New England Part II: The Cottages

After visiting family in Massachusetts, we jumped onto the Seacoast highway and headed north to New Hampshire. My whole family stayed in separate cottages with views of the ocean.



Our closest access to the water was at a rocky beach, but it was still fun to explore. We walked over there several times on our trip to get wet, play in the waves, and for some of us, pop salty shells in our mouth.

New England Part I: Granddad's House

We just returned from an incredible trip to New England. (if you're really interested, you can see more pictures here, here, and here) We started the trip with a red eye flight to Boston. For some reason, we thought it would go really well.

Instead, we all experienced our first Whole-Family All-Nighter! Luckily it didn't phase the kids for several hours, and at 7am (4am Arizona time) my kids were happy and playing and running around Granddad's back yard.

Right before Cathy took this picture, she said "Sophie, show me your stick!" and so here we have Sophie proudly displaying her stick for Cathy. (click to zoom)

Makeup Artist

Sophie has been interested in my makeup recently. Today, she decided to practice with some gel-like eyeshadow that I have.

The key, she found, was to REALLY dig it into her eyebrows.

Swimming Lessons

Sophie, lover of all things swimming, just finished up a month of swimming lessons. They were at the local pool and she was in a class that ranged from 2-5 kids every day with 2 teachers, so it was really nice.

Perfecting her kicks

Pushing off

Kicking back to the wall

She learned how to hold her breath under water, retrieve objects on the bottom of the pool, float on her back for several seconds without any help, and can kick and glide across the pool with assistance. It was a great experience for her and gave her a lot of confidence to be in the pool without her floaty.

And now, despite our best sunscreening efforts, the girl is DARK.

34 Hours in SLC (with 27 hours of driving)

We took a trip this weekend that was almost equal parts driving and destination. Friday afternoon as soon as Jake got home from an early day at work, we loaded ourselves, some clothes, some junk food, and like all of Sam's belongings and hit the road.

A potty break within Phoenix city limits, another at some dirt road exit (involving new underclothing) and yet a third in Flagstaff got us off to a rocky start. After removing all beverage-like substances from the back seat, we started again. After that, albeit long, the trip was pretty smooth sailing.

We arrived in Salt Lake City around 3am Saturday, completely exhausted, only to find our 10-month-old bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready to play. Jake took him because he was still pumped full of caffeine so I could get some sleep.

A couple hours later we were waking up and getting ready for the day. We were in Salt Lake to attend the funeral of Jake's grandpa Mont. It was very nice and we all were glad we could be there, but I really wish we could have spent more time all of Jake's family and cousins. Unfortunately we saw everyone for about 15 minutes afterward before they all had to leave for Idaho for the burial service. Since we were still recovering from our journey, we didn't continue on with them. Instead, we headed back to where we were staying so the kids could nap.

After naps, we headed down to Temple Square to visit the gardens, visitors center, and Tabernacle. It was really nice and the weather made me question why we live in the desert.



The next day we slept in, packed up, and headed for home. This trip was much better, and we would have cut an hour and a half off of our drive time if our battery didn't die 90 minutes out of Phoenix, leaving us stranded for an hour and also if we weren't the first vehicle on the scene of a rolled over semi truck (they were OK, luckily).

But, you know, besides that, everything was just great.

Open For Business

Welcome to GoodieSupplies!

This shop probably isn't very interesting to most people, but I'm starting a supplies etsy shop and I'll be selling these flower cabochons and some hair accessory supplies too. I'm super excited about it, and anxious to see how it goes.

Wish me luck!

Oh, and speaking of luck, congratulations to lucky #11 in my givaway. DRUGGIST! E-mail me. Or I can just get in contact with your wife :) .

Exhausting

3 hours of church with no naps can exhaust a guy.

This is Sam within minutes of coming home from church yesterday. We tried to get some milk into him before he fell asleep, but sleep won.

LAST CHANCE to enter the giveaway (here). Winner will be randomly chosen tonight!

Don't Forget!

Don't forget to enter my giveaway! It's basically for $25 free dollars.

Here.

OK, Seriously. (with a GIVEAWAY)

So, I went ahead and placed my order through CSN stores on Tuesday afternoon like I mentioned I would. Yesterday evening (WEDNESDAY), the order was on my doorstep. THE NEXT DAY. I feel like I have a personal shopper with them and they hand-delivered my order. (Did you, personal shopper?)

Anyway, I'm 100% satisfied with the envelopes I ordered, and will definitely be using them again in the future.

AND

I'm giving you a chance to use them as your personal shopper too, with my very first GIVEAWAY! This giveaway is for a $25 gift certificate to be used at any of their stores.

Just leave a comment and make sure I can get a hold of you. Get an extra 2 entries if you blog about the contest (leave 2 extra comments please). THREE chances to win! Contest ends Monday June 14th.

(Just a note before you enter: the gift certificate can't be used on shipping fees)

GOOD LUCK!

Play Time

This kid. When he gets bored, he just crawls into the playroom
all on his own and finds something to play with.

He's such a good kid. Lucky for him, today his sister was in there too.

We like her too.

So, I'm Planning a NEW Adventure

Pretty soon, I'll be opening a new etsy shop (details next week hopefully). I'm just getting everything prepared this week. Shipping supplies are being ordered, packing materials are being collected, etc.

I think I'm going to try and order my envelopes from CSN Stores. They're a website with over 200 stores where you can buy anything from a sofa to a suitcase (or shipping supplies). I'll let you know how it goes with their website.

