Pics the babysitter took playing with the kids

this day they played with a curling iron.

Elaine went to Summer Camp

Elaine left for summer camp in Oklahoma last Saturday. She just got back tonight. The camp she went to had horseback-riding, a water-park and pool, canoeing, a lake to swim in, and worship services.

Elaine!

Worship leaders

Girls waiting to ride horses.

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While she was gone, we took Allan to see 'Captain America' at a movie theater, because he is very into the Avengers right now. He watches the Avengers cartoon all the time!

Kids have been going to the pool a lot this month

Steampunk Hat

What is "steampunk"?
Some describe it as if gothic people discovered the color brown. It mostly reminds me of time travel. It uses clothing from the turn of the century, mixed with images of technology from then & now. They integrate lots of references to cogs, gears, locomotives, air ships, flight/wings/aviation, and pipes with clothing similar to both Victorian dresses and military uniforms, BUT they also include lots of sci-fi elements.
EXAMPLES:

    

At the costume store I manage, we're putting up a steampunk-themed mannequin display. We have lots of options for rental costumes that can be used to look steampunk for a day, but since steampunk is a life-style (similar to people who are gothic, as a lifestyle), customers generally want to OWN their steampunk ensemble. With that said, we are super excited that next month we'll have in new steampunk accessories to purchase. We've dressed the mannequins in our rental clothing and next month will cover them with accessories that can be purchased (i.e. Gloves, top hats, bowler hats, scarves, skinny suspenders, monocles, glasses, goggles, jewelry, parasols, corsets, and etc.).

My project:
To make a mannequin wearing a fitted velvet coat look more steampunk, instead of vampire-like, I borrowed his top hat tonight to attack it with a cogs, gears & gizmos look.

I picked up a sheet of scrapbook paper covered in bright cogs. (Right shape, wrong colors/texture.) I also found a pack of little metal cogs in three shades of metal. (Perfect colors, but kinda small for size of the hat).

I cut the cog shapes out of the scrapbook paper, to get perfectly round cogs of varying sizes.

Then I flipped the paper over and painted the white-side with rust, black and silver paints, to match the colors of the metal mini-cogs.

I wrapped some wide brown ribbon around the top hat and tied a bow. Then I cut the ribbon to this length and removed it from the hat. Remember: I wanted to temporarily change this hat for a display, so all my decorating has to be on a removable ribbon, so the hat can still be sold in it's original condition if neccesary.

Next, I hot-glued on the hand-made cogs and the mini metal cogs to the ribbon & tied the ribbon back on to the hat. :)

Codi, Courtney and Jenna on Chick-fil-a's Cow Appreciation Day

On 'Cow Appreciation Day', if you wear a cow costume from "Head to Hoof" your entire entree is free at Chick-fil-a. The girls borrowed rental costumes from work and a bunch of their friends all ate for free.
Codi is the butt of the cow and Courtney is the front of the cow.  That's Courtney's boyfriend in front, holding her purse.

Right now they are 9th place in the national photo contest of the event, in their category (Herds).Click here to VOTE for their Photo to win

Early July

 

At church with my Mom, July 3rd.

We had a great visit. My Mom spent all week playing with the kiddos, while we worked. I was home for dinner each night, so we still got to spend a lot of time together watching 'Glee' and 'Ally McBeal' re-runs on Netflix. We all enjoyed me having this whole weekend off from working at the costume store. :)

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Codi and Sophie

(I made Codi's hair bow)

July 4th- After work, we all walked down to the closest playground with my Mom, Codi and Sophie (the dog Codi is dog-sitting). We didn't stay long, because of the heat. It's been around 102 some days this week.

Canvas project Elaine, her babysitter and I made recently:

1). Paint watercolor blobs in colors you like.
2). Cut out butterflies from the paper with the Cricut (I used the wings meant for the Angel paperdoll)
3) Paint an artist's canvas your favorite color
4) Fold paper butterflies down the center, so they are demensional.
4) Hot glue the butterflies to the canvas, making sure they are all right-side up *not flying upside down.

Early June

The kids finished school last week. We couldn't make it to Elaine's 2nd grade graduation/award ceremony, so when Jimmy picked her up from her babysitter, Wendy, he surprised her with graduation balloons! Elaine got an award for having straight A's the entire year, and also for having 2nd place for her entire school in the 'Reflections' contest (3rd place for the school district).

Helping Elaine hold up her awards

 

 Allan's kindergarten class decided to have a picnic instead of a formal ceremony for awards. If you ask Al what his award is for, he'll tell you that it's for "keeping all the kids together and telling Mrs. Fagan when someone isn't staying in line."  In truth, his award says "Most Imformative"... he's the class snitch! lol  (Yes, his teacher misspelled 'informative' on a laminated award)

Friday the kids went to work with each of us. Jimmy's boss told him to buy Allan a new Wii game on the company's dime.  Now, Elaine wishes she went to work with her Daddy. That night, I gave Allan his typical Summer haircut. He's been growing his hair out for the last 3 months, so we could spike his hair up tall. We even have red temporary spray for his Mohawk, left over from last Summer.

This last Sunday we went to Canton trade days, again. This will probably be our last outing to Canton until Winter. It was 99 degrees in June and just gonna get hotter. I bought a lamp for the living room. It's a tall brass lamp with a pose-able arm, so I parked it behind our big comfy chair/ottoman set for task-lighting. It was only $20!  I bought a handful of DVDs (can't beat $2 or less price!) and we shared an awesome funnel cake. :) I'm still tired 2 days after my 'day off'. We walked a LOT. We all managed to avoid sunburn and made a valiant effort to stay hydrated.. Sidenote: Allan definitely tans like his uncles David and Mark.

 Allan was being friendly with a little dog on a leash, and then when his cowboy hat fell off the dog freaked out barking at Allan's mohawk. :))  We wonder if the dog thought Allan's head was on fire.

That night, after Canton, my coworkers picked up the kids and took them to see 'Rango' at the $2 movie. I heard there were 2 dirty words and a couple jokes that were over Elaine's head. But overall the movie was enjoyed.

Our new babysitter started yesterday. She's our friend's 15-yr-old daughter, Shannon. Everything's going awesome with that. Jimmy picks her up before work in the morning. She hangs out with me and the kids until I get picked up for work by my coworkers. This morning we all watched 'Toy Story 3', and I sat out a BUNCH of crafty supplies for the kids and Shannon to play with. They made bridges out of Popsicle sticks (I have about 900+ left over from this college design project) and made friendship bracelets.