Link Love

My pictures just sing summer this week!  It's been a fast paced, action packed start to vacation.  I'm looking forward to settling into a summer routine filled with a few camps, a job for the oldest and lots of time spent with friends.  Hope you are all staying cool and enjoying this beautiful weather. I'm off to the farmer's market.  Blueberries and raspberries are on my list!

 These are going to be made this week!  But first, I need to buy the molds.  

 I'm in love with this site.  This post did not disappoint.  Shrinky dinks for adult jewelry!

 Yes please!  

I'm not on the wedding circuit of late.  But this would be  a great wedding present or shower gift.  

We are thinking about installing a rain barrel.  We  are on a well and in the dry years need to preserve our water.  This might be an option for us!

enjoy the rest of the weekend!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I'm flipping my Friday link love to today.  There are so many fun things out there to celebrate our love and I want to share some of my finds with you! 

I miss the Valentine's Day party, with all the little notes and hearts.  But, I'm glad my boys have missed out on what it has become.  I traveled the aisles in Target the other day looking at bag after bag of candy and realized that Valentine's Day has become the new Halloween.  My thought immediately turned to that of the teachers and hope that they say no to all the candy.  I know I would!

Enjoy your day and know that you are all my Valentines!

Thanks for stopping in!

 Check out Google today and go do something you love with your best buddy!

 Haven't made a dessert yet for your loved ones.  This one looks scrumptious!

 Some food for thought.

 Need a last minute craft...Here's one!

I'm off to find our army men and place these strategically around the house.  Let's see if they notice!

Link Love...

It's a long holiday weekend here in the States and I'm in between activities at the moment. Fourth of July in our town is as close as you can get to a Norman Rockwell painting. Parades, ice cream socials, a movie in the park, an art festival, farmer's market and of course playing on the lake are all favorite activities of the weekend.

I've been having fun with Instagram on my iphone. Provides a bit of enjoyment when I'm shlepping the boys from one place to another.

Hope you are all doing something grand to celebrate our country's independence.

Not sure if I would ever want to make a beet cake. But this video sure makes me want to try!

Today the boys pushed me as far as I was about to go with their behavior...and at that moment i wanted the sweet girls that were sitting on the boat next to me. If I did have girls, I would do this with them.

You still have time if you need a decoration for the 4th!

Or, you could do something as sweet and as simple as this.

The name of this site says it all....and really a pool....in the living room?

enjoy the rest of the weekend! I'm off to our next activity!

Merry Christmas!

Merry
Christmas!

Hoping to catch up with you all soon.

Enjoy your family and friends

and I will see you all in the New Year.

enjoy!

Happy New Year!

February Love Day 14!

Hearts were made all by hand in our workshop.

The boys spend hours designing and creating all sorts of wonderful objects.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Have a wonderful day!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas and a happy and healthy 2008! See you in the New Year!

Excitement Is Building!

Thank goodness I don't teach anymore. Thank you to all of you who do. Enough said.

The boys are overflowing with excitement and with that comes absolutely no listening to anything that is asked of them. Not sure if I'm going to be able to keep my sanity this year! Enjoy the pictures of the boys stringing popcorn. This was the only time my little guy stood still the entire weekend or the only time they were actually civil with one another. I'm not even going to place them next to each other on the same page for fear they might reach right out on the screen and start to wrestle. Good luck everyone on the final stretch!

Friday Round-up

Lots of things to talk about today so let's get to it!

Book recommendations:

One of our all time favorite Christmas collections is by the infamous Jan Brett. The boys grew up reading The Mitten and The Hat and from there we collected all of her enjoyable and well illustrated books. Jan Brett's Christmas Treasury collects all of her "classic" tales and binds them into a large, one volume book. It is sure to become a favorite in your home during the holiday season.

Another one of my favorites is Eve Bunting's Night Tree. It's a nice story about a family who shares with the animals in the small woods near their town. My kids enjoy reading it each year and then making treats for the animals that live behind our house. We scatter all sorts of yummy treats that the animals love. The boys like imagining that the animals have their own Christmas feast.

