Sew?

Today was my last free day before it was just Lily and I for the rest of the summer.  I was caught up on laundry, my house was clean, the dishes were done, and I was pretty much packed for the weekend.  So by 10:00 I found myself....bored?  No...that wasn't it.  I just needed something to do.  So I thought I'd organize the office.

When we moved Lily into her new room, we turned the old one into our home office slash junk room.  The small closet was quickly filled with the boxes and bins of crafty stuff I just can't part with and the room was still overflowing with STUFF.

For example:

Clothes that needed to go to the dry cleaner, a box of Mike's baby clothes and childhood sports memorabilia, bags/boxes of junk that needed to go to Goodwill, bags of too small toddler clothes that needed to be boxed up, stacks of textbooks, empty picture frames, a sewing machine that didn't work, a sewing machine that did work.  That's where I got distracted.

My mom had passed down what was a fancy sewing machine decades ago that had decided to quit on me so she sent home with me one random weekend an even older sewing machine.  Like.  I think it's older than me.  But it sews in a straight line (only forward) and seems to be serving it's purpose for me at the moment so I haven't really looked into investing in a new one.  The weather has turned nice - 80 degrees and 70% humidity for the third day in a row - and we are down an air conditioner.  Doesn't someone I know do HVAC?  Regardless, it appeared that last fall when I was on a purging binge, I'd sent all of my comfy cotton shorts to Goodwill.  Most of them had been collected from trips or Victoria Secret and had PINK or Gulf Shores or some other really annoying thing scrawled across the bum.  Nevertheless though I was kicking myself because my only other options were my nice twill JCrew shorts that buttoned.  And while I had them in nearly every color available, I just wanted something I could lounge in.  I decided my task at hand was to make myself a pair of cotton shorts.

I could totally do this.  I took a pair of my existing shorts, traced them on a paper grocery bag to make a pattern, dug out some fabric from the mound of scraps taking up space in the office closet, and set to work.  And VOILA!  New shorts!

What's better than new shorts for me?  Matching new shorts for Lily of course!

And since I'm determined to relearn the manual setting on my camera, Lily appeased me and let me snap a few booty shots.  I see an endless supply of shorts in our summer.

Erin's First Shower!

And so it's begun.  Wedding season!  Over the weekend we celebrated with Erin's first shower!

Lily can't wait to be the flower girl!

Erin and her mommy

Erin and her future mommy-in-law

Two of the maids

Surviving Summer

Well....this is it...
Lily's last day of daycare is tomorrow and we're officially kicking off summer by heading to the lake.  Aside from just trying to stay sane this summer, Lily and I have been perusing Pinterest and reading up on some local things we can do.  Lily has expressed an interest to get back to swimming lessons so we signed up this week for a Tuesday morning session.  I plan to fill my Wednesdays and Fridays with girlfriends and kiddos who are either flexing it or off this summer as well.  Saturdays and Sundays are already booked solid through August.  That leaves Mondays and Thursdays for chores and our bucket list.

Summer Bucket List
Make glitter slime
Milk a cow
Plant a garden
Catch a fish
Make huge bubbles
Go golfing
Go to the zoo
Learn to water ski
Boulder Ridge
Fly a kite
Learn to tell time
Read a book
Farmer's market
Teach Diesel a new trick
Play with worms
Have a water balloon fight
Blueberry picking
Airport viewing park
Learn to flip pancakes in the air
Work on penmanship
Go bowling
Splashpad
Try one new food a week

I have a few goals of my own for the summer.  Besides trying to stay organized and on some sort of schedule, I want to rediscover my photography skills and update my blog at least once a week.  But mostly I want to soak up every single minute of this little one who's not so little anymore.

We Clean Up Pretty Nice

Remember those Hoy family photos I mentioned a couple of weeks ago?  Well they're finally done!

Celebrate Today

Time is precious.

 Cancer is evil.

A dear friend of the Hoy family passed away last Monday after a three and a half year battle with cancer.  We struggled with what to tell Lily - disagreeing on whether we needed to talk to her about it.  I felt she's old enough to understand it.  Mike wanted to let her be little.  I reminded him that the other day in a fit of frustration over my daughter being ungrateful I told her that some children don't have toys, homes, or even mommies and daddies.  I reminded him that bad things happen and we can't keep her in a bubble.  

