A Little Bit of What We've Been Up to Lately

Hi all, I know I'm not very good about posting regularly.  Thanks for sticking around anyway!  Here are some of the things we've been up to around here.

 First, we went to my mom's for dinner last week and found these birds in the front yard.  It was a mother and father protecting a too-young baby.  They are apparently some type of Towhee--one friend said Eastern Towhee and a book claims they're another type.  Anyway, they were birds I had never seen before, and very brave.  The baby was literally 12 inches from my car when we went to leave in the evening.  The mother never flew away when I had to go on that side to buckle Elena into her carseat.  Mom made sure I backed out safely! 

 We've been drawing with sidewalk chalk (a huge container that Aunt Madeline gave the girls when she was visiting--props to Crayola who made tons of colors and they aren't too pricey!) (NO people, Crayola didn't pay me or give me anything to say that.)

 Elena has decided it is fantastic fun to sit and play in the sink.  She will scream, "Wawa!" and reach for the sink now.  Silly girl.

And this one is of Karina drawing.  She's done a lot of that lately, and playing with Legos, which I don't have a picture of. 

 We went to a swimming pool birthday party for my friend's son who is turning 8.  I almost didn't even bring Elena because I wasn't sure I could handle both girls in a pool by myself.  But Karina had floaties and the party favors were pool noodles, how cool is that?  So she was fine and Elena I just held as she splashed.

 I know what this looks like.  It's not that.  Elena is trying to step either onto or over the flippers.  Also, check out how I had to cut her bathing suit.  That's because I decided to bring her literally 10 minutes before we left, grabbed the first suit and swim diaper I could find, and it turns out it was too small for her!  So I borrowed my friend's scissors and chop, chop, now it wasn't so tight.  And the swim diaper is cute, so it didn't matter. 

And this...THIS I am so proud of.  This is Karina's drawing of the pool where we went.  The pool was indeed shaped like this.  The part at the top was the area with the diving board. On the top left are some party things (that is where the party was).  I can't remember what she said those were.  The pool noodles, maybe.  On the right the striped things are the lounge chairs (you know how they have slats?).  I drew the pink ones at her request.  Notice that Karina's are better than mine.  Ahem.  The black things in the pool are all different floaty things, rafts, etc.  And finally, in the bottom left hand corner we have a fabric store.  Yes, you read that correctly.  We've been spending some time there lately.  I guess she figured her ponies (she drew this as a place for her ponies to go) would need some fabric for something in a hurry.... After the party she spent the ride home telling me all about what she imagined her ponies did while she was at the pool.

 And finally, this is what is going on currently.  That would be streets in our neighborhood being repaved.  Why?  I have no idea.  They aren't bad.  I think it's a huge waste of my taxpayer money, but anyway that's going on.  That big thing is the asphalt scraper-upper machine.  I don't know how it does it but it's amazing to watch.

 The girls looking out my bedroom window at the construction on our street.

 Here is where they have scraped close to the curb but haven't gotten the middle of the street yet.  Notice how tall our grass is.  That is because it has not been mowed in approximately five million weeks.  Bill had surgery and right before he went we had a ton of rain, so he didn't mow before the surgery as planned and now he can't.  I could but it's so hot.....

 I don't know why I put this picture (above) on here.  It's just the street all messed up looking.

 Here's Elena on the bed.  Can you believe how big she's gotten?  Sheesh.

 The view of the corner from our house.  See the scraper machine?  It follows the dump truck and that arm thing dumps all the asphalt it rips up into the dump truck.  Look below and I think you can see it a little.

 Turning the corner....

 Starting the process...

 There, can you see all that black stuff?  That's our old road shooting into the dump truck.  I think they went through about 10 dump truck loads at least just for our small cul-de-sac.

 Here's a better view of the stuff shooting out.

And here's Bill and Karina down at the corner watching it all.  He has been going to work a little here and there as he feels up to it.  The surgery was fine and he's okay, just a longer recovery than expected.  But all's well, no worries.  :-)

The signs on our street suggest they will be finished in early July.  I sure hope so.  It's kind of a pain.

So that's pretty much it.  Oh, that huge yard sale starts up soon.  We don't have as much as we have in years past.  Not even close. It's pretty disappointing.  Hopefully we'll still do well though.  Take care, all!

That whole Google Reader thing.

Hey, most of you out there in bloggy land have probably noticed Google Reader's quits.  I was recently reminded of this by some kind of pop-up reminder thingy on my bloglovin' page.  So, in case you want to keep following this wee little blog of mine, I have installed a Follow on Bloglovin' button.  Or you can follow me on any other blog following site that lets you add blogs via url.  That is how I have added a bunch of blogs to bloglovin. 

I picked bloglovin randomly.  Someone on a blog somewhere mentioned it, and I checked it out and it seemed to work well for me, so there I am.  I've stopped using Google reader to read the blogs I follow and have converted to bloglovin and I like it. 

I still think it's lame that Google reader is going away.  I will never understand marketing or whatever it is that says, "Hey this is a popular item/service.  Let's get rid of it."  But then, I also do not have a marketing degree.  Or whatever kind of degree it is that these people have that get rid of popular things for no reason known to consumers.  (A long time ago, a very popular lingerie store which also sells hand lotion and soap and stuff had a scent called Her Majesty's Rose and it smelled EXACTLY like roses.  I have never smelled anything else before or since that smelled so perfectly like a rose.  Then they discontinued it.  The saleswoman didn't understand either.  She said it was their most popular scent.)

Blah blah blah I am rambling. 

