Even More Late Night Creativity

Thanks to Brody thinking he's big stuff and refusing to sit in his safety bath seat (even though both of my other kiddos did that for a long time) I  now have to fill up the tub a few inches and let him crawl and go crazy like a big kid.  This gives me lots of time to sit on the toilet lid and use my laptop.  Therefore, lots of posts on the blog since I can't do much else right here on lifeguard duty.  Crazy kid!  Only 10 months old and thinks he's four like Tucker.  I am so in for it!

 My newest way to store birthday memorabilia.  Pocket pages.  Never know what to do with all the cards and well wishes.  Now I can store them and the kids (and their future wives) can deal with the clutter.  I know my future daughter-in-laws are going to love me!...."Oh by the way....you marry my son, you inherit 27 scrapbooks.  Don't ever destroy them."  Yup, they are gonna love me!

More Late Night Scrapbooking

With Brody mostly sleeping through the night and the kiddos in bed at a decent time, along with the Logger, I have been able to pull some late nights in the scrapbook room.  Here's sme of what I've come up with:

A Few Projects

Mario Party

For those of you who follow or for those of you who know us personally, you know that we have three kids, all of whom have birthdays within a two month range. Tucker starts us offon July 22, then Cameron on August 4th, and the newest birthday will be Brody, with his first birthday taking place on September 26th. In the middle of that, is my birthday and then our anniversary five days later. Needless to say, we spend a lot of $$$$ during this time of the year, but we also have a lot of great milestones and celebrations to put together. And it's worth every penny. Of course, me being all into thematic parties, I start planning in my head in May and by July 22nd, we are ready to bust out some serious celebrations! Here are numerous photos of our first in the line-up, a "Mario Party" as requested by my newly four year old son.

He got the Wii and Super Mario for Christmas and ever since then, it has been a strong request. "Mom, I'm having a Mario party this year". I started to look and there just isn't a lot of Mario party decor out there. So I started piecing it together myself. My craziest Martha move for this party was in fact, the homemade Mario Pinata. It turned out pretty well, as you will see in the photos. Something I'm pretty proud of, but please don't ever ask for a homemade pinata from me, as I am putting away the paper mache and moving on with my life. Yes it was worth it, but barely.
We also made some Mario sodas and played a Team Mario/Team Luigi relay race, along with some basic and old school potato sack races.

The cake turned out amazing. Lots of bright colors and different levels. I tried to kind of make it look like one of the levels in Super Mario Brothers. Don't know if that's what it ended up being, but I was pretty pleased with it anyways. And I knew I scored when Tucker looked at it and said, "You're the best Mom ever." Makes it all worth it.

We are so blessed and fortunate to have lots of cousins, family, and good family friends, all at a great age to get into games and enjoy the party scene, so that is exactly what we did.
And so, without further ado...the Mario Party!

PS: When I downloaded these photos, I meant to put them in chronological order, from beginning stages to ending with the big pinata. But....they came out backwards. So let's scroll through and watch the party from end to beginning. Or, scroll to the bottom and work you way back up. Either way, enjoy!

Summer Update--June

Pardon me as I sit here in silence sipping red wine and venting on my blog. But, can I just say, that after a month and a half of no schedule, trying to get my kids to cooperate with waking up early enough to get to Vacation Bible School is KILLING me! Tucker went to bed in tears tonight because he is completely off his rocker tired. And Cameron is yawning and yawning and yawning. But refuses to give in. Anyways, three days of vacation bible school has caught up with us and this Mommy has had it. Two days left and then back to no routine and lazy mornings.

In the meantime, here are two updates from June. This first photo is of Cameron in her T-Ball uniform. She had a great team, good coaches, good friends, and lots of fun. Had a great time cheering her on and looking forward to next summer with both Cameron and Tucker in T-ball. Also, looking forward to this fall with Tucker playing his first organized sport of Soccer. I hate soccer, but I love watching this boy do anything active. Can't wait!


And secondly, one of my craft projects (don't ask me how I had the time) that I created for my neice Bria's baptism, which also took place this month. This card used some left over DCWV The Green Stack scraps and also some cards from last year's Project Life kit. I thought it turned out pretty cute! But not as cute as Bria was in her white angel dress when she got baptised a few weekends ago. What a lucky girl to be part of such a great family. My sister is an awesome Mommy and Jeff is a rocking Daddy. Love you guys!

Looking forward to some more posts sharing some of my recent scrapbook projects. Keep watching for those! For now, I'm going to finish this wine and enjoy some bad tv in the silence of my house.

200th Post

Oh my gosh, it's the middle of July and I haven't hardly posted anything for the summer. That's because I haven't stopped for two seconds since the kiddos got out of school back in May. Lazy summer indeed! Can I just say that it's been nice, but for the love of God, why can't we get back to school? We have been busy with swimming lessons, carnivals, camping trips, gardening, trips to the city pool, and vacation bible school, which I help plan and direct. And after this week, we are into birthday season, which takes up the rest of the summer. Mix that with a little school clothes shopping and you have a summer all wrapped up and ready to put away for the year. And can I just say how much I am looking forward to having one in school from 9-3:30 every day and the other one in preschool three mornings a week? I MIGHT be able to do something with myself!

