Sunshine in a Box

One of the ladies I go visiting teaching to has been having a not so fun summer.  I had seen this idea at the beginning of summer---somewhere---and the idea stuck with me. When I was at Wal-Mart today---I thought I really should do that and take it to her.
 It's Sunshine in a Box or a Box of Sunshine. I just bought things that I could see that were yellow---tied some yellow ribbon around some of them. I had this cute tin box that some scrapbook stuff came in and I thought it would be perfect. Just put all the sunshine in the box. I did put some yellow cardstock on front, made a yellow flower (with a pin on the back), a cute tag---and we're good to go. It would make me smile--so I hope she knows we're thinking about her. I'm going to try to make up some quick cards to put in the bottom of it.

4th of July shirt

Mom sewed up this cute shirt for Kenzie for the 4th of July. She used red shirt from our DI bag, cut into strips and then gathered it for the red stripes. It really was a quick, simple shirt to make.

Better Late than Never

Here is what I did to get ready to for summer this year.  We first enjoyed Melanie's graduation - which had to be held inside because it was SOOOO COLD!!  It also poured rain between the graduation and the all-night party.   So in 5 days after that I went to where it was already warm.  It was 45 degrees when we left Boise on June 1 and 58 degrees when we came back on June 7.  But it was a nice, sunny 95-100 degrees the days that we spent in San Antonio, TX!!  It was great and it helped me hang in there until summer really finally arrived in Idaho.

This is Sean and his best BMT buddy, Austin.  Wow don't they look handsome in their 'blues.' The picture below is the parade grounds where they did pass and review on Friday morning.  The flags were so cool looking. 

 After the graduation was over, we drove into San Antonio and had lunch at a restuarant on the Famous Riverwalk.  That was great and then we took the boat tour of the Riverwalk.  It is beautiful and our guide was a real entertainer.  Here are just a couple of the pics I took while we were on the boat. 

Getting Ready for Summer

Here are Lois' Getting Ready for Summer pictures.

Getting ready for summer for us is counting down the days until school ends. This summer we seem to be short on time (like most summers) so this year it meant that we get a new lawn mower. Buy new sandals for the girls, and waiting and watching for the eggs to hatch in our drive way. Getting a supply of activities for those long summer days and last it has meant finally planting some fruit trees in our yard.

"Getting Ready for Summer"

When I first started thinking about this, I had a hard time coming up with ideas for pictures, but as I started taking pictures I kept thinking of more and more things I could take pictures of.

For me---getting ready for summer means packing up my classroom---shoving everything into the coat rack. One of the last things we do is stack our desks and chairs---that definitely means summer is here.

Summer for me means---Sandals, cute shoes, and lots of flip flops. It is such a relief to let me feet be free of socks and shoes. This also means painting my toenails---and if I'm really lucky---I get a pedicure!! Love it!!

Since summer is my down time---I read--- A LOT. I haven't been able to keep up with all the books during school this year, so they've been piling up. This week, this is what the pile looks like. I've already finished three. (I do have to confess that there is one book that was in my pile from last summer---hopefully I can get to it this year.)

I'm not sure what this has to do with anything---but I was having fun with it. I did have to buy a new pair of sunglasses this year--so I can count it!.

 Head over here for some more getting ready for summer pictures: http://flwblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/getting-ready-for-summer-challenge.html

The next theme is Sounds of Summer by July 17

Summer Photogaphy Challenge

Tomorrow we will be posting pictures for....getting ready for summer. I'm not sure the best way to do this, but if you could e-mail the pictures to me, I will put them directly on this blog. I've had to remove my e-mail from the previous post, so if you are participating and don't have my e-mail address, comment here and we will figure out a way to get your pictures. Can't wait to see the pictures---I better get busy and get my pictures taken!!!

This was a really fun party that we had just our little family. It only took us a couple of hours to get everything ready and thank goodness the dollar store had sling shots.

We did this game, and had the pigs made out of ballons and then each one of us had a sling shot with a couple of balls. It was a lot hard than I thought it would be.


We also decorated cupcakes and had drinks that we covered with the angry bird theme. We really all love to play this game so it was fun to do this.

Triangular cruls

I saw this idea on a Princess and her Hair blog and thought it would be fun to try. It was really easy to do. First I straightened her hair and then I went to work on it.

After her hair was straight I took a piece of paper and rolled it up. The I took the hair and wrapped it around the paper

After that I took the straightening iron and clamped it onto the hair, the first time you hold it longer because the paper isn't flat. Leave it on the paper to cool in order to hold the hair.

Then I took the paper off and had these cute curls.

Lastly I separated the curls and had a really cute hair style that was fun and different.

Camera Bag

Mom made this camera bag for Melanie--she got her new camera. This was her graduation gift.

Fiesta

A couple weeks ago, we had our Mother/Daughter night. We went with a Mexican theme. One of the sisters in our ward had her mother-in-law come and demonstrate how to make homemade tortillas and then you could try rolling out your own if you wanted to. We had tacos, a pinata for the kids---that was it. It was pretty low-key and low-stress. I made these tissue paper pom-poms for the table centerpieces. I have wanted to try these out for a while--they are easy, but a pain and probably a lot cuter the bigger they are.

I did NOT use the orange one that night. It was my trial run--and I actually liked it the best.

I had seen this really cute wreath on a blog---it's from Fiskars. I thought it was SOOO cute--but when would I ever have cause to make something like this? Probably Never!!

