Beautification

I hung some gorgeous art this week. Made by three talented artists ;) Yep, it's our kids!

It's been so hot (still, ugh) that being outside for any length of time isn't in the cards but....sun art is! We did this last year too and I had plans to frame them and hang them over my pantry. The problem was I had a very specific idea of what frames I wanted and I'm not sure they exist ;) Every store we walked through for months I looked at their frames and there were none that satisfied me. Finally, a couple weeks ago, I spotted some at Deals, of all places! They were not what I had in mind all these months but I thought if I don't get those hung soon they'll ruin!

I was right. When we got home I pulled them out and yes they were not in the best of shape. Not totally ruined but not "hang worthy" any more. That was fine because it gave us a reason to do another! And you know what? This year's turned out even better!!

I bought this sun-art kit last year from Amazon. They make it in all different picture sizes so you can easily frame any of them. I choose the 8x10 because I knew exactly where they would go.

Sun art is so easy. I sent the kids out to collect items from the yard that inspired them. While they were doing that, I set us up to make their design at the kitchen table and do the rinsing and drying outside. When they came in, they arranged their items on the special paper:

 The kit comes with a sheet of plexi-glass to put over your design to hold the items still while the sun does it's thing. This one is Nick's:

 It only needs to set in the sun for a few minutes so each child was responsible for watching their art. When the paper looked bleached out they quickly pulled it out from under the glass and put it in a tray of water for processing. When you first pull the paper out, the area where your items where is still dark blue and the rest of the paper has been lightened by the sun. When you put it in water, it reverses! So cool! It's like a little science experiment (which we've done many of this summer!) ;)

 After they dried they sat on our kitchen table for about a week. Why?? Because it was at this point that I remembered how much I hate hanging pictures in groups! It requires so much measuring and leveling....lots of tools like this:

And a big ladder :( It took the kids no more then 20 minutes to make this gorgeous art and it took me a couple of hours to hang it. Not kidding. Of course there were wrong measurements. ugh

But it really was worth it! I love it as much as I thought! Here's Brandon's:

 Nick's:

 Megan's:

 And my display:

I just knew I wanted something blue up there with all that green! Blue/green combo's make me think of the beach no matter what shade they are :) And even though these aren't the frames in my mind, I still love them and think they turned out fantastic!

Beating the Heat part II

At the beginning of summer, we sat down and came up with our summer list. I never got around to posting it (of course not!) with all the busyness of June, but we have loved having it as our reminder not only of what we want to do but what we have done! Sometimes in the busyness, we forget to count our blessings.

Last Friday (we still do our Family Nights on Friday, best tradition ever!), we looked over our list to see if anything looked particularly appealing. We decided on......homemade ice cream!! We even took it one step further and made it with coconut cream making it dairy-free!

A couple of years ago, Todd's parents bought us this cute ball ice cream maker. Since it isn't electric, it's very easy for the kids to be involved with and very hands-on.

First fill with your ingredients. It comes with a recipe book but we chose plain vanilla so our ingredients were: 1 pint of coconut cream, 1/3 cup sugar, and 1 teaspoon of vanilla. Oh so easy!

Yummy :)

The other end opens also so you can fill it with ice and a bit of sea salt.

Then you roll it, shake it, or otherwise mix it around until it's setting up, scrape it into a freezer container and place in the freezer until it is your preferred consistency. It reminds me of soft-serve ice cream when you take it out of the ice cream maker.

 We wanted to do something special with it this year so...

Homemade ice cream sandwiches! Gluten-free chocolate chip cookies and dairy-free ice cream, yum!

Beating the Heat

We've been in the house for the better part of the week. It's been so unbelievably hot that going outside has been reserved for grocery shopping and errands! It's even hot inside as our air conditioner is struggling to keep up with these soaring temps. It's hot outside, it's hot inside and people are getting testy ;)

Our solution:

 The sprinkler!

This girl loves it! :)

 So does he :)

 There's someone missing though...;)

 Now everyone's wet! (yes including me!)

