the things he says

Having a 3 year old is infinitely entertaining.  Here are some nuggets of Fletchisms over the past few weeks.

1.  I have nipples on my head! 
2. Do you smell that poop?  That is baby Rowan.  It is not me.
3. You broke my heart. (after I scolded him for using the word "stupid")
4. I want to see where Papa lives! 
5. Why do you let Papa sleep in your bed?
6. I want my room in the new house to be PINK!  I want the new house to be PINK, too!!!
7. What is that sound?  It is SCARING ME! (it was the trash liner in his garbage can crinkling)
8. You have antennas up here! (while patting my head)

And here's a little 3 year old logic for you.
Fletcher: Let's go to the neighbor's house and play with their toys!
Me: We can't because we weren't invited.
Fletcher: We can knock on the door!
Me: No, we shouldn't because they are sleeping.
Fletcher: We will play really quietly and not wake them up.
Me: Uh, no...
Fletcher: Why not?
Me: Um, they lock the door when they are sleeping!  So we couldn't get in.
Fletcher: We can knock on the door!

Seriously.  We could have conversations like this for hours.

you capture: summertime

This week's You Capture is Summertime!  Ah, summertime.  I'm actually not a hot-weather kind of girl, but I do love warm sunny days that end in cool nights- just like yesterday!  It was a perfect day here in my neck of the woods.  I also love that we all crawl out of hibernation during the summer.  We reconnect with neighbors, sharing drinks, stories, and pools.  We take weekend trips to the beach (like we'll be doing this weekend) and lots of walks to the park.  We pick veggies and herbs out of the garden and we eat dinner outside.  I'm looking forward to an extended summer when we move to South Carolina!  But in the meantime, I'll enjoy the cooler Illinois summer for now.

Summertime is barefeet and butt ruffles in the grass.

Summertime is sporting cool shades.

Summertime is visiting with neighbors on the front porch.

Summertime is looking forward to the peaches that the neighbor always kindly shares when they are ripe.

Summertime is enjoying everything in full bloom!

Summertime is enjoying the yields of the garden.  Including our first ripe tomatoes!

Summertime is eating alfresco.  That means outside.  You already knew that, sorry.

I hope that you are enjoying your own summertime- wherever you are!

excuses, excuses

Sorry, friends.  I know it's been a while since I've blogged.  I have a gabillion blog posts on the back burner, and I really need to start getting some of them out there!  Bear with me, it may get worse before I get better.  I'm sure you all remember me whining about having to sell our house and move.  Well, our house is officially on the market.  Which means it needs to look nice.  Like all the time.  Regardless of the fact that I have two littles who delight in the utter destruction of our house.  And it LOOKS like we have children in our house, which is statistically worse than having your house be the site of a homicide.  Just kidding, I have no idea about statistics, just the word of our real estate agent.  Who apparently thinks our house looks crap and blames our children.  Well, he's not alone!  I blame my children, too. 

We've spent the past week doing the following to prepare the house to be on the market:
1. Packed away 10, yes, TEN big totes full of clothes to make the closets look nice and organized.  Yes, I'm saving maternity clothes AND my old work clothes.  My future is foggy.
2. I painted. a lot. of. stuff.  Not walls, mind you, but furniture and whatnots.  The furniture being our bedside tables and a set of bathroom drawers.  The whatnots being 2 mirror frames.  There was a lot of the color turquoise being used.  It all turned out pretty great, I'll post pictures soon.
3. Cleaned windows.  And then cleaned them again when feral children licked them. 
4. Took down all the family/baby/hey-look-at-my-children-dammit pictures that were ALL over the house and replace them with the cool artwork we used to hang up before we felt the intense need to wallpaper our house in baby photos. 
5. Bought and assembled the big-boy-bed for Fletcher.  (*sniff, sniff*)  I will also post pictures soon, cause it's a pretty cool bed.
6. Weeded.  Watered.  Mowed.  Trimmed.  Cleaned up sticks and debris from short-yet-intense storm with hurricane force winds. 
7. Cleaned, cleaned, cleaned, and cleaned.  I mean, I do actually clean on a regular basis.  But this was waaaay beyond my standards.
8.  Blah, blah, blah.  You get the picture.  I've been busy! 

So now the house is all beautiful, and you can barely tell that children live here.  Ah, the perfect house.  And then just when I thought I couldn't take all the excessive sorting and cleaning, we're done!  For the moment. 

One of my best friends, Karen, came into town from Arizona which is the best excuse for kicking back and relaxing after all that hard work.  We drank coffee, relaxed, played with the littles and then left in a hurry once Brian was back from work to go out!

You can see in that picture that I'm really excited to be leaving the children at home with Brian.  I love my friend, Karen.  She's very glamorous, yet down to earth.  She is a great shoulder to cry on, and makes me laugh until my sides hurt.  She is one of the loves of my life.  And I mean that in a very platonic friendly way.

We met our good friend, Katie, out for dinner.  We ate too much Indian food, drank wine and champagne, and laughed hard and loud.  It felt good.  We closed down the restaurant, too!  They were locking the door behind us.  So we sat in the dark at the tables on their patio and talked and laughed more.  We watched all the waiters go home and talked and laughed some more. 

