Shaver Lake, here we come!

We are heading out of town today for the Labor Day holiday!  I hope you have a lovely three day weekend and I will see you next week! 
I will be posting on instagram to capture little moments of our trip at ginamarierae.

creating: kids art placemats

I have been wanting to do something with the first finger painting that Ryder did about a few weeks ago.  So I took them to get laminated.  I know that there wasn't much of creating that I did personally with this project, but it brought me so much joy and satisfaction because:

1.Watching Ryder creating can be just as life giving as creating something myself.

2. We only have two plastic placemats so it filled a need

3. It is so fun to look at through out the day with different meals or snacks.

4. It's a practical way to save special art work of Ryder's.

Here are the two placemats:

I hope you have a wonderful day!

Quiet moments

I realize how thankful I am at how simple our lives are right now.  They aren't in school or sports or extra curricular activities.  We wake up and play, run errands or have outings or play dates.  We pretty much do what we want, when we want and I love the flexibility that we have right now.  It offers these very peaceful moments...

Playing with trains and cars:

 just laying around:

 I bring my coffee and reading material in, we play together, we read together, and I just enjoy while I watch my kiddos.

(Sometimes Ryder likes when I play with him, and sometimes I get a "No mama, chair.."translation: "No mama, you can sit in the chair, I want to play by myself...")

I am really enjoying these quiet moments of watching my babies grow♥...

I hope that you have a wonderful day that has some beautifully peaceful moments in it.

creating: stenciled cards

This last weekend I got to try a little card making  with using stencils and acrylic paint.

My favorite thing about it is the texture.  

It's raised like embossing:

I really enjoyed making them.  I got the stencils at Joann's and they are plastic so they were really easy to clean.

I love how they turned out!

Have a wonderful day!

weekend celebrations

While Kit was at a retreat at Hume Lake this weekend, Ryder, Eden and I headed out to Redlands for some family time and some birthday celebrations.

August 24 is my mom's birthday and Eden's half birthday.

We made the traditional crown for pictures:

We ordered pizzas, one being a s'mores dessert pizza:

 It was really good!

On saturday, Ryder and I got some fun pool time:

 Seriously, I can't look at this picture without laughing out loud...

I had some fun after the kids were alseep working on some craft projects.

More on that tomorrow.

On Sunday, we all went to church together and then had a big Italian pasta dinner.

It was so wonderful! 

(Eden got to sport the new head band i made her...)

 My sister has really cool chalk boards out at her house and on each one there were special messages for us:

Ryder got to "help" feed their bearded dragon, Darius:

My sister spoiled us with new books!

And shared the jumper with us:
Eden loved it so much she passed out with excitement!

 

 

Eden also had two milestones:
august 23~sat up
august 24~ rolled over 
(multiple times in a row...)

We were very proud of her!
It was a wonderful weekend to be with family.  

Thank you all for loving on us so well, from feeding ALL of us, helping with baths and just being the entertainment, we appreciated everything!  We love you all!

Eden Marie is 6 months old!

Today our Eden Marie is 6 months old.  We can't believe how fast time goes...  It really doesn't feel that long ago that we found out that we were pregnant, and now here she is.

We couldn't love this baby more!

And here is our little girl in her birthday crown:
(Ok, I know it's not her actual birthday, but having a crown makes it so much more fun!)

 

 

Eden Marie~

 You are such a happy baby.  Your name means delight and it could not be more fitting for you!  Here's a little snap shot of you right now.  You love to have us walk with you, but you can chill for hours in your bouncer.  You love your brother and he loves you.  Even though I know there will be times that you maybe won't like each other or get along, I can already see a connection forming and a foundation of a sibling relationship that is based on love and friendship.  You are teething right now so you love your teething girraffe and really anything that you can gum.  Even though you are teething, you have been sleeping through the night since week seven and you are an AMAZING eater.  You are ticklish and you love to laugh, but I can see that you are similar to your brother in that you size things up and take things in with your eyes before you get comfortable with your surroundings.  I love your face.  I am always wondering what you are thinking.  Sometimes you look like your dad, and some of your expressions look like my baby pictures.  We love how with  each day you are coming into your own and becoming your own little person. We are so thankful to have you in our lives and we are grateful for the opportunity to be your parents and to have you as part of our family!  Happy half birthday!

love, your mom and dad

ps, Ryder says he loves you and is blowing you lots of kisses♥♥♥

organizing art supplies

Ryder and I have been doing more and more art projects together.  With that comes lots of art supplies. I have not been very good at keeping them organized.

Case in point: our hallway closet where the art supplies used to live:

 It was a hot mess.  So after looking around the house, I realized that there was some prime storage on our family room book shelf that was not being utilized well.

 We got that wood bowl in the Dominican Republic and we loved looking at it, but I think I can find another place for it.

 So I got these chicken wire baskets at the World Market:

 And everything fit perfectly!

 I am so happy how it turned out.

 And my game closet is so much more organized!

I am excited for all the things that the kids will create!

(Man, looking at this picture makes me want to play some Banana Grams.  Kit, are you interested?♥.)