Facebook Twitter Pinterest  photo insta.jpg Email RSS YouTube

Archives for August 2012

One week of summer vacation for us!

Jamie and Lindsi are taking this last week of "summer" to spend 100% with our kids, going back to school shopping, getting Nutty ready for the 1st grade, Lil' King ready for Kindergarten and Lil' Duke + Tottie ready for Pre-School. We will be back next week with our regular schedule of daily posts. We hope you will take the time to enjoy this last wonderful week of summer with your families as well. Starting the first week of September our post schedule will be: Mondays: Activities Tuesdays: Tasty Treats Wednesdays: Crafts Thursdays: Hodge Podge Fridays: Pinned It, Did it (Info to come) … [Read more...]

Alphabet cards

Some of you may remember my post about my aunt being creative and thoughtful. She made my three older kiddos these great song flash cards! Since my youngest is only 18months she knew that those song cards wouldn't really "work for him. She made him a set of alphabet flash cards! Such a fun and creative idea! All you need is: a ring, paper and a little creativity. Here are some suggestions for letters so that you don't have to do much work: A- apple, aardvark, armadillo, astronaut B- banana, bell, blue, bear C- cat, caterpillar, crayon, coin D- dinosaur, dog, dart, dove E- elephant, ear, eye, earth F- frog, frown, fairy, feather G- green, grapes, grass, gopher H- horse, happy, Halloween, I- igloo, ice cream, iguana J- jelly bean, jellyfish, jigsaw, jacks, jacket K- kite, kitten, key, kangaroo, king L- lion, lemon, lizard, leaf M- monkey, medal, mirror, moon N- needle, nail, notebook, nest O- octopus, otter, orange, olive P- panda, penguin, pink, purple, pan Q- quilt, … [Read more...]

Back Yard Camping

Hubby and I are very much into tent camping.  Part of the money we received from our wedding was spent on high quality camping gear, and before we had kids, we camped multiple times a summer.  It became a lot harder, however, when the girls were little.  It took too much effort to pack up a bunch of baby items.  Hubby and I decided that we would instead, begin to teach our girls to camp using our back yard.  It has been a once-a-summer family tradition every since. Back yard tent camping has most of the same opportunities as real camping without all the hassle and with some of the comforts of home (such as a nice bathroom for my picky girls).  Though we still try to go real camping, we make sure to camp in our back yard at least once a summer. We use our fire pit to cook over the fire, roast marshmallows, and keep warm as the rule is you can only go inside to go to the bathroom once we've begun our camping adventure. If you're not really into the hassle of real camping or have … [Read more...]

Be The First To Know- Pantene Pro-V Daily Moisture Renewal Collection

Hair disaster stories- we've all got one (or in my case several). I could share the horrid details of the time I went to the cheap-o place to get my hair cut and came out looking like a watered down poodle, but that could bring up a few tears. I could also share the time I decided that it would be a good idea to SHAVE off my "whispies" by my ears, you know, those ones that would be called sideburns if you were a guy, but then I'd have to admit it was only 3 years ago that I did that- oops! But in all seriousness, I wanted to share a recent and tragic hair disaster story with you. I have some pretty strong "curl genes" running through my locks and in Minnesota naturally curly hair and humid summer days don't mix well. Enter- hair straightener products! Yup, I thought it would be nice to start the summer off with hair that was more manageable. I won't go into details as to who makes the products I used to straighten my hair but I will tell you this...after carefully and tediously … [Read more...]

Back to School- Then and Now

Many kids are getting ready to head back to the books (or may have already depending on where you live). Jamie and I were talking about how things have changed. The conversation went a little like this: Lindsi- "I can't believe only 2 more weeks until S's first day of school!" Jamie- "Me either! I can't believe K is going to be in 1st grade. I just finished getting all of her school supplies. And I found the stylis that she needs for her iPad." Lindsi- "What? Her iPad? When did she get one of those?" Jamie- "She didn't. Each kid in her school gets one!" Lindsi- insert looooooooooong pause here "holy crap!" Then we chatted a bit more and decided on a few things that have drastically changed over the years. Before- you know, when our parents were in school, During- when we were in school, After- now that our kids are in school. Let's start off with math! Math was something I thought didn't change over time...but as you see below....it … [Read more...]

An Interview with the Directors of "Paranorman" and a Giveaway!

There's only 2 days left until the new animated movie by LAIKA, "Paranorman", hits theaters!  Yep, that's right, "Paranorman" opens nationwide on August 17, 2012.  No doubt you've seen the commercials for it on TV, heard sound bites on the radio, or viewed the trailer in the theaters.  If you've been living under a rock without TV, radio, or the movie theater, and have no clue what I'm talking about, see the official trailer below. Jamie was lucky enough to get a press screening of the movie and was even luckier to get an interview with the directors, Sam Fell and Chris Butler!  I would throw in a huge "EEEKKK!" here but that would sound unprofessional. Lets start however, with what's so special about LAIKA and "Paranorman".  I mean, what's all the hype?  It's just another animated movie, right?  Wrong!  LAIKA produced the Academy Award-nominated movie "Coraline", it's first stop-motion movie.  What is stop-motion animation?  Well, according to Wikipedia, stop-motion … [Read more...]