Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Nesting Vs. Creative Genius

This past week I have been on a creative binge.  Tim swears I am nesting, but unfortunately my 'nesting' has nothing to do with cleaning my house, just getting ready for my little girl.  And the reason why I've been working so hard on it is because I have put it off so long and there is no time left.  So it is either now or never.

Here is everything that I have done this past week.  Honestly, when I lay it all out it does not look like much... but this past week my house has looked like a crafting tornado has ripped through it.  Although, it may not look like much... it is done and I am proud of it!

I made Lulu letters for her wall...

I made a headband/barrette holder for Lulu's room.
And for those of you do not understand what this is... the hooks will hold all of Lulu's headbands and the ribbons (which are not glued/sewed down) are where you clip the flowers and bows that go on the headbands... or I guess in their hair if they have some:-)

Here are the flower and bows I have made.

And here are the headbands I made.

And lastly, because Cohen is being kicked out of his room and moving in with his brother in the awesome superhero room.  I had to make Cohen his name to match with his new room.  So, here is Cohen's new Hulk Smash name.

And that has been my nesting week!  I just hope I can continue nesting and clean the house now;-)

Sunday, March 16, 2014

Way To Early!

Today is March 16th.  While in other parts of the country people are excited about warming up to the 50's, our temperature here in Phoenix was in the high 80's.  Our pool temperature is 76 degrees.  Tim and I took the cover off our pool last night so we could clean it (our neighbor has one of those trees that has little yellow fuzz balls all over it and it make the biggest mess ever!!!!)  When Arlo woke up this morning, one of the first things that he notices is that the cover is off, he runs to me and yells "hey mommy the cover is off, that means we get to go swimming!!!!"  I told him no way, it was still to cold to go swimming, but his father had other ideas.  So, the boys went swimming.


Arlo, jumped right in and started swimming like he did not have to stop for 5 months.  I was very impressed.




Cohen on the other hand had to warm up to the idea of swimming again.  It took him 15 minutes to get in the pool and another 10 to remember he liked it.  He never got off the step, but I assumed as much.

I got these great action shots of Arlo jumping in, I just had to share.




And here are a few more of them playing.



I think they are crazy!  Wet suits or no, the water was too cold and the temp outside was too cold for me to get in an unheated pool!  But they enjoyed it!

Power of the Necklace


This will be a short post but I had to put up a few pictures of Cohen's latest obsession.  
This is his necklace.  He wears it everywhere, all the time.

On his necklace there is...

gold medals....

one of my old swimming recognitions...

and what Cohen likes to call buttons.  They are actually Skylander dog tags but Cohen calls them his buttons because when he presses one of the buttons he becomes whoever is on that button.

And lets not forget about his 'fly eye'.  I do not know what they are called, but it is one of those eye pieces that you look into and see a hundred of everything.

That is Cohen's necklace!

Veggies in the Backyard?

The boys wanted to plant a garden this year... So we did!  Or should I say the mens did.  I had nothing to do with the planting except for coming out to take a few pictures.  








As you can see, they had a great time planting with daddy!  Now we have corn, onions, strawberries, tomatoes, bell peppers, jalepenos, zucchini, cucumber, basil, mint and I think that is all but I do not know for sure.  We only have a few of each plant because we really do not have that much space, but the boys promised to try everything that we grew so, I think Tim wanted them to try it all:-)

While I was at it, I took pictures of our backyard.  When we first moved in it was all rock and bushes.  And it has taken us over a year to get our yard to look the way it does, and it is not even done yet, but I am happy with the progress so I thought I would show what we have done to the place.

The deck was already in, so we had my whole family over to help clear out the rock and bushes.  Then my step dad put in the brick border around the grass.  And then he came back again 6 months later to put in our sod.  Which turned out beautifully!!!!  I love our grass and I am grateful to him for helping us out so much!

Then off the other side of the patio, Santa gave us a trampoline to fill the area.  (After we removed more bushes and a hill of dirt.)  Tim added in stepping stones and a fire pit.




Overall I think it looks great.  The only thing left is this area in the picture above.  Right now it is a huge dirt pit that the boys LOVE playing in, but eventually I would like to get a gate for the pool pump, and put in a sand box and a citrus tree.  So, if and when that ever gets done I will post more pictures!

I found this picture of the backyard after we removed the rock and leveled out the hills.  I pretty good improvement if you ask me:-)

PLAY BALL!!!

Arlo has been wanting to play on a team sport since gymnastics.  In fact he quit gymnastics because he wanted to play soccer.  And for his birthday last year, we bought him a soccer ball that he would need to play on a league.  But has he played soccer yet? NOPE!!!!  I do not know if I just look in the wrong places or what, but everything that I found would be way to expensive.  So I gave up looking for a while, then he started at crossroads preschool and a few months ago I started getting emails from other moms and dads about the upcoming t-ball league, asking for kids to join their child's team.  I talked with Tim and Arlo and they both agreed that we would wait for soccer and join T-ball for now.  And so... NOW, I would like to present Arlo in his first team sport game ever!!!!

Waiting to hit

Still waiting (he is number 12 on the team and they bat in number order)

SWING batter, batter...

HIT!!!!  See that ball?

RUN!!!!

RUN!!!!

RUN!!!

Sliding into home:-)  (It is more like falling into home, I do not even know where he learned about sliding, but he does it every time he comes to home plate!)

The first team Arlo played, was against 2 of his best friends from school.  It made his first game that much better.  

Can you tell how serious he is out there????  He is posing for the picture:-)



Coach had to come over to him a few times to get him back into ready position.  I don't think he ran for a ball once.

Another Pose...  He was happier this time because on the 2nd time to bat he got to go first instead of last.

Another great hit!

Another great run!

Can you tell how serious they take the game...  the 1st baseman has the ball and Arlo was still safe.




This is Arlo's cousin/best friend Grady who joined the team with Arlo.

I had to get one more of those sliding pictures in... too funny!

He has picked up baseball so quick!  I am so proud of him and it is so much fun to watch him learn and grow!  He is such a great kid and I love him.

This league is a fun league.  It is coach pitch for the first 5 balls and then they hit from the tee.  There are 2 innings to each game and with each inning everybody bats, everybody makes it to base and everybody makes it home.  And when the team is on the field, everybody is on the field.  

Our team is the Athletics.  And you might have noticed that Arlo is not wearing a uniform.  Well the story is long and frustrating but the bottom line is, that they did not make enough and so Arlo did not get one.  They are making him one, and hopefully we will have it for game #3, but until then, no uniform.

Last, but not least... here is a picture of my Towen boy!  He is such a good sport when we go to practice and games.  He plays so good and does not complain about having to sit and watch his brother.  He is a good boy and I love him too!!!!!!