Happy Father's Day!

We had a great weekend celebrating all of the dads in our lives (and will get to tonight, too...Nana and PopPop are coming to visit for the week!)  The celebration started at school on Friday; there were crafts from the kids, and some games for the kids and dads.

rock painting (with his buddy, Zach)

Liam came to the party, too!

sleeping bag races (love this shot!)

"I'm Hooked on you, dad" gift from Jake, complete with a bag of Goldfish snacks :)

Gift from Liam

On Sunday, the main gift from the kids was that they both slept in until 6:30, haha! (and yes, that is "sleeping in" for these kids.  If you leave a comment about how your kids sleep in until 8am, and you just can't imagine getting up every day of the week by 6am, I will ban you from this blog.  I promise.) After that glorious stretch of sleep, we all headed downstairs to give Brian his gifts.  First, Jake gave him the transcription of the "interview" I had done with him about daddy:

some of his answers had us cracking up (ie-What does daddy's hair look like?  Jake's answer: a grasshopper  Where did you and Daddy meet?  Jake's answer: at the library).  We also got him a new pair of swim shorts, a tshirt, and this cool canvas picture to put on an easel in his office (from personalizationmall.comwww.personalizationmall.com-awesome site!):

Later that morning, we went to spend the day with GG, Pappy, Uncle Nate, and Aunt Katie.  The rain held off, and we had a nice time playing outside (yes mom, even I had a nice time outside!)

There was some relaxation:

Chillin' with Uncle Nate

"Can someone grab me a sippy cup??"

Some eating:

 

And some sports:

They look so thrilled to be watching the games in the yard!

I have to share both of these pictures because the first one of Liam touching Larry's nose makes me giggle:

Happy Father's Day to Brian, both of our dads, and all of the dads out there...we hope you enjoyed your day!

Book Review: "Keeping Faith" (Jodi Picoult)

Keeping Faith by Jodi Picoult

I've read a lot of her books. So many, in fact, that I'd taken a year long hiatus from them...you know how for as much as you may love an author, sometimes you just completely OD on their books?  Yeah, that's where my relationship with her books was.

But, I figured it was time to return to them, because I have enjoyed almost all of them in the past.  This book just happened to be the first one available through the Kindle library lending system, so that was my selection.  I was really, really into the book for about, oh I'd say, 98% of it.  It was an interesting story, there was suspense, and in her usual style, the author led you down different paths to make you think different people were the "bad" guys.  So many of her books have a huge shock factor at the end that comes out of nowhere (My Sister's Keeper, anyone??) so I was waiting and waiting for that moment.  I wasn't hoping anything tragic would happen, but I wanted something to happen.  And then....the story ended.  That was it, just....ended.  There was no something.  There was just and ending. 

Up next: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?  (Mindy Kaling)

New obsession-thank you, Sherwin Williams.

I have no idea when we'll get around to it, but eventually, I'd love to paint the dining room.  The color in there now is beige-y with peach undertones; not terrible, but there's a nice chair rail and I'd like to play that up by having 2 different colors on the walls.  Lo and behold, today I stumbled across a fabulous online tool thanks to Sherwin Williams that allows you to upload a picture then "paint" the walls of the picture.  Genius!!  Click here to check out their color visualizer.

Here is the before of our dining room:

Here are the 2 test pictures that I did of our dining room:

Sherwin Williams Cobble Brown on the top, Nantucket Dune on the bottom

Sherwin Williams Loggia on top, Plantation Brown on the bottom

We don't have the area rug on the floor anymore, so it's just a hardwood floor.  We're keeping the light fixture, but I'm open to changing up the curtains.  So we really have no color limitations in the room.  We have a lot of blue walls in the house (foyer and all of the upstairs hallway, and the powder room on the first floor), red in the living room, yellow in our bedroom and Jake's room....so I feel like we're set as far as primary colors go, but I'm open to suggestions/ideas!  What color do you have in your dining room?  Do you love it?  Or are you about to go play around on the Sherwin Williams' site, too? :)  We've never used Sherwin Williams paint (we're pretty Behr loyal), opinions on their paint?

Tball season comes to an end

 It was amazing to see this team go from looking like wild animals running around the field with no direction or organization, to actually looking like they were playing a game of baseball, in just 8 short weeks.  The season came to an end on Saturday, and Jake's take on the sport was, "I had so much fun playing tball with my team.  I'm going to miss it.  I loved eating snacks at the end of the game, too".  It was unclear which activity (playing or eating) he would miss the most. 