And so, I will start updating and posting some pics from summer life here in the Brown house. So get ready for some posts!

Early in May Cameron had her Spring Dance Recital. This year we decided to try Tap/Jazz instead of a 3rd year of Ballet. I'm so glad we did, the quicker moves and dancing was right up Cameron's alley. Here are some of her friends waiting to rehearse their dances.



And here she is posing afterwards with her roses and Tucker.






Alright, that's it for now. Off to spray paint 100 jumbo pasta shells red for pasta shell crabs at Bible School tomorrow morning.

Shopping for Father's Day

Yesterday I realized that Father's Day is Sunday. In the midst of my weekly running around on top of the local Carnival/Festival that is in town, I needed to figure this out. And the kids are at that irritating stage where they completely get and acknowledge the appreciation for Father's Day (and Labor Day, and Veterans Day, and Cinco De Mayo, and basically any other day that might be a reason to celebrate anything) but they are completely incapable of doing anything to prepare for themselves. So off we went to Boise.

We started the day at Gymnastics. I think I may have mentioned that Cameron is "trying" gymnastics at a gym in Boise this summer. She is loving it. I am loving it. The boys, however, are not loving entertaining themselves in a gym where they can't run and do sumersaults for an hour.

After that hour of "fun", we headed on up the road to the Boise Mall. A place that used to be held dearly in my heart as somewhere to go and something to do for an entire day. Somewhere that included leisure. Somewhere that included shopping for myself. Buying new clothes. Trying new styles. Now, this is one of the seven levels of Hell for a parent. Nothing fits, I realize each and every time that I am old. And everything is four times the price that it seems it should be. But, alas, Daddy needed some new cargo shorts and Mommy forgot to online shop.

We circulated the parking lot looking for somewhere close enough for an emergency run to the car. All the while, giving the lecture about how they are going to walk beside me the entire time, not ask for everything in sight, not fight, use manners, and for the love of God, please use the bathroom as SOON as we get in the door so we can get this shopping excursion finished in a short amount of time. There may have been bribes of ice cream.

Right.

First stop, the bathrooms. Of course, they all have to go try it out, check out the decor, make sure that it is the same as every other bathroom they have ever seen. But, because it was convenient and planned, Tucker did not have to go. On to the Food Court to attempt lunch.

All the options in the world and the kids still choose a Happy Meal. Fine. Two more obnoxious Kung Fu Panda Toys to carry in my purse, both of which include 4 pieces. 8 plastic toy pieces floating aimlessly in my purse. Awesome. Thanks McDonalds!

After answering the question, No, you may not bring your fries and ketchup shopping, We stop at Payless Shoes. They each ask for a tacky trash backpack. I say no. They each ask for ugly plastic shoes. I say no. Remember the whole lecture about not asking for everything they see? Yeah, they didn't either.

Into the Icing jewelry shop. Cameron decides for the 15th time that she is ready to get her ears pierced. She sits in the chair, gets the spill from the young girl, can't make up her mind. I threaten her with her life that if she makes the choice to do this, she's going to do it NO MATTER WHAT because I'm not paying out $35 again and walking out with no earrings. Yes, thanks Claires! For making your earrings sterile to the point that once the seal is cracked on your studs, you can't re use them again. And yet, you have to pay for them regardless. Thanks for that. I carry a pair of gold studs around in my purse just as a reminder of why I don't let her try to get her ears pierced every time we go to Boise. Hope they are still in style when she does finally get hers pierced, because she's gonna wear them if it's the last thing I do.

So then all the parents are watching what they thought was going to be a cute girl getting her ears pierced for the first time end up being her Mother going ballistic on her for making her pay out $35 and no piercings. Cameron starts crying because she just can't decide if it's going to hurt. She swears she wants them, but doesn't want them. So we decide to wait. This time until we are 16. Fine by me. On we go.

A few t-shirts, a few pairs of shorts. A few coffee mugs for the Grandpa's at Hallmark. And we are out. Tucker only hid behind every rack of clothes and was adamant that we buy Sexy Logger a Mario T-Shirt in a size XXL. I'm not sure how that would have went over. Brody of course wouldn't ride in the stroller, so I carried him, Tucker pushed Cameron around, which was ridiculous, but it worked.

On down the road to the Sportsman's Warehouse. $33 worth of lures later, we were out. I pretty much just tell the kids to pick out three each that look like they are lucky. Cameron's choice was a metallic pink sword fish looking thing. Pretty sure it's for salt water ocean fishing. But hey, it's Father's Day! Maybe it'll be the lure that wins the next tournament, which is not in a Salt Water area.

On for ice cream for the kiddos and a LARGE Diet Pepsi for Mom. Stressful and I felt like I was running a marathon. But, we got it accomplished with little to no failures. Success.

On to the Carnival Friday.