Weekends Are Good For

Didn't take a lot of pictures this weekend, but that doesn't mean we didn't do a lot of fun stuff. Such as ...

Being the only ones at the splash pool:

Reliving your childhood through your son and buying "him" a rocket that shoots hundreds of feet up into the air before a parachute deploys and the rocket goes sailing all over the neighborhood causing you to have to hop fences in order to retrieve it.

Using our new homemade ice cream maker for the first time and making yummy banana-orange-lemon ice cream. So delicious. I can tell this is going to be an addictive new kitchen gadget!

Playing in the fountain by the library.

Going for walks and relaxing in the stroller.

A birthday hike

For my birthday this year I wanted to be with my 3 boys and that's it. Because Marc is so busy with school and work the 4 of us don't get to spend a lot of time together so when we have the chance to do something as a family I really love it. We drove up a nearby canyon and went for a short hike - and it was wonderful.

Grahm loved the backpack (who wouldn't enjoy a free ride?!) and Mason was really good about walking the whole way. It was a pretty easy hike with lots to look at on the way.






At the top of the trail there was a river and a waterfall.  Perfect place to sit down on the rocks and people watch and have a snack and dangle our feet into the river.






Except the river was pretty freaking ice cold from the snow runoff and so it was more of me barely sticking my big toe in because I was afraid it was going to freeze and fall off ... until I discovered that I had made my way foolishly into the middle of the river and the only way out was to take off my flip flops and wade back through the river to the shore.  COOOOOOLLLLLDDDD.

And Grahm kept wanting to dive into the river so we had to corral him back into the backpack to sit and observe from there.







After we went to eat at one of our favorite restaurants downtown and then came home to have a Boston Creme pie from a delicious bakery in our neighborhood. Such a good birthday this year!

Will someone just pass this board for me?

I have been stuck on this ridiculously easy *looking* board for a week now. It's ONLY 3-15 and I know that it can't be THAT hard. Those stupid little green pigs are just messing with me, I know.

Lemon + Lime party featured!

How fun!  My Lemon + Lime bridal shower was featured at a few awesome websites!

Jillian from Catch My Party emailed to ask if she could feature my party as her party of the day ... how awesome!  If you haven't seen Catch My Party (it was new to me!) definitely check them out ... you can submit your own party, pictures, details, etc and then go through and search different themes, colors, etc.  There are SO many great ideas - I'm so glad I know of this site now!

We were also the featured Real Party at the How-To Hostess blog.  Her blog is new but it looks like it's going to be a great one - she's got features on parties and DIY's and recipes.

Now Hear This

I've always had a very eclectic taste in music - I like everything from pop to punk to country to rock to whatever it is that they're calling the stuff the American Idol winners are producing these days ... well maybe not TOO much AI stuff :]

Summer is the best time for new music, too, it seems like there's tons of catchy, dance in your car, fun loving music out there right now.  Here's my current two favorite songs:

Wild and Young by American Bang.






King of Anything by Sara Bareilles.




As you can see, two totally different songs, but both very worthy of a place on my iPod this summer.

You can keep up with my current favorite songs on my sidebar under the Now Hear This header, or the complete history at Previously on Now Hear This.

Seven Links: Get to Know Me From My Archives

I'm participating in the 31 Days to Building a Better Blog challenge through ProBlogger and the SITS girls. I have been writing online for so long (off & on since 1999) that sometimes I feel like what I'm writing is stale and I could use a good kick in the pants to kind of jump-start me and make my blog feel fresh again. You might see some changes here in the next few weeks as I go through the program and do some of the exercises posted in the challenge - but I am definitely planning on staying true to what my blog has always been about -- mostly pictures of my boys and ramblings of pop culture, my sewing adventures and things we do together as a family.  It's not too late to sign up to do the challenge, you can do it by yourself by signing up for the emails through ProBlogger (he will send you an email a day for 31 days with the exercises) or with a group, like I'm doing with the SITS community.

One of the exercises posted on ProBlogger is this link round up from the history of your blog. It forced me to go through some of my older posts and figure out which 7 I wanted to share. If you're new to my blog I hope this helps you get a little more insight to what I'm about!

Your first post: OK, not my first post EVER on a blog, since that is scary horrid writing from 1999 hidden away on a floppy disk somewhere, but one of my first posts on Two More Seconds. Swimming Lessons was written when Mason was just 10 months old (he's 4 now) and we were still living in sunny Southern California. That picture of him with his dainty hands is still one of my favorites, ever.

