Father's Day, Tball, summer fun!

I had kids going through the sick bug rotation the first 2 weeks of summer break, which was a bummer!  They'd been healthy for several months coming out of winter, but they went down like domino's, and took their time coming back up.  It was made even more frustrating by the fact that the weather was FINALLY fantastic.  We went outside briefly each day, to get some fresh air, enjoy the sunshine, and a homemade juice popsicle, but if we were out for very long, they'd start coughing and getting runny noses (even worse than normal).  We did our best to enjoy the sunshine and still get healthy.

 As soon as they started feeling better, we busted out the sprinkler, water balloons, and kiddie pool.  So much summer fun!  Hooray!!

 Father's Day rolled around.  This year I went easy on breakfast since we have early church, I bought some muffins, turn overs, and doughnut balls from the store (because I knew there was no way I was getting up early enough to cook), had an array of berries and fresh fruit and whipped up some scrambled cheesy eggs.  All quick stuff that can be ready in just a few minutes.  We got it ready, set out the presents and woke up Daddy (he got to sleep in until 7).

  This year each of the girls picked out a grilling tool to work with our little portable camping grill (because we had no grilling utensils), they had cheap ones for $1 each, so it worked out perfectly.

 Since we are poor students I decided to do a craft out of stuff we had at the house already.

   

 

Here is my completely unsolicited advice on doing framed crafts for cheap.  I have a pad of watercolor paper, I picked it up, several months ago,  at JoAnn's or Hobby Lobby (I can't remember which) on sale for about 4 bucks.  It has 200, 11x15 sheets.  So, 4 bucks for 200 paintings/projects is a pretty good buy.  If you have a 40 or 50 percent off coupon, you can get any quality/size of a paper pad for really cheap.  I have a whole stock of paints, so that for me didn't cost anything (recently at least), I've bought up a couple colors for various project over the years, so now I have pretty much all the colors.  I recommend getting the big bottles of acrylic craft paint.  Get white, black, brown and the primary colors to start with, then you can mix your own colors, but it doesn't cost much to build up a pretty good stock.  We use these paints for lots of our projects (like painting pumpkins for Halloween, painting on wood, Lettering for the kids rooms, etc).  As far as frames go, here is what I do,  DON'T buy them new!  (Unless of course you need a matching set of frames, or are framing something expensive, that you need something particular for).  But I always buy them used for fun projects/kids art/my art.  Go to a DI/Goodwill/Thrift Store and look at their framed art.  There is usually a whole section of framed art, with frames in decent condition, glass intact.  Usually the art is pretty bad, but that's not important.  I buy frames for the mat, or because I like the size/shape.  The frame I used was a great size, but it was old wood, not in great shape.  It has a framed picture with a good mat.  I am sure I will reuse the mat on another project.  So for $1.99 (it unfortunately wasn't a 50% off day) I got a 12x16 sturdy wood frame, with decent glass and a great mat.  Not bad!  Because I buy up frames whenever there's something I like, I already had this at home.  I simply took out the mat, a GREAT thing is that LOTS of generic framed art comes with a mat and also a plain white piece of sturdy cardstock behind it.  In this case, I painted the edge of the white cardstock orange and used it as my "mat".  Then, I just put the original mat behind it to store the mat safely until I find a use for it. Here is the back of the finished product. Someday, I'll need a blue mat, and I'll have this one just ready to go :)

Anyway, I painted the frame with black acrylic, stuck in the art work, and in and hour had a nice little Father's Day gift made with stuff that we already had on hand.

That night we had a great Father's Day feast!  We had rolls, mashed potatoes, cooked carrots, and we used our new grill utensils to grill chicken, steak, hot dogs, asparagus, and squash.  It all turned out really, really, good.  I only wish that there had been more leftovers.  They went pretty fast!

 Summer time is finally in full swing, and I love it!  However, my hair does NOT.  We usually seem to have at least 80% humidity, and my hair gets SO frizzy and unmanageable.  My only solution is to put a lot of product in and BRAID.  So, it's some kind of braid for me almost every single day.  Otherwise I get a little halo of flyaway hair that sticks straight out all around my head.  It's super attractive.  Anyway, I have started getting more creative and looking for new, fun, adult looking braids.  Below is an example, if you every come across a cool way to braid, email me, tag me, whatever.  Just show it to me.  My hair (and my vanity) will thank you!

 Speaking of summer time, last night Lily had her first ever Tball game!  It actually started last week, but she was still sick so we missed it.  It made me feel, once again, that I am getting old as a parent.  And it made me feel like she is getting so big!  As I French braided her hair and saw her grab her glove and get ready to go, I was overwhelmed with how fast she's growing up.  A few weeks ago, she had never used a glove, and had no idea about running bases, or really how Tball worked at all.  Over the past 2 weeks, we've practiced throwing, catching, batting, and running.  She has worked hard, had fun, and gotten so much better!  Because it's just a summer rec league and not a real, fancy (read expensive) league, they just practice for 20 minutes before the game, play against another team, for a certain amount of time, and don't keep score.  So I've just worked with her at home here and there, and she has caught on so fast and I am so proud of her.  She loved it, and she did a really great job.

 Kate was a great cheerleader, complete with yelling "Go Lily!" clapping, jumping up and down, and doing some pretty sweet cheerleader moves that I still have no idea where she picked up.

 Getting her first hit!

 Isabel wanted to play (she can next year!), but was such a good sport about watching, and cheering, and staying put for the hour we were there.

 Here is Lily about to catch this pop up that came right to her while she was playing in the pitcher's position.

 Then she threw it just where she was supposed to (she's actually not the only lefty on her team, there's another left handed girl as well), GO LILY!

 As soon as Lily started walking over, Kate ran to hug her.  She was so proud of Lily and really did enjoy watching and cheering.  I was the first base coach while Lily's team batted and Kate really wanted to go out there with me, she was a good sport about staying with Daddy though.

 She had so much fun and was so happy after the game.

 Here are her sisters telling her, "Good Job!!"