Random Thoughts

I haven’t posted much for the last week because we’ve had a lot going on in our house. So I’m going to just throw out some random thoughts that I want to capture before I forget them. I should be balancing my checkbook right now, but you already know how that goes. I’m going to procrastinate and blog instead.

I am really happy with the Father’s Day gift we gave Dan. I got the idea here at Someday Crafts, and here’s how ours turned out. We also gave Dan a Shutterfly photo book showing the construction of our tree house, plus a frame Jackson made at Mothers’ Day Out. I ordered another gift for him, which STILL hasn’t arrived in the mail. Humph!

Katie tied her shoes for the first time!

Thanks to this post from the Muffin Tin Mom, I made these alphabet match-up games with clothespins from Leftovers and templates printed from my computer. Jackson loves them already, so I hid them away and plan to pull them out on our upcoming cross-country road trip. FYI – I glued the cardstock to some cardboard to make it sturdier as Jackson learns how to open and close clothespins.

Katie has three loose teeth. They’re driving me nuts and I want them OUT of her mouth. Loose teeth creep me out. I even tried tying a string to the loosest one today, but the string didn’t fully remove it. The tooth came partly out of its socket (gag!), but no jackpot yet.

Katie is seven. Does she look as old to you as she does to me? I love the outfit that matches her doll’s. (Thanks, Beth!)

I buzzed Jackson’s hair today. I started with a #4 guard on the clippers, but didn’t feel like it was short enough so I moved down to a 3. I should have stuck with the 4. Hopefully I’ll remember that next time. He looks so blonde now! But the good news is I tried a new trick and it was successful: I gave Jackson my iTouch and let him play Tozzle to distract him from the haircut. It worked like a charm! My iTouch is a bit hairy now, but it’s a good tradeoff.

Corn. Every time we drive by the corn field leading up to church, I hear these lyrics in my head from a song in South Pacific: “I’m as corny as Kansas in August…” Katie insisted she was taller than the corn, so I had her get out of the car and prove it.

I made fluffy flip flops today for Katie, using this tutorial from Sisters’ Stuff. Since it was our first try, I used some of Katie’s flip flops that have seen better days, in case it didn’t work out. I found the tulle at Leftovers and cut it into strips then tied them on. It was so simple and turned out pretty cute. I am thinking these would make great birthday gifts for Katie’s friends.

My bloggy-friend-turned-IRL- friend Gina brought her son Logan over to play. Since Gina is a self-described tree hugger, they wanted to check out our new tree house. They also met Katie for the first time, and Logan had a stunned look on his face when he saw my badly-behaved kids pick at each other quite often. I think Logan enjoyed himself, though! And that Gina’s baby bump sure is cute!

Baptism at our church. 370 people got baptized. I was honored to be one of the photographers for the event and the photos I took are outstanding – all 438 of them! Not because of the photographer, of course, but because of the grace and surrender and joy that was on everyone’s faces. I can’t stop looking at these photos, so I’ll leave you with these images that have inspired my week.