Golfing

We were in Ohio this weekend for my nephew's baptism-which was awesome.

While we were there, the girls got some time to play on the golf green behind my sisters house once it got late enough that all the golfers had gone through-they had to wait a LONG time! They patiently practiced in the yard until they could get on the green.

Crafting inspiration

I've been looking for some crafting inspiration on Pinterest lately.

Have you joined lately? Are you following me?

Abby and I have decided to redecorate her bedroom. She still has a lot of things in her room from when she was born- decor-wise. It's cute, but it isn't grown up. We're clearing out! It's exciting. I've been looking for ideas for that, but also just other cool things. One of the things I found lately are some scarf tutorials. And, of course, a funny random thing here and there....

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Flashy Walk to the Bus

This year I finally caved and bought Abby light up shoes. These aren't the ones that the heel light up, they are way cooler. They are Sketchers and called Twinkle Toes, and have different colored lights in the top of the toes and a few along the sides as part of the designs on them. They are a converse-style sneaker.

Today Abby is wearing them for the first time to school. Yikes, are they bright first thing in the morning! They looked very fun walking to the bus in the dark....

The things that excite

You'll have to excuse this post if you aren't a family member. You probably won't want to hear about a little girl's underwear. But, I had to share because it's cute.

So, this week we decided that the girls needed new underwear. Fun times, right? Kids grow... you know, all that stuff. The other thing is that with potty training, I bought some inexpensive underwear from Target that keep falling apart in my washer and aren't holding up. at. all. In the past, I have bought Abby underwear from Gymboree. If you catch them on sale and use coupons, they aren't too bad, and they are better quality and cute.

Today is day 2 of Lily getting to wear her new ones. Yesterday she wore her "cookie" ones, which she informed my friend Renee of at our playdate. She also told her that they were soft. This was while we were talking about apples, I think. It doesn't matter, it was important information to get out there!

Today she went though all of her new ones and picked her "bee" pair. I told her I could call her my "Buzzy Bee" today. She informed me that she is wearing her strawberry shirt today so I should call her "Strawberry Girl." (her words) I questioned about the buzzy bee? She said I could call her both. Fair enough.

Enough underwear information for you? Okay, I'll stop. (Totally not sharing this link on Facebook, people will think I'm crazy.)

Melty Crayon Canvas

Abby and I had a big craft project that we wanted to work on this past weekend. We saw it online and wanted to try it. The supplies are pretty basic: an inexpensive canvas (we got ours at Jo Anns- they were 50% off- score!), crayons, a hot glue gun, and a blow dryer. The results: Awesome.

Here's how you do it:

We bought a multi-pack of canvases, and they were 50% off, so I ended up paying $12.50 for 3. We bought 2 boxes of 64 Crayola crayons. We sorted out the browns and blacks, and then Abby arranged them in rainbow order:

This is our reject pile:

Then, we hot glued them along the top of the canvas.

This next step is best done outside, because it can get messy. With your blow dryer set on the hottest setting, you heat up the crayons. I found out that it works best on the highest setting, but then it also makes it splatter more- tricky, but cooler results. Just be careful. Be patient, because the more they melt and flow, the cooler it gets.

See?

So fun!

A trip to the Apple Orchard

We made a trip to a local apple orchard on Saturday. Usually we are very late in the season and the types of apples that are available are limited. This year, we hit it very early and will probably go back again next month. We also got a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables while we were there. Abby loved it. We ate GOOD on Saturday.

Rather than narrow down and post a ton of pictures, I decided to do a slideshow on iPhoto and export it to Quicktime. I'm not sure this will play on mobile devices- sorry if it doesn't.

State Fair, Take 2

We made it to the State Fair for our second visit on Thursday night. This time we only had the goal of eating and seeing some animals. The other tough goal was to be home in time for bedtime so that getting up for school on Friday was not impossible. That was the hardest goal.

Again, we had a great time. In the car on the way there we talked about what we really wanted to eat. Abby wanted a corndog again, and Lily really wanted "Daddy's Drink" again, which if you remember, was a Lemon Shake Up. She also wanted some corndog, but Abby said that she was going to have to get her own this time. It was pretty funny. We also wanted to hit the Dairy Barn this trip.

Abby and her corndog

Lily and hers- which she never finished... just bites here and there. It's about the experience, right?

Ah, and the Lemon Shake Up...

