4/30/12

DIY water bed

I saw this idea on pinterest a while back and thought it would be so fun! It is basically a giant water bed in the back yard. Mine was kind of a fail but the girls still played on it for hours so it was totally worth it. I bought two plastic sheets and duck tape from Home Depot. 
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All the sides need to be duck taped together. I think if I had done this inside it would have been much easier, or maybe if it hadn't been crazy windy. At least Bob's medical books got a little dusting.
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 I left a small hole in the corner for the water hose to fit through. The one I saw on pinterest had put blue food coloring in with the water and I love that idea. 
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If Bob had been home I think everything would have worked perfectly. He is the brains in the family and thinks of how to make things work before even trying. I do think things through, but sometimes my excitement blocks out my common sense. For example, he would have known not to lay the plastic going downhill. It took me 20 minutes of filling it up with water to realize it was all just going to the end of the plastic and needed to be on a flat surface. Genius, I know. So I moved it over to a flatter area and tied off half of the bag. It would have taken forever to fill the whole thing. I guess my Go Big or Go Home motto didn't work with this project.
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Ella loved it so much! McKenna did too but only if I was with her at all times. She would just giggle as she ran around on it but would never let go of my hand.
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I want to do this again for sure but maybe with a smaller plastic sheet, some fun food coloring and Bob.

4/25/12

Vegas Baby!

We had the most wonderful time celebrating Anna's 21st in Vegas!
Before I get into all the fun stuff, let me tell you what happened the day before we left for Vegas. McKenna had been on Amoxicillin for an ear infection and only had one more day left of it. It was last Wednesday when this all started. We had been playing outside that morning so when I saw a few little red bumps I just assumed she got bite by something. I washed all her sheets and clothes thinking it was chiggers. By 1am that night she was covered in hives and I realized it was an allergic reaction to the medicine.
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 So Thursday morning we took her to the doctor and he agreed it was an allergic reaction. He said it would get better on its own and didn't give us anything for it. By the time she woke up from her nap that day, it was only getting worse and her hands and feet was so swollen they were purple. I went into mom panic mode. The fact that we were leaving town the next day made me panic even more. We ended up taking her to the ER Thursday and they gave her some steroids and two other antibotics. I felt better that we were at least giving her something to control the hives. We drove to Bob's parents house to drop the kids off on Thursday night. We stayed there with them that night, our flight left Friday morning for Vegas. At 5am on Friday McKenna woke up crying and trembling. She couldn't stop shaking and again, I went into mom panic mode. Lucky for me my husband knows a little about all this medical stuff and is very patient with me:) He told his mom to not give McKenna the steroids anymore and that should stop the shaking. The hives were already looking so much better by this point too. So we left both girls for the first time and hopped on a plane. Have I mentioned that I HATE flying. Hate it. It makes me an anxious mess. I can talk myself up about it before hand and every time I think I have gotten better. I buy magazines and think how fun it is going to be to talk with Bob for 2 and 1/2 hours kid free and look through Sky Mall magazine and laugh at (but really wish I had) all the things in it. Then we take off and the death grip on Bob's arm begins. I don't want to talk or even look out the window. All I can do is lay my head down and try not to show my fear every time we have a little turbulence. And every time Bob tells me it's just like driving down a bumpy road or going over a speed bump. So all this to say, the flight there was extra nerve racking because of having to leave McKenna in the state she was in. Bob's parents are so wonderful and I knew they were in the absolute best hands. To finish up the hives story, she actually ended up getting even more hives after we left. It got so bad that my in-laws took her to a doctor in Dallas. She still had a really bad ear infection so she got some non-amoxicillin for that and two others for the hives. By the time we got home on Monday, she was back to new! Whew. 

Now, lets get onto the Vegas part!
I'll begin with the thing that started the whole trip off right. Matching shirts. duh.
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Don't let my dad's face fool you. He really did love the matching shirts. He is probably just in deep thought, thinking about how he can get away with wearing it everyday. 
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Anna wanted black shirts with neon ink and after some googling research I discovered heat transfer vinyl was going to be the way to go. Neon screen printing ink wouldn't show up enough on a black shirt without doing a layer of white ink first. That was so over my head and sounded like a lot of work. Ironing on vinyl sounded much easier and faster. So I thought. I found some neon heat transfer vinyl on Amazon. In my head I just kept thinking when it said heat transfer, that meant iron on. Not exactly. When the vinyl arrived I was so excited with the quality of it. It was bright neon colors and very thick. Professional grade thick, as in you need a professional heat press machine to make it work kind of thick. They do make iron on transfer vinyl, key word being IRON ON. The stuff I ordered was Heat Transfer Vinyl. I didn't have time to order anything different so I tried it out with my iron anyway. It didn't even come close to sticking on the shirts. My iron wasn't heavy or hot enough to go through the thick layers. Vinyls have a clear layer that you peel off after it is transferred onto the shirts. This is what makes everything so easy and straight when working with vinyl. I peeled the clear top layer off and replaced it with a thin piece of parchment paper to see if that would work and it did! I couldn't believe it! Even though this meant that I would have to hand place each and every letter and image, I didn't care. I was so excited it was actually going to work. It took a good hour just to do one shirt. It was so hard getting everything lined up straight and then when I would put the parchment paper on top, some letters would move. I still think it was all worth it though, I love how they turned out.
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We all traveled to Vegas in style with our matching shirts. Shades down and guns up is a classic Anna pose so it was perfect for the front of each shirt but I probably won't use the words "Guns Up" again if traveling by plane. We had a few security people ask about that part. Other than that though, Anna got a lot of Happy Birthdays.
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Anna's boyfriend Tyler just so happens to look just like Skrillix. Which I had no idea who that even was. People were doing double takes and you could hear them say "oh my gosh, that was Skrillix!" Someone even asked to get a picture with him. I felt like I was walking the streets with a celebrity. 
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Anna and Tyler thought it would be funny to post a pic on facebook of them in front of a wedding chapel and it was funny indeed! It got some good rumors going.
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My dad had been told about these supposedly lucky "Cherries Jubilee" slots over at MGM. It was one of the first places we went and couldn't wait to play them. We had been sitting down at them for about 5 minutes and lo and behold my mom hits the jackpot! She put in a 10 dollar bill and won 1000 dollars!!! We were flipping out! It was so fantastic! 
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Another big highlight of the trip was Garth Brooks of course. He is just amazing and gives you goosebumps the entire show! I love that it is just him on a stool with a guitar. 
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We headed downtown one night and enjoyed the light show. 
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It was to an awesome Bon Jovi mix that we rocked out to.
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You can't go to Vegas without seeing the Bellagio fountains and take pictures in front of random statues.
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We all tried to win big like my mom but it never happened again.
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Bob thought shades down and guns up would help his luck. not so much.
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I wish I had more pictures of this, but it happened so fast and I was laughing so hard I couldn't even pull my camera out. There was this group of girls having their own dance party in the lobby and Bob jumped right in with his hilarious dance moves. The girls LOVED it and then Tyler joined in to! It was so funny and the girls wanted them to have a dance off! Anna got a quick pic on her phone.
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It really was such a fun trip and I had so much fun with my family and Tyler. Thank you so much mom and dad for taking us to Vegas and thank you so much Dawn and Billy for keeping my two girls! 
I love you so much Anna and loved celebrating 21 with you Vegas Style!
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4/24/12

