Party Preview

This year is Princess Sparkley's year to NOT have a birthday party. But because this is the year she turns 8 and is baptized, and her baptism isn't happening until two weeks AFTER her birthday, I told her we could have a tiny party with just a couple friends. She invited one friend from church and one from our church homeschool group, and we're having a FAIRY GARDEN PARTY. I'll be sure to post pictures once it's over, but for now, here's the invite:

I Vote for No End to the Summer...

...as long as I also get a say in the temperature and humidity.


Princess Sparkley is about to turn eight! And be baptized.
She asked the other day if I thought she'd be able to read The Secret Garden on her own, but I still can't convince her to read the original Nancy Drew books because they are TOO SCARY!



Buddy can swim!! Only a few feet now, but by the end of the summer (especially if it is never ending) will be our first swimmer!! And he asks almost daily if it's time to sign up for soccer yet.



Little Guy's new favorite phrases are:
"Lana got coned!" (from The Princess Diaries movie, PS taught him to say it.)
"Suusssann!" (from Monsters vs. Aliens, said in a creepy slow voice)
"I a doggy named Caterpillar." (When he's playing he's a doggy, he tells us this.)


Tuesday, August 3 we went to Beverly Park in Alexandria with some friends from our homeschool group. It's a neighborhood park, and people DONATE all these toys that just stay at the park. Some of them were super expensive and new. My kids were so excited when we pulled up and they saw all these fun toys. Have you ever seen a park like this?


All the sand toys are part of the park.


As well as kid basketball hoops, and a huge variety of tricycles and ride-ons.

Puddles!

I ran into the grocery store the other night (it wasn't raining), with Buddy and Little Guy (who insisted on coming but once we got inside was freezing cold and insisting that I carry him). We grabbed the few items we needed, checked out, loaded our bag, and started to the exit. It was POURING down rain. Like, step outside and you're taking a shower kind of rain. B was nice enough to watch for us and was pulling up to the curb, but I still had to carry a heavy grocery bag, and a heavy 2 1/2 year old, open a car door and shove him in, followed by me and the bag. In that 30 seconds, we got DRENCHED! So we drove home and the kids were super excited to play in the pouring down rain, but by the time they got boots on, etc. It had stopped. Yet only a minute earlier, when we'd been making the trip from the car to our front door, it was still pouring. If only we'd stuck it out in the car a minute longer!

They still had some fun playing in the puddles!


Favorite Quote of the Day:
"I got water in my boot," said by Princess Sparkley. Followed by Little Guy saying, "I got water in my flip flop."

Buddy's New Blankey!

I FINALLY finished Buddy's blankey. And it was actually rather simple and very quick. I got out all the fabrics (8 of them) that he picked out and ironed them one night. I was planning on doing a rag quilt with 5 inch squares but was terrified of actually cutting out all those 5 inch squares and lining them all up right to make it look good. Then I had the brilliant idea (thanks to Etsy) to do strips instead. (This helped too.) The next day I cut each half yard into 6 inch by 41 inch strips and had Buddy help decide how we'd put them all together. I didn't know if the front and back should be identical, or if we should create basically two different quilts. He ended up liking the layout where all the orange fabrics were on one side. And I eliminated one fabric that was more babyish and knocked the Nascar fabric down to only one stripe. I'm sneaky like that. And I sewed it all together. Here's the final product!


The orange side is the frayed side, so I guess the front. I really like how it turned out.


The back.


Folded in half so you can see both sides at once.


Zoom in on the one corner. I eliminated one row of the Nascar fabric (because I didn't really like it, and didn't think it matched well) and added a row of street sign fabric (that I only had a little bit of) and a rectangle of scraps from Little Guy's blankey fabric (since what started this whole mess was Little Guy stealing Buddy's tiny blankey I made to replace the burp cloths that had always been his blankeys). And the white fabric with little cars on it next to the navy blue and white stripe, is some of the tiny scraps I have leftover from Buddy's original blankeys, two burp cloths I sewed for newborn Buddy. He still has those burp cloths, they are in his bed or under his bed or scrunched down in the toes of his bed, they just aren't AS important as they once were.