In these, my camera decided to focus on the tree but I love the way they turned out so I thought I'd put them up too :)

Ahhhhhh much better :)

Harry Potter...the end

Harry Potter is kind of a big deal in this house. Not the kind of big deal that is all consuming or... obsessive but rather fun. It has been the topic of many conversations: finding hidden elements in the books or movies, things we like/dislike about the characters and storylines, parts we wished had been included (or left out of) the movies, the list goes on...

Today is opening day for the final movie installment. Todd and Kristen went last night for the midnight show and Brandon, Nicholas, and I will go this morning. This is the way it's been for a while now....a tradition you could say :)

In preparation for the final movie, we decided to have a Harry Potter marathon! Each day this week, we watched a Harry Potter movie starting last Saturday with the very first movie, The Sorcerer's Stone and ending last night with a double feature: The Half-Blood Prince and The Deathly Hallows part I . We had fun watching them all together like that and seeing the actors grow up.

Not all of our family members could make it to every movie but we were all here the first night!

Because of work schedules, Todd and Kristen missed some of the movies, and Megan and Nicholas fell asleep during a few, but Brandon and I watched them all. We are so ready for the new movie!! Maybe this should be a new summer tradition??

Let the Games Begin!

Megan's soccer practice started back up last week. We specifically choose the league that starts early that way when all of your fall things start up; football, dance, co-op, cubscouts, daisies, her soccer season is almost at an end. Works out perfectly for us! Plus she only practices one night a week and when games start in August it'll be one game and one practice a week. Easy!

Last night I remembered my camera and snapped a few of our little soccer player ;)

We have a nice break from sports in the spring but around this time, the kids get excited to play again. Perfect timing!

Needy Dolls

Last Friday I was surfing YouTube videos on fixing American Girl doll's hair. Megan's doll, Kaya, had definitely seen better days ;) She used to belong to Kristen and since Kristen was older when she got her she was careful with her. When Kristen handed her down to Megan, that poor doll didn't stand a chance! Megan was too young to understand how to "be careful" with a doll and Kaya's hair suffered badly.

I found a really wonderful series of video's from Stephenswododancer (hope I spelled that right) on nearly everything American Girl and Kaya got a hair make-over! BUT....we also found a video (by the same people) on making a cute picnic table for your dolls!! Megan was in love. I showed the video to Todd, he made some improvements on graphing paper, and got to work.

 Oh how I love it when he gets out those power tools! It feels like something's getting done around here!

He painted it and everything!! The changes he made were to attach the seats instead of having them separate. I'm so happy he did that! He also attached the legs differently than in the video. The picture I took of him marking them shows that they are not in the typical "X" style so they attach flat. Good idea!

Here it is all done:

 From the side:

He did such a great job!! Megan is loving it!

 These were taken last night and this morning it's filled with dolls and stuffed animals ;)

I'm thinking there will be lots and lots of little tea parties in the future :)

He's Back!! HE'S BACK!!

Brandon came home from boy scout camp early this afternoon! We're all so happy he's back!! Even Brandon! He had a great time but there's no place like home :) My backyard looks like this once again:

Ahhhh that's better :) And tonight starts our Harry Potter marathon!!

Outside Randomness

After dinner at Mom's, Todd went to work on her computer and the kids and I went outside. It was a gorgeous day and we took advantage of her beautiful yard :) While out there, I couldn't seem to take enough pictures! Pictures that I take outside always seem to turn out better plus I'm in love with all the lovely GREEN this time of year! Yay for summer!!

We first headed outside because the disabled man my mom provides in-home care for came down for some dinner. After we got him all settled on the porch, Mom took the kids around the yard on his golf cart. They had a ball driving that thing!

 Of course, Nicholas would be the one to drive the cart into one of her many flower beds ;)

Can you see the raised beds we installed all filled with veggies? They're doing great!

After they tore around the yard for a while, it was time to play and explore. First place they go is always the water feature (which now has fish!):

 Mom's dog, Lady, just had to join in ;)

 Sisters:

 Jon had joined in on our fun so when he and Kristen had to go, I managed to get a group shot:

 We were minus Brandon (who has camp over a holiday?? ugh).

Megan and I took a walk to see the rose garden:

 They are beautiful and they smell great!

Then she played:

 It was a wonderful evening! I'll say it again....YAY for summer!!