Learning

This week my life has been devoted to two things. 

1. De-junking my house and preparing for a yard sale

2. Gathering materials and putting together leaning activities for Lucy. (i love you pinterest) 

Well my yard sale got cancelled today due to rain...really lame since both our little cars are filled to the brim with our crap and I had put a lot of time and made signs. What can you do, right? 

But the second thing has gone well and I have only just began. 

Sensory box with water beads 

 Our squishy Ocean.

Lucy was not the only one loving these beads. 

Erik and I couldn't keep our hands out of them. They feel so cool. 

They are super cheap here and are hours of fun for both child and parent. 

Here is the stack of copies I had made this week at the copy center

It is full of flash cards, activities, file folder games, and all sorts of learning fun. (thank you pinterest)

Don't even ask my how much it cost....

or how long it will take me to cut, laminate, cut and assemble those hundreds of pages. 

I better find a good show and start cutting! ;) 

I look forward to having it done and teaching Lucy. 

Lucy trying out a file folder game I made. 

We got lucky, Lucy has taken a huge interest in letters thanks to one silly puzzle I got at a yard sale over a year ago. She loves letters, like next to Disney Princess' it's her favorite thing to talk about and point out. 

Thanks to Leap Frogs Letter Factory movie (which I highly reccomend) Lucy now also knows all her letters both upper and lowercase and the sound they make. It's pretty amazing. 

So I figure we should jump on this while she is still interested and just teach her more and more. 

I can't wait! 

Odds & Ends

Lucy the Lamanite standing on the wall. 

My favorite part was when I got to throw socks at her! ;) 

Classic FHE at the Fox Home. 

I need to take more pictures of her asleep. 

Sleepy pictures are the sweetest! 

We are transitioning from nap to "quiet time".

Sometime it's just too much and she still wipes out!  

We tried sponge curlers! 

They turned out pretty cute!

I will do it again and actually take an after picture! 

But I almost prefer her in the curlers! 

So adorable! 

Art projects with friends!

This one Lucy actually really got into! yay!

I love the faces she made while trying to squeeze the dropper. 

Idea here

The classic face I get when I ask her to smile

Total cheese but I love it! 

Daily Grind

When it comes to blogging I am happy to be back to the daily grind. 

Since May my life has been go go go! 

I have gotten a little tired of lengthily posts so it's back to normal. 

Or at least as normal as we can be! 

Back to hot days at Meadow Farm 

Back to fun and games...

 actually this was her first time playing candy land. 

and it quickly turned to a color organizing activity. 

Back to hanging out all day in your underwear! 

and getting diaper wedgies...? 

Back to storytime 

And back to movie dates with the BF

The daily grind ain't so bad after all! 

SIX

On Saturday August 4th (a day early) I got to celebrated 6 amazing years of marriage... 

With this handsome guy. 

Erik's parents were kind enough to take Lucy all day.

First we headed first to the D.C. temple to do sealings to remind us of our own.

A tradition I would like to continue. 

Next we headed to Georgetown in D.C. 

Believe it or not I had never been there! 

There was a lot I wanted to see! 

It was a really hot day and we had brought clothes to change into but Erik forgot his shorts, so to match better, we both stayed in our Sunday attire....awesome. Poor Erik-so hot! 

Anyway...

First lunch at the famous Serendipity. 

Of course we ordered their famous frozen hot chocolate to go. 

It was delicious! 

Next we hit up some shopping! 

It was Erik's idea to have us each pick out an outfit for each other to try on. 

Here was the results! Ha!

Erik's skinny jeans barely buttoned! I thought he looked pretty hot, he hated it! 

The truth about my outfit was that this was take 2. 

First he showed up with what I would consider lingerie.

 I was like "are you kidding me?" 

The sad thing is that he legitimately thought it was a dress I could just wear a cardigan over...no. 

I am talking zebra stripes, mini dress. I couldn't even try it on in public! ha! 

This is why I never have him pick an outfit for me. He did do better with take 2. 

And of course no Georgetown trip is complete without stopping at Georgetown Cupcake from the TLC show. 

We waited outside in the heat for 30 min. for these baby's! 

If you know me and my patience level combined with my heat tolerance this is a huge deal.

On the other hand, if you know me and my sweet tooth it's nothing!

Erik choose key lime pie and I choose mint cookies and cream. 

