I Hope So...

Took Evan shopping today for some back to school things. All his pants were in flood-stage and I think his arms grew about 2 inches! :)

We had a good day together.

While we were having our favorite lunch out ~ Chick-fil-A ~ I was asking him how he felt about starting kindergarten in less than 2 weeks.

Me: You know, I'm going to miss you when you start school, Ev.

Evan: Why?

Me: Because I'm used to having you around and you'll be at school every day for a few hours.

Evan: I'll come home, mom.

Fast-forward 2o years ~ I hope he's still saying the same thing. :)

Five for Friday

1. Apparently when you turn 3, you become the authority on EVERYTHING....

Ryan tells everyone he's 4 years old.

He vehemently claims he has blue eyes [they're brown].

And yesterday while we were watching Michael Phelps win another gold medal, he turned to me and said, "I the fastest swimmer, right, Mommy?"

Right, Ryan.

Gotta pick your battles :)

2. The summer is winding down WAY too quickly for me. We've got one more week at home and one more week at the beach and then Evan starts kindergarten! We found out his teacher's a man, so that's pretty exciting for us. Aren't many male teachers at the elementary level where they're so needed, so I'm happy Evan's first "real-school" experience will be with Mr. B.

3. I've decided I have a new pet peeve. Not really that new, but I'm finally writing about it - been bothering me for a while now. You know that Bath & Body Works pump hand soap?

Well, I love it. I've got it by every sink in my house.

What I don't love is how everyone who uses it [everyone except me, apparently] uses a full pump to wash their hands.

What a waste!!!!!!! Not only does that use up my soap - which isn't cheap - but it also leaves gross clumps of it in the sink that I inevitably have to clean out [another pet peeve which maybe I'll get to another time :)]

PEOPLE, all you need is about a 1/4 squirt of soap, about the size of a pea, to get your hands completely washed. As my grandmother says, "A little dab'll do you." {Isn't she cute ~ here with the boys this past week}

I'll get off my soapbox now... :)

Moving on....

4. Went to a playdate yesterday with the ladies from our church home group. We are quite prolific in this group btw...7 couples with 17 kids + 1 on the way. Did I mention they're all under the age of 7?

Anyway, Nathan was the bully. He kept stealing toys from other kids. And when he got bored, he would just go up and push them down. LOVELY...

I guess that's to be expected from an almost 2 year old with 2 older brothers, but I'm not prepared to deal with it. He's just too darn cute to spank, especially when he puts his head down and lifts up his big brown puppy dog eyes at me like, "Who? Me?"

Here we go....AGAIN~

5. Lately, I've had a case of so much to do and so little time. I've got all these creative ideas for things I want to make and set up an Etsy shop, but haven't had the time to do it.

Hoping that will change and soon.

I was able to get this scrapbook layout done this week while watching the Olympics, though.

This was the first time I "rolled" the paper. This is the perfect technique for someone like me who is both indecisive and loves paper. You don't know which side of the 2 sided patterned paper to use, so you get to show a little of both sides. I like how it turned out, but I'm going to keep trying it to make it look better. Have a wonderful week!

Tags

I made these name tags for the favors for Ryan's birthday party. I really like the way they turned out. Used my Cricut machine and a Stampin' Up scallop circle punch and some yummy Scenic Route paper. My mom has a laminator, so she was able to laminate them for me. Then, I just punched a hole and ran some We R Memory Keepers ribbon through to tie them on the sand buckets.

Happy Monday

Just sending some pretty flowers from my hydrangea bush your way. Enjoy!

Not Yet

Signs that your 3 year old may not be quite ready to completely give up his nap:

5:00 pm

4:30 pm

6:00 pm

5:30 pm

Mirrors on the What?!?

This past weekend, my friend, Karen, and I went to a scrapbook convention. YES, they have those... :)

We had a blast. We got to see Stacy Julian ~ a celebrity in the scrapbook world, I don't know why I didn't get her picture ~ and we both took our first ever scrapbook classes. We spent 2 days and too much money on wonderful new scrappy goodies. And we got to meet up with some CKMBers IRL [Creating Keepsakes Message Boarders In Real Life]

Rosi (Lil Rosi), Me, Cassie (CDScraps)


Me, Cassie, Kristen (kck182)

The funniest thing that happened while we were there was when we checked in at the hotel. They directed us to our room, saying we took the elevator to the 14th floor and then had to walk up to the 15th floor - we were in a "secluded" part of the hotel.

Well, Karen and I didn't think twice about this but we about died when we got to the 15th floor ~ a.k.a. The Fantasy Suite Floor. (!!!!) What the heck!?! Each door had a title on it ~ like "King for a Night" or "Jungle Room" or "Hollywood." Ours was "Titanic."



We were making so much noise laughing about this in the hallway that another scrapbooker opened her door and said, "Do you believe this?" So, we got to see Pompeii and she came to see the Titanic. She said she expected to see mirrors on the ceiling in her room. Imagine our surprise when we went back to ours and found just that! We even had a hot tub in the middle of the room ~ can you say EWWWWWW?

The best part of our fantasy suite was the fact that there were NO windows and it was still pitch black in our room at 7:15 a.m. Ahhhhhh, sleeping in! Now if that's not a fantasy, I don't know what is...

Another Terrific Tuesday

Two weeks ago today we spent the day at Dutch Wonderland. My mother-in-law [she's a saint!] went along with us and was a HUGE help! It was a beautiful day ~ a little hot, but we found ways to cool off: sat in the splash zone at the high dive show - which was really fun, btw, went on the log flume - even Nathan, and played at the water playground and water slides.

Evan and Ryan had a blast ~ they were the PERFECT age for this. If only Ryan were a teeny bit taller [gotta start pumping this kid with more vitamins!] he would have been able to ride on some more of the bigger rides [READ: the roller coaster]. Once again the poor kid had to sit it out while mommy and Evan went without him :( Maybe next year...

Poor Nathan was such a trooper. He is the most content kid you'll ever meet. He just goes with the flow ~ I guess you kind of have to when you're #3! I think I may have traumatized him by taking him on the log flume. He was not too into the rides after that. He was happy just hanging out in the stroller.

We tagged along through the park with some moms from my MOPS group. We all ordered our tickets together to get a group discount, which was nice. We all had a great time and can't wait to go back again soon.