Happy Buddy!

On the Camera

Princess Sparkley is apparently training Little Guy on how to take care of babies.
We had a Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle book club (no one ended up being able to make it) and made Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle sugar cookies (PS added a flattened ball of dough to the top of our gingerbread lady to give Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle a bun) and Ann & Joan (sisters from one of the stories that fight all the time) sugar cookies.



Princess Sparkley and Buddy created Lego Springs Mall and Polly Pocket Mall on my book shelves.



While I was sewing Buddy his new blankey, Princess Sparkley orchestrated the First Family Horse Race. Here are the kids with their "horses." Little Guy came in first (hence the trophy) and PS was nice enough to let Buddy come in 2nd. Somehow (probably because she was behind the camera) she failed to get a picture of her with her third place Post-It.

Swimming Pictures from the Cell Phone Camera

The townhome we rent is part of a giant apartment complex with a pool and a kid pool. We've been taking huge advantage of this over the summer.

Little Guy

A few weeks ago, Princess Sparkley and Little Guy came to the mall with my to shop for me summer clothes with my birthday money. Little Guy fell asleep in H&M and started sort of waking up. Then he got his hands all folded together like he was praying and put them under his head like a pillow. So cute!

The Cutest Little Runner

One of my goals for the year is to be able to run a mile without stopping. I haven't run since... maybe before Princess Sparkley was born, EIGHT years ago. I could be wrong. But, whenever it was, it's been a long time. B runs. He ran track and cross country in high school. For his exercise he runs or swims. We've been trying to exercise as a family so we go to our neighborhood junior high school's track (not nearly as frequently as we should) and I walk laps, B runs, and the kids walk a few, run a bit and kick a soccer ball around the middle of the track when they get bored. Usually I push Little Guy around and around in the stroller, then convince one of the bigger kids to push him while I run a bit. Lately Little Guy's been begging to get out and run as well... so after a few laps, I let him. He's such a cute little runner I had to capture his picture with my cell phone camera.






As he approached these trees ahead of him, I caught up with him and heard him say, "Not get me birdies" and he scooted in toward the inside lane. So dang cute!

Highway Building

More pictures I found on the camera when I uploaded images. I'm not sure if PS or Buddy took these.

If it ever takes me awhile to open the door when you knock, this is why.



For some reason, Buddy (and Little Guy as well), love to use this tile by the door as their spot to build cities, etc.

Fairfax Corner Fountains

Our church group has a park day on Thursday mornings. We almost never go. We went last summer when we first moved here, but Princess Sparkley and Buddy complained that it was all babies and no big kids. So when the big kids were all back in school and there was no chance of them being at park day, we abandoned it. Now that it's summer again, we've tried to go. This is only the second one we've made it to, and only one other lady from church was there. The kids still had lots of fun playing in the fountain though. Although by kids, I don't mean Little Guy. Little Guy mostly sat at a table with me. PS got pretty wet. Buddy got drenched.


Click to enlarge.

Miniature Golf

Click on image to enlarge.

The kids created this miniature golf course through our living room the other day. It occupied them for quite awhile. They took all the pictures, so there are dozens of them.

Donut Thief

Little Guy just helped himself to everyone else's donuts. We stopped at Dunkin' Donuts on the way home from the dentist to congratulate Princess Sparkley and Buddy for being so brave, but when we got home, it was super close to dinnertime, so we ate dinner and then had only half a donut each because they were full from dinner and we saved the other half for dessert/night time snack. Little Guy came over awhile ago and said he wanted his donut. I told him to wait and we'd eat them in a little bit. The next time I saw him he came in chewing saying he ate a donut. I asked whose donut. He answered, "all the donuts." He'd gotten a stool, carried it over to the counter, opened the box and ate 3 half donuts with sprinkles. He left the regular glazed one alone. And there were two littler pieces that he ate the frosting off the top of.