A post which had a great discussion: Look was a post that got people talking because I admitted that I'd been blogging a long time and that I had really good friends that I only knew online.  This was years ago before blogging was so mainstream and it was practically unheard of to meet people you "only" knew online.

A post on someone else’s blog that you wish you’d written: I have been a follower of Simple Mom for years now.  Tsh is an amazing writer and has created a great community around her original website, Simple Mom, which has now branched out into Simple Living Media and encompasses websites for homeschooling, cooking, children, and organic living.  Her post Start Your Day by Eating a Frog is one that I love and have kind of adopted into a daily motto for myself. You must read it yourself!

A post you enjoyed writing the most: I had fun writing Intruder! because how often do you wake up in the morning to find a bird flying throughout your kitchen and dining room?  The poor bird had come inside somehow and had to endure me taking pictures of it for awhile before I finally helped him find his way outside.  What an adventure!

Your most helpful post: I get lots of visits from people searching "french fry tutorial" on Google to my Our Favorite Fries: a tutorial post.  It's obviously not the only french fry tutorial out there, but it's the one that we love and use all the time.  I can make these suckers in my sleep now I've made them so many times!  Yum!

A post with a title that you are proud of:  I admit it, I'm not too proud of any of my post titles.  I guess that's an area I could improve on.  One that I like OK is: Wanted: Crayon Bandit because I made up a silly Wanted poster of Mason to go with the post after he took to coloring our walls, table, dog with his scribbles.

A post that you wish more people had read: I wish more people had read my Nameless Quilt post just because it was the first quilt I had made and I'm so proud of it still!

Saturday Night Thoughts

Playing along with a little meme from one of my favorite blogs, luvinthemommyhood.

(Picture of Grahm on the swings by the lake the other night.  He's only upset because I stopped him from swinging so I could attempt to get a picture -- he loved it.)

Making: -
Cooking: nothing currently
Drinking: water
Reading: Harry Potter
Wanting: someone to come organize my pantry
Looking: at my RSS reader
Playing: hooked on Angry Birds on my phone (I know, so late to the party!)
Wasting: time doing this post
Sewing: a zippy bag for me
Wishing: someone would come organize my pantry (oh, did I say that already?!)
Enjoying: the cooler temps after the 100s today
Waiting: -
Liking: that the Angels just won
Wondering: when Community comes out on DVD
Loving: that my boys are good sleepers (usually, see next)
Hoping: that Grahms tooth pops through soon so he can go back to being a good sleeper
Marveling: that Grahm is almost a year old
Needing: to do some laundry
Smelling: dinner leftovers still on the table
Wearing: shorts and a tank top - it's hot!
Following: Twitter
Noticing: that my contacts are starting to bug
Knowing: I'm going to have some Boston Creme pie in a minute
Thinking: go away hiccups
Bookmarking: this tutorial for a homemade bubble blower, Mason would love it
Opening: -
Giggling: STILL giggling over Missing Missy
Feeling: tired

What are you doing this Saturday night?  Probably lots more exciting than mine.  :]

Hanging out in Park City

We have been so busy in the last few weeks I feel like this week I can finally breathe and have things settle down just a little bit. I'm going to be catching up over the next few days with everything we've had going on lately -- my cousins wedding, hanging out with friends and family, zoo trips, birthdays -- it's like we had a summers worth of activities crammed into 2 short weeks. We're exhausted.

A few weekends ago we went up to Park City / The Canyons to hang out at my cousins condo. It's so pretty in the mountains.

Mason had a great time swimming in the gorgeous pool they have.

And so did Grahm and Marc.

A few Hipstamatic pictures, of course.





You can see by that last picture that Grahm was just as happy when he was out of the pool all cuddled up back into his towel and stroller, though, too.

We've been going to this same place for a few years now, check out Mason at the same place a few summers ago:  (ahhh I miss the hair!!)

Now Grahm is the little guy in the family.

And Mason is doing more important things, like hanging out with his cousin Carter, playing cards and games on the phones.

Carter is 13 and is just the perfect age for Mason to look up to him and totally ADORE him, but not too old to be too cool to hang out with a little 4 year old. Carter kept him entertained for hours - Mason loved every minute of it!

It was hilarious to see them both louging on the couch playing games on thier phones and iTouch's.

