Summertime is Over

School starts back tomorrow.

I'm happy about that and sad all at the same time.

My 2 favorite days of the year are the first day of school and the last day of school.

While the kids are bummed that they are heading back, they are also excited to be seeing their friends, making new friends and getting back into routines.

Our summers are pretty laid back over here.  We turn off the alarm clocks, rarely look at the calendar and just do whatever we feel like doing from each day to the next.

It seems like this summer flew by.  It seems like it went faster than last summer, which also flew by.

So, here is a look back at all the things we did this summer:

We had chicken & waffles at Gladys Knight & Ron Winans restaurant

 

We shopped at IKEA and bought this light for the basement

 

We swam at the pool with friends.

 

We spent time shooting hoops

 

We traveled to South Carolina and saw cool water towers like this baseball one

 

and this peach one

 

I got new flip flops which are perfect for our high school spirit wear

 

 

We captured a snake in the basement.

 

Victoria and I got haircuts

 

We grilled in the rain.... especially during the entire month of July

 

We ate at Chick-fil-A... alot. Oh and hid from mom's camera

 

We tried our hand at fried pickles

 

We moved the bird feeders around in hopes of keeping the squirrels out.  Didn't work!

 

We finished the ceiling in the den in the basement.

Well, almost; still need to add trim.

 

We traveled to Alabama and saw the Mini Statue of Liberty

 

We also took the kids to the Birmingham Museum of Art where they acted like they had never been out of the house with civilized people before  :(

 

We went to baseball games

 

 We went to softball games

 

We sent the oldest off to Afghanistan for the next several months.

 

We watched more softball

 

We took the trolly to the top of Stone Mountain

 

We skipped rocks in the lake

 

We played in the mini waterfall

 

We had putt-putt competitions

 

We visited the zoo and road the train

 

When I look back on it like that, seems we did lots of things.

It was a good summer and we are looking forward to what this school year holds.

Crayon Art

I was at a scrapbook event recently and some of us ladies got to talking about art projects on Pinterest.  One of them mentioned about the crayon art that her daughter did that sounded really cool.  I'm actually surprised that I hadn't seen it before but I had not.

Luckily, I had been buying school supplies as they were on special prices so I had a few boxes of crayons on hand.  

Supplies needed:

painting canvas (any size)

Crayola crayons (they MUST be Crayola!  We used a 24 count box)

hot glue

hairdryer

painting easel if you have one

 

I started by laying all the crayons on the canvas just to make sure that I would have room for all of them.

 

After that, I just hot glued each crayon to the canvas, point facing down.

 

I set my canvas up on the easel and then my daughter, who was very excited about doing this project; got to work with the hairdryer.

 

You just start putting heat to the crayons and eventually they will start to melt and run down the canvas.

 

It's slow going at first but once they get hot; watch out!

 

In hindsight, I would have put newspapers over the cardboard piece on my table, and on the floor and would have moved further away from the curtains.  We ended up with crayon everywhere.

 

And, our finished project.  We both loved how it turned out.  You can see, if you look closely; that some of the entire crayons came out of the wrappers and slid down the canvas.  I told my daughter that I really didn't want them to do that.  Her response was, "I can't help it; it's art!"  She's too funny.

 

I love how it adds a little bit of color to this space in the basement.

 

So that's our crayon art.  Super easy and lots of fun.

 

Happy Father's Day

Today we celebrate all the great dad's in the world and I wanted to take the time to say Happy Father's Day to the guy that my kids call dad.

(He's the one hiding behind the pole)

Yes, he's always good for a laugh.

 

We don't spend a lot of money on elaborate gifts for Father's Day, or even Mother's Day  for that matter; we just like to spend the day together, doing something fun as a family.

The kids usually get their dad a card and they make some kind of gift for him.  This year, this is what we made.

 

He loves Reece's Pieces so we thought this would be very fitting.

I also cooked lunch and made a dessert to have for later.

The recipe I made today is Strawberry Colada Parfait Pie.  It's made using Tastefully Simple's Strawberry Colada Parfait Mix.

 

 

All you do is mix the contents of Packet 1 from the box with 8 oz cream cheese.  Once that is mixed fold in 1 tub of whipped topping.

 

Spread that mixture into a graham cracker crust and sprinkle the contents of Packet 2 from the box over the top.

 

Cut some strawberries up into slices.

 

Put the strawberries on top and you have a delicious dessert ready to go.

I think it took a total of about 20 minutes to make and I didn't have to turn on the oven in this heat. 

 

I hope my hubby loves it and has a very happy father's day!!

 

 

An All You inspired 4th of July wreathe

 

I just received my current issue of my All You magazine.  As I was reading through it, I came across this cute 4th of July wreathe that I knew I just had to make.

It was super easy and my daughter and I completed it in one afternoon.

We gathered all our supplies which included:

80 wooden clothespins

acrylic red, white and blue paint

a 10" embroidery hoop

star stickers

paintbrushes

 

We started by painting 30 of the clothespins red and white and painting 20 of the clothespins blue.

 

We left the clothespins to dry for a short time then came back and did an extra coat of paint on the fronts of each one.

 

Turning my daughter loose with paint always ends up with something like this...

a pen painted blue, paint all over your work surface and on any pieces of trash that we may have.

 

Once all the pins are dry, start by clipping the blue pins onto the embroidery hoop.  They should be in the upper left hand side of the hoop and take up about 1/4 of the space.

 

You then start putting on the red and white pins alternately around the rest of the hoop.  You can do them in groups of 4 or 5 depending on your hoop size.

 

Once you get the red and white pins on, you can add some star stickers to the blue pins.

 

And you end up with this cute wreathe.  I didn't put a poly coating over the pins so mine will be hanging inside.

The photo in the magazine also had a red bow hot glued to the bottom.  I chose not to add one but could always go back and do that if I wanted.

It was a super easy craft and like I said, we had it done in one afternoon.