little notebooks and invites

Over the weekend we threw a fun little party for Krew's birthday (which I will post soon). I wanted to make a fun activity that went along with his zoo themed celebration. I wanted to have the kids stamp, color, and write in animal observation notebooks like little zookeepers. I looked around online and saw something similar to what I wanted and figured I could create it myself. As a child, I loved office supplies and little knick-knacks and so I stuffed the notebooks (made from button & string envelopes) with a few animal pictures they could paste in and other fun things. Although cutting paper and binding them took some time, they were so tiny and cute. It turned out to be a hit with the little ones!

And I also had fun making the invites...

string & button envelopes, baker's twine, kraft paper, elephant stamp, envelopes: Papersource, animal pictures: cut out from Zoonooz magazines, stickers : office store

sleeping in the movies

This weekend was sensational, as you can tell from Krew's awesome smile. This was at the beach after his birthday party on Saturday. Krew and I have been practicing the "happy birthday" song for a month so this was an exciting moment! And now I am a mother of a 2 year old! Cutest little guy around. After the party we played at the beach, Cameron and I went out for a little surf, and Krew dug lots of holes.

Later we thought it would be fun seeing the new Batman movie and letting Krew go play at my parent's house. We met up with my brother and sister-in-law, my brother Jeff and his friend Mallory. I'm not going to lie, I was a bit nervous about going to see this movie, with the recent event in Colorado I was a little on edge. But I was fine... I mean what are the chances?? As we were watching the movie, I was totally dozing off. I know... I'm a fun date. I was kind of just waiting for the movie to be over already because I wasn't fully enjoying it as I was dozing in and out. I felt like the movie was about 5 hours long...Zzz... and so dramatic... Zzz... and that flashing is annoying... wait, why is someone taking pictures of the movie screen? Wait?! It's not a flashing camera, it's the fire alarm! Yes! The fire alarm is going off! And the sirens along with it! People running out?! Should I duck? Ah?! I did have a moment of complete panic. The alarm quickly turned off and the people that bolted out of the theater and those who ducked down returned to their seats. Needless to say, I was wide awake for the rest of the movie. Darn person who thought that would be a funny trick nearly gave me a heart attack.

I think I'll have to re-watch dear Batman in the future. In my house.

a story about a tiny zookeeper

There once was a tiny zookeeper.

He would take the train to the zoo and spend much of his time there.

He had a teddy bear who would sometimes come with him to the zoo.

He observed the animals. He loved watching them and the animals loved seeing him too.


He was really good at making monkey faces and mimicking animal sounds.


He watched the animals intently making sure all of the creatures at the zoo were taken care of.


He loved the animals and they loved him.






The tiny zookeeper is excited for his second year of adventures at the zoo...
because little Krew is turning 2!

Happy 2nd Birthday to our little zookeeper, Krew! We love you!

a Sip & See for Heather & Cecily

My best friend Heather recently had her second baby in April, a beautiful little girl named Cecily! She just came into town so my sister-in-law Ashley and I wanted to throw her a little celebration. We held a Sip & See breakfast complete with teacups, muffins, and dainty treats. It was fun reuniting with old friends, eating lots, and everyone got to see baby girl. Cecily is such a little doll, we love her so much! And she really lucked out with such an awesome mama.

summerness

You would think I've been on vacation with my lack of blogging. We definitely have been busy with summer activities. I try to get Krew to some kind of body of water at some point in the day or do something equally exciting (what could possibly be as exciting as water!!). We have birthday parties, showers of all kinds, and friends around so our days have been happily full! And can you believe it... my baby boy is turning 2 next week-- that is just craziness to me. He's an awfully cute almost-2-year-old though. I really can't stop kissing his face most of the day. That's probably the main reason I haven't blogged, I'm too busy kissing those cute cheeks.

I've got two big nasty scabs on my elbows from taking my child down a terribly fast slide (it was faaaaast-- no joke) and the day after I got pooped on by a seagull at the beach so life is exciting for me. But what's summer without a few battle wounds and seagul poop?! It just aint summer without that. And can you believe that was #1 and #2 on my summer bucket list. Done and done.

water

I had to share this candid photo that my friend, Merrily, took of us two days ago. Cameron's out in the water and Krew and I are watching. Love this. Thanks, Merrily! Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

what to do on a cloudy fourth?

We hoped that our little sun would come through the cloudy layer but he never made it. We had envisioned our fourth with warm weather, sand, salty water, and good waves to surf-- all that fell through. So what to do on a cloudy fourth? Have a wonderful breakfast with friends and family which we took our sweet time with, jump on trampolines, go down to the beach anyways, surf on tiny waves, eat sand (miss Ella was enjoying it by the fistfuls!), collect sand crabs, pretend the weather is fabulous and send your kids out into the water, warm them up as they come in shivering, take a lovely 4th of July nap, play some ping pong with your hubby, go to a block party, listen to live music...

... and it's a good thing that the sunshine doesn't make a difference for the fireworks! We loved the fireworks show that we watched on a grassy golf course. Krew was a little scared so he snuggled with dad and held his shirt real tight.

(Yes, there is a bit of tug-a-war going on in front to take a picture and to prevent a bitten glow stick. The glow stick was eventually broken and we and our friends were sprinkled with glow stick)

Even though we didn't come back from the beach warm and sun-kissed, we still had an awesome time. But mr. sun, we're counting on you next year.

i drum, you dance.

I couldn't sleep so I thought I might write down what went on at dinner tonight.

Krew is always in the mood to play when dad gets home. To try to have a sit down dinner is almost impossible while my little impatient guy is tugging Cameron's hand the entire time to go play. Since this was the case, I thought it would be smart to eat dinner outside in our little courtyard or side deck as we call it so Krew could play while we enjoyed a peaceful dinner. We finally got Krew to eat most of his meal, which was awesome, and we promised to play with him right after we were finished eating. Krew had big plans for the three of us because he got out his tambourine drum, told us very sternly that he wanted "mama" there and "dada" here. And then he played his drum and instructed us to dance. And there Cameron and I were, looking at each other doing some kind of ridiculous tribal dance to this wild drumbeat and tambourine. We were acting to the command of the toddler and his eyes were wide with the entertainment of his two silly parents dancing to the beat of his drum. Cameron and I just laughed. At any point we stopped, we were told "More!". And so we danced on. It was such a funny moment, looking at Cameron dancing his silly dance and then Cameron looking back at me and laughing-- all for this little guy. Thanks Krew for keeping us dancing and laughing together.

Eventually, I was shewed out by the grand drum director who wanted it do be a "boys only" drum dance which I was perfectly happy with peeping through the windows.