Goodbye Gift Card! - Oct 20

2 weeks ago I posted about Chloe winning a $50 gift card to Target. This week I took Chloe to Target after school one day to let her see what she could find to buy. She checked out a few things but what she ended up talking about were these newer instant "Polaroid" type cameras that she saw one of her friends had. The problem with those primarily is the cost..the camera costs more than $50 and the printable/film stuff is not cheap (and not included) so that was pretty quickly OUT. While we were standing there, we happened to see an(ironically) Polaroid brand digital camera that said it was also waterproof. Chloe was like I WANNA BUY THIS DAD and the photographer in me was like =) but the photographer in me also wanted her to have something that wasn't a total piece of junk. In the end I decided it was her gift card and it's essentially a toy so however it works at least it's getting her interested in taking pictures and also giving her something to do. Done. Purchased.

The last 2 days she has been walking around snapping pictures of..everything. I would say her favorite subject at this point has been...the dog. Overall it's pretty neat. It works okay...I would say probably similar to a cell phone from 3 years ago, lol. I guess we'll see how long this holds her attention.

At least she's having fun. =)

Have a great weekend~

-B

Home Improvement! - Oct 13

This week started off with a project that we have been trying to tackle for a while now. We have now lived in this house officially over 10 years and some of the walls are looking a little...sad. The hallway is probably the most obvious and the thing we see every time we walk through the house that needed some attention. I guess we figured hey, this can't be that difficult a thing to remedy! A white wall that needs a fresh coat of...white! Well, any project is just that, so with that we headed out to Home Depot and grabbed some supplies. A gallon of white paint, some tape, paper, and rollers and stuff and we were on our way. Of course, Chloe really wanted to help so she picked out her very own paint brush that she was excited to use. =)

By the time the project was ready to go was just about the time when I had to leave to go photograph a family. Chloe and Heather tackled most of the painting after I laid down the tape and left. LOL. Once I got back, I was able to do a little more work and also lay down a second coat of paint in some places. We were almost able to complete the whole thing with the exception of a few parts where I need to go in and repair some cracking, etc. So the work goes on but at least Chloe got to help and pretty much that's all that matters. HA!



Have a great weekend, folks.

B

Winner, Winner, Target...Dinner?! - Oct 6

Yes, another week has somehow flown by. Today(Friday) Chloe actually doesn't even have school and next week they have a wacky schedule because of conferences so I expect the weird week pattern will continue. This week, after months of doing these weekly workout sheets that they send home at Gymnastics, Chloe was the GRAND PRIZE WINNER! Every week Chloe does the specified workout and when they turn in the paper they are entered into a drawing to win stuff. Well, after months of grumbling and complaining about doing the workouts, Chloe won a $50 gift card to TARGET! When I asked her what she thought she would spend it on she replied that she really would like a new hairbrush and she also want's to get some kind of new toy for Penny. Not your average kid, I tell you. =)

This is actually the 2nd time in the last year(not exactly sure?) that she has won something from the Gym's fitness challenge. You may recall I think the last time she won like a $5 gift card to "Sweet Street" which is literally a candy store and instead of candy she ended up choosing a clip on thing for her backpack as I recall. We must be doing something right. LOL.

Have a great weekend, folks~

B

Losing My Marbles! - Sept 29

As September draws to a close the mornings definitely start a little colder and the daylight runs out a little bit earlier each day.
This week basically flew by with very little warning and in general we didn't do anything out of the ordinary. That being said, this week I'm just going to post a few pics of Chloe doing what it seems like we do best..finding stuff to do around here by ourselves. =)

Have a great weekend~

B

A Very Merry Un-Birthday To You! - Sept 22

Well this is a weird one. =)

So by now we all know that Chloe's birthday is in January. The difficulty being as Chloe gets older and want's to have fun birthday parties we have basically been limited to do things inside. This year we all collectively decided to forgo having an actual birthday party in January for Chloe and instead we would try to put something together for her "half birthday" which would put is smack dab in the middle of summer. Perfect! We could plan a party at a park or at a water park or a pool and do something fun with her friends OUTSIDE for a change. We were very well intentioned to have such a party over the summer only problem being that summer vacation this year was the equivalent of 2 months of weekends..or 7-8 weekends of possibly dates. We talked about it and talked about it and between my schedule and Heather's, school started and we had not had Chloe's party. The summer got away from us.

The plan was still in place but with each passing week it was someone else's birthday or a holiday weekend, etc etc. Finally we picked a date and we thought we had it all figured out and that ended up not working out for almost all of our friends. Turns out people go out of town on holiday weekends and also soccer season started so...September 17th became the date and the location would be my parents house for a late summer swim party.

In my mind, we were going to have a small party with a few of our friends and their kids, some pizzas and that would be that. As time went on things kept getting more and more complicated and before we knew it, we had a full blown party on our hands with decorations and cake, the whole 9 yards. Fortunately for us we ended up with a beautiful sunny day and the kids immediately found themselves in the pool. We still did pizzas and other various foods combined with a pinata, cookie decorating, bracelet/necklace making and of course swimming the kids had something to do the whole time. Honestly it was a lot of work and a lot of stress but at the end of the day it was Chloe's birthday party so it was all worth it in the end. Special thanks to my parents for allowing us to host the party at their house. It was probably the most use of the pool and yard that the house has ever seen. LOL.

So just some random pics from the party that I have affectionately dubbed "Chloe's 2/3rds birthday party". Have a great weekend, folks~

-B

What's Up, Doc?! - Sept 15

I was just checking back here on the old blog trying to figure out when we planted the current garden. The week of May 12th it seems was the approximate build and planting of the garden which has been yielding things in various amounts for a while now. Recently, like earlier this week, both Chloe and I one morning during breakfast both watched a rat or something scurry across the yard hop into the garden and snack on a tomato. Every day I go out and find a new half eaten tomato so apparently he figured out where the food is and the answer is in our garden. Awesome. The little cherry tomatoes have been here and there and the strawberries have stopped producing strawberries for some reason. On the other hand, the Carrots have grown quite the above ground foliage and the watermelons have popped out about 4 or 5 so far. This week we decided to unearth some of the carrots and see how we did.

The answer: not bad! It's pretty weird to pull carrots out of dirt by the stem and end up with food. We certainly gained an appreciation for buying fully cleaned and peeled carrots in bags at the store for $1.50. =) I had Chloe pull, clean, and peel the carrots which she seemed to quite enjoy. I learned that fresh from the garden carrots actually smell really good lol which is not something I would have imagined. Once we got through all of that, we had a tasty snack after only about 24 minutes worth of work. There are more still in the garden so we will go after them as we need them, I guess. At least the rat can't get them..I'm pretty sure he can't. Eek.

Have a great weekend, folks~

B