Swim to Daddy

Lucy is now 12 weeks old, and is learning to swim. She has loved the pool since we brought her home, thus making it neccessary for us to reinstall the child fence around it from when we were little. She and my dad have become best friends and he loves to take her swimming. Thus, I present to you, a video I shot earlier today, of Lucy learning how to swim to people.

Overexposed

So I just picked up the new Maroon 5 cd, Overexposed at Target (special edition) and I'm so excited!! The cd just came out yesterday and the regular version features 12 tracks. The special edition has three bonus tracks plus Target added two Payphone remixes.
1. One More Night
2. Payphone (featuring Wiz Khalifa)
3. Daylight
4. Lucky Strike (listening to this track right now)
5. The Man Who Never Lied
6. Love Somebody
7. Lady Killer
8. Fortune Teller
9. Sad
10. Tickets
11. Doin' Dirt
12. Beautiful Goodbye
*13. Wipe Your Eyes
*14. Wasted Years
*15. Kiss
* denotes bonus track
Target Exclusive Tracks:
Payphone (Supreme Cuts Remix) featuring Wiz Khalifa
Payphone (Cut More Remix) featuring Wiz Khalifa

I have now listened to six songs and it is amazing. Best cd of the summer and definitely worth $13.99 (the regular version is $9.99)

The Secret Speech

When it's baking hot outside, sometimes it's nice just to sit inside and read. Yesterday I finished an awesome book, The Secret Speech by Tom Rob Smith. It's the second book in the Child 44 trilogy which is set in Soviet Russia. No spoilers in here, I promise, just a decent book review. The Secret Speech was not as good as Child 44 because it had less mystery to it, which I loved about the first book. However, it's still a thriller and Tom Rob Smith's brilliant writing style makes it hard to put the book down. Both books have been very fast reads. I can't wait to get my hands on the final book in the trilogy, Agent 6.

Beating the Heat in the House

Yesterday Texas weather got up to 112! Plus any humidity. Today it didn't get as hot but we have been in the triple digits all day - quite difficult for quadruplets to play outside. So today we thought of the poor birds who have to live outside 24/7 and built them some bird houses (plus the nanny here didn't really feel like sitting outside in the heat for hours when there was a human house to sit in. We had some empty milk cartons so I covered them in construction paper and cut two holes in the front an let the kids decorate them. While I cut the holes I had the kids make their own birds to keep them busy and then we put them on the birdhouses with some orange pipe cleaners for legs. I punched a hole in the top and put some yarn through it so we could hang it in the tree. We also thought it would be nice if we provided the birds with a snack on such a miserable day. So I put some peanut butter in the bottom and had the kids sprinkle in some Cheerios. And there you have it two birds houses to beat the heat in.

Kids Crafting Pinwheels

It's a bright and sunny day so today I helped the kids make pinwheels. There were several things they couldn't do (like sticking a pin in the center) but it proved to be a good lesson in shape recognition. First we folded a rectangular piece of paper into a square and cut off the excess. Then by folding the paper we created an "x" in the square. Next, I helped them cut each fold of the "x" about halfway to the middle. Then we folded four flaps up and I pinned it all through the center to a chop stick. (it's good to already have made a hole in the chop stick because trying to make one with a pin that has paper on it is a wee bit hard).

Fox Hunting

Well, if you haven't heard, WE GOT A PUPPY!! Sunday. Her name is Lucy and she's a Pembroke Welsh Corgi (nine weeks old as of Saturday). Today I made my first video of her. Check it out!

Happy Wednesday!

Tin Boat Race

Got this idea from an episode of Sesame Street, and I just had to try it with the kiddos. I cut big squares of tin foil and let them shape them into boats. I cut out construction paper flags and stapled them to straws for the masts. I also stapled the straw to the tin foil when the kids had finished building their boats. They found building them a bit challenging so I had to help more then I would have expected. All in all they turned out well and floated very nicely when we took them swimming.

DIY Suncatchers for Kids

While nannying, I try to do crafts with the kids every day. Today we made Suncatchers. I got little soufflé dishes and lined them with wax paper (I traced the dishes and cut the wax paper into circles so it would lay right). Then I let the kids arrange plastic beads in a single layer in the dishes. I preheated the oven to 400F and then put the dishes in the oven for twenty minutes. When the came out I took the wax paper with the beads still attached out of the dish and poked a hole in the plastic while it was still hot. When they had cooled a little I peeled off the wax paper and strung yarn through the hole so we could hang them up outside. They look really cool but they don't really catch the sun all that well because the beads weren't clear. Other than that it turned out really well and clean up was super easy because the dishes were clean since I had lined them and the only thing I really had to do was throw out all the wax paper scraps.

Beach Fun

My Vera Bradley Large Resort Tote came by way of the FedEx man yesterday evening and I'm so excited to use it today. I'm going to a friends house so I have it all packed up. The large size seemed really big when I first got it out of the big green box but after putting my Vera Bradley towel in with my bikini, I'm glad I went with the large instead of the medium tote. The surface is easy to wipe down. I originally wanted the bag in island blooms, but they no longer carry the large resort in that color, just the medium. So instead I went with the very popular Very Berry Paisley. The towel was a gift from my friend Lauren a couple years ago and the pattern, though Vera Bradley no longer carries it is Make Me Blush (you can probably find it on eBay).

Gearing up for school

For graduation, I had gotten a couple of Vera Bradley pieces to help me at college next year- a laptop backpack and an XL duffle bag. I had already gotten a large duffle in my favorite pattern (pics to come when I actually use it) so I took the other two items back. I exchanged the backpack and got my favorite pattern (folkloric) and then the duffle I returned and picked out a beach resort tote that they didn't have in stock at the store so they are shipping it. I figure it will be nice to take to Tech's lazy river.
But anyways, back to the backpack. It features a side pocket for a laptop of 15 inches. The middle pocket doesn't seem to large when first examined but is expandable for textbooks and binders and such. The front pocket has places for pens, an id and a pocket deep enough for my tiNspire (amazing). I can't wait to try it out in Lubbock.

Sculpture Ceiling

So at the end of May I did say I would post some of my other sculpture projects, and slowly but surely I will. I just need to take pictures of them all. For one of our smaller projects we painted ceiling tiles that will go in the new arts building. I painted mine orange with some Hawaiian flowers. Happy Thursday!

Nanny Crafts Day Two

Second day of nannying. We went on another walk this morning which ended with us playing at the park, but hey. We saw some rabbits which the kids love to watch. When we got home I found some pictures of animals including a bunny and we did watercolor silhouettes. I cut out the animal each kid wanted and the. Taped it down on some printer paper. A thinker watercolor paper would have worked better as the printer paper ripped quite a bit. Anyways, then the kids took one or two colors and paired right over the top of the picture. When I removed the animals from the paper the original white was left behind. We hung them up on the window to dry. They look really cool, especially for four year olds.

Happy Nanny Days

It's my first day of nannying an I just put the kids down for a nap. This morning we took a walk around the neighborhood and we saw a bunch of birds. We talked about how birds fly (we didn't quite get into pressure systems but hey, they're four) and what birds like to eat. When we got back to the house we made bird feeders for the birds we found on our walk. We started with pipe cleaners and I put a loop at one end so we could hang the feeders when we were done. Then I let the kids string the Cheerios on the pipe cleaners. The hardest part for them was not eating all the cheerios first. When the pipe cleaner was almost full I twisted up the end so the Cheerios wouldn't fall off. Then we hung them up on the bird houses outside for the birds to enjoy. We sure enjoyed making them!