We're Back!

We're back from Chi-town! Boy, 6 days was a good length, but I realized by the time we needed to check out of the hotel on the 6th day, I was READY to go back home.

We had a good time! We saw a White Sox game



Went to American Girl



and the Lego Store. Got wet at Navy Pier



and went to the little town of Galena, the most beautiful, quaint, bricky place I've ever been.



Of course we did much more than that! 111 picutres more than that, but Picassa only lets me publish 4 at a time, so I'll post more later. After all, we're back in the real world, and I have to go buy groceries today for my totally empty fridge.

It's good to be back. I went through withdrawl not posting while we were gone, and I had to rely on the hotel computer to keep me up to date with all you're doing. So, without further ado, I'll be back later today....

Remember when...

Remember when swimming was THE ONLY thing you wanted to do in the summer?

Remember when you begged your parents OVER and OVER and OVER again to go?

I vaguely remember, but my children are reminding me.

My sister and her family were here from South Carolina this week, so we went down the road to my mom's cousin's to go swimming for a couple of hours.

There was rough housing in the pool with my brother in law...(I didn't expect any less...)



There was races from the side of the pool to see who could get in first...



There was relaxing moments



and crazy dancing...


The kids had a great time with their cousins. I'm glad we went.

I'm sure on our trip to Chicago there will be plenty of swimming in the hotel pool.

Lucky us.

I'm in pieces

I'm torn this week.

My sister is here from South Carolina. She only comes up twice a year. I'm torn, because I want to spend my time with her and her family, but we leave for the Windy City soon.




I'm torn because I have a million things to do, and I'm not ready....even though the kids haven't stopped talking about it since the end of school in May. They even told the check out lady at the grocery store about it last week, they are that excited! (that was a LITTLE embarrassing)


We go on the same vacation every year. (I know, boring...but it works for us. That's how we roll.)

My husband has family in Illinois, just west of Chicago (they are the fun family and we always have a good time) so we usually split our vacation, half with them half in town.

We stay just outside of town close to my favorite store evah....IKEA. If you haven't been, you must try it. (unfortunately my husband LOATHES the store, and doesn't hesitate to make fun of the crap I bring home from there. It's not the vintagy things I decorate with, it's the organizing things that rule half of me. I HAVE to be organized or I'll go crazy...) ANYWAY, we stay close to IKEA and take the "L" train into town for $2.25/person. You CANNOT beat that! After all these years of doing it, we've figured out how to get around pretty good.

Of course we go to the American Girl Store...



Every girl MUST visit there once. Even us mom's like it! It is a beautiful store, and you could easily plop down a fair share of money...

Since we also have a boy, we visit the LEGO store. It is awesome too!



Both Grace and Evan have been saving their $3/week allowance for months in anticipation of this vacation. They are PSYCHED!!!!

So, I'm burning the midnight oil getting things ready for our trip and hanging out with my sister.
It's good, but busy.

Photo shoot part deux

Yesterday I posted pictures from the photo shoot I did with Grace, today are Evan's pictures. He was less than thrilled with this, so I had to promise them both I would take them to the splash pad close to the college after we were done with the pictures. They were fine with that.

First some at home...

Who knew the red shed would be a good back drop. (not me when we were building it!)

Then we headed to the college where me and Brent met. They have a lot of good places for pictures.

Of course we had some silly moments too. They just didn't want to cooperate, and kept asking if they were done yet....

But I ended up getting some good ones with them together.

Photo shoot

Today I did a photo shoot....pro bono....for my daughter.

I chose to do the easiest child first. Evan is not much for pictures. Very photogenic, just doesn't like to sit still long enough to have his pictures taken.

Let me start at the beginning. Years ago when my kids were small, I was the mother who took them to the photo studio for 3, 6, and 9 mo. photos. Then I took them for each year, but one day, Evan FREAKED out! We left, without pictures. My mom had a great idea....let's take the pictures ourselves. We are good photographers, we can do it, so for years, in the summertime (both kids have winter b-days), we take their yearly pictures.
Lately, I've been doing it alone, which I enjoy greatly.

So, today, I started with Grace's. I only did some poses around home. I'll take both of them to another location this week. But here are some shots from today...

I was envisioning a very vintage look to these pictures....and darn it all, if my 10 year old daughter doesn't look like a teenager!

This morning was perfect. A little windy, but cooler than it has been for the last several days. Not that HER hair frizzes up like mine. She got the good genes!

The swing set....who knew it would make a good prop. Can you tell I need to use my weed eater?

So, this week, I'll go to the next place for the rest of the pictures. I have ideas swirling around in my head....more later.

Boxes, BOXES, BoXeS!!

You could say I have an obsession/love of old boxes/crates.

They have a history, they are useful, and they are pretty for the most part.

The first boxes I collected became this

Over the years, these boxes have been in many different formations. This is just the current one. It could be different next week....you know me.

I have boxes for games

(High Explosives...DANGEROUS!!!???) Where was this even used?

I've got boxes that once held armour meat (in a can I hope!) for old fabric balls...

Boxes for books/magazines for the kids.

A box for movies of course....cause where else would you put them?

And a box for flowers because they look nice on my end table.

I especially like the ones that I know were used for fruit, and still bear the wonderfully colorful labels...

I have several of these...they are hard to find.

So, I suppose I shouldn't make fun of my husband's toy tractor collection, I guess I have a box collection. It grows all the time, but only for the right kind of box.

Anyone have any other ideas for uses?

When life gives you RAINBOWS!

Today I went to my cousin's wedding and sat outside in 90 degree weather and watched her marry a marine. It was HOT, but the bride was beautiful.

When I came home, we had a horrible thunderstorm with lots of wind and rain so hard we couldn't see the neighbors house.

When I looked out the window, there was a rainbow stretched across the sky.

Hard not to believe that Jesus loves us!

Jesus loves me this I know....for the Bible tells me so....little ones to him belong. They are weak, but he is STRONG!

Old Window Art

About a week ago my husband brought me some old windows. One of his customers replaced the old windows in her home, and didn't know what to do with them, so he took them, knowing I love them.

Wasn't that nice?

Anyway....I have made picture frames out of windows before:

and I don't want to be redundant, AND I like old maps....AND I just happened to have one, so I tried this:

It goes along nicely with an old map puzzle I have, which incidentally is missing Kentucky. But they still look nice together.

I like all the bold colors and it brightens up my craft area on the landing.

So that was just my DIY for the day. We'll see what I decide to do with all the other windows he brought home.