July - Grandma Mary here!

The day our Schatzel family left, we hustled and bustled to clean up and get ready for Grandma Mary to arrive that evening! Grandma arrived from Oregon bringing loads of gifts and fun projects and we spent the next 5 days playing and showing her some of the wilder sides of farm livin'. :)

She brought lots of cute outfits for the kids including this precious dress for GG. Grandma loved her in it so much she took tons of pics of her in it. Here are just a few:

 

 

Everyday we would check the garden and the hens and the steer. We would visit with Gaga and play outside. Grandma would play and read with the kids and do lots of art projects. But then sure enough some crazy stuff happened too. Our steer got out which led to 2 days where we had to search and search and search and eventually hire out cowboys to find him. They did and stampeded him back to his pen in awesome fashion. We had a chick get stuck in a tree. We had a raccoon in the henhouse in broad daylight that Brad had to shoot. There was just plain craziness every single day. :)

 

We balanced all of that with a nice lunch at Grandma's favorite restaurant, Cracker Barrel where we relaxed in the rockers out front.

 

GG wore that cute dress again:

 

We made plenty of time for hanging out and resting:

 

And for fun crafts. Grandma brought these rocks from her house and we painted them. She took some home for her garden and we have some here. So sweet. The kids also decorated their initial that I have on my back porch now to remind us of Grandma.

And even with all that fun we still found time to sew! Grandma brought tons of fun fabric and patterns with a plan to sew a few dresses for GG. We picked out our favorite to start and made not one but TWO dresses in a day. She had planned perfectly and got plenty of fabric so that we could make an extra matching dress for Breckin. :) She is an expert at this stuff and has taught me so much. This was a pretty easy pattern to follow (easy meaning she had to sit right by me and walk me through it and I didn't cry one time!) and we were so excited with how they turned out. We even made matching headbands! EEEK!

 

 

We had such a nice time together. It was a relaxing week (with the exception of those 3 crazy farm animal events) and we loved having her here. A week with Grandma is never enough but it sure was fun!!!

Grandma captured this cute video on her camera but I die laughing every time I watch it because of Brad and Des trying to do handstands in the background! So funny!

April - GG's new car!

I think every kid in America except for mine has a Cozy Coupe. I could never justify spending over $50 for a toy, so I never did. My boys didn't seem to mind but once Genevieve was old enough to walk, she always seemed to find the Cozy Coupe whenever we were out. She loved them. She loved to get in and out of the door and would just sit in there happy as she could be.

They even make adorable pink and purple ones now, but again, that $50.

 

I was at a thrift store with G. and Des shopping for clothes for our scarecrow when I found this one. It was $10 (which honestly I thought was too much...because I am THAT cheap) but I just had to get it. I had never seen anyone selling a used one in over a year, so I grabbed it up and immediately took it home to get busy! I had a plan!!!

 

I primed it with spray paint primer made for plastic first. It was super easy to take apart and paint.

 

And then I went all out girly. The aqua color is also spray paint but all the pink is just acryllic paint. I also found some glitter sticky foam that I added striped accents with, pink glitter taillights and a new cover for the broken gas cap. I hotglued gemstones to the license plate because I knew she would love the bling.

 

And oh my gosh, did she love it. I was able to finish everything but the primer during her nap, so it was a complete surprise. She really, really liked it and it is by far her favorite thing to do outside!

 

G's Kitchen

Here is a closer look into the kitchen Brad and I made for Genevieve for her 2nd birthday. 

We started by hunting down an old tv cabinet. This took awhile and the one the finally got was bigger than we anticipated, but it was perfect and only $25.

BEFORE:

Thankfully, we had one perfect November day and got a jump start on it. Brad had to do quite a bit of modifying. We added beadboard to the back, added a refrigerator door, and swapped the hinges on one cabinet door so that it opened like an oven.

Over the next two days, we got two coats of primer and a coat of white paint on it.

Then it got cold. REAL cold. There was no way we were gonna work on it in the garage. Instead, I felt accomplished finding this cute fabric for curtains, some metal pots and pans, and ordering a picture of a Phelps Farm sunset to make a window.

The last couple of days before her birthday we scrambled. Katie found the perfect chandelier for me at Hobby Lobby. I fashioned a paned window out of paint stir sticks and placed the photo behind it. The faucet is actually a cardboard J that I found at the fabric store for $1. The sink is a metal dog bowl. The stove tops are metal washers I found in a barn along with the old faucet knobs that I spraypainted orange. 

I would still like to find some oven knobs...but I LOVE the metal pots I found at Big Lots. I used those to help pick the fabric.

