like cleaning the playroom- Jayce takes it out on Grahm. I guess Jayce thinks they are in trouble because of Grahm and not because of anything he has done.

So - when the fighting started up again for the hundredth time the other day - I did this.

First they struggled and I was worried that they would hurt themselves- it was just a little piece of yarn. I tied it loose enough that they could slip their hands out one at a time. However, Jayce would have needed to calm down enough to realize this. I had to tell them to stop trying to break it.

Taking a picture of him at this moment was not considered acceptable - At All. Poor Grahm (not innocent - but did he deserve to be tied to this angry beast?).


Jayce finally submitted and they started to finish cleaning up the playroom together!!
Yeah - team work!!


I did have to untangle them once - not sure how they got crossed up!
Hopefully no one calls the police -no injuries occurred (except maybe a little pride - what I will not do for reader entertainment!!).

My Latest!!

I am only one dress and one shirt away from Charlotte having a complete summer wardrobe. She can stop running around in her undies if she wants. But why would you if you don't have to?

If you have not discovered Oliver & S patterns then you need to. They have boy and girl stuff - I hope to attempt some boys things this fall. They are super cute and most of the time I have been happy with the fit!!!
Also if you have not discovered double gauze fabric you reeeaaalllyyy need to. I love it, it is so soft and light weight. It is amazing, they take two layers of fabric and tack it together (they use a grid pattern). What is even more amazing is reversible double gauze (like the one in the play suit) the tacking is invisible!!! So cool (am I weird because fabric gets me excited? Don't answer that.).

Water Park on a Budget!!

Today I watched one of Jayce's friends from church- Jack Thorpe - for a few hours. We decided since "staycationing" is the thing - we would open for one day only our personal water park.
So we grabbed a sprinkler. By the way if you have children who don't like sprinklers - they might like the kind that mist. This is the first year mine have actually ran through the sprinkler!! We also grabbed a slide, kiddie pool and some thick plastic sheeting.
Thrills to follow!!



Of course we had a splash free zone for the little ones.





We interrupt this program to bring you... Peace and Quiet!!

We now return you to your regularly scheduled craziness!




And back to peace and quiet!!


We played for about 3 hours!!

And a Very Merry UnBirthday to You!!

I love Alice in Wonderland!!



We had every good intention of celebrating Charlottes 18 month old Birthday on the day.

We have decided that we are going to give her a big Birthday bash on her UnBirthday (which is June 14, its a 6 month thing) so she wont get lost in the Holiday rush.

However, Jason was out of town on the day and it has been crazy busy since he has been back. So here we are, July 6. I don't think she minded.

We celebrated with Pizza, bread sticks, cranberry-sprite, and chips and dip.

Charlotte was given -

little tea set for playing in the pool
mini-doll
bracelet and necklace

a pink ball
a silky (so she can stop sleeping with my pajamas)
slippers (excuse the bad exposure on this pic - they are a nice pink with hot pink tulle)

tutu (excuse the bad exposure on this pic)

Pink-My Little Pony with a cowboy hat
and a Fropper


We then enjoyed cake pops with princess candles!

Happy Fourth of July

To wish you a Happy Independence Day, here is a peek at my very own Naval Officer!!
A special Thanks to all those who Serve!!

Soccer Camp

Soccer Camp was a wonderful experience for all of us. It was a long, busy, tiring week, but in a very satisfied way. I know some Moms prefer to have only one day a week occupied by soccer. Me, I like to cram it all in and be done.

Every morning there would be wailing and gnashing of teeth. They both hated soccer. Every afternoon there would be laughing and recounting of each kick. They both loved soccer. We did this for 5 days. They both made friends and really enjoyed the coaches. I think Jayce had just about every thing he had signed by Chico (#25 for the Wave).
Here is Grahm playing in the dirt. His focus on dirt is amazing!!

Grahm, it turns out, is a lady's man. He usually was hanging out with the girls. There were blond twins (Lola and Liddia).

However, by the end he had decided on a little brunette (the daughter of the camp director and plays for the Wave) named Capri (not sure how to spell it). Super cute, he has good taste - I just wish he still wanted to only marry me. He currently is not ready to give me up, so he is to be a polygamist!!

He also told me that there was a "seven human" in his class. Which means a seven year old!! Jayce worked hard and played hard. He was almost carried away by the mosquitoes, but managed to escape with a decent amount of bites. He made two good friends (they are in red), Adam and ....

The camp finale was a water fight that even my two boys participated in without any tears. They also held a raffle. They called for the "one with the mohawk" to draw the winner. Grahm picked himself. He won a massage for me and an official Wave jersey, it is Brett Weisner's - #14. He hardly will take it off. He does take it off for meals, because he is worried about getting it dirty. He really wanted to take it to church!! By the way, I am not allowed to touch the jersey - even thought it is my size.

My only regret is that I did not put Jayce in camp before this.

The post were I become a Soccer Mom

I have been spending the week stuck in my car (well not my car, the rental). The boys have been enjoying themselves at a Soccer Camp. This has afforded me the wonderful reprieve from laundry, lunch preparations, cleaning, and all other distractions to be had at home. Instead I have spent a morning on a blanket while Charlotte played, ate McDonald's more than should be allowed, spent sufficient time at Joann's, read Mansfield Park (which proved to be a wonderful delight and distraction from all the hanging about), put on too many shin guards to count, tied too many pairs of cleats to mention, and struggled with an infinite number of soccer socks.

I have officially become a Soccer Mom.

**********McDonald's picture from Pioneer Woman************