Anyone want anything fried dessert? Ugh. Gives me a stomachache. Can't say we tried any of that.

I finally found what I was looking for: fried vegetables. I didn't get a picture of that, but Matt and I shared a basket of them. I finally got Abby to try a small piece of the breading (just the fried breading- no vegetable) just to hook her and convince her that it wasn't yucky. She ate it and looked at me and said, "You mean there's vegetable in that?!" It was SO funny. I gave her a bigger piece and by the third bite, it actually had some cauliflower in it and she liked it. Baby steps.

We happened upon some fun entertainment. Abby giggled the whole time.

What's a state fair without some tractors, right?

And our stop at the Dairy Barn! My beautiful Lily turned down ice cream for yogurt, her favorite. The lady at the window actually told Matt, nobody ever orders yogurt, I'm not even sure what flavors we have, let me check. :) Lily LOVED it, and kept talking about how good it was. She had an audience of some girls (maybe college aged) oohing and aahing (and laughing) over her in front of the Dairy Barn when she was trying to convince me she wanted yogurt and not ice cream.

Abby had their special of the day for Thirsty Thursday, a milk shake (which was really more like soft serve).

This picture is where she passed it to Matt and said she was done but then went in for one more bite as I took the picture. She ate a ton, right? It WAS a lot of ice cream, but still, she's DONE?

We saw some gorgeous horses, and I stupidly didn't take pictures. They were beautiful. We saw one that was ginormous. Seriously. Huge. They were my favorite.

Baby piglets!

The pink pigs were by far the girls favorites.

I got some cotton candy before leaving- the girls insisted I share. Dang it.

charity: water

So, you know how sometimes you hear about something and you think, oh yeah, that sounds great.

And then, you hear about it again, a while later, and you think, I've heard about that before. Hmm. That's a good idea. And then you move on.

This cycle may repeat itself many times, until you realize that maybe you keep hearing about it because you are SUPPOSED TO? Maybe you are supposed to do something with this. The more you think about it, the more you think of reasons it is important to you? Maybe God is putting this in your heart?

Well, that is where I am right now and the ministry is building wells in developing countries to provide clean water for drinking and sanitation. This is a human issue, but is especially a women's and children issue.

I've done quite a bit of looking around and my favorite of the organizations out there is charity: water. 100% of all the money that you donate to water projects go toward them because they have corporate sponsors that pays for all their administrative costs.

Here is a video that gives you some info:

I think I'm going to start a fundraiser on their site soon, I'm still thinking logistics all though, but please think about joining me!

You must make this summery cake

I tried a new recipe the other day that I must share. Unfortunately, I do not have any pictures of my own to share. I got the recipe from here.

It's really hard. Lots of ingredients. Like 2. (hope you caught the sarcasm there.)

So that's all you need- the can of pineapple is a 20 oz. size. You mix just those 2 things together according to the box directions (juice and all), bake according to the box, and voila. Yummy cake.

Someone in the comments section of the original post that I linked to above said that this was in a Weight Watchers thing and a serving was only 2 points. Love a low point dessert! My problem? I could eat half the cake. Probably not a serving size.

So, go now. Buy your 2 ingredients. Bake. Eat. Tell me you love it.

Blasts from the Past from Pinterest

So, I was perusing Pinterest and happened upon this picture:

Um, Hello? It is totally the phone I got for Christmas from my parents, the first time I got to have a phone in my room. I thought it was so cool because you could see all of its inner workings. Oh yeah.

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So then I was curious. I had to check out the board that this person had created where she pinned this picture. Because she had titled it something alongs the lines of "So remember that." I'm guessing she has to be around the same age as me (I'm 35).

Looky what I found!

Did anyone else watch this show? I LOVED it! For years I could still remember the songs.

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Or, Jelly shoes... Not completely forgotten in today's times, but this style? I had purple ones EXACTLY like this.

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This is a good one.... Charm necklaces. Sixth grade (or maybe fifth?). My central charm, you know, the one that went in the middle, was a big strawberry. I think we bought most of our charms at Claire's. Don't you wonder what ever happened to this stuff? I don't actually remember getting rid of it, but I'm sure we did.

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This one isn't as original either (like the jellies) because they are still around, but when I read them, I had to wait for the next one to be WRITTEN! :) I loved these and the Sweet Valley Twins books. I do know what happened to these... I gave them to my cousins- who also loved them.

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So, does anyone else remember this stuff too? Anything you want to add to the list?