Last July Weekend!

What a fun weekend in Jacksonville! We had so much fun playing at the mall, eating dinner at a friend's house, taking four toddlers bowling and out to lunch at the Red Elephant Cafe, and throwing together a little BBQ & pool day on Saturday. Only took a few photos, but that usually means we were having too much fun to get out the camera! :)

So much fun...now I am too exhausted to get off of this couch!! :)

Traveling Fools

To keep up with our epic travel month (which has been so much fun but I will never commit to being gone 3 out of the 4 weekends ever again!), we drove up to Jacksonville. Daniel had two work meetings to attend, so the kids & I tagged along to see some of our friends. We had a lot of fun catching up with everyone! Of course I took zero photos of all the kids but managed to take a few at dinner tonight that I'll have to remember to take off of my camera.
Luckily my little munchkins are amazing travelers and I have gotten bottle washing in a hotel room down to a science! Haha! Got them both down to sleep in the hotel room by 7:45pm (by myself!!) so that's pretty much a sign that I worked them hard today! ;)

Boo!

Logan's new thing is monsters, although I have no idea where he got that from! This includes monster trucks, the cookie monster, and scaring people like a monster.

L: Boo!
Me: ahh!
L: I scare you, Mama!

But he doesn't stop with just me. He goes around to everyone in the house to "scare" them! He particularly loves to say boo to Blake and Remy. Such a funny guy!

You know how a couple of weeks ago he surprised me by counting to 10? Well...last week he counted to 20, out of the blue. Well ok then! What a smart cookie! (oh yeah, he also says that to me a lot...l must say "you're a smart cookie!" pretty often! Hahah!)

Blake is still working on learning to crawl. I really thought he'd have it down by the end of the month but now I'm not too sure! He figured out that he could kind of pull himself up, so now he seems to be concentrating on trying to stand...umm, no. Sorry B, you have got to crawl first.

Not so bare walls

Getting down to the decorating lately :) I think I have read enough blogs and seen enough tutorials to give me a lifetime's worth of crafts to do! Despite my love for Pinterest, it really has gotten out of hand, hahah.

Anyways, finally convinced the hubs that it was definitely TIME to hang some more pictures around the house. A couple of weeks after we moved in I desperately hung a few (and had to have him redo them so they weren't so horribly crooked, of course) - and since then the walls have been left untouched. Yikes. Now that I've finally decided on my color scheme/theme/overall look for the house (more about that later), it's time to start the dirty work!

Although I haven't spray painted some of the old frames yet (going from black to white to give them more of a 'clean' look), I went ahead and hung them on the walls to at least get a feel for how some of it might look. Most of them are still empty or have a placeholder picture in them, waiting for the final word! Haha.

Here are two white frames from the collage wall I'm planning on the wall by our dining room table - both with watercolors that I painted last week (original ideas from Etsy). Ay yi yi, I really need to mat these...

going back to my roots

We've been taking a break from watching Lost in the evenings, and I have been so much more productive! So far I've read three books and done two paintings (note that I did not include cleaning or organizing amongst my "productive activities" list. lol.) I've decided that since ALL day I do things for little people, I should start doing "me" stuff in the evenings so I don't get burnt out from my day job! ;)

I used to paint all the time when I was younger, from about third grade through high school - but kind of lost sight of my hobbies in college. I stayed so busy with all of my science classes and became preoccupied with doing something "different." I don't know what my obsession with that was in college, choosing something different just because I was bored with who I was and what I was doing. But anyways, the other day I picked up a paintbrush and watercolors for the first time in years and remembered how much I LOVE to paint! It is so relaxing to sit in bed with a case of Prang watercolors and a glass of wine. So I did it the next night. And the night after. And I think I might start another sketch after I finish typing this!

I found this little ink & watercolor on Etsy the other day and thought it was just so cute that I wanted to do my own version, just for fun. Sorry the photo isn't the best quality, I just snapped it really fast with my iPhone. Some day I'll drag out the ol' Canon Rebel and take some good quality pics!
Original painting from Etsy:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/81593423/water-tower-in-campbell-watercolor?

Watercolors

I cannot win lately. Two weeks ago I left the trunk open on the van for three hours (!!!) in the rain, no less. And last night I left the driver side door cracked open and unlocked...again, in the rain. Seeing a bad trend here.

Saw this cute little bird painting on Etsy the other day and thought I'd try my hand at it, just for fun. It did end up being fun to paint, but I'm not really sure I love it. Oh well, at least it got me painting again! I had forgotten how much I love watercolors.

Painting link:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/93595311/cardinals-at-the-coffee-shop-bird-art

Melbourne & Sea World

We had such a fun weekend with family & friends! Between spending time in Melbourne with Daniel's aunt and uncle who were visiting from Boston and a trip to Sea World with the Moores & Cimorellis, we couldn't have asked for a better time with better people. Dinner at Carrabbas with the Sea World crew, late night games with Melissa & Greg, and Sunday lunch at Grills with the Silva/Giammarinaro clan. Not to mention getting four kiddos to sleep in a hotel room - talk about lots of pack'n'plays! Logan had so much fun with his cousins (he talks about Tat-tat and Teo constantly) and always has a blast with his bff Aubrey. The Moores better get ready for lots of future visits from us once their house is built! ;) we miss our best friends!

The only downside to traveling is that I have now accumulated lots of random piles of unpacked junk from our weekend trips...guess I should have cleaned up a bit tonight but instead I chose to check out all of our vacay photos! :) I can't resist looking at cute photos of our sweet boys! I just love having two boys who love each other.

Indian Rocks Beach Weekend

We had a crazy but fun weekend at Indian Rocks Beach with Daniel's family! We cruised in late on Friday night (10 pm to be exact!) and my little night owl, aka Logan, didn't go to sleep until 10:30 pm. We thought for sure he would fall asleep in the car on the drive over, but he was too curious about all of the sights out his window to be interested in any of that sleep nonsense!

Despite his lack of sleep, we had a successful Saturday with zero tantrums! Started it out at the beach and then moved to the pool and a dolphin boat tour in Clearwater. Both of the boys did amazing (Blake fell asleep as soon as we left the harbor), and Logan enjoyed checking out the dolphins that jumped around the boat! The rest of the day was spent just walking around and hanging out at the condo with family.

Sunday was just a short day on the west coast before we headed back, but we still managed to fit in more beach/pool time and a yummy lunch at The Pub. I had an oyster po'boy, mmm! Both boys slept for almost 3 hours on the way back home, guess we wore them out ;) such a fun quick vacation!

The rest of this month is not promising to be any more relaxing, but just as fun! Visiting with family and Sea World this upcoming weekend, Tampa for a friend's birthday next weekend, Cirque du Soleil after that, and then a Jacksonville trip at the end of the month. Can't wait!!