Crafty and Creative

We've been sticking close to home and inside a lot lately--its just been too HOT to even think about doing anything outside, and buggy to boot. Typical South Florida in late July. So here's our past week in pictures!

Dino art


and Garrett wanted to photograph the stuff they made at the children's museum to show the grandparents before Daddy was permitted to take them to work. The "longneck" is Summer's, everything else is G.
Someone likes my running shoes . . . I can never find them when its time to go!!


Playing Pizza shoppe with friend Alex
Garrett filled up his chore jar and earned a marble track--they are both having fun with that one.

Recycled art-paints from a model kit, cardboard from cereal boxes, and a transformers tag from something Grandma sent . . .


Could she BE any cuter? I think not!!
Cute, but messy :-) She abandoned her brush and decided to finger paint instead.
And I never would have guessed Garrett would be the neater of the 2. I guess he's had a little more time to work at it . . .
Finished projects

Dino Island/Miami Children's Museum

The Miami Children's Museum recently started their "Dino Island" exhibit. As a general rule, we don't frequent the children's museum. Its further north than my office, and anyone who knows me well knows that I don't go more than about 10 miles from my house if I can help it. But I knew knew knew that Garrett would LOVE this-the kid is all about the dinosaurs. Thankfully, every third Friday is "Target Free Third Friday". Again, not something I frequent. I DETEST crowds, and most Miami people are just too rude to be packed in with in tight quarters. But, whatever, we decided to give it a go. Garrett was so psyched, he picked out his favorite dinosaur shirt in the morning . . .
He also made the necklace during one of our morning activities. Our OTHER morning activity was making peanut butter, which he REALLY loved doing too. I wouldn't have thought it would be easy or fun, but it proved to be both. I also never thought we'd be making as MUCH from scratch as we are these days. Next on the list: Pasta. I think I am going to have to invest in some fancy kitchen stuff sometime soon-my little $5 chopper is getting the job done, but BARELY, lol. Anyway, I digress.

Must have the obligatory picture of Summer and the bow she demanded I put in her hair. She won't get out of bed without one. Not kidding.
Dino Island was "so cool because it has REAL Dinosaurs" -Garrett

T-rex of course was his favorite. There was a fun factoid on the floor that a T-rex's teeth were the size of a banana. I thought that was cool. Summer, of course, immediately started yelling "Banana! Banana!" and was not pleased when I could not produce one instantly from my bag.


Crayon rubbings are so fun!


Digging for bones. I love that they do things side by side these days.
Garrett also REALLY had a blast with the fireman's pole in another part of the museum. He had no problem getting down all by his lonesome. Crazy child!
Summer making her own money. She loves crafts.
And making her own dinosaur.
And more side by side crafts.
I was really pleased with how well they both did. I have not done a lot of things with them in large crowds, because keeping an eye on both of them frankly scares the crap out of me now that Summer is so mobile and so FAST. But Garrett was excellent, and Summer listened well too. It was definitely worth the drive and the crowd. Not worth the drive, the crowd, AND the $24 +$2 parking it would have cost had it not been free through. So thank you, Target, for Target Free Third Fridays :-)

What, no pictures?

This is the first time in just about forever I have done a post with no pictures. I don't think I've taken ANY since my last post--how sad is that?? Here's a rundown of what we've been up to in the past month or so:

Brad:
Work, work, and more work. He's got to do a night patrol with the Coast Guard Auxillary at the end of last month, which he enjoyed. Surprisingly I enjoyed it too-it was nice to have a quiet house for a few hours and to enjoy a warm bath and a good book with no guilt. He finally found a decent cigar shop (the one close to us closed down around the holidays and we've been hunting for a good one ever since), and got a few cigars for Father's Day.

Me:
Work has been insane the past month, but in a good way. We were working hard on catching up on our backlog and making a good dent in it. OF COURSE our instrument decided to break this past weekend, so now we're stuck again. Who knows when it is going to be fixed . . .

I've been running, although not as much as I was there for a while. I'm usually averaging 10 - 15 miles a week (versus the 20 or so back in March/April). I'm still sticking with P90X too-so far its been awesome-heading in to Phase II tomorrow. We're going to St. John in 76 days, so I'm motivated to lose my last 10 or so lbs by then.

I finally caught the Twilight bug. I downloaded Twilight on a whim to listen to at work, not really expecting to love it. Its been a long time since I found a series I could get so wrapped up in. Brad has dutifully watched the movies with me and was even offended that I wanted to go see Eclipse with some girlfriends instead of asking him :-) So we did an Eclipse date this past weekend.

Garrett:
Garrett is as crazy as always. He's really into painting here lately, and listening to audiobooks in the car. We just finished Saving Shiloh, are working on Hoot, and have Ramona the Spy waiting in the wings to be listened to. We just don't spend that much time in the car, so its hard to finish them with much speed. Things have been a little rough between him and I-we've been rubbing each other the wrong way alot, probably due largely to the sleep I miss when we're busy at work and the extra TV he subsequently watches. As much as I have absolutely LOVED having him home these past 4 years, I know that he is really going to enjoy school and I know I am really going to need those 3 hours to stay sane.

Favorite activities so far this summer for Garrett have been 2 trips to Jacobs Aquatic Center in the keys, beach trips and of course our almost daily sojourns to the pool. His appetite continues to drive Brad crazy, the kid will actually pass up meat and just eat salad. Hilarious, and really not a bad thing at all. So far the snack of the summer has been celery sticks with Peanut Butter and cut up strawberries (lady bugs on a log).

Summer:
Seriously, I have NO CLUE how Brad and I produced such a diva. Summer is definitely her own person. She's usually very dramatic, but there are certain places (like the pool) where she is such a trooper that its like she is 2 different children. She LOVES the water. She insists on swimming everywhere (I put one hand on top and one on bottom and she kicks wherever she wants to go). She still eats like a piggy, and I swear she should weigh 500lbs. She loves to read, cuddle, and play with playdough. She is talking more, but still way behind where Garrett was at this age. I suspect when he goes to school in the fall, she'll really make strides there. Her first real sentence was "Mama, I want BOW" when I went to get her one morning. She really likes to put pretty things in her hair. Yeah, like I said, no clue where she gets it from.

So, that's the rundown. It really has been Utter Chaos around here. I hope everyone had a good 4th. Ours was very low key--they kids were tired (and Summer's been under the weather)--Brad and I ended up in the Hammock watching fireworks while the kids sawed logs inside. I TRIED waking Garrett up to see them, but to no avail. I'll try to be a little more diligent with the photos!!