I won the battle.  But I didn't win anything.  I had to tell my four year old that we were going to church to say good-bye to her Grandma's best friend.  That we would see her again in Heaven but right now she was hanging out in the big blue sky watching us.  Protecting us.  I had to tell her that we would see her grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins, our friends, as well as many other people.  And that some of those people would be sad.        

She crawled into my lap with her thinking hard face and asked me if Sue took her pool to Heaven with her.  I explained to her that when people leave Earth they leave behind all of their belongings because there wasn't enough room in Heaven for everyone's stuff.  She clutched her "green blankey" and told me she was going to sneak it into Heaven - that God wouldn't mind.  Fighting back tears I held her tight and knew we'd made the right decision to talk to her about it.

Later that evening when we arrived at the visitation, there was table after table of Sue's treasured Christmas decorations.  Her daughters asked that the items be taken in remembrance of Sue and I couldn't believe how perfect it was after explaining to Lily that we leave behind our worldly possessions when we die.  Even more fitting was Lily's chosen piece - an angel bear - because in Lily's words - "Sue is probably an angel".  Probably?  Sue was an angel on Earth so I can only imagine what kind of angel wings she's sporting in Heaven.  

Lily Logic

Some of the statements out of Lily's mouth are completely logical but the fact that she was the one who came up with it make them terribly funny.  Here's a few of my favorite:

Me (reading the Fresh Thyme weekly grocery ad): Ooo organic avocados from Mexico

Lily: Our avocados don't come from Mexico.  They come from Forest Hills Foods.

Lily: I've been to Florida a tons of times.
Me: Where else have you been?
Lily: A tons of times?
Me: Yes.
Lily: Hawaii and the grocery store.

Uno rules: winner gets a banana

Lily: Mommy.  Daddy doesn't cut my waffles that way.
Me: Well.  Daddy is...
Lily: Way smarter than you.

Lily's game rules: throw over the circles you win a trophy, hit the dog you lose the trophy

Lily (Literally perched in front of the screen door): Mom.  The concrete guys are taking forever.

Me: Be quiet they can hear you.  

Lily: They should know they are taking forever.

Concrete guy: Do you want to drive the cement truck when you grow up or pour concrete?

Lily: Maybe.

Concrete guy: Don't do either.  Stay in school.

Lily was right on one thing.  The concrete guys did take forever.  It wasn't 100% their fault and you know how patient I can be about these types of things.  Since we moved in I wanted to have the brick walkways redone.  Along the side of the house to the back deck the sand beneath kept washing out and no matter how many times Mike attempted to fix them it would just keep sinking.  In addition, our front porch was severely cracked and after getting three quotes we were told that someone already attempted to fix it and it would all need to be replaced.  So my quick and easy project of new walkways became a long drawn out project of ripping off the entire front porch.  Oh yeah, and I wanted a 30 x 15 foot patio out back.  All at the same time.  Before my BFF's bridal shower.  

The contractor we chose was a super nice guy - promised to have it all done in four days.  He sent a couple of yahoos to rip everything out.  By hand.  For only a couple of hours at a time.  I mean - I totally could have pulled out all those bricks in one day.   Regardless of my whining and calling the contractor every day to check-in, they did indeed discover the magic of our home.  As in nothing here is ever as easy as it seems.   It was quite the process leveling it out, finding gutter downspouts where they shouldn't be, blowing a hole in our garage, exposing a zillion tree roots, and turning up a lot more wire bars than they anticipated.  On top of that it rained nearly everyday after they started so when they got a break in the weather yesterday, they decided to finish the project in one day.  I was skeptical but they worked their butts off from 8:00am to 7:30pm, calling three different cement trucks, and getting it done.  He even let Lily put her hands in!

So only a week and a half later - although it truly felt longer with the mud holes the dog and Lily couldn't keep themselves from - we finally have our new sidewalks and amazing new patio.

Now to decide what to do with that jungle we have growing...