He got to play 1st base!

Jake and Maddie, one of his friends from school :)

A video of Jake's final hit for the season:

Liam showed up to the game dressed appropriately:

After the game, they had a nice little trophy presentation, and even Brian received a plaque for being a coach (in sad news, the plaque featured a team photo...Brian is absent from the photo because that was the day he was sick with the stomach flu and didn't make it to the game.  I told him I'd cut out a picture of him and glue it on there)

I'm not sure if he was more excited for the popsicle, or the trophy...

Who loves the park?

These kids do!

Sun Room Mini-Makeover

I don't have too many before pictures, but our sunroom needed a little TLC.  It wasn't in horrible shape, but the walls had a lot of chipping/peeling paint, and overall, it just needed a few decorating touches.  Here is the before:

Brian tackled getting the walls back into shape with some scraping, priming, and painting.  When we were planning Liam's nursery, I was originally going to go with a nautical theme, but ultimately decided against that.  So I figured I would use those few accessories to jazz up the sun room a bit, so those decorations were already in there.

This year, I felt like there needed to be more color and more function to the room.  I grabbed these two pillows from Target, and the life preserver thing with the mirror in it (what's the real word for those?) was leftover from Liam's original nursery idea.  The shells I found at TJ Maxx.  I also have a new area rug for the middle (the blue one was left by the previous owners) but I haven't put it out yet.

ahhh...color!!

ahhh....fresh coat of paint!

ahh...makes me want to go to the beach now!

I always struggled with the other half of the room; we come in and out of the sunroom a lot (it leads out to our patio and backyard) so we are always kicking off shoes, and I have to have a place to store citronella candles, sunscreen, bug spray, etc...  Of course, without a designated place to put those things, they just end up all over the room.

Solution??  Garbage picking!  A few weeks ago, I was driving home after getting the kids from daycare and I spotted 2 wooden fruit crates out with our neighbor's trash pile.  At the time, I had no idea what I would do with them, but thanks to things like HGTV and Pinterest, I seem to have a compulsive need to upcycle various items (including trash).  I had both of the kids in the car, and each crate had a huge roll of carpeting stuck in it, so I called Brian and we had this conversation:

Me: Hey, what's your comfort level with stopping on your way home to pick something out of our neighbor's trash?
Brian: *silence*  Oh, this is a serious question?  I'm going to go with a zero.
Me: What? Why? There are these awesome wooden crates, they're in great shape! (of course, I had no idea if this was true, but I went out on a limb to make a better argument)
Brian: So let me get this straight...you want me to stop on my way home from work while in my suit and go garbage picking at our neighbor's house in broad daylight?
Me: Well, if that makes you uncomfortable, you could always change clothes and go back out in the dark.
Brian: So I should creep around our neighbor's house in the dark?  Even creepier.  I'll make you a deal, you walk down there, introduce yourself and ask if it's ok, then I'll stop and get them for you.

*HAPPY DANCE!*

So, I did just that.  What better way to meet new people than by asking them if your husband can pick up their garbage?  Turns out, it was a very sweet older lady, who was "ticked to death" (her exact words!) that I was going to take them.  She was putting her house on the market and had to clean out and get rid of a lot of stuff.  I was able to call Brian back and sell the whole task as a good deed.

So, back to the sunroom.  I decided they could live there AND be functional!

The 2 baskets were awesome bargains from Gabriel Brothers last summer.  The one on the left has sunscreen, bug spray, hats, Gracie's leash and towel to wipe her feet.  The one on the left has citronella candles.  Our shoes now have a home on the bottom shelf, and the upper shelf is for the blanket that I keep in that room to spread out on the lawn when Liam plays out there. I already had the sailboat, and the sign says "All You Need is Love and Sunshine", which was a pinterest find.

On the window sill are 2 glass bottles with cork tops.  I went to a nautical themed shower a few weeks ago and those were the favors, so my mom gave me hers to use in the room...I filled them up with sand from the kids sand table and viola!  (Thanks Aunt Jodie & Kristin, for the favors---I'm putting them to good use!)  The picture on the wall is one of Jake at the beach the last time we went, and I picked up the frame from Gabriel Brothers.

So, there you have it!  A fresh coat of paint and a few new accessories, and the room is now inviting and provides some storage solutions.

These two really don't like each other.

Nope, not at all.  Not even a little bit.

On a related note, the other night, my heart melted right into the floor when I overheard Jake say (completely unprompted, out of nowhere): I love you so much, baby Liam.