Summer Vacay Dailies- Halfway there

This post marks the enjoyment of half of our summer vacation!  It is just flying by and I'm beginning to think about all the work I need to do before school starts.  Which would be a lot easier to do if I could get in to my classroom and set stuff up, but I guess B&G is installing a new air conditioner over my tile area which can't be waxed until they're finished.  As Cailyn would say- UGH.  Maybe it's God's way of making sure I don't work away the few weeks I have left with the fam before getting back to the grind.  Here's to another fantastic five weeks!

Saturday July 5

Grandmas, Papas, Aunts, Uncles, and Greats came by to celebrate an early birthday for Cailyn.  What's more satisfying than Pizza Ranch broasted chicken and Dairy Queen ice cream cake??  I suppose getting new running shoes, headband craft kit, new clothes, princess goodies, and your first bike might top the food in this case! 

Sunday July 6

This summer marks our 5 year anniversary, so I made Jerod do something special with me.  My mom and sisters stayed with the kids after the party on Saturday and he and I drove up to Minneapolis to spend some time by ourselves.  Of course we had to stop at IKEA so I could get some things for my classroom and then we hit up a restaurant near our hotel.  They just happened to be showing the UFC pay-per-view, so we stayed for over 3 hours having drinks and watching the fights.  Let me just say that drinks up there are not as cheap as they are in Iowa!  Sunday we watched the Yankees play the Twins at Target Field.  Jerod is a huge Yankees fan and loves Derek Jeter, but I had heard he hadn't really been playing a lot of away games so we were ecstatic to see he was in the lineup!  It was amazing to see the crowd reaction to him in his last season before he retires- the entire stadium cheered when he was announced- louder for him than any Twins player.  Goes to show the legacy he has left in the world of baseball.

Monday July 7

Monday night was a varsity double header and the kids and I decided to walk to the field instead of driving.  We should really do that always next year for home games, it's so close!  (But then again, everything in this small town is.)  Remember the rabbit having babies?  Well, we hadn't seen anything for a couple weeks and then we found this little guy.  We saw him for a couple nights after Monday evening, but there were some cats lurking around....I think they my have nabbed him. :( 

Tuesday July 8

First round of districts for softball was on Tuesday, the girls played a good game, but in the end they just didn't make it happen.  However, Colby loved all the cheers they were doing in the dugout- couldn't stop babbling while they were cheering!  We also FINALLY got the back door painted the same as th,e front door, woohoo!

 Wednesday July 9

This was a chill day, working on the garage again, eating powdered donuts for breakfast, and hanging out at a(nother) baseball game- this time with my former fellow baseball widow, Jamie, and the rest of her clan! 

 Thursday July 10

I got my new personalized planner in the mail!!!!  I spent a little extra on this, but it will last me through December 2015 and it's a perfect fit in the diaper bag and my purse, so I can bring it everywhere.  I love being able to write things down rather than put them in an electronic organizer.  I feel like if I write it down I internalize it better and kind of have a little alarm in my memory when something's coming up.  I tried to get a couple more 9 month pics of Colby, painted a wall in the kids' room (that's all I have time for- one wall a day when I have an hour), went to the final home and regular season game, and watched Cailyn try Sour Patch Kids for the first time.  She was not impressed.

 Friday July 11

Happy Birthday to our sweet baby girl!  Leah got her special cupcakes from Scratch Cupcakery- she certainly knows the way to Cailyn's heart.  :)  We didn't do much this day, except prepare for her Mermaid and Pirate party for Saturday.  When asked what we should eat for lunch, Cailyn said pretzels at Sam's- I swear we eat there at least twice a week in the summer.  The evening was a short one for her as she has been refusing to sleep at nap time lately, but then being a crabby pants the rest of the day.  I told Jerod I think I'm too hard on her sometimes because I don't let her get away with anything, but I just want to be consistent.  He reassured me that it's hard now, but it should pay off later.  I can only hope that's true.

Hope you are enjoying this beautiful weather we're going to be having!

