Sidewalk Paint & Day 3

Well this summer I have tried to do some kind of planned activity each day with the kids.  I have found that I have to be purposeful and plan this out or I can go all day and not sit down and spend one-on-one time interacting with my little cuties.  Most days they are not elaborate activities--it can be as easy as just going outside and playing catch or blowing bubbles WITH them and without my phone or any other distractions.  I have missed a couple of days but I can definitely say that the days that I have done it--our days have gone much smoother! 

Last year I found this make-your-own-sidewalk-chalk kit on clearance so I picked it up for later.  A couple of weeks ago we busted it out. 

 It was animal shape molds and some kind of magic (; sidewalk chalk dust stuff. 

 All you had to do was add 3 capfuls of water,

 shake,

 and pour!  Lilly was able to do it all by herself! 

 Reid didn't want to pour the water for some reason.  Usually he is Mr. Independent but he kept saying, "You do it."  So I added the water and he would shake and pour. 

And, of course, my curious boy had to play in it a little.  ( : 

 We let them sit for 15 minutes...

 and viola!  Sidewalk chalk!!  Animal sidewalk chalk at that.  Some day we may try this DIY sidewalk chalk recipe.

 Oh, and I rinsed out the containers and plan on making the DIY watercolor paints from Pinterest and puting them in there.  Eventually.  Ha! 

We have had lots of fun making sidewalk chalk designs. 

Oh and if you are hopping over from Jenna's--here is my daily post info.

Day 1--My name is Sara.  I am married to Matt and in August we will have been married 8 years.  Woot!  Woot!  We have two kids that are less than a year apart.  Lilly is our fun and silly girly girl and she is 3.  Reid is our spunky and sweet all boy little two year old.  We also have a pug named Tank.  I stay at home with the kids and feel so blessed to be able to do that. 

Day 2--I started blogging so that the grandparents could see regular pictures of the kids and know what we are up too.  I mostly just blog what we do on a daily basis.  This blog has kind of become our online scrapbook.  Most Tuesdays I do a "Testimony Tuesday" post where I just share something that the Lord has been teaching me lately.  I also blog crafts and recipes very sporadically. 

Day 3--I am on twitter @mrssarascott and I am on Pinterest too here.  Pinterest is probably the website I check most often.  I love finding stuff to do with Matt, the kids, and new recipes to try too.  I am on Instagram--but honestly until a couple of weeks ago I didn't know people could follow me or comment on posts.  I have no idea how to follow anyone on Instagram either.  I am going to get on that soon! ( ;

Testimony Tuesday: This Step

Well about a month ago I started running again.  And to be honest...I haven't been loving it like I used to.  It has been both harder and hotter than before. 

At first I was discouraged and thought, "It hasn't been that long since I was running--and I am starting all the way at the beginning!!  This should be easy breezy!"  But it wasn't.  The first week I had stomach pains at the end of the run.  And total I had ran 1/2 mile.  In 1/8 mile increments with 1/8 mile walks in between. 

I thought to myself, "If I can't run 1/8 mile without aching...how am I EVER going to run even one mile???"  On day two I was laying on the bed after the "run" thinking, "It is only 7:30 AM--my kids haven't even woken up yet and I don't think I will be able to move all day.

I also thought to myself, "The next couple of weeks will get easier and I will enjoy this again." 

Well I am on week 5 and let me share a couple of things with you.  It has NOT gotten easier.  At the end of every run I am a red-faced, sweaty, heavy-breathing mess.  In the middle of every run I am thinking, "I am not going to be able to finish this today!"  And at the end of every week I doubt whether or not I will be able to do the next week's run.  (It goes up every week...and daily within the week.)

I use my running time as a time to casually talk with God.  And that part I have enjoyed.  But I have prayed that it would get easier and that I wouldn't just be suffering through it the whole time.  And he has, at least thus far, said "Nope!"  I really sense that he is telling me, "No I am going to teach you something through this but you have to endure.  I have made this HARD for a reason."

As I would be running this week and I would start to become overwhelmed by the distance left (or how much farther the distance of tomorrow's run is compared to today's and how hard today's already is), God has been telling me, "Just focus on this step.  Can you do this step?"  And I think, "Well, yes, I can do this step."  And he starts to refocus my heart.  He reminds me, "Don't look at what is up ahead.  Focus on where you are right now.  We can worry about that part when we get to it--but now just take this step."  And you know what--somehow--each day He gives me the strength to complete my goal. 

In the Message Matthew 6:34 says, "Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow.  God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes."

