Pillows, pillows and more pillows

Ryan is very patient with me. I appreciate it a lot. He's all about buying stuff, turns out I'm a bit too picky to fall in love with something off the shelf. At least something inexpensive enough to be in love with. I always see something and the price and think "no, I could make that for a lot less." So, I end up making a lot. Usually Ryan doesn't have to be involved in doing the project, just has to put up with the mess and craziness that is our house while I go through it all. I like being creative. It makes me feel good to know that I have added something to my home for less then I could have bought it.
I pulled out my sewing machine the other day, and was only able to get it out of the box after I pulled out all of the fabric I've been keeping for different projects first. So once the sewing machine was set up and I had a deadline for putting it away (we had furniture arriving shortly) I decided that I should get everything done that I could before I had to put it away.

In the last couple weeks I've made

-Curtains for Elise's Room
-Added Black out lining to our curtains
-Made three pillow cases for our couch
-Made three pillow cases for our bed
-Made a seek and find quiet activity for church

Unfortunately I also added a couple projects, I am determined not to let them sit around for two years like I had done with the fabric for the bed pillows....

-Quiet book (get dressed, has different article of clothing on each page)
-Paint a white mirror on my mantle blue
-Make curtains for the living room
-Plan Elise's birthday party and make invites

lagoon

Another adventure for our family. We went to Lagoon with Ryan's work. Ryan and I didn't ride any rides but I think Elise had a lot of fun. She went on all the rides that I remember as a kid.

She was really unsure about us leaving her alone, but she was excited about the fishy. Her face was priceless as the ride started but she heard us cheering and she quickly grinned.

She got really good at the waving to us as the ride passed by.

I'm trying to make this one really big so you can see her, she was purely terrified on this ride. She couldn't see us because she went up so high and it was pretty fast. She came off smiling though because as it slowed it was like the other rides where she could see us and wave.

And the rain, rain, rain came down, down, down

We moved in and for the next two weeks we had huge flash storms come through. My friend Jamie reminded me that I should lighten up and go play out in the rain with Elise. So the next time it rained I took Elise outside and we splashed in the puddles on our balcony.

Fun with Friends

We may not have the beach anymore but we have a wonderful friend that will let us come over and play with every outside toy she has for hours and hours.  Thanks Jamie!

Lunch Time!

Oh good, Sadie finally got a turn, and luckily I got this picture before she tipped over in it and was scared for the rest of the day.

Some good friends I haven't see in too long

One of two kiddie pools we had out. Sorry about the huge mess we left behind Jams...

This is the best baby I've ever seen. He just sat there and watched all the other kids play and never made a peep.

Literally every toy possible was pulled out. Look how proud Elise is though.

Oh my, I can't believe she wouldn't take a nap when we got home.

Not pictured above is Carter and Zac, rambunctious boys that I never got a clear shot of.  They were fun too though.

2nd Fireworks Holiday

I love Utah.  We get two holidays in July for fireworks and movies and eating too much. And for those of you who didn't know aerial fireworks are no legal. Utahans went crazy! I still saw Sunday night, a full week after the holiday. We went crazy right along with them and lit aerials off, although the firework guys must have seen my pyromaniac sign on my back and demanded that I not light any off. Lameness.

mandi writting with sparlers

Anyway I got some good pictures of our fireworks. Thought I would share our happiness.