Hot summer days

have definitely led to a lot more time spent indoors. I'm not complaining all that much as I am not the most outdoorsy person in the world.

I can hear some people stifling laughs over that statement.

Regardless it would be nice to get out more than we have... just to a park or even Greenbrier but it's just been too hot.

So we entertain ourselves in other ways.

One day we spent an entire morning doing several different kinds of painting.

First...

Color Wonder Fingerpaints. Huge hit with Chase and I liked it a lot too. The finger paint is clear until it hits the special paper... which is nice for his little fingers and my everything else.

Oh and vinyl tablecloth... best $8 I've spent in a while. Set up and clean up are SO much easier!

Then...

we moved onto Do a Dot Art which was equally as enjoyable. I may have liked this one a tad more but Chase definitely got into creating.

Then...

onto some good ole fashioned paint brush and paint. Probably by far Chase's favorite.... and most messy... I think there is a connection.

We love driving through the...

It's a one lane underpass where you must honk as you go through in order to let drivers on the other side know that they need to wait. It's quite the Hagerstown treasure... as you can see ;~)

So long craft room...

Hello play room!

A few weeks ago I casually mentioned to Adam that I thought it might be in our best interest to convert the craft room into a play room... you know, think it through, plan it out, schedule a time and execute said idea.

In less than 24 hours it was converted.



So far it's been awesome. We spend WAY more time back there now. When it was my craft room I rarely (and by rarely I mean never) went back there. If I ever did crafts, I brought everything out to the living room and crafted on my coffee table. Now that it's Chase's play room, we go back there on a regular basis. I can even leave the door open and he comes and goes as he pleases. Another big bonus... I don't feel as if I am living in Romper Room anymore! We still have a few toys out here but it's not nearly as overwhelming... and it's much easier to clean up at the end of the night. Oh and another bonus... I moved all my craft supplies out to the dining room area (cleverly hidden) and now I am doing WAY more crafts than before.

Score one for the nesting instinct!

Once the play room was complete we realized the walls were kind of bare... and holely... it was a quite an eyesore. I started thinking about a project that I had intended for Chase's room.... the alphabet on his walls... and figured that it would be much better in the playroom. So I used some fun paper and a solid background and ended up with a really awesome set of letters...

Ones that I didn't just want to tape to a wall only to be ruined when they had to come down (welcome to the life of renters). So I looked into having them laminated... and quickly figured out that it was too much $$. So my beautiful letters just sat... unused and unhung.

Until Adam unleashed some horrible Catholic school memories. He was cruelly forced to cover all his paperback books with contact paper... very similar to the overpriced laminate I had used in previous projects. He kept having flashbacks of having an entire roll... not just the piddly one yard in each package that I normally bought. He was very traumatized by being forced to do this but many years later it comes in handy because it would be perfect for this project. I was skeptical but we went looking... and found it! A ginormous roll of acid free contact paper for $8.... score!

Very soon I had this hanging in Chase's new playroom...

I was thrilled with the outcome and quickly realized I needed the numbers for the other wall...

A few days later I had this up in his playroom. Now the walls are colorful, educational and hiding all the horrid nail holes! YAY!

This project has started me on a love affair with contact paper. I keep thinking of the next project where I can use this blessed material. I have a picture cha-choo idea formulating for just over Chase's bed. Stay tuned for that one.

By the way... I think my pregnancy nesting instinct has converted from cleaning and rearranging to crafting and creating. I am juggling so many projects and ideas I had to start a separate to do list just to keep them all straight!

Pool Time

I am still without a computer.  My world is turned upside down.  I hijacked hubby's... alright, he gave it up willingly but he also thinks I am doing Roof Shampoo work here... shhhhhhhhh.

I am more than a little frustrated.  We got a diagnosis from MacMedics that the hard drive was bad in my computer... which sent red flags up all over the place.  Adam had taken out the original hard drive, commonly referred to as "all my information", and attempted to install a new hard drive (fresh out of the box)... with zero success.  Then, not being a dummy at computers, he tested the new hard drive 7 ways from Sunday... seriously... ya'll thought he was geeky before.  It was a whole new level.  That new hard drive worked in every. single. place except my computer.  