I love the fridge. I used wire spice racks so that the fridge door would be more realistic. Brad added the shelves for extra storage and she got loads of the cutest foods as gifts!

How pretty is that pic? It's a real sunset looking west from our house over my mom's house. This is the way her window really does face! :)

She loves it so I consider it a huge success.

Pirate Day!

At some point during the bleak, dark, blistery winter months, my creative hubby decided that we should do a "Pirate Day!" come summer. He started browsing the internet and casually purchasing fun items from Amazon every few weeks. He had lots of fun ideas (none of which he found on Pinterest...he is THAT creative!) and planned and schemed for months. It was a complete surprise for the kiddos...and the only thing I was in charge of was crafts (ALL of which I found on Pinterest...because I am NOT creative!)

Our summer was super fun and loaded with activity and before we knew it, July was nearly over and we were running out of time! We pulled the trigger and one Saturday morning we woke the kids up with shouts of "Arrrgh" and "Matey" and "It's Pirate Day you scallywags!"

They were completely confused, of course.

But then they meandered into the living room to discover a HUGE Jolly Roger flag hanging in the living room with a Treasure Chest. They ran back to our room squealing with delight and we opened the chest to find loads of chocolate coins and dabloons!  So we promptly got up and got everyone dressed up in the best pirate gear we could manage to take pics in front of the giant Jolly Roger flag.

Every pirate needs a tattoo!

And of course a {drawn on} eye-patch...

G totally rocked the pirate booty (i.e. jewelry!)

We had a mean pirate breakfast (notice as soon as photos were taken Des had to immediately put DJ Sharky shirt back on!)

Then it was on to the pirate games! For each challenge completed, the boys received a pirate prize. The first game of walking the plank seemed so simple but Ben was FREAKING OUT. In fact, as soon as he heard the word "challenge" he started crying out of fear that he would fail. He is such a perfectionist and he was in literal turmoil that he might not be good enough. It was so sad. We tried again and again to assure him that this was all in fun and we didn't care if he did any of it we just wanted him to have fun. He decided he would not do the plank because it was too scary, until he saw this:

*This was actually Desi's second go around because the first time he walked across so fast I couldn't snap a pic fast enough. He had NO fear and couldn't wait to run across. This time I made him slow down so I could take a pic.

After his little brother made it look so easy, Ben decided to try. He walked extra slow and once across he was SO proud of himself. It was awesome seeing him face his fear and accomplish something he was so scared of. After the first time we couldn't keep him off the plank! He did it again and again!

Speaking of not being able to keep them off the plank...G was mesmerized with this game! She didn't even want to hold our hand but we made her the first few times. As soon as she would climb off she was wanting to go again! She had great balance and you could tell she was SO proud that she could do what the big boy pirates could do!

*Look at Ben's face in the background! He couldn't believe daddy let go of her hand! He is so protective...

Des literally RUNNING off the plank...

Ben gaining speed and confidence!

And of course, Mommy and Daddy had to walk the plank too...

Because the boys proved true Pirate bravery they each received a new foam buccaneer sword! Then it was on to the next pirate challenge. The Cannonball Fire.

The Jolly Roger (truck with flag) slowly creeped by and the boys had to get their bucket of cannons into the ship. The boys LOVED this one even though it was not fun for me at all. You know because no matter how slow the vehicle goes seeing your small kids running at and around a moving truck makes anyone a little freaked. Brad was super careful but still...I was relieved when that was over. The boys earned a real pirate spyglass telescope by successfully "sinking" the ship.

Next we went inside to complete our first craft. We made hooks out of solo cups and aluminum foil. This was a SUPER easy craft and the boys really liked it. While we were playing with our hooks we discovered that the sneaky Captain Hook had swiped our Jolly Roger flag and treasure chest! Thankfully he had left a clue so we were OFF on a real treasure hunt to get that chest back!

After cracking 4 clues and searching all over the farm we found our treasure chest hidden under gaga's jeep! The boys were so proud of themselves...and so excited to eat more chocolate!

This is Desmond's happy/relieved that Captain Hook didn't eat his candy face!

Crazy, hooked pirates...

Once the treasure was recovered, we came back inside to make one more craft...Parrots (or scullys as the boys say). This craft was fun too and took a bit more time. 

While making our scullys we came up with our Pirate names...

And all of this was done before lunch! So maybe we should just call it "Pirate Morning." Either way it was so much fun! I loved that the boys didn't know it was coming and we could just completely surprise them. I also loved that it was all Brad's idea. :)