I am thankful that God is using such a little thing as running to teach me such a powerful truth!  There are times in our lives that will be difficult and how wise we will be if we can just focus on this moment and on His presence.

Because They're Funny

Well when you live with a 2 and 3 year old--you do a lot of laughing!  I thought I would share just a few funny stories that have happened recently around our house.  

 Let's start with a couple that these two cuties have done together.

• Before bed we pray and it never fails as Matt starts to pray both Lilly and Reid will start praying their own prayers out loud.  It sounds like a pentacostal revival in our house every night before bed.  I have to put my hands over my face and just laugh a little.  It is so cute and so funny.  Also Lilly calls God "The God"--we don't know why--but anyway, she will say, "Praise to the God!"  I know God has to be laughing at the cuteness too! 
• We have recently discovered The Cat in the Hat on Netflix.  The kids refer to as, "The Kit in the Cat."
• I refer to this as "the sunscreen incident."  I had been up late one night spray painting the letters for Allison's shower (see previous post) and the spray paint just was not working.  I have decided that spray paint just isn't for me.  So I went to the store and got a little roller and some plain black paint and finished the project and went to bed.  (Stay with me--the details are important.)  The next day we ran errands and I was making dinner for some friends that had just had a baby and the kids wanted to go out back and play.  I am getting stuff packed up to take to our friends and Lilly comes inside and announces, "I got the sunscreen all over my hands and need to go wash my hands."  I turn around to tell her to go ahead and go wash her hands and see that her hands are black.  "THE SPRAY PAINT!!!"  is all I think and Matt and I go running outside to find Reid--his hands also solid black along with a good portion of his stomach--and now he is spraying our swing set.  Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the kids all painted up since they went directly to the bath tub, but I DID take a couple of pictures of our swing set. 

 Lovely, isn't it?? 

 This silly, sassy girl is always making us giggle.  Here are a few of her stories.

• We were at Matt's Granddaddy's visitation (he passed away a couple of weeks ago and ,yes, this is a funny story from a visitation) and Matt had the kids in the entry and I went in "the room" with the family.  I was up talking to Granddaddy's wife Eutha and Lilly snuck in the room and ran up to me.  Where we had the following conversation (Lilly, Eutha, and I)-

Lilly: (to Eutha)  Where's your Granddaddy??
Me: (to Lilly)  Remember honey, Mommy told you that Granddaddy went to be with Jesus.
Lilly: So he died?
Me:  Yes honey.
Lilly:  Will he be back?
Eutha:  No, sweetie, he has gone to a better place now.
Lilly:  Well did you die??

[Now guys this is one of those times where you pray, "Lord give me the power to disappear. Or the power to go back in time and walk away 5 seconds earlier." But, alas, he didn't and to make matters worse Eutha didn't hear her.]

Eutha: (to me) What did she say?

Me: [Silence because I am asking God if it is okay to just lie.]

Eutha: Sara, what did she say?

Me: Big sigh (RED face)...She just asked if you died. (Eutha laughed and said "No." I appologized and said she is just starting to understand this whole death thing. And then we went to walk away and Lilly spotted Granddaddy in the coffin but wasn't close enough to see it was him and as we were walking away she very loudly announced, "Mommy there is somebody sleeping in that bed up there!!"

·   Lilly was saying her prayer the other night before bed which is getting quite detailed now. She was in the middle of a very sweet prayer and prayed, "Please keep us safe from the bears and swiper the fox."

·  This is recent but given the last one it reminds me that when Lilly was just beginning to pray we would ask her who she wanted to pray for and the only person she ever wanted to pray for was Dora.

·  One morning Lilly fixed herself a bowl of cereal and sprinkles for breakfast.

·  One evening we were walking in Wal-Mart she asked why I still had my teacher shirt on and I replied, "That's just how I roll!" A few hours later--out of nowhere--she said, "That's just how I roll! With my teacher shirt on!!"

And, of course, this energetic sweet boy creates lots of laughs, too.

·  We were outside the other day and Reid needed to "tee-tee" (as we call it) and so we told him to just 'go' on a bush in our back yard. (1-Our back yard is fenced...and 2-I don't know why we decided to introduce this into our world.) But he was like, "No! It goes in the potty." So we said, "Great!" and took him inside. I thought that would be the end of that. Until yesterday. We went outside last night and he asked if he could tee-tee on the bush. He does. And he is excited! I go inside to get him some "big boy underwear" because I am thinking outside is the best place to try them out. If he has an accident--it is outside and I don't have to shampoo the carpet. While I am inside I hear him yelling, "Mom I poop on the bush!" over and over. I cringe and run back outside...sure enough--he did! I was explaining to him that THAT always goes in the potty when Tank went over to investigate "it" and Lilly goes, "That is es-custing (disgusting)!!" It was gross--but it was funny!

