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We've had such a successful summer! Both boys learned to ride their bikes and to dive into the pool and touch the bottom. I'm amazed how quickly they learned. Last year V wouldn't even put his head under the water at the beginning of summer. Now he's diving head-first into the deep end!

Tami

Every season, I take my camera to the pond near our house and take pictures of my boys by this same tree. It didn't start as a tradition, but it seems to have turned into one. Do you have things that you do like this? I like to call them "accidental traditions". I am going to go back through my pictures someday and find them all and put them in one place. {Yes, that dreaded "someday"}. It will be fun to look at them all as they get older.

In other news.... V. lost his tooth last night and the toothfairy came! She left him $3. He is so excited. The tooth that was in there had been loose for so long that food accumulated in it and started rotting it, so we had to get it out of there. We couldn't tell last night, but this morning, there is a shiny, pointy white tooth sticking out in that space. Here's his toothless grin (sort of).

Tami

My boys both finally decided to try the slide. It didn't take but one try before they went down 50 times! They had so much fun! Next they decided it would be fun to jump off the diving board and then proceded to do that about 50 times. They were very tired last night. These were taken yesterday.

V. has a fever today. Nothing else but a fever. Not sure what is going on there. I've been listening to his lungs but no wheezing so far. I hope he's better tomorrow.

Tami

Remember when you were a kid and you got your first taste of freedom on your bike? You couldn't wait to hit the open road. Wind blew through your hair and you were more than 100 yards from home. It was exciting. It was a thrill. Learning to ride your bike was awesome because all of the other kids in the neighborhood were riding and you wanted to go to the store with them for some penny candy.

Did our kids WANT to ride bikes? No. Did they care? No. There are no kids in our neighborhood who can ride bikes with them. They have no interest at all. Jeff and I would like to be able to go biking somewhere with the boys, but that didn't interest them. So how did we get them interested enough to learn? Bribery. If you learn to ride, you get the video game of your choice. Works every time.

Both boys learned to ride their bikes today! Call me mean, but I just put them on the bike, gave them a push and away they went. Jeff has been helping them figure it out by holding onto them, and I was doing that with V. at first, but then I felt he could hold the bike up, so I gave a push and away he went. Of course, it helped that G. learned first.

You may want to turn your sound down before pushing play. My squeeky, excited voice is very loud on there. Why didn't someone tell me I sounded like that? Sorry.

It takes forever to upload a video.... so I'll post G's first and then upload V's as an edit.

Here is V's ride. It isn't as long because he needed more help, so it is hard to help and videotape.

I am trying to get the pictures scrapped from our trip to Niagra Falls last week, but this is the only one I've managed so far, so I thought I'd share. Mom, I know you want to see them! If you click on the picture, you can see it better. That's the one thing I hate about Blogger. You can't post a full page picture. Grrr!

Most of the elements of this layout are from the Sweet Shoppe's Tango Bango kit.
The layouts below are pictures that I scrapped a while back.

The top one uses a Sweet Shoppe kit called Water Play Days.

This one is mostly from Shabby Pickle Designs kit called It's Bathtime and a from a kit called Summer Vacations by Jaelop Designs.

Tami

It has been a whole week since I posted. This has been a crazy week of 4 (yes, I said 4) school picnics/field days, 2 "School's Out!" pool parties, 2 birthday parties, 1 cafe opening and now an (adult... well not 'adult', but for a 40-year-old) birthday party tomorrow! While it has been fun, it has kept me from my crafting, so today I made a purse, a headband and a stuffed kitty for V. He loves cats, so I designed him and sewed him up today.

Hope everyone is having a great summer. Ours just started Thursday and I'm tired already because we stayed at a friends' house until 11:00 last night. Yawn!!!

This bag is made using a set of cotton napkins from the home department at Walmart (the pattern ($2 on clearance), some outdoor furniture canvas (the white) and some regular canvas (the blue) and two layered vintage buttons.

Pictures from the pool party at Ellie's

Pictures from the pool party at our house


A picture of Graham giving his teacher bunny ears. (tsk, tsk!)

Graham playing Geckoman at the playground. I guess that is how to get a good picture of the kid. He is generally being a goofball for pictures. These actually turned out decently.

I put up a hammock in the little wooded area behind the pool and inside the pool fence for the kids. Next, I'm going to put some bird feeders and squirrel feeders back there. If they are quiet enough, they might see some fun wildlife. They love to take their books back there and just veg.

Cuties....

An old one that I never posted.

Tami

If you buy gum and you are a crafter, you should check out these awesome containers you get with Eclipse Gum. My boys love gum and we are constantly chewing it in the car. This container fits perfectly into one of the cupholders, but that's not the best part.

You may not be aware of this; the labels come off PERFECTLY. They aren't glued on at all, so no stickiness! They look just like this after you peel the labels off. I use these little puppies to store all of my little "stuff" in in my craft room... like little flowers, brads, eyelets, etc. The other nice thing, they open two ways and both ways are see-through. I just pop a label on the front and they're ready to go. The other bonus? Your embellishments smell fresh like my breath! A great way to re-use packaging!

Of course, you could decorate them with scrapbooking papers or paint and make them really cute, but they match all decor in their original white.

{OK... imagine you hear a record scratching to an extreme halt here.}

This Bitchy friend of mine... who shall remain nameless....sent me an email complaining that I didn't post a picture of the gum containers in action. Can you imagine the audacity? Anyway, I don't want her to yell at me anymore, so here is a picture of the containers in my craftroom.

LOL... Love ya, Wendy!

The boys got Sidewalk Chalk for Easter and had so much fun drawing all over the driveway!
They were so cute! You can click on the pictures to make them a little bigger (I think!)

These are my flowers that are coming up around my driveway. Yeah! Spring is coming!!!

This is the pond behind our house. We love to walk there and throw stones in it. We also see lots of animals there.

Ok... and lastly, while my parents were here, my mom and I did some sewing. This is the headband I made. I'm getting better at them and I will do a tutorial the next time I make one. I will then post it. My mom made a baby bonnet from one that she had when she was a baby (60 years ago!) It was SO cute! I'm going to post pictures of that too, hopefully tomorrow.