Over on the side I have the little bloglovin button.  It's really tiny, sorry.  I couldn't tell from the image when I picked it that it would be so small.  I should go exchange it for the bigger one...  Well I might do that now but either way, look for it if you want. 

Hopefully most of you will stick around.  I know I don't do much around here anymore but who knows?  Maybe someday I will.  Ha ha!

(Actually, I have to take some pictures of a dressform that I made with my husband.  For those of you who aren't sewing buffs, it's basically a fake body that you use to try your clothes on and if you have one that is the size of yourself then it's easier to make clothes and alter them to fit yourself.  But they aren't cheap, most are around $250 that I've seen and some are even more than that.  So I made one.  But that's a story for another day!)

Just passing along...

Hi folks, here's a nice new sewing blog if you would like to go check it out. She's got a giveaway going on too.

http://mysewinghabit.blogspot.com/

What we've been up to

Karina finished up preschool and we've been working on a routine, unsuccessfully, since then. 

The weekend after school got out was busy.  We had the big Youth Service at my church that Sunday, which meant that I was down at church from 8-12, with Karina.  She wanted to come, and that was fine.  I knew she would be good for the 2 hour practice, and then be able to sit through church with my mom.  The youth service is fun and there are lots of songs with motions and stuff, so it's something I thought she could handle (and she did).  Background for a cute story:  When we do this service, the kids do most of it, and Kelly and I just sit in the pew and guide them, and then if they need more voices to lead the songs, we'll go up front and do that.  So at one point near the end of church, Karina told my mom she wanted to come say hi to me and that she would go right back to my mom.  (I didn't know that til after church was over).  She came up to me at the pew right as the kids were going up to sing a tricky, two-part song.  So I took Karina up with me.  She's good, she just stood there while we sang.  Then as we sat back down, she was walking past the pew where Kelly and I were sitting and I guided her into it.  So she ended up sitting with us for the end of the service and singing a couple more times.  Cute. 

So we were there a long time, and oh, by the way it also happened to be Bill's and my 6th anniversary.  So after we got home, we ate some lunch, I put Elena down for her afternoon nap, and then after that we went over to the park where Bill and I were married.  It has been tradition to have a picnic or at least go over there every year.  We love the park anyway and go there a lot, but it's neat to go back on our anniversary and remember that day.  Then we went to Wendy's for dinner.  Woohoo, so romantic!  Ha ha, no it was fine, for real.  It was a fun afternoon with the girls and I didn't feel like figuring out what to feed us for dinner anyway.  We like Wendy's a lot.  I love their chicken nuggets and their chicken sandwich and of course the Frostys.  (PS This is not a sponsored post, none of my posts are sponsored but I have to say that anyway.  They didn't ask me to say nice things about their food and they didn't give me anything and in fact they probably have no clue who I am or that I like their food). 

What else have we been doing?  I sewed a skirt.  This is huge people, because I'm not talking about a two-pieces of fabric and some elastic, I mean a skirt with two pieces in front, a piece in back, a back yoke, a waistband, and a zipper.  And I didn't use a pattern.  I'm serious.  I just used a skort I have already and tried to make the skirt look like it.  Oh, and I don't have a dressform, either, but I want one.  All I have to do now is put a snap or button on it and finish up some side seams that aren't laying right and I will be able to wear this skirt in public.  So exciting!  And I'm so proud of myself!  I've been trying to get better with my sewing and have been trying different things.  Unfortunately, the friend who taught me to sew is no longer a friend of mine, so I am teaching myself through trial and error and lots of sewing blogs.  I know how to use a pattern, I just really hate them and it's hard for me to find the room to lay them out properly.  Oh and I detest cutting the things out.  It's like cutting tissue paper, but huge sheets of it, and if you don't do a good job the whole thing gets messed up. 

I went shopping last weekend, that's right, I knew something happened last weekend other than the youth service and our anniversary.  My cousin popped by.  So I was out shopping by myself and instead of going to my usual stores, I went into Charming Charlie.  I walk past it sometimes and have always wanted to go in, so I finally did.  I only got a clearance necklace and earring set, because honestly little miss grabby-hands keeps me from wearing much (she even reaches for my little tiny silver stud earrings and I am paranoid she will rip them out of my ears!), but I do like something pretty.  While I was there my mom called and said my cousin and her little baby boy had stopped by to visit, so I went home and got the girls and we went over to see them.  She lives about 40 minutes from us, so not far, but far enough that we don't see her enough.  Baby munchkin was about 3 months old last time we saw him and he's now 7 months, sitting up and playing.  So cute.  It was nice to see her. 

So back to the jewelry store and the necklace and earring set I bought.  I took it home and Karina wanted to see it.  I knew she would like it because it's purple, but the girl has practically stolen it from me!  She's already worn it two different days.  The sad part is, she rocks it.  She has more style at age four than I have ever had in 37 years.  Maybe she can teach me something....

Hope you are all doing well!

 

And here's my little sweetheart, Lambkin in tow, spraying plants so they will grow.  So sweet.  She wanted her hair up today like mine.  I know you can't really see the necklace, but you can kind of see it.  Her shirt has a purple heart on it and it looks like a cardigan thingy but it's part of the shirt  She's got this cute little pink flowered skirt on with a bunch of ruffle layers, too.  See, she has style.  I am not in the picture because I do not have style.  I was wearing jean shorts and a T-shirt.  I couldn't even remember what color it was til I looked over at the laundry basket just now.  But I am okay with it, and happy as long as the girls are happy.

Insert cutesy sign-off phrasing here