Warm Weather Sweater

Sweater (TJMAXX) Jeans (TJMAXX) Sandals (Marshalls) Necklace (JewelMint) Watch (Fossil)

It's the first of November, but that doesn't mean much here in Texas. It's still warm and dressing in lovely layered fall clothes is not an option. (It's definitely NOT sweater weather!) Enter the warm weather sweater...appropriate for fall without making you sweat. Love it! (I linked similar jeans, but mine were $20 not $70!)

A Week of Celebrating Sean's Sixth!

Sean turned six on the 2nd and we ended up having three separate celebrations for him, one with my side, one with friends, and one with Ryan's side. We had so much dessert last week I need to give up sugar again to make up for it! Everyone had fun though, and we're so proud of our smart, fun, six year old! On Sean's actual birthday we treated him and his friends to 2 hours at a local trampoline park. It was the perfect spot for a bunch of active kids to jump around to their heart's content!

My friend Karen made the most delicious cupcakes for Sean!

The kids had a blast and several of us parents jumped as well. We can't wait to go back soon, even though we were sore and tired afterwards! Connor actually took a LONG nap, unheard of!! We appreciated that for sure.

This was from the dinner at my sister's house. That candle we picked out was a sparkler and it spooked Sean a bit!

Connor wanted the presents to be for him!

My brother-in-law's clown fish.

Chris and Rachel. Thank you for hosting!

The cousins enjoying their ice cream cake.

Nana and the birthday boy!

The last celebration was at our house with the Foxes. We just had pizza and salad and tea and more ice cream cake! It was sweet and low key and the perfect way to end Sean's birthday week!

Submerged! VBS 2016

Vacation Bible School 2016 is complete! So many children came and had fun and learned about how Jesus sees, Jesus knows, and Jesus saves. It was a beautiful week. A little crazy, a little exhausting, but very rewarding as well. I know God will bless our church's efforts to teach kids about Him. I did the photography this year and I wanted to share some of my favorite photos here. My new camera came in handy!

"Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my concerns. See if there is any offensive way in me; lead me in the everlasting way." Psalm 139:23-24

A Summer Evening at the Park

Connor has been wanting to give up his naps lately...but since he's soo cranky on the days he doesn't nap I'm not too crazy about that idea. Yesterday was one of those days...I finally loaded the kids up in the car around 6:30 in the evening and they both passed out for an hour while I drove around looking at houses for sale.

When they woke up I stopped at a park for some fun before dinner. I had my new camera with me so I was able to get a few pics while they ran around enjoying the playground. I can't wait to familiarize myself with this camera and improve my photography skills. I recently took some photos for our church's website, and I was supposed to take more but my old camera started malfunctioning. Hopefully with this new one I can get back to work on that!

Cheep Cheep Valentine's Day "Box"

Well look at me, blogging two days in a row! :P In February Sean and I made a Cheep Cheep (the cute little fish from Super Mario) Valentine's day "box" out of a plastic fish bowl and it was a big hit! He won most creative in his age group at our homeschool group's Valentine's party, but more importantly we had a lot of fun making it together! In true procrastinating-perfectionist behavior, I waited until the night before the party to buy the supplies, and then kept working on it until satisfied.

(Source)

This is the Cheep Cheep Sean chose to model his "box" after. He liked the mohawk/fin! We already had the plastic fish bowl, and only needed a few inexpensive items from Michael's to complete our task. We bought a few acrylic craft paints, chenille wire stems for the yellow fins, and sticky-back felt squares for the white fins. Please excuse the blurry cell photo, it's the only one I got while we worked. Oops. Sean painted the body red, and then I painted the eyes on top and pink mouth along the rim of the bowl. I drew the white fin shape on paper plates, and then used that as a template to cut the felt.

We stuck the felt onto the paper plate fin for added support, and then taped it to the bowl (after the paint was dry). Making the Mohawk fin and tail was easy, it was just a matter of twisting the chenille stems into the proper shape and then taping it onto the bowl. I used yellow washi tape to blend in. Oh and you can see the Valentines we made in the above picture too. They had a fish on the front and the phrase "You're o-fish-ally awesome" inside. Sean painted the ocean waves and signed the backs of them. They fit nicely into the Cheep Cheep's mouth for transport to the party! As you can see below, we had to make a base for the fish because otherwise it would roll to the side when set down...Sean painted a cardboard box blue and I painted his name on the front and "Cheep Cheep" on the sides. That's his really proud smile on the right by the way! Love it.

All the kids at the party made really amazing boxes! Sean's favorite was R2-D2 made from a trash can and I appreciated the creativity that went into a skyscraper building complete with mirrored windows! It was fun oohing and ahhing over everyone's boxes and Sean loved passing out his valentines to all of them. He was thrilled to bring home candy of course and enjoyed looking through all the valentines he got. Can't wait for next Valentine's day!
-Valerie
(Linking up to Jen's Link Party Palooza over at Tatertots and Jello!)