And when I got home I found that not only did Brian feed, bathe, and put the kiddos to bed, but he also cleaned up the dishes and put away all the toys.  Perfect.  It was all the perfect day to help me realize that life is good.

you capture: patriotic

So a couple of these will be repeats because of the photo challenge from earlier this week.  You Capture's theme is "Patriotic."  We're pretty patriotic around here.  We love America.  I love America like you love your crazy Uncle Ned.  He might do some weird things sometimes, and you might not always love what he's doing, but you LOVE him, and will stand up for him EVERY time.  I only speak for myself.  Brian does things for this country that I wouldn't even do for that crazy Uncle Ned.  He's my constant reminder that freedom is not free; that some folks are giving their all for the freedom I so enjoy.

{daddy's girl}

We celebrated the 4th on the 3rd with both our families at one big party at my parents.  It was FUN.  Loads of kids running everywhere, food, sparklers, crying babies, and pretty fireworks.  On the actual 4th my parents took us to a train garden at a local arboretum.  It was AMAZING.  Fletcher loved it, of course.

{red white and not too blue}

His only disappointment was when we had to tell him there was no "secret door."  He desperately wanted to get in there and play with these trains!  Here's a shot of Rowan in her patriotic finery.

{you guessed it: in mama's vintage outfit}

We had a great time visiting family and celebrating.  We left at bedtime to take the 2 hour drive home, and got to watch every town's fireworks between my parent's house and our house.  I took a ton of pictures from the car, but you can imagine how they turned out.  I was able to salvage a couple shots.

I did love how the fireworks seemed to be going off right next to the moon.  So pretty!  Fletcher also loved spotting the fireworks: There's one!  There's a red one!  There's a white one!  They look hot.  I want to pee on them.  I know, he's weird.  But I love him, anyway.  And I love this country, too.  





The story of Brian and his pole- DIY romantic deck lights!

Sometimes I have what I like to call a stroke of genius.  Brian likes to call them hare-brained ideas, but whatever.  Sometimes he goes along with them, and sometimes not.  I got lucky this time!

We've had this great deck that Brian built a couple years ago, but I've always wanted a way to hang lights above it.  And of course I had the romantic ideal of those paper lanterns in my head.  Which you can find everywhere nowadays, but we had nowhere to hang them.  So I started scheming.  I figured that with a tall pole, some hooks and some aviation wire that my light dream could become a reality.  I told Brian all about it. It went something like this.

Me: Let's screw a tall pole into one of the deck posts, string up some sort of cable and attach it to 2 corners of the house!  And then we can hang lights from it!!
Brian: What?  No.
Me:  Yes!  We can do it!  Let's try!
Brian: Uh, no.
Me:  Yes!  Please?  Let's do it!
Brian: Oh, fine.  But you have stand near me and hand me the tools.
Me: What??  NOOOOooooooo!!!

True story.  I have an aversion to being the helpful-tool-hander because of many a home project spent being a helpful-tool-hander for my father as a child.  So long story short, I got my way!  One long pole bought (the kind that you use as a rod in the closet), some aviation cable, a few eye bolts, some big screws, and some fittings.  Often other tools are bought for projects, but luckily this one was basic enough that it was cheap and fast!  It took us one hour to put it up.

First Brian screwed in one of the eye bolts into one corner of the house.

And then used these handy little levels and some twine to make sure the other eyebolt was at the same level at the other corner of the house.

See?  Nice and level.  It's apparently important.  A third eyebolt was put into the top of the pole.  Now we grab the pole and screw it into the deck post.  Just like I said.  And although Brian was a Debbie Doubtful, it worked out just fine!

Note the clamps holding the pole in place.  Note my husband's nice biceps.  Sorry, I got distracted.  Uh, where was I?  Oh, yes the pole.  And of course there's a level made for this, too.  I didn't know so many levels existed until I married Brian.

Then we made sure to use washers and wing nuts to make sure the pole was secure. 

Brian bolted the pole in three places down the deck post.  This pole aint moving, folks!  Then we got out the aviation cable.

We threaded the cable through the pole's eyebolt and secured the ends to the house's eyebolts with these clamps.

Please excuse my pink pudgy paw. 

Brian really clamped these down so that we could hang lots of weight on the cable without it bowing too much.  Then we clipped up really pretty lantern lights.  But we can hang up candle holders if we're feeling bold.  Or really whatever we think might be pretty hanging over our heads.  I'm in love with how it turned out.  It's romantic, pretty, and festive, all rolled into one.  Brian and I would be out playing music and dancing underneath them every night if we didn't have small children that cause us to collapse around 8:30 pm in exhaustion.

Don't you think it's pretty?  Loads of special thanks to Brian and his pole.

*linking to Shabby Chic Cottage

i heart faces: red, white & blue

My red, white & blue includes my Brian and my Rowan.  She's a daddy's girl through and through.  Just wait until she realizes he's not only her hero, but all of our's, too.

I hope everyone has a safe and happy Independence Day!  We'll be with family and friends, eating, drinking, and being merry.  I wish the same for all of you.