Summer Series: Graffiti Shoes

Ever since I saw this tutorial over at Lil Blue Boo last year I've wanted to decorate some shoes with Kinsley. I made sure it made it into our summer crafting schedule this year.


We picked up some cheap canvas shoes on clearance and pulled out all our markers and got right to it.


We learned that the fine tip markers don't bleed nearly as much so they are the best to do any fine detail or outlining with. The shoes have held up surprisingly well, even the ones that were colored with regular "washable" markers.

I decided to do something a little different with the ones I was decorating and just use a black fine tip sharpie to draw some details that we could color in later.











This was such a fun project for both of us. Even if you're like me and have zero drawing ability you can still come up with some pretty cute looking and totally unique shoes. So far Kinsley has decided she likes them without color but that could change any day.

Gone Fishing

I feel like this post has been forever in the making. We finally were able to take Kinsley on her very first fishing trip. I'm a little sad that it took us 3 1/2 years to finally get it done though. It seems like something was always working against us. The plus to waiting so long was that Kinsely was really excited and able to actually do the fishing part herself some too.











Do you like her "look I just caught a fish pose"? She did that same pose each and every time. Silly girl. We took her to a little place just down from the house that we knew was full of perch so she would be guaranteed to catch something. We'll wait until she's a bit older and gone a few more times before we get into the sitting all day and catching nothing kind of fishing. Turns out she wasn't satisfied with just catching perch and proclaimed "this time I'm going to catch a catfish" as she cast her line the next time.









Can you believe that is exactly what she did? Talk about beginners luck. After that excitement she started to get a little bit bored.





So we decided to call it a day so she fed the rest of her worm to the minnows and went home to show off her big catch.

Scent memories

Yesterday we gave the house a good cleaning in an effort to get rid of whatever germs might be hanging around since we were all starting to feel a bit better. This included cleaning all the open surfaces of the house, every toy and of course all the linens.

As I wrapped myself up in my quilt last night to go to sleep I breathed in that scent that you only get from line drying laundry, and it hit me. I recognized the scent. It was my grandmother's house. You see for the longest time she would always hang her laundry out on the clothesline behind the house. When I was a kid I remember how much I loved helping her hang out the laundry. It's quite interesting, the things that kids see as fun that most of us grownups think of as work isn't it? But I did love it. I was usually given the task of hanging washcloths, most likely because they were small and easy to manage but I was proud of my work no matter. I still enjoy hanging our laundry on the clothesline though I will admit to using my dryer much more often than she did. Regardless there is just something about seeing beautiful quilts hanging on a clothesline that I love. Maybe its the simplicity of the act in a world that is so often moving away from "old time" traditions like this one, or maybe it is simply the memories of a simpler time in my own life.

Summer days spent waking earlier than I ever thought necessary because we wanted to make it to all the yard sales to find those special treasures. Using a butter knife to eat brownies hot from the microwave and how sad it was when they stopped making the ones with cream in the middle. Endless hours spent on the boat waiting for the fish to bite and dodging them as well because we all knew what it felt like to get a little too close to a big catch. Skip Bo games, crochet lessons and not a single care in the world.

I remember snuggling down under handmade quilts (much like the one I am under tonight) after a busy day of being a kid and breathing in that scent. I don't know that I ever connected the two in my mind, to me it was simply what grandma's house always smelled like.

Maybe it is those days that are in the back of my mind making me smile whenever I see a quilt blowing in the breeze. All I know is that tonight those thoughts will certainly be on my mind I as drift off wrapped in that familiar scent of summer.

Puddle Jumping

The girls are finally on the mend and I'm hopefully following soon behind. I can't wait to all be feeling our best again. I've tried a couple times to post and the ability to form sentences that you could understand was not one that I possessed lately. I'm taking the easy way out today, just to be on the safe side and posting some pictures of the girls playing in their favorite puddle after a little rain this week. Yea rain!!

Distractions

It seems like there is always something distracting me from getting my blog posts published. This time it was a missing camera cord, kitchen remodel and then now we have sick babies.





This poor tiny has been running a fever off and on since last Sunday night and has just felt miserable. She hasn't had any other symptoms but when her fever kept reaching over 103 we began to get a little worried. Thankfully all her tests and labwork have come back clean and I think she's finally on the mend.

Of course that means that big sister would have to get sick today. She started the day out with a case of the sniffles and I hoped it was only allergies. Unfortunately tonight she has sniffles, sneezing and now she's running a fever.

My poor babies. We've spent a lot of time laying under our favorite blankets and snuggling and I see a few more days of that in our future. I hope all is well with you and yours...

The wonder of "wow" moments

I am amazed each and every single day at how much she is growing and learning. She is such a little ball of curiosity and energy. She definitely keeps all of us on our toes every second of the day. Everything is new and exciting to her and her favorite word at the moment is "WOW", so perfect for her. She jumps head first into everything and has absolutely no fear which isn't always a good thing. Jump off the coffee table? Sure, why not. Walk right up to that barking dog and try to pet it? Of course. Like I said, never a dull moment.

I think we are all learning a little something from her about new experiences though. She has helped us all get back to just enjoying the little moments in life because they are truly where the magic is to be found.



She loves to play outside and this summer heat is making it hard on us all. She will just stand and look out the window during the afternoon saying "bye" and waving. Thankfully the evenings are cooling down a bit so we can get outside for a little while. Fall will be absolutely glorious if it ever gets here. And of course it will bring a whole new batch of "wow" moments when it comes. I can not wait.

Smart Summer: Cardboard Roll Rocketships

We aren't really getting into Outer Space Week very well. The girls have not been in the mood to focus on activities very well and it's been a workout just to get through our daily necessities. I think the heat is getting to them, that or cabin fever since we haven't been able to spend much time outside at all. Either way, this week has already been a long one.



We did attempt to make these cardboard roll rocketships from Naturally Educational.


You don't need much in the way of supplies. Instead of using foam shapes we decided to color our aluminum foil with Sharpies. I'll take any excuse to use them, have I mentioned how much I love Sharpies?


I went with an alien spaceship and stars. How's that for some artistic talent? Ha.





Kinsley drew all the planets on hers.

I didn't get any good in progress shots because the alien space monster (aka Kaitlyn) was trying to destroy the rockets at every turn. Thankfully Naturally Educational has great step by step photos if you need them.

Smart Summer: Sandpaper Starfish

We finished up Water Fun Week with some easy sandpaper starfish. I simply cut some rough star shapes out of sandpaper and put the girls to work with some older crayons.





Kinsley liked the novelty of drawing on something different than her normal papers and we discussed how the sanpaper felt differently and whether or not we thought it would make the crayons look different. She liked layering her colors and how vibrant the colors appeared.





I don't think Kaitlyn was quite as impressed. Though she did color for longer than she normally does. She isn't a huge fan of art at this point.




Though she is a big fan of eating art supplies. Sigh. She will outgrow this soon right?


We didn't get to make our egg carton sea turtles, our jellyfish or the fishing game this week but I'm keeping the ideas around for later.

Now we're on to the final week of the Smart Summer Challenge: Outer Space! Should be fun.