So you can imagine when they told Adam failed hard drive, he asked for more diagnostic testing.  Put a hard drive that you know is good into my computer and see if you can get it to work.  They say they did but when we finally bring our computer home and put yet another new hard drive in, stalled and failed to boot.  Computer still broken... in precisely the way they said it was fixed.  An entire week wasted for something Adam knew and tried to explain... not to mention $49 for a crap diagnostic.  

End result... I am still without a computer and I am sad. 

So I thought I would post something happy to lift my spirits.

Last Monday Chase and I took a road trip to Glen Burnie to visit Christine, Andrew and Gabriel.  Her mom's condo has a community pool... which was surprisingly empty from 10 - 12.  More fun for us!


Chase is always practicing to be a big brother... he loves making babies smile!


One 'trick' he learned was holding onto the edge... which he wanted to do 'all by myself'.






Aunt Christine and Andrew (Gabriel stayed home with Pop-Pop ;~)

Another 'trick' Chase learned was actually propelling himself in the water.  Christine had a couple noodles for the boys to play with and Chase immediately fell in love.  He held on for dear life and kicked like he never kicked before... and he actually 'swam' about 2 feet!  At the next pool opportunity I made sure we had our very own noodle and Chase was in heaven.  He swam back and forth and even got the hang of turning himself around... and of course, he didn't want me to hold on at all.  Best $5 spent water wise!

As per usual when we road trip, this was the site in the back of the car on the way home... I will never tire of how cute it is!

Miss me?

I've definitely been MIA for a few weeks. There is a good reason for it... my macbook hard drive failed and consequently borked my computer. Before someone feels the need to tease me because I am so pro mac and everything is sunshine and roses with macs... I still completely believe it. I am the one that screwed the hard drive and caused it to fail... totally and completely my fault. Let's just say that my temper + lack of sleep does not equal happiness for my mac.

Adam worked on it for a solid week (totally geeking out) and still couldn't come up with a solution. So off to Mac Medics we went... supposedly they have an answer but I'll believe it when I see it with my own eyes. Monday we'll get the computer back and hopefully by Monday night Adam can fix it once and for all.

I feel totally crippled without my computer... I never realized how heavily I relied on it. I am thankful I have the ipad to fill the gap (and the keyboard attachment thanks to my MIL!!!!) but it's really not the same. Oh well... there are worse problems. Thankfully we had just started to run a decent and complete backup on my computer so I have the bulk of data stored on an alternative hard drive... unfortunately the end of May was the last time I backed up so there were casualties... again, there are worse problems to have.

In the meantime the G's have been super busy and I hope to play catch up wtih some of the events! My dad and Stacie were in DC and we got to spend some time with them.... July 4th was a blast out on Uncle Jimmy's boat.... Chase and I made a road trip to see Christine, Andrew and Gabriel and had a great time swimming in a neighborhood pool.... Chase had his first dentist visit (and did phenomenal might I add!)... not to mention the soccer star I am growing in my belly! Seriously... this kid rivals anything Beckham can do. Morning, noon or night... lil bean is flipping, turning, punching, heabutting and just generally kicking me... and I love every minute of it. This is one of my favorite parts of pregnancy.

On a completely different topic, many of you are aware that my MIL and I have regular movie nights together. That's what happens when you have 2 men who could careless about chick flicks and 2 women who love them. Well my MIL went and got us hooked on a TV miniseries... North and South... anyone remember that? with Patrick Swazye (so gorgeous!) 15 episodes at 90 minutes a pop. There is a good chance I will be pregnant with number 3 and still watching this if we don't pick up the pace!

I seem to remember this show being a particular hit with my mom... I wish she were still alive so I could ask her but right now I am relying on my extremely poor memory. Regardless... I am almost positive that she was one of the millions hooked on the miniseries when it debuted in 1985 *collective gasp at how old we all are*. I can only imagine how happy she would be to see me completely hooked after only one episode.

That's life in a nutshell right now. I'm going to attempt to post again with pictures over the weekend but that requires the husband sharing his computer. It's not that he won't... I just wouldn't call it willingly.

Lovin' Summer

Summer is here and we are loving it!

We've been...

keeping the garden watered...

enjoying Greenbrier State Park...

keeping cool at the pool...

real cool...

eating ice cream and then catching fireflies...

and exploring new areas (Shepherdstown)!

It just depends on the day... some days we are out soaking up the sun and quiet time doesn't start until 3... other days we stay home and just play farm puzzle and watch DVD's. No matter what I am really enjoying this summer so far!