Ethan and Quinn

Very SLOWLY catching up on an entire summer's worth of posts.  My blog has gone the way of so many other things in life...neglect for months and then play catch up.  Anyway, lots more to come. 

Sometimes I forget how lucky we are to live in the same city with Chris' brother, mom and extended family, as well as my mom and sister.  Which translates into spur of the moment museum trips, play dates and bailing each other out of childcare glitches.  LOVE it!

At the children's museum

sharing a quesadilla at Qdoba

Ethan helping his big "little" cousin

girls campout

We had not been camping in several years...not since NiNi was 2 and it was over 100 degrees.  The time before that there was practically a tornado (ok I am exaggerating, but it was very stormy and windy).  So not a lot of positive camping experiences in my adult life.  I do however have fond memories of camping with my dad when I was little.    My cousin singing and playing his guitar until late, playing with dirt and bugs and fire.  And my dad made these cool parachute things out of newspaper that, when lit, floated up in the air like a Chinese lantern.  Which I guess I why I keep coming back for more punishment, hoping to make more memories like these.  Initially, we had planned to camp with NiNi's girl scout troup, but it ended up being a mother/daughter thing with my sister, my dear friend Sara, and another little girl from the troop.  It was a delightful couple of days...hiking, horseback riding, cooking over the campfire, and temps in the 70's.  It did rain the last night which soaked everything in sight, but I guess it's not camping if things go too perfectly.

 

the Beggs ladies

sweetheart tree
 

beginning of the hike

 

end of the hike

improvising...none of us brought a sharp knife

 

sweetest juiciest watermelon ever

 

Mad DIY skills

It took a weeks vacation for me to drum up a few "small" DIY projects.  It's no big secret that I am the handy one in the family.  Chris is by no means embarrassed by this nor does he feel it in any way deducts man card point.  So we have a nice partnership...I provide cheap labor and he is happy to bank roll the entire operation.   The only problem is I do tend to be a little over ambitious  at times.  Installing a back splash was by far the biggest project I've tackled and I was so afraid of it turning out looking botched. I watched the internet videos at least 10 times and the tile guy at Lowes gave me a nice little pep talk as I filled my cart with $300 worth of tile.  How kind of him.  It still took me 2 days of looking at the wall before I could bring myself to slap on the first tile with my sweaty little palms.  It did get easier...

Before

after

I wish I would have taken a "before" picture of the bathroom, but think 1980's gold vanity lights.  I replaced the fixture with this one, painted the walls blue and switched out the mirror.  Ever seen the youtube video "dumb ways to die"?  Well, "do your own electrical work" is on the list and darn it if that wasn't running through my head the entire time.  But I was happy to learn that for about 8 bucks you can buy something called a voltage detector.  It blinks red when it comes near any live wires....and he is now my new best friend. As is my brother-in-law who came over to check my wiring.

My kids are tired of being neglected so pretty sure I am done with projects for awhile:)

4th of July

Ethan reading texts and hanging with the big boys

Meagan and Mallory passing out candy in the Noblesville parade

Grandma and grandpa driving the truck

my new favorite shot of him...looks like such a big guy
 

Hair cut

Every time Ethan starts looking like a shaggy dog we go see Kim, his "personal stylist" and also our very good friend.  This day he sat by himself for the entire cut in under 4 suckers. We measure lots of things in "suckers" these days.