Cute Kids and New Obsession

I'm so ready for the summer to be over.  Not because my kids are going back to school but because I'm so tired of the heat.  I forgot how much time we spent outside at the park and on walks until we were stuck inside because it was so hot.  Our apartment complex has a pool and we've been there quite a bit, but some days it takes more effort than it was worth and they closed it a couple days when we had planned to go.  I think Noelle, Mikey and I are sick of being inside.  I notice that our (when I say "our" I really mean "mine") moods are a little more sensitive and on edge because we're stuck inside.  I realized that we need some good, fresh air everyday and when we don't get it we are GRUMPY.  And I'm sick of not having a car, but that's for another post.

Despite the heat and being stuck inside we have enjoyed each other's company.  We've tried to be creative and sure make each other laugh.

Noelle has been begging to ride the train at the mall.  I told her she had to wait until dad could come.   She wouldn't stop telling me that she got to ride the train cause daddy came with us.

Noelle loves water but hates it being over her head so we've really been working on "swimming."  She is so proud of herself for swimming with her floaties.

my happy guys

Love this one!  He fell asleep on our walk about 5 minutes away from our apartment.  He refused to lay back so this is what we got :)

And don't forget Noelle.  Almost everyday she asks if we can go on a walk.  Can you see why I can't wait for cooler weather?

Aunt Nina made these darling winter hats for Noelle and Mikey.  She made a similar one for her little boy (my handsome nephew) Eric.  We are very much looking forward to taking pictures with them in December.  Miss them SOOOOO much!

He is a climber and much more daring than Noelle was.  He was so happy to make it to the top of the  jungle gym.

And this little girl would play in the sand ALL day if I let her.  

And on one of our bored days we broke up Noelle's old, yucky crayons and made some new ones. She loved doing this!

Me and my friends Michelle, Natalie and Alyssa had a much needed girls night. I had so much fun and wish we could do it more.  We went to dinner, to the fair, shopping and out for ice cream.  This is the only picture I have from that night unfortunately.  At the fair they had this big barn full of prize winning turkeys and chickens.  I was walking along with my friends and look behind me and this turkey was just inches away from me and it freaked me out.  I let out a soft little scream and ran away quite fast.  It was pretty funny and of course I had to take a picture of it.  I hate turkeys for some reason.  They creep me out and they just seem so mean.

Unlike Noelle, Mikey hasn't shown a whole lot of interest in books. He usually pulls them all down from the shelf and throws them and bites them.  So this picture I had to get.  He's actually looking at it without having the thought of "how can I make this more destructive?"  That didn't last long.

Noelle and her awesome name writing skills. This one looks like "Voelle." Other days it kind of looks like "Woelle." But I don't care, I think she's so cute and smart :)

Saw a rainbow and Noelle was thrilled!  She's been talking about wanting to see a rainbow and sure enough we did at Grandma Great's house.

Mikey has finally figured out how to climb on the couch and boy does he love it. He just smiles and jumps and almost falls off every time.  To get off though he will actually just walk right off.  Luckily I've caught him all the times he's done this, I'm sure I won't one of these days.

Noelle just wanted me to take her picture.  But I don't mind. I think she's pretty adorable.

Obsession?
What is my new obsession you ask?  Take a guess.  If you are a friend of mine on facebook you may know.  Or if I have talked to you recently you may know.  That's right, PINTEREST.  I really didn't understand the big deal of it.  I've had a pinterest account for over a year now probably.  Everyone talked about it and to be honest I didn't really know how it worked.  Well one night about two weeks ago I needed to find some ideas for a homemade Christmas gift for my kids.  This is a new goal of mine.  To do one homemade gift for them, either separately or together.  Anyway, sure enough the exact thing that I needed was there.  And of course after that I decided to look at other pins.  2-3 hours later and I had a whole list of things that I wanted to do and accomplish.  I had Noelle's whole birthday party planned.  I had the determination to have a spinach smoothie every day for breakfast. Etc, etc, etc...  Since then I have been on there a lot.  And have found some awesome inspiration for many areas of my life.  I admit that I need to get a handle on it, but for now it's lots of fun and it seems to be helping me set aside time to accomplish something late at night, instead of just sitting down and watching tv.  I consider myself a pretty creative person but I wouldn't dedicate a career to it, or a blog, or a class.  That's why I'm glad others have put their ideas on this site so that I may take advantage of their creative minds :).  With that said here are a couple of the things that pinterest has inspired me to do within the last week:

Toiliet paper roll painting.  Cool huh?  I got the idea from here

I used three different rolls to make different "brushes." 

And of course in the end she decided to blend it all together.

Isn't it beautiful?  And it looks pretty good on our refrigerator too! 

As most of you probably know Noelle's hair is kind of thin and slow at growing. Sounds kind of like mine.  I still have hope that it will get a little thicker one day and that we will actually need to get her a real haircut.  Anyway, I still love doing her hair.  She has some really cute curls but if I don't put a ton of mousse and hairspray in the curls don't stay, so I usually just put her hair up.  She's pretty good for me when I do it, especially if I put on a favorite show.  And I decided I wanted to get a little more creative.  This was her hair for church on Sunday.  Got that idea here

And today she let me do her hair crazy again.  This one looks a little different then the picture. That idea I got from here (it's a facebook page)

And I think my favorite of the week are these cute felt bandaids. Noelle has this doctor bag that she got for her birthday last year and over the last few months has really loved playing with it.  She also currently loves watching the Disney Junior show Doc McStuffins.  She is always giving me and her toys checkups and loves when I give her a checkup.  So I thought I would add some bandaids to her bag.  I had a ton of felt left over from last years Christmas project (princess felt mat) and some velcro that I have had for forever.  I made my own little pattern, well really I just used a real bandaid and used my glue gun.  So simple and cute and Noelle will love it.  The idea came from here.   

And here is the back.  It was fun to do and I only got two burns from it.

Maybe I'll have some more creativity to share with you soon!