Mini Pedicures

When Jeff went to get avery from the neighbor's house, he found them in the backyard just like this.
I just can't stop laughing! 
Aves has never even had a pedicure so they must have seen it somewhere? Jeff said they were taking the perfume samples and putting them on, too.
Love it.
I guess its really never too early to learn to pamper yourself.

4/22/12

The fair, in laws and homemade kites

(we started off this weekend listening to the newsies soundtrack in bed.  the definition of cool.  I have screwed my kids so much)
This weekend was litrally a blast (said like chris on parks and recs).  
Jeff worked on saturday, and so did julie's hub so we headed out to paint the town as anyone with 5 kids in tow.
We started out running at the park and then ben left his shoes there, but I didn't realize that until we got to the mini fair that was set up in the mall parking lot.  I figured it wasn't too hot and no one will notice and I didn't want to have to drag everyone away from the fair to go back to the park and yadayada.  I am mother of the year all. the. time. and, unforch (like penny on happy endings would say) people tend to look down on kids without shoes on black top parking lots.  So, this nice lady brought me shoes.  Yup. Brought me boy shoes she had in her car.  
This turned out to be quite the fortunate event because she told us that if we went into the mall we could get these wrist bands for $5 a kid and everyone could ride as many rides as the want!  This lady is an angel from heaven.  We ran into the mall, got the wristbands, grabbed lunch and then headed back to the fair.  Unfortunately NO ONE told us that the wrist bands only lasted until 2 and we got back to the fair at 2:11.  
Awesome.
Well.  At least we got the wristbands.
wahwahwah.
Needless to say, we stayed at the fair and the kids had a blast.  
Group pics are so hard.
And they got cotton candy, so they were def excited about that.
Today, my in laws came in town, and like they always do, they brought the fun.
They had a random idea to make a kite, did it and it worked.  
Let me tell you that if it was my idea, I would have a) never thought of it actually in the first place
b) gotten lazy half way through or c) it def would not have worked.
These people are amazing.
drawing on the kite
We decided to decorate it with markers since it was maybe not the most attractive kite ever.  I mean, not to hurt its feelings. It had so many other good qualities- it was functional.
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First, we took it out in our neighborhood and it worked okay.
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Is this not the best picture you have ever seen??? I just love it.  He isn't smizing like tyra would say, but maybe smishing?  smiling/wishing with all his might that it will work? or smirking?  smiling and working at it so hard? we'll take a vote later.
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I tried and was amazing at it, clearly.
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And then avery got it up!
We decided to take it to a big field and see if we could get it work better.
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avery as justin beiber
Oh, and justin beiber came up to meet us.
it works!
avery and papa with the kite
chasing the kite
ben and avery watching the kite
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Overall it was just a super fun weekend.
What?  Y'all are so tired of the same pic over and over of the same kite and the same kids and the same day because I cant pic which one to use??? Ugh.  I know.  Picnic quit on us and stole that whole collage thing we had going on.
And while we are on that and I am an entire bag of cheetos down and on to chex mix, lets just talk about flickr and pinterest.  I saw people couldn't pin anymore (not that that many people pin or anything) and were doing the header bc they couldn't do the pics, so I added the pin button at the bottom of the posts.  That didn't work, so now I just look like a tool who thinks everyone wants to pin something on every post. So annoying. I did do half of this post with blogger, so thats a plus.
I know.
This is such an injustice.
Right up there with why diet coke isn't good for you even though it obviously should be.  Or why when you become a mom you lose your brain even though you need it more than ever. I don't know. I just don't know.
(Actually, the real injustice is the harm done to the earth (love that segue???) and we need to reduce, reuse and recycle more so that we can keep the earth clean and nice for kite flying days!  Happy Earth Day!)
If you go here you can repin stuff that has been pinned recently; I am going to talk to al and see what we do. More later.
Hope you guys had a great weekend too, and maybe got all of your kids clothes on them in public at all times. Ill stop with the kite pics now.
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