·  We were driving around in our mini-van the other day and Reid goes, "This is kind of like a race car!"

· And here is one from me. I was making banana nut bread the other day and decided since we had some blackberries that were about to spoil that I would make a loaf with blackberries too. I used the same recipe that I use for banana nut bread but put in some mashed blackberries and blueberries instead of bananas and nuts. Y'all--there is a reason you have heared of banana nut bread and not blackberry bread! It tasted okay but it was so seedy. It wasn't all waisted effort, though, because Tank (our pug) LOVES it. Sits by the counter and begs for it. And, oddly enough, Reid really likes it as well.

· Just so Matt won't feel left out here is one about him. ( ; We were headed to swim a couple of weeks ago and realized we had forgotten the sunscreen. It was a nice day out and very cloudy and overcast so I said, "I think we will be okay." He looked at me like I was crazy and said, "Are you serious??? Do you even buckle the kids up when I am not with you??" I laughed so hard. Yes, of course I do. We stopped to buy sunscreen. (:

Allison's Wedding Shower

Last Saturday I helped host my little cousin Allison's wedding shower.  I can't believe she is old enough to be married--and she completely is--but to me she will always be my "little" cousin. 

 Isn't she gorgeous??  She got so many great gifts!  I loved seeing all the new (super cool) kitchen gadgets. 

She got these super cute glasses with Razorbacks etched into the side.  You can see the gift I gave her here. Now onto the details!

She had wanted to have a monogram shower but since this was her only shower we knew we couldn't do a monogram only shower or she wouldn't have been able to get anything from her registry.  So with this in mind we tried to put as many monograms in the shower decoration as possible.  As guests come in they were greeted by this on the door.  I saw this on pinterest.  It is just a frame, yarn, and a chipboard letter painted black.  Her colors are black and white with green hydrangeas. 

 This was the guest table.  It had pictures of the happy couple, flowers in a mongrammed vase, and advice cards for guests to write advice for them.

Here is an upclose picture of the monogrammed vase that we found at Hobby Lobby on clearance!  Score!!

 There were three tables and each one was set up like this--each table had a different picture of them on it.

 The food spread!  We had a brunch shower so the food included spinach dip with bread and carrots to dip, fruit kabobs and fruit dip, chicken salad sandwiches on cranberry bread from a local bread company, mini muffins (courtesy of Little Debbie), mini quiches, pigs-in-a-blanket, and cake.

We found these super cute name-plate frames at the dollar spot at Target and used them for food labels.

 We painted their monogram letters and hung them from the center of the food table.

 Drinks--bottled water, cappuccino punch, raspberry lemonade, and sweet tea

 We found these monogram bottle labels at Hobby Lobby.  They were 50% off so they were only like $2.50 and were such a cute touch. 

 The cake from Rick's Bakery.  One layer was vanilla and the other layer was vanilla with raspberry filling.  Shortly after this picture was taken I accidently smudged part of it while taking pictures.  Whoops! 

 Aunt Cindy (or Ci-Ci as she is know to the kids and also Allison's mom), Allison, and Allison's soon-to-be Mother-in-law Shelly. 

The hostesses--Me, Aunt Theresa, Allison, Jessica, and Rachel.  My cousin Michelle was also a hostess but she is out of the country on military duty so she couldn't be there that day.  We missed her VERY much.  All-in-all I think Allison had a great shower and I am so excited for her and Casey as they start their married life! 

Mommy & Reid Time

While Lilly was at Princess Ballerina Camp (see last post), Reid and I got some very rare just-mommy-and-son time.

 On Monday I asked Reid what he wanted to do and he said he wanted to go shopping for big boy underwear.  (We had been talking about getting some.)  So we had some breakfast and then went shopping.  Before we got to breakfast he said he wanted to go to TJ Maxx but by the time breakfast was over he had changed his mind to go to Wal-Mart. 

 If you know Reid you will not be at all surprised to know that he picked out Cars underwear. 

 And that weekend we had already bought some Cars pull-ups because he had been going potty in the potty so well. 

 He wanted to put them on as soon as we got home despite my pleas to let me wash them first.  BUT after peeing on the floor once and then again 10 minutes later I thought to myself, "No.  Not ready."  Then, to my surprise, on Thursday (last week) he asked to go to the potty all day long.  And has gone most of the time since then in the potty IF we are home.  He has been in a pull up all week long and I am thinking next week we will try the big boy underwear and, for the first time, officially try potty training. 

