Monday, May 28, 2012

Living on the Edge

That's right.  We were brave this weekend.  Well, Adrianna was brave.  She has been begging Aaron to take her training wheels off of her bike.  We've been putting it off because this girl has no fear and we could foresee terrible accidents, scraped knees and elbows.  I had a feeling she would do great actually riding the bike but knew she would get too comfortable too quickly, hence the avoidance.


Aaron had promised he would take her training wheels off this weekend.  He avoided it for most of the day.  She didn't let him forget and reminded him every once in a while about taking her training wheels off.  So he did.  And she did great!!  


She was so excited!!  I grabbed my camera to document this milestone and ran outside.  When she saw me she was smiling and laughing.  Instead of watching what she was doing, she kept looking towards me to smile for her pictures which in turn made her wobbly and lose control.  No accidents, Aaron was there to catch her, but seeing that I was a distraction I went back inside.


A little while later she was flying down the road!


Poor Ava was sick all weekend :(  She spent most of the weekend on the couch watching movies.  The first few days that she was sick, I was tethered to the other couch so I got a lot of reading done on Friday and Saturday.

By Sunday, Ava was feeling better so I decided to live on the edge as well.  Crochet edge, that is.  I had started pillow cases for the girls with intention of putting a crocheted edge on them.  I finally spent the day in my craft room working on these.  I just love them, they are so pretty and girly :)


 The pillowcase has a pocket on the open end to hide your pillow that is stuffed inside ;)

backside of the pillowcase

 I had enough fabric to make two of each of these!

Well, that's all for now!  Nothing else really exciting here . . .

Natalie

 
 



Friday, May 25, 2012

Mother's Day and Sugar Scrub

I'm at home with a sick girl today so I thought I'd write a "little" post about Mother's Day.  I know, I know, Mother's Day was a few weeks ago but it really seems to be the trend that I write about things that happened 2 weeks ago.

So here goes!

Let me start with the fact that I totally missed teacher appreciation day at school.  I don't know how that happened but I guess I had my focus elsewhere that week.  So I decided that I would make some lemon sugar scrub for the teachers, my Mom and MIL for Mother's Day.  This actually worked out well and the girls took the gifts to their teachers on the Monday after Mother's Day. Not too late!  Adrianna helped me make the sugar scrub and I failed to get pictures of her doing that.  Another example of my absent mindedness.  But here are the finished products!


Don't they look pretty!


I got the sugar scrub idea from Pinterest.  I have pinned several different versions of the sugar scrub but didn't follow any one version by exact directions.  The ingredients I used were:  Sugar, Olive Oil, and lemon juice.  I started by measuring ingredients but found that I needed way more sugar than called for.  I ended up filling the jar up to about an inch from the top with sugar then adding olive oil (again, no measuring) and about 2 Tbsp of lemon juice.  I basically went by looking for the consistency I wanted and feel.  Adrianna's job was to stir it up then we put the top on and tied some twine around it.  We had so much fun making these that we made 3 more for the ladies that I work with for Mother's Day gifts for them.

If you want to see the sugar scrub versions I went by from Pinterest, you can click my "Follow me on Pinterest" button to the right.  I think I pinned all of the sugar scrub ideas to my "make" board.

For my Mom, I decided that I would make her a set of 8 cotton dinner napkins and embroider something pretty on them.  I decided on a Celtic knot "S" for her last name.  I started by cutting my cotton fabric into 16 - 13"x13" squares.  I transferred the "S" onto 8 of those and got busy.  It didn't take me long to hand embroider those and as soon as I finished I sewed them all together.  The only problem was I didn't have matching thread for my sewing machine and I wanted a pretty border around the edges.  No problem, just hand stitch the border.  That's all fine if you didn't wait until the week before the big day to even start on these things.  I searched ideas for hand embroidered edging and decided on the fly stitch.  It looked pretty and is a fairly easy stitch.  It is an easy stitch but as I found out, very time consuming.  So with all that being said, I was able to complete 5 of the napkins to give to my Mom and am still trying to finish those other 3.  I'll get them done, I promise. 

The finished product!

All eight five napkins wrapped and ready to go!



Mom loved the napkins and was understanding about the ones yet to be finished!  She and my MIL also loved the sugar scrub :)

To celebrate Mother's Day, we went to my Mom's to hang with the family and cook out.  We were excited about a spur of the moment visit from my sister and her family!!!  But before they got there, my kids had to test the pool out.  Just to put this in perspective, it was not a pretty day.  As a matter of fact it was a gray, cloudy, rainy, overcast day.  Also, the pool temp had not warmed up yet.  No stopping these girls . . .


