but first - i have a tutorial up at the kenner road blog. here's a peek at the layout, click over for the full writeup. =)
after i finished that project, i cleaned my desk and tried to move on to the next thing on my to do list.. but i was stuck. mind was blank, nothing was coming, i kept flipping through a stack of pp and wondering what the heck i was going to do. and then i gave up and went outside w/ the boys, and took along a stack of books.
some scrappy, some not. and my ipod touch, so i could bounce around the web. i randomly flipped through books and watched the kids. i took a break to talk to my neighbor. we had dinner and put up shelves in the boys room and did the evening routine. and then at bedtime, i let my mind wander, and it finally starting putting together pictures and stories and shapes and finally i had some ideas to chase. i put together a page today based on one of those ideas and am hopeful my other projects will come together nicely.
saturday morning after ben's last teeball game we loaded up the car and headed to le mars, ia, for a weekend celebrating matthew's grandma's 90th birthday. there was an open house sunday afternoon and the sheer amount of people there was amazing. at one point there were people lined up all the way down the hall of the church waiting for a chance to chat with the birthday girl. all seven of her children made it to town for the party, and a decent amount of her grandchildren and great grandchildren did, too. it was an amazing day for a wonderful woman.
le mars is also home to wells blue bunny, and for the first time, we stopped at the visitor center on our way into town. the highlight of the tour was the ice cream shop at the end of it. ;)
good ice cream, bad lighting. ;)
there was a free concert in the park on saturday night, and the boys spent the time getting dirtier than i think they've ever been in their entire lives. how?
by attempting to dig to china. and then burying each other. oy. after the concert we had cake and ice cream to celebrate one of matthew's cousin's graduation, and then hit the hotel pool with another cousin and one of her kids.
hotel math - 2 adults + 3 kids in 2 double beds = not enough sleep. enough said. we usually get a suite, but didn't have that option. boo.
we came home sunday after the party and have had a lazy week. it's been 105-115 w/ the heat index - too hot to do much of anything! =P we have made some progess in the bigs new room.
we hung shelves for each of them next to the bunk beds, so they have somewhere to put their clocks and reading lamps. i picked up a couple of these baskets that we are going to attach to the wall near the foot of their beds to hold misc stuff - they came today but we haven't had a chance to put them up. we plan on replacing the short bookshelves with tall ones so that they have sam-safe storage. i also want to get a new rug, some prints for the walls and some other odds and ends - i'm waiting till target brings out their dorm room stuff. they always have funky fun stuff w/ a decent price tag, and it should be out in the next few weeks. the cube shelves are empty for now - i am working on going through all of their toys and getting them purged and organized before we move anything in. it's coming together nicely and they're loving the bunk beds!!
kelly went up to ikea in mpls recently and was nice enough to pick up these jars for me - perfect for little boy collections. we have 2 empties and are trying to figure out how to fill them. any suggestions?