Lastly, the boys always enjoyed Who Is Coming To Our House by Joseph Slate. It's a wonderful board book for little hands. All the animals are anxious for the arrival of Baby Jesus so the are sprucing up the barn. It is repetitive and gives parents plenty of opportunity to use animal voices. It also comes in a paperback edition.

Some of my favorites that I look forward to each holiday season has to do with coffee. Last year I was introduced to Peet's coffee. Love it! If you enjoy strong black coffee this is for you. Their holiday blend is outstanding!

My all time favorite holiday treat is Starbucks' Peppermint Mocha! I can't drive by a Starbucks (we only have one on my side of town...go figure!) without stopping and getting my fix. The lady at the counter tells me every year that they can make it all year long for me...but I save it, just so I can have my own Christmas treat each season.

Enjoy the snow....we've had a lot the last few days. It helps make the season a bit more bright!

Friday Round-up

I am certainly glad that this week is almost over! The first part of the week was long on anticipation with the second part being short on patience! Some highlights of the week included:

Number 1: Not sure if this picture will due justice with the Halloween costumes. Ryan didn't wear half of his and Matt looks like a girl with his wig on( more therapy). They were Ghostbusters and would have looked really good if they wore their costumes correctly. That sounds pretty snarky coming from their mom. Oh well, it's been a long week! Fun was had, so that's all that counts!

Number 2: Tom Ashcroft is my new favorite hero. I have to listen to him through iTunes because our NPR station doesn't carry him. Two shows this week were particularly good. His interview with Tom Perrota on his new book, The Abstinence Teacher and his show on Our Toxic Environment. Both scary, scary topics in today's world. The Abstinence Teacher deals with sex ed in our schools, moral and ethical choices that are or are not taught to today's youth. Touchy subject no matter what side of the line you are on. Our Toxic Environment frightened the hell out of me. Pretty much nothing is tested in our country and not many people care that it isn't.

Number 3: The boys annual shaving cream war. As Ryan said" We have our war at home so we can concentrate on the candy in town."Have a great weekend everyone!

Halloween Mishaps

I always say that parents practice and make mistakes on their oldest child. We ruin them and scar them for life with choices we think are correct at the time. My oldest has had enough happen to him that he will be in therapy for his entire life, due to us! That being said, I would like to share two stories that I am sure he and his therapist will be analyzing for a very long time.

Being new parents we wanted to make memories for Matt since he wouldn't remember his first Halloween, plus we were looking for that perfect Christmas card shot. My husband went out to find the biggest pumpkin he could, carved it, and decided that Matt needed to be placed inside the pumpkin and have his picture taken! Where we placed the pumpkin for prime picture-taking was on the kitchen table. Oh yea...you know where this is going. Right off the table he rolled! Thank goodness, Andy was there to catch him! I searched and searched for the picture just before his big roll, but couldn't find it. Crap! But, being first-time parents we didn't stop with the roll off the table. Oh no, we continued on and insisted that we get. the. "picture". for. the. Christmas. card! Poor Matt. I do have that picture! Even our dog looks pissed!Fast forward to second grade when Matt was obsessed with astronauts. That year we searched the Internet high and low for the perfect costume. There it was. A cool astronaut costume and it even came with its own helmet---with shield. Off we went trick-or-treating in town. Everyone was commenting on Matt's costume and how original it was! We were about halfway into the evening when Matt started to walk a little slower. Thinking he was only tired from the long day..we as parents, told him to hurry up. Slower and slower Matt continued to walk until someone, NOT US, looked at him and noticed that he didn't look too good. Being clueless parents, we didn't notice that Matt had slowly begun to pass out on his exhaled breath. We whipped off this helmet and in no time he felt better. This year they will be Ghostbusters...although they were talking this morning that they might change to something scary. Who knows what tonight will bring. Hopefully not more stories for the therapist. Happy Halloween everyone!