Fourth of July Weekend

I was so happy this year when the 4th fell on Saturday, giving us a three day weekend off of work.  We took full advantage and left Thursday evening after work to head to Kansas City.  Lyle hitched a ride in the van with Grammy and Papa (DVD player for the win!), and Little Miss slept the entire way with us.  Amazing.

We packed up and headed to the Kansas City Zoo Friday morning.  Lyle has been fascinated with polar bears lately, so we made a bee-line for that exhibit first.  He loved them!

The weather was beautiful in the morning, and was perfect for walking around.  We rode the train and found some shade to eat lunch.

Lyle with his hands in the air like he was riding a roller coaster!  Hilarious!

And we made the carousel a family affair!  It was so much fun to act like kids!

The penguin exhibit was awesome!  

After lunch some of the girls left to get pedicures and the rest of the bunch found more animals, and rode the tram and sky rail.  Aria of course woke up as soon as we got inside the nail salon, so she spent the time on my lap.  In all she did well, but was definitely squirmy!

For dinner we hit up a Hibachi grill-a family favorite.  Lyle was terrified of the flames and sat on the floor throughout dinner.

Saturday morning Aria and I headed downtown to meet a good friend from college for coffee.  It was so great to catch up, if only for a short time!

We met the rest of the family at West Bottoms, a group of antique shops that are open the first weekend of the month.  It was a fun mix of antiques, refurbished finds, and handmade crafts.  It was such a cool place to look around!  We are definitely going to plan another weekend to go and shop!

Lyle made an awesome fort behind the couch. 

Aria has been starting to eat solid foods.  Those beginning faces when they are tasting new foods are the BEST!  This was her applesauce face.

Lunch and naps were next on the list, then we headed out for Lyle's surprise...Shave Ice!

Sweet kiddos in their Fourth of July attire!  I made everyone take pictures BEFORE they got their shaved ice.  (Mommy is learning!)

After supper the girls and the kids headed out to find fireworks.  Lyle and Aria helped steer the carts at Hyvee.  I wish our stores had carts where they could sit beside each other!!!  It is awesome!

We found a great grassy spot in front of the hospital, across the street from the display.  The bugs were out, but not horrible with bug spray, and it was the first Fourth of July in forever it wasn't a million degrees outside.  Both kids loved the fireworks, and it was a perfect amount of time to be out.

A little pre-show nap for Aria and game playing for Lyle.

Sunday morning we headed to church with Kodi and Shawn.  The main reason for our trip was to be able to attend Kodi's baby shower in the afternoon.  It was such a special shower, and so wonderful to be able to share in the excitement with her.  It is hard to believe that next month their sweet baby will be here!!!

Lyle made a house under the table with the bags and wrapping paper.  Everything these days turns into a fort or house.

After the shower we helped unload gifts at the house, and packed up to head home.  Lyle emphatically told us, that he was not going in the car, he was staying there with Uncle Shawn!!!  Luckily for us, he fell asleep before we were out of town.

He woke up three times on the way home, and said the following things:
-"Koko's house"

-"chicken nuggets"

Lyle: "Where's mama?
Me: "Right here, buddy."
Lyle: "No, my mama."
Me, taking off my sunglasses: "Lyle, I AM mama!"
Lyle: "Ohhh"
-I think he was still pretty much asleep, lol!

Aria only screamed for thirty minutes in the middle of the trip, until we could stop at a gas station and I changed and fed her.  Then she was a happy camper.  (Could be so much worse, I know!)

It was such a fun weekend, and it's so exciting to think the next trip we plan to KC will be for a new baby!

DIY Song-Lyric Canvas

Valentine's day shopping for guys is hard.  As it goes, it tends to be a "girl's holiday."  Therefore there are tons of ideas for girls, but not the other way around.  I know that Zach doesn't expect anything, but I like to do something for him anyway.  A lot of the time I just get him something off of his Amazon wishlist.  Not super romantic, but at least it's something he wants.  Etsy's top recommendations were cuff links, bow ties, and personalized flasks.  If you know my husband, none of these would be on the top of his list.  So to Pinterest I went.  Is Pinterest anyone else's answer to almost anything??

There were lots of cheesy ideas, but I finally found something I thought I could adapt.  This was my inspiration.

Source

She wrote the lyrics to the song that was playing when her husband proposed.  I loved the idea of using song lyrics to a meaningful song.  I decided to use the lyrics to the song, "Better Together" by Jack Johnson.  We walked back down the ailse after we were pronounced husband and wife to this song.  And it was one that Zach picked, and helped me learn to love, as I am not a Jack Johnson fan most of the time.  Her directions seemed a little complicated, so I'll show you what I did.

Materials:
-Canvas
-Sharpie
-Packing tape
-Ruler

Start with a blank canvas.  I chose a burlap canvas, because then I could get away with not having to paint my background.

12x24 canvas from Hobby Lobby

I copied the song lyrics into Word, and divided the song into 24 even-ish lines. 

I traced the canvas onto a piece of fabric so I could practice how small I needed to write.  I had decided to just use one of the verses if the entire song was too long to fit.  

I used a piece of packing tape, and laid it across the width of the canvas, one inch from the top.  The tape served as a straight guide without making any marks on the canvas.  Once I came to the end of a line, I just moved the tape down another inch.  Also, when I had letters that hung below the line, I just peeled the tape back, drew the letter, then put the tape back.

Every once in awhile, I had to adjust my words and move one up or down a line if I ran out, but typing it out first gave me a pretty good guide.  I guess you could write the whole thing out on your practice fabric, but I am not that patient! And I also didn't have that much "Zach out the house" time.  I actually ended up finishing this project at my office over my lunch hour.  On Valentine's Day.  Don't judge.