What a great time and how lucky are we to have such a fun family to hang out with?!

Lemon + Lime theme party free downloads

I've had a few people ask me how I made the different paper products I used for the lemon + lime theme bridal shower I threw for my cousin Kelsi. I've been emailing them separately but finally just decided to offer them as a free download here in case anyone else wants to use them.  All I ask is that you leave me a comment if you download them so I can see if this is a good idea and something I might do more of in the future!

I have three different links for the three different items (click on the image or the link in the descriptions to download each item you want).

The invitation: It's a 5x7" blank invitation with just the yellow patterned background and skinny yellow border. I printed mine out on cardstock on my home printer, and used green envelopes we got at Target. You can see how I filled out my invitations by looking back at my original post about the party. This is a .psd file so you can work with layers in Photoshop.

The water bottle labels: When I made mine I added the "congratulations" text first, then opened a new 8.5x11" document in Photoshop and copy/pasted the label as many times as could fit down the page (I think 5 times). Then I printed them out on regular copy paper and adhered them to the water bottles with clear packing tape. This is also a .psd file for Photoshop, I left the "congratulations" text (Quicksand font) in there in a layer - you can edit as necessary.

The lemon sugar scrub sticker labels: I printed these out on sticker paper and hand cut them out. They are about 2 inches across so if you had a round scrapbooking punch it would make cutting them out much easier. :] They fit perfectly on top of the little jam jars we bought to put our sugar scrub in. This is a .jpg file with 12 labels per 8.5x11" page.

A few more details:

Fonts used: BP Script and Quicksand (both free fonts)

Colors used: yellow #f0ba12 green #3c7433

Let me know if there's any questions - and again, I would love a comment if you download, link somewhere, or use for your party!

What I'm Working On: quilts & frames & painting

Painting ... sanding ... sewing ... hanging ... I'm doing a bit of it all today.  Some of the things I've got in progress:

Finishing up and gifting my favorite baby gift -- The Snuggly Initial Blanket.  ;]  This one is for Finley ... a cute little baby girl that lives next door to me.

Sanding these cool chairs I found sitting all by their lonesome on the side of the road ... it's taking a LOT of elbow grease to sand off the old, chipping paint so I'm only doing it a little at a time.

A lamp we've had for years was begging to be painted turquoise .... and I like the splash of color it gives my living room.   I am NOT afraid of color!  ;]

Sewing some more on the pillows that are for my friend Annie ...

The quickest quilt top EVER .... I grabbed random fabrics from my stash and cut varying widths of strips ... sewed them together alternating light and dark prints ... and added some simple borders.  LOVE how it is turning out ... can't wait to get it quilted.

And this one was all Mason's doing ... a few nights ago he said "Mom I need some more pictures in my room ... can we have a project tomorrow??".  (A project?!  A kid after my own heart!!) The next morning he sat with me at the computer and I showed him how to shuffle through pictures in Picasa ... he picked out the ones he wanted and we sent them to Walgreens for their 1 hour photo ... a trip to IKEA for some cheap-o frames and a little spray paint later ... he's got his "picture wall" hanging up right next to his bed where he wants it and "can look at it when I'm going to sleep".  (Love that he picked out a picture of him with Grahm!)

Weekends Are Good For

Eating:  The Pioneer Woman's restaurant style salsa, over cream cheese.  My favorite way to eat salsa, and my new favorite salsa.  I've made three batches now, all 3 of them more delicious than the last, and it makes a ton so it lasts me forever.  I'll never go back to jarred salsa again.

Building:  Marc built me a new bed for my birthday.  (He's awesome at building things - remember the sandbox?  And the picnic table?)  I am not a matchy furniture bedroom set (or any furniture set for that matter) kind of girl - my style is more mish-mash handmade / thrift store refinished with a little bit of modern.  Plus a bed built by by husband with his own two hands with a quilt on top of it handmade by me - um, yes please -- LOVE!

The bed isn't painted / stained / finished yet - I had him move it into the bedroom already so I can live with it for a few days and figure out how I want it done.

More Eating:  Grahm puts ev.ery.thing. into his mouth.  I've kind of had to adopt "ehh, well if it won't KILL him" kind of mentality otherwise I would be scraping things out of his mouth constantly.  This blanket tasted pretty good to him for quite awhile on Sunday morning.

Spending Time on the Porch:  watering my planter boxes and talking with my neighbor about her new baby and admiring our awesome view of the mountains.