....so change it to red, green, and white---it was looking very fiesta-ish. It was quite a LONG process--translation--not worth it for table decorations, so I only made one.

Summer Photography Challenge

It seems that sometimes in life we need a boost to get us back into the groove of doing things well. For me, that is my picture taking. I get really excited about it for a while and I do great things, but then I get lax and pretty soon I'm not taking pictures very often, and when I do, they aren't that great. So, we thought we would issue a bit of a challenge here to document SUMMER in pictures. Because, really--who doesn't love summer? Every two weeks we will have a new "topic" relating to summer. During the following two weeks (or whenever), take pictures, then, if you want to e-mail them to me, I can post them here.  Now, I'm thinking it would be kind of cool to take several pictures, put them in a collage, or a mini-album or something--I don't know, just brainstorming.
So, our first topic is "Getting Ready for Summer." (I know, kind of late on this one!) What do you do to get ready for summer? So, on June 27, we'll post our pictures and then issue the next "topic." (I'm actually going to post all the topics and dates in the sidebar--so you can be planning ahead). I hope you will play along with us and document your summer and strengthen your photography skills as well.

Church activity books

I saw this idea on i am momma hear me roar and I really liked it. I have been wanting to do it for a couple of weeks and just finally got around to doing it. It was super easy to do. Each book has my girls name on it so they don't fight over it and inside are papers from the Friend magazine that I ripped out. Megan tried it out on Sunday and really liked it. Joel tried out Ashlynn and it kept him entertained for a little while. For Ashlynn's book I used other pictures that weren't in the Friend magazine because I felt like she couldn't do the activities as well as Megan. You can write on the sheet protectors with dry erase crayons and then it wipes off pretty easy. The only problem is that it wipes off on your clothes and the crayons will write on your hands while you hold them.

One Word

I am finally caught up on my one word project, except I need a couple of pictures of me put in it. It has been a good reminder for me to have this to look at each month. Someday I am sure it will be a treasure for my girls to look at. I wasn't quite sure how I was going to do the pictures that represented your word, but I really like how it turned out.

Graduation Gift

So--our Relief Society president likes to give a gift to the girls in our ward graduating from high school. This is supposed to be kind of a welcome to Relief Society...)it's really not that bad) kind of thing. I had found this quote around Mother's Day and I loved it...thought it would be a good thing to give someone who is just starting out on their own, figuring out their life. So, to make it cuter, I spray painted some frames from Wal-Mart.

Then, I decided I needed something more to go with it. So, I decided to give them some tools--I figured that is something you wouldn't think about needing until you needed.  So, I bought some tools, but---I would need something to put them in--and something CUTE. So--a bag. I just used material that we already had on hand that coordinated with the frames. Well, the fun part here is that I had bought some heat transfer to try out in my Silhouette. So, I decided to personalize the bag. It was pretty easy--I only messed up once (I forgot to reverse it ---duh!!!). It cute out, I put it on the material and ironed. I think they turned out really cute.

Here are the gifts all wrapped up and ready to be delivered.

Outdoor Vinyl

Here are a couple more things I've used the outdoor vinyl on---it just makes plain things cute--and who doesn't love that?

Water bottle I made for Aubrie's birthday.

 This is the basket I gave to the aide who's been in my classroom this year. I had bought the tub a long time ago--I just put the vinyl on it---it makes the basket so much cuter. She loved the blanket--eveyone was impressed that the kids had sewn the flowers...and the kids were thrilled with it all.

Jewelry Organizer

I'm not really sure I want to share some of these pictures because I'm slightly embarrassed. I have quite a few pieces of jewelry (okay---I have a LOT of necklaces). Jewelry is not a very easy to organize--- I have all my necklaces on those 3M hooks on the side of the organizer in my closet. Being the obsessively organized person that I am---they are organized by color. The problem with this is--I can't see them!! If I suck my stomach in, I can squeeze half my body in the closet to look at them.

This is a look at how they are hanging---I had to just put the
camera in the closet and push the shutter because I can't
see in it.

I've seen these cute jewelry organizer ideas several more times. I thought it would be decorative and functional. I headed to DI to find some frames, put some cup hooks in them, sprayed them brown. and hung them up.

Here are the frames hanging empty. They are hanging
between my closet doors.

Then, I pulled all of my necklaces out.....

Yes--Can you believe I have that many necklaces?

Hung them on the hooks. I think it turned out kind of fun. No--they did not all fit in these frames, so I have some still hanging in the closet. I put ones that only go with certain outfits in the closet and I am thinking that I can change them out periodically (maybe). It seems I just wear the same ones over and over.

This was a cheap, quick, and easy thing to do. I think I spent $4 for frames and eye hooks. Not bad. I actually liked the frames empty on the wall also. I could see painting frames different colors and then hanging them on a wall.

Falls

I feel like I have lost a lot of my ability to take pictures because I don't take them often enough. Sure I take a picture everyday for project life, but I usually take it in my house so I put it on Auto to make sure the picture turns out good. I am challenging myself to take more pictures and be aware of the setting and what I am trying to get a picture of. Hopefully this will work out this summer and I can get some good pictures.

Shoshone Falls-The rainbow was really cool.

Lower Mesa Falls- We couldn't get very close to these falls but they were still pretty cool.

Upper Mesa Falls. This picture is actually of the falls just before it drops off. I really like this picture because it stops the movement and you can see the drops of water. This water fall was really bigand it made me a little nervous to be so close even with the fence all the way around it.