The other thing I did was make some of the words bigger.  I think it breaks it up, and makes it look a little more interesting.  I started writing with a paint pen in the beginning and because I was writing on burlap, it ran out about 4 lines in.  There are no stores within 40 miles of us that sell paint pens.  After that I just used a sharpie, and it worked great!  You can tell where I switched, but I'm not a perfectionist, so it didn't bother me that much. 

 Here is the final product.  Happy Valentine's Day!

Have you found or made any great gift ideas for the guy in your life?  I'm always looking for more inspiration!

Valentine's Lovin'

We had so much fun getting ready for Valentine's Day this year!  I love that Lyle is getting old enough to do crafts with, so I searched Pinterest for some ideas.  My inspiration came from here, we just changed some steps to make it work better for us.  Also, we spread this craft out over the course of several evenings.  We just worked on them as long as his attention span would last, then picked up again the next night.

We made these hearts, and sent them out to family. 

First, Lyle colored on coffee filters with markers.  I set him up in his high-chair while I was cooking supper.  I only gave him one marker at a time, and he told me what color he wanted next, or when he was ready to start a new one.

Once they were all colored, I let him paint on them with water to bleed the colors.

The rest of the steps, I finished for him... Tracing a heart.

And gluing some construction paper to the back, so they wouldn't get crushed in the mail.

Add a little love note and you're done! :)

Lyle took these to daycare for his friends! 

You can find the template here.

 Lyle made this at daycare, and it makes me smile every time I think about it.  Just in case you can't read the picture, this is what is says:

"Lyle's Recipe for Love"

5 kisses

5 pancakes

1 daddy

1 mommy

5 purple combines

Stir, stir, stir in a bowl. 

Put in a box.

Cherry on top.

Eat it.

This is a pretty accurate description of what he loves right now.  The number 5, and especially pancakes and combines.  I'm thinking the kisses and daddy and mommy were prompted answers. :) (Although he loves those things too!)

Instead of flowers, Zach send me this goody box from the Popcorn Factory.  A win in my book! Yummm!  AND he got me a yogurt maker.  Is food listed as a love language?  I think it might be mine.  Well done, Zach, well done.

I made him a gift, but I plan to do another post on that!  I know you will be waiting with great anticipation to find out what it is! Hah!

Our Valentine's evening consisted of Freddy's for dinner, a three hour car ride up to Kansas City, and a book on tape!  And I enjoyed every minute of it!

Homeade Christmas

This year, the girls in our family did a gift exchange, just between us.  The basic goal was to make or get a $5-ish gift for everyone.  We did this a couple years ago (read about it here) and it was so much fun!  I love scouring Pinterest (both mine and theirs) for ideas.  I was torn this year on wanting to make something different for each person, but time won out and everyone got a version of the same thing!  (I totally overestimated the amount of projects that I could get done between Thanksgiving and Christmas - note to self for next year!  Because of that, you might see Christmas projects being finished and featured on here in February!)

I made infinity scarfs for everyone.  They really are pretty simple to make (especially if you do not pick striped material.  That took the longest...lining up the stripes!)

Kansas pillow with a heart for Harper! Made by my sweet sis Kristen. 

Super cute frame from my sister Carrie.  Time to print off some favorite Instagram pictures!

Embroidered towel and goodies from my Mom.

And unfortunately I don't have a picture of Steph's gift.  In packing everything up, my gift from her ended up at Carrie's house.  Don't worry, I'll get it back this weekend!  She made us these awesome engraved wooden spoons.  

It was so fun to see what different ideas everyone came up with.  I recommend trying it with your family or friends sometime!  It mixes it up from just buying them something!  

Christmas Celebration (part 2)

We headed back down to Harper on the 23rd, since I had to work on Christmas Eve.  Bummer, huh?  Too bad everyone can't have a week and a half Christmas break!  I had to keep telling myself it still wasn't as bad as working at the hospital, and having to work a 12 hour Christmas Eve or Christmas Day shift!

 

 I got off work, changed and we headed to church for the Christmas Eve service.  My absolute favorite service of the entire year.  Lyle got to wear this adorable little suit that was Zach's when he was little.  He looked so handsome! :) 

 

We made snacks for supper, and Lyle got to wear his Christmas pajama pants that I made for him.  He went to bed a little later than normal, with promises that Ho-Ho was coming.  Some friends of ours came over to shoot fireworks off at midnight (a tradition of his wife's from Bolivia) and drink eggnog.  I don't know if our noise woke Lyle up or he just wasn't feeling good, but he was so upset.  We tried several things to get him settled back down, and ended up watching some Mickey Mouse Clubhouse at 1:30 in the morning.  At least everyone slept in on Christmas morning!  Lyle got to open his stocking from Santa on Christmas morning, and was so excited for his "kitty" in his stocking! 

 

 

We enjoyed Christmas Day with our cousins complete with ugly sweaters (which I don't have a picture of, sorry!).  Lyle is in love with his Duck Dynasty 4-wheeler!  Zach and I had to work Thursday and Friday, but enjoyed time with family in the evenings.  We did our big Christmas with the Bauer side on Saturday, complete with stockings in the morning, a wonderful lunch, and present giving in the afternoon. 

 

We had time to play some new games this Christmas that were so much fun!  Thanks-a-lot, 5-Second Rule, and Say Anything were my favorites! 

 

It is amazing how blessed we are, especially with our family.  I cannot imagine life without them!