Wish me luck! I'm pretty excited about this new adventure.

Home Tour Part VI: Guest Room

BEFORE:

AFTER:

This room isn't nearly as impressive to view until you know what it looked like before. Each wall was divided in half diagonally, with red paint on one half and black on the other. This included the walls, baseboards, closet doors, bedroom door, and all trim.

Several coats of primer later, we were able to paint. And by that point, we didn't care what color it was. Luckily, the house came with two 5 gallon buckets of mystery paint, so that's what we used (we also used the same color on the play room, the office, and 2 of the bathrooms). It's a nice neutral soft brown color.

Throw in a headboard found for free on the side of the road, our old bedding, and a chair ALSO found in the road, and the room was basically free. But I still think my free room is better than what used to be there.

Memorial Day/Housewarming Party

After a YEAR of living in our new house, we finally threw our housewarming party. I was so busy from start to finish though, that I forgot to take pictures until it was already dying out.

Friends & Family having an AWESOME time

Our sparking blue pool, new lounge chairs,
and newly painted/reupholstered (by yours truly) deck chairs

We had a really great turnout, awesome food, and tons of fun! Chairs and lots of tables of foods were set up in the back yard, the pool was constantly full of kids, and I set up "before" pictures in all of the rooms of our house so that people could see the improvements we've made on the house since we moved in.

One of the three food tables

More screaming good times

Thanks to everyone who came. We had a really fun time!

Today's New Tricks

Today Sam learned two things.


1. We keep a convenient baby food dispenser right at crawler height in the kitchen.

2. If you keep your mouth clamped very tight, and violently shake your head back and forth, it's much harder for your mom to get said "baby food" out of your mouth.

Foodie Friday #18 - Hula's Modern Tiki

Welcome back to Foodie Friday.

(for an explanation of the ratings, see here)

Hula's Modern Tiki
4700 N Central Ave, Phoenix

Price: $$

Taste: * * * *
S&A: * * * * *
Value: * * * * *

After hearing good things about this place, we had it on our short list of restaurants we wanted to try. So when a Groupon came for it last week, Jake bought it immediately. We got a $30 gift certificate for $15. "Modern Tiki" describes it exactly. Nice, clean modern take on a Hawaiian theme.

Hula's has two menus. A Monday through Friday menu and a condensed Saturday/Sunday brunch menu. Since we went on a Saturday, we were there for the brunch. We both ordered lunch-style items, but noticed that a lot of customers ordered breakfast, and we thought all their plates looked delicious.

While the menu is small, we actually had a really hard time deciding what to order. Everything sounded so good. I went with the Mango Chicken Salad. It was a ceasar salad topped with mangos and a nicely seasoned (kinda spicy) blackened chicken breast. It was very tasty and very large.

Jake ordered the Luau Pork Sandwich, which is described on the menu as "heaven on a bun". Sweet pork topped with cole slaw. The flavor was amazing - absolutely fantastic. He ordered it with a basket of sweet potato fries - which was big enough to share.

We will definitely be back, coupon or not. The menu is so diverse that we're anxious to try everything on it.


Overall Rating: 4½ Stars

*photo

Art Gallery

I have had this page torn from my Family Fun magazine for a year and a half now, and finally got everything together that I needed to make it.

Inspiration:

My Wall:

I got all the frames from various garage sales and thrift stores. Since I wanted fancy looking frames, I just accidentally ended up with all gold-toned pieces. I initially planned on spraying them all an aqua color, but I've left them as-is for now because I kind of like the gold art gallery feel it has. I may change my mind later though.

A little about the art: The pink drawing in the large oval is a portrait of Jake. And the blue watercolor is a "happy monster". It's my personal favorite. Sophie drew it all by herself without any direction from me.

Imitation

Sam's favorite thing to imitate:

And welcome, Baby Elliot. We're so glad you're here!

School Bus for Sophie

Sophie started her new preschool last week, and today, the bus came to pick her up for the first time. Sophie was beyond excited to ride it.

Waiting

First Bus Sighting

Climbing Aboard

"I can do my buckle all by myself."

Goodbye!

It was a little harder (for one of us) than I thought it would be.

Sammy Boy is Sick

My poor baby boy is sick. He's been throwing up since 9:00 last night, and doesn't have much of an appetite at all. Of course, he's still my same happy Sam. He can puke and squeal in the same breath.

I noticed that it's been a while since he's had a wet diaper, so I set him on the floor of the office to do some internet research on the symptoms of dehydration. One of the signs that your baby is seriously dehydrated is having hands and feet that feel cold and look splotchy. I looked down at Sam to examine his feet and this is what I saw:


I continued reading, but the article didn't mention anything about excessive blueness around the fingers and mouth. I think I need to do some more research.

It's Almost Pool Season

The pool is blue and the weather hit 90 for the first time this year yesterday. The kids decided to give swimming a try. They both absolutely loved it.

Daytime pool season is short around these parts. Soon it'll be too hot (yes - too hot to swim!) and we'll only be able to head out in the early morning or after sundown.

And have I mentioned lately how much I love having this kid around?

Cause I do. He's such a joy! He's always just a pleasure to be around. I'm a lucky mama.

Easter Egg Hunts

Sophie enjoyed hunting Easter eggs at both sets of grandparents' houses yesterday. She was very excited to see what the "Easter Wabbit" brought her.

The boys had fun too.

And, here's Sam in his Easter outfit.
Cute scrunchy-faced kid.