 Oh, and we also bought lots of "potty prizes" that day, too.  He got to pick them all out.  Really all he cares about are the Cars tattoos and the Reeces Cups.  He is pretty cheap to reward.  (:  Lilly gets a prize too (1--he got prizes while she was potty training and 2--they celebrate together.  She is just as proud of him as we are. Ha!) and she always picks the fruit snacks. 

 Okay somehow I digressed from Mommy & Reid time to potty talk...so, ahem...back on track.  On Tuesday Reid insisted on buckling himself up and did it all by himself!!  And has ever since.  At first it took him about ten minutes but now he is a regular pro!  He wanted to go to Chick-fil-a for breakfast and play so that is what we did! 

 On Wednesday he wanted his picture taken too (since I was taking Lilly's princess pictures.)

 He is TOO cute!  On Wednesday we spent our time at Hobby Lobby because I HAD to get stuff for the wedding shower I was hosting this past weekend and he was SO good.  He played with this wooden treasure chest that I was picking up for our little bookclub (that I have yet to blog about but will someday soon) the whole time we were there.  He would open it up and sing into it and say, "I put a song in it!"  Then we ran by Rick's Bakery to order the cake for the shower and he got to pick out a special treat to end our fun Mommy and Son time. 

 We had a great time together and I was thankful to have a few hours to give him my undivided attention but he was always ready and happy to go pick up his sister!

Princess Ballerina Camp

Last week Lilly went to a princess ballerina camp.  It was Monday-Wednesday from 9:30-11:30.  Each day Lilly dressed up like a princess and went and did "princess-y" things. 

On Monday she went as Sleeping Beauty. 

She was SO excited!!  I am really glad it worked out that she was able to go.  She kept saying, "I have to go to my princess camp tomorrow" all day Sunday!

I just LOVE that sweet face.  It is so fun to do such girly things with her and she is SUCH a girly girl.

On Monday while they were there they did some princess crafts.  I *think* they made a crown and colored a princess picture.  They also worked on learning a dance.

And they had cupcakes and kool-aid.  I don't know what else they did but Lilly was exhausted when I went to pick her up. 

Tuesday she went as Cinderella. 

This is my favorite picture!  I just love it!!

She was really looking forward to going back on Tuesday!

Everyday that had a table set up with fun stuff. (And yes, everyday they had cupcakes. And candy.  And some sugary beverage.   A grandma was in charge.  Enough said.) ( ;

On Tuesday they got to paint their own nails.  Now..my Lilly LOVES to paint nails or have her nails painted or paint your nails...if it involves nail painting--she is IN. 

Her friend Laci painting her nails.  Lilly had lots of her friends in this camp.  I think my friend Sydney did some recruiting because over half the girls there were referred by her.  Ha! 

Lilly about to get her Ariel tattoo. 

At the end of class they did a little preview of the dance they have been learning.

There may not be a sweeter sight than a bunch of princess ballerinas!!

Lilly, Stella, and their fruit snacks.  One day I asked Lilly what her favorite part of the day was and she replied, "Fruit snacks!"  Greeeeaaaat!  Ha! 

And on Wednesday she was Snow White.  Snow White is the only one of the princesses she dressed up as where she has actually seen the movie.  We don't have the other two.  She decided she wanted to wear her red squeaker shoes instead of princess heels that day.  They actually matched perfectly.  I do feel a teeny bit bad for the instructors having to listen to her squeak all day...but then again, they did fill her up with sugar for three days in a row...so I think it is all good.  Ha!  Actually, she takes her shoes off a lot and walks on her tip toes so I knew it wouldn't be too bad. 

My sweet baby girl!!

On Wednesday they had a tea party. 

On this day the parents were supposed to show up a little early to see their dance.  This is a group photo--one little princess ran out of the picture so it is most of them.  Adorable!

After they did their dance they crowned each one of them princesses.

Getting her crown and wand.

Hannah and Lilly!  I will say that I know Hannah enjoyed this as much as Lilly did! 

Miss Bethany and Lilly.  Miss Bethany taught the dance.

Here is a video of Lilly's getting her crown and wand.

And here is her dance.  Watch this video on mute because there is a little girl who cries almost the entire video so you can't hear anything else anyway.  But you can still see Lilly busting a move.  (:  (She is the one is the bright red shoes and Snow White dress.)

Lilly had so much fun and I am so thankful she was able to do this.  Her love of princesses is even deeper now and I know great memories were made.  Oh, and friends of girls, you could totally do this with your girls at home, too!