Needless to say, donuts are a sore subject in our family right now. We don't get them very often and both PS and Buddy are slightly annoyed at Little Guy.

Little Guy

When we move the chairs from the table to vacuum (yes, carpet under our table again... argh), the boys like to think we've created them a train. Here's Little Guy enjoying it.






When Princess Sparkley was a baby, my brother ran for school board. This was the t-shirt we all wore. It didn't fit PS at the time (she was only 3 months old or so), but my nice brother made sure we got a tiny kid sized shirt anyway. Our kids have all enjoyed wearing Uncle Roger on their shirt and now Little Guy has grown into it. He calls it his Uncle Roger shirt.







I think PS took this picture of Little Guy on her bed with a stuffed pig.





These crack me up. When I had the shot framed he was smiling nicely, but he was also chewing a cookie so as he continued to chew... the picture changed.

Trip South

We headed to B's sister's house on the 5th of July. As always, we had a great time and the cousins mostly enjoyed playing with each other.


At Kangaroo Jac's... a place filled with all those giant air filled slides and jumping things.



Everyone loved this place, but Little Guy LOVED it. He ran all over the place, didn't care if a sibling, cousin or parent was anywhere near him and was covered in sweat by the end. Unfortunately I didn't get any more pictures. We also went swimming at their neighborhood pool after dinner. Fun times.


The freeway we drive on to get there and back is a pretty major route for east coast, north/south travel. Our family has always been pretty good at the license plate game but especially so in the last 6 months or so. Buddy got this board for his birthday. He's an expert and most days beats B for the most license plates... this is an incredible feat that I've never accomplished. He even saw a Hawaii last week!! In Virginia. We had to drive back through the parking lot and make sure he wasn't lying to us. There is was, Hawaii. And we saw 2 Alaska plates at the Potomac Mills mall last week, which, according to my new book, Virginia Curiosities, is the most visited tourist attraction in Virginia. That's sort of sad.


This is what the board looked like at the end of the trip. The license plates still visible are the ones we didn't see. Those that are red, Buddy got. Blue are ones that PS and I shared. The ones flipped over so you can see the state capitol name are B's. Little Guy just yells out whatever we yell, most often California because there's a mini van from California that is always parked on our block and the kids fight over who spots it first each day when we get in the car.

Slug

We found this slug the other night... ON THE STOVE! I am thoroughly disgusted. How did this thing get in the house, let alone onto the stove. Ick!

Fashion Show

Princess Sparkley organized a fashion show.


Little Guy going down the runway.


All three.

Little Guy, future computer scientist

Little Guy has apparently become an expert on the computer. He's playing Tux Paint... a free, downloadable art program for kids.

Fourth of July Fireworks

After church on Sunday we had BBQ beef sandwiches and watermelon, followed by Apple Pie Squares and vanilla ice cream. Then we waited for the sun to set and we headed out to our town's firework show. We were poorly positioned, not really knowing where the fireworks would be set off, and ended up having a stand of trees blocking parts of the show, but we still got to see a lot and enjoyed it. Midway through the show they had technical difficulties so for about twenty minutes we just starred off into the distance and watched the tiny firework show from the next town over. Then our fireworks started up again. It was a pretty decent show. The kids all covered their ears at some point. Little Guy went into it really excited, telling me that fireworks go "BOOM! BOOM!" He seemed to like it a little bit during the show but seemed a little scared. Afterwards he said he liked it and added, "Fireworks pretty."

Getting Ready for the Fourth of July

We made these following Marie at Make and Takes instructions.



Princess Sparkley made everyone Fourth of July Bug headbands.








We made drawings of the Statue of Liberty following this and this.
(Hat Tip: The Crafty Crow)



We made these sugar cookie, patriotic, fruit pizzas.