I hate to say it....but they were slightly disappointing. 

I mean they were fine, the frosting was really good, but the cake part was just average. 

Just overrated in my opinion. 

But it was an experience and now I can say I've been there. 

Last of all, and the highlight of the trip was our bike ride along the Potomac river. 

I am not a biker- I have not been on one in years. 

We were hoping for a tandem bike so I could sit back enjoy the ride while Erik pedals his heart out. 

When we found out they didn't have one Erik said  "maybe we shouldn't do it- can you ride a bike by yourself" Excuse me! NO...but now...YES!

I was a little worried but guess what?

 I had a ton of fun, didn't really get tired and it just was awesome. 

The sights and views were beautiful. 

It really would top some of the things we have ever done together!

I was proud and called my athletic brother to tell him I rode 5 miles and loved it. He pretended to be impressed yet I heard a little giggle at the mere mileage. 

Whatever! It was a big deal to me and I discovered a new love...in short distances...with beautiful views...and with  my favorite person in the world! 

Happy Anniversary Sweetie! 

I love you! 

Thanks for an awesome day! 

The week of the Blonde

I guess I wanted to put it to the test. Do "Blondes have more Fun?" 

Well I gave it a week....

Sometimes I felt pretty hot and sassy

But when I really looked at it, there were a  lot of flaws and things that really bugged me about it. 

The shade wasn't right, I had her leave to much root, and the underneath was a totally different color. 

I felt like it was one of those things that was "good from far, far from good"

Plus I kept thinking about fall colors and all the shades I love to wear as a brunette, and it just pushed me over the edge. 

So back to a brunette I went.

I can't help but love me as a brunette even if it's a little boring and expected. 

I may try blonde again next summer, but next time i will go more gradual. 

It was fun and now I have learned a few things-I was surprised at how well I could pull off blonde.  

Thanks so a sis. in law who does hair since my first hair stylist was out of town already to help me dye it back. 

...thanks to all that saw me as a blonde and lied threw there teeth telling me it looked good...you are too kind

So honest vote please...Brown or Blonde or somewhere in between? 

Summer Stay-Cation

Once we got home from Chicago we continued with our at home vacation. 

We squeezed in lots of fun day trips and activities and continued to cross things off our bucket list. 

Erik's mom came down and we went to the Patrick Henry reenactment of the 2nd Virginia Convention at St. Johns church. 

This was where Henry gave his famous speech "Give me liberty or give me death!" 

It was really cool! It's a beautiful historic church right in the heart of Richmond. 

Trips to the pool with the fun one. (daddy) 

We also had a lot of first this summer (bowling) and Lucy's first movie at a theater! 

We thought the summer kid movies for $1 was a good place to start. 

They played Rio which none of us had seen and we all LOVED it. 

It was super cute and Lucy stayed attentive the whole time. 

p.s...that popcorn cost double what it cost us for all of us to get into the movie-can you say "suckers!" 

We made it to Virginia beach with our friends the Owens. 

It was there first time on the Atlantic Ocean and it was Lucy's first time at Va beach. 

It always takes Lu a while to warm up, but this time once she did we couldn't get her out of the water! 

She was super brave and loved jumping the waves! 

It was a perfect day! 

Lucy has a new friend- Taley. 

We went to a free Children's play put on by kids at the Glen Allen Center For the Arts. 

It was really cute. 

And of course we have LOVED watching the Olympics!

So much so that to get NBC (via our antenna) we learned that our t.v. cord had to be up on the wall just like so.  So desperate times...we taped it to the wall. GHETTO! But it has been totally worth it! ;) 

I can't remember a year I watched this many events and loved the games as much as we did this year! 

It has been awesome 

Our summer is officially over!

We are sad to have daddy back at school, but we made some great summer memories! 

Summer Day.. (I'm sick of counting)

Colonial Downs

Two years ago was our first experience at the horse races. We had so much fun we had to go back. 

Lucy and her friends were so excited to see the "horsies!"  

Our family at the track. 

Earlier that day Jenna and I died my hair- very blonde. 

Our awesome friends. 

The Layton's and the Owens

Seizing up the horses/jockeys. 

Deciding which one to pick to win! 

Blondies! ;) 

As we were walking out it started POURING! 

We were parked pretty far away so it was a rough run with all our kids back to the cars. 

I have never gotten so wet in a rainstorm! It was crazy!