After they turned blue, we made them get out.  I'm joking!  They weren't all the way blue.  We had a great time.  After lunch, we had ice cream and played outside in the sprinkling rain. 

Noah and Isaac getting their ice cream.  This is the best picture I got of them.  They aren't still long enough!
Mom and Ava also played their instruments for us as Clara danced . . .

Mom playing the Mandolin and Ava playing the Violin
My niece, Clara, dancing
Badminton, anyone?  In the rain?




Or how about a game of air hockey?

Me, Mom, Jenna
We had a great time at Mom's for Mother's day.  I forgot to take a picture of the gift Adrianna made me.  I'm actually wearing it in the above picture.  It's a medallion with her finger print pressed into it and strung onto a necklace.  She made it at school and it is so precious!  She also made me not one but TWO cards :)

This says "You are the best Mother.  You are nice.  You cook good."
Awww, so sweet!  She thinks I'm nice and I cook good.  Those are such great compliments!!  Ava also gave me a card and some flowers she planted.

I took this last picture with the iPhone app instagram.  If you have a Droid or an iPhone, this is an awesome camera app to have!  I'm a little obsessed and like to document my life in instagram photos.  You can follow on instagram, search @nataliebg. 

So that was Mother's day.  It was a great day spent with my family :)

Natalie
 










Saturday, May 19, 2012

In the last few weeks . . .

In case you are wondering what I've been up to lately . . .

A few weeks ago I wrote about running my first 5K.  I have to tell you that I loved writing that post!   The 5K was a huge accomplishment for me and I hope to do many more.  Aaron didn't think I could do it so I was super stoked that I proved him wrong.  He was shocked that I stuck with the whole new runners program.  What confidence he had in me, huh?  You may remember from that post that my ankle was hurting pretty bad after I finished.  Well, I walked on it for days and the pain just got worse and worse.  Finally by Wednesday I decided to see a doctor about it and was lucky enough to be able to be seen that day.

I was happy to learn that it wasn't actually my ankle that was hurt and very disappointed to find out that it is in fact a Tibial Stress Fracture.  Which means I am wearing an air cast and have to wear it for 8-12 weeks.  Which meant no running at all for the first 2 weeks.  I'm just at the point where I can run 400 meters and walk 400 meters alternating on a soft track for a total of 2 miles.  I actually started back today.  I ran/walked for 1.5 miles on a soft track and I had to keep the air cast on - which wasn't that bad.  I was nervous about it because I didn't want to aggravate my injury but so far no pain!  I am excited to be able to run again because not running has been torture!

So . . . what else has been happening?

Adrianna has had her last few soccer games . . .


Photo op :)


Go #4!!

 I took this picture because her hair looks like a halo :)


And she goes for the goal . . .


She shoots . . .

She scores!!!  Look at how high she jumped.  Maybe she should be playing basketball . . .


Aaron took Ava to see The Hunger Games so I took Adrianna to Burlington City Park for a little bit.  Ava enjoyed the movie and Adrianna had a good time at the park.  I let her wear "dangly" earrings, ride the carousel by herself and get some Dippin Dots.  Oh, who am I kidding?  I got Dippin Dots, too.














Ava joined the Girl Scouts (no pics, sorry).  My Mom went with her to an all day badge blitz which included hiking, canoeing, and rock wall climbing.  All things I couldn't do so my awesome Mom went in my place.  She had more fun than I would've anyway.  I'm not a fan of lake water and woods.  Ick!  My Mom took pictures but alas, they are on her camera, not mine.  While Ava and Mom were having their adventures, Aaron, Adrianna and I hung out at the pool with my Step dad.  It was a pretty day but the water was too cold for me to get in.  Adrianna was determined so she and Opa would swim a little then jump in the hot tub.  Again and again.


 I went to a Mother's Day brunch with a friend . . .


We spent Mother's Day at my Mom's with my sister and her family and my Mother-in-law.  We hung out at the pool a little bit, played badminton, the kids rode the gator and scooter, played a little air hockey and Mom and Ava played the violin and mandolin for us.  It was a rainy day but we all enjoyed hanging out together and had a great lunch.  The girls even braved the pool for a little bit.  I'll have more pics of our Mother's Day fun and pics of what I made Mom this year up soon.


Two crazy girls in the pool!

Ava playing the violin

Well, that's all for now . . . 

Natalie