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Summer Vacay Dailies - Cuatro mis amigos

Saturday June 28

The Trojans had the extraordinary opportunity to play at the Waterloo Bucks stadium, and they won the first game!  Which was awesome for them, but meant that we had to find something to do for the next 3 1/2 hours until their second game would start (if it started on time).  We opted to have lunch with Jerod and some of his players and then hit up the mall in Cedar Falls.  It was perfect because Colby slept while we strolled, I got to do some shopping, and Cailyn was able to play on the rides when Colby woke up and ate lunch.  They started the second game but it was stopped during the second inning due to impending monsoon weather!  The drive home was interesting for the first 20 minutes- and by interesting I mean the road was pretty much invisible because it rained so hard.

Sunday June 29

A chill day at home before borrowing a friend's truck to pick up some more drywall and supplies for finishing the rest of our garage project.  Colby is becoming quite the climber, I went to grab a few things out of a tub in the attic and looked down to see him halfway up the ladder!  I had a minor heart attack and tried desperately to hold back the fear in my voice and not startle him while I called for Jerod to come grab him, land alive!!  Also, Cailyn has been in full "selfie" mode lately and I am constantly finding pics she has taken of herself on my Google+ account, such a ham.

Monday June 30

While Jerod got a hair cut the kids and I went to The Ark, a pet shop in Ames, to get an animal fix.  Have you ever had a parrot talk to you?  It's not cute, it's totally creepy- that's the culprit in the top left photo.  My favorite thing to see in the pet shop is the saltwater fish- I would love to have a tank except that would require me to pay for them and upkeep their tank and I'm not committed to that.  It rained ALL DAY on Monday- like, it poured cats and dogs ALL DAY.  There was a river running between ours and our neighbor's house, which is never a good sign for our basement.  We had water leak in again- ugh.  The good news is that we knew to just pull everything back to save the carpet and started ripping out wet carpet pad and sucked the water up right off of the concrete.  Our steamvac was filling up in about 30 seconds flat.  Craziness.  We had some assistance from a good friend of ours and we repaid him with a beer and dinner from a restaurant in town- Lord knows we weren't cooking anything after that fiasco.

Tuesday July 1

Working on the garage, painting pictures bought from the Target dollar bin, attending story time at the library and making paper tambourines, going to the park, and making up rained out baseball games is how we spent our Tuesday.  Easy.  Breezy.

 Wednesday July 2

I have never truly tried to get an actual nice photo of the kids together.  But, Cailyn is going to be 3 and Colby is going to be 9 months so the timing is perfect since I'm taking their milestone pictures anyway.  So we went to the old schoolhouse in town to try some and they were both in moods, but I somehow ended up with a couple great candids.  Thank Heaven for digital cameras!  If I weren't able to take as many photos as possible I would never get a shot!

 Thursday July 3

My mom and a few of my siblings came out for the weekend and traveled with us to an away game at probably the most mosquito-affected site in the conference.  I'm thankful for the cool weather that night, which made it easy to wear long sleeves and pants to protect from those stinky blood suckers.  The boys won a great game to cap off a fun night!

 Friday July 4

Our 4th of July was spent at home with s'mores and sparklers.  There may have been some drinks involved, too.  :)  On this day and everyday I am so thankful for the sacrifices of all the military men and women and their families, that ensure we are able to do these things with our families whenever we want.  Thank you!

 

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DIY Hollow Core Door Headboard

This post is especially for people who have limited options of where to put a bed without a headboard.  We have a little conundrum in our bedroom because of the four walls: one houses our closet, two have windows, and the other would put our bed right in front of our door and is also the same wall I have a giant mirror hanging.  I'm all for keeping things fresh in the romance department- but a mirror at the head of the bed is...awkward, just awkward. So that leaves the windowed walls...ugh.  [Insert image of pillows falling behind the bed because you can't push the bed against the wall or the curtains will be squished.] 

I just wanted something to make our bed look a little grander, our curtains squish-less, and to keep our pillows on top of the bed.  Under our heads.  Where they should be.

I remembered reading an article about all the different ways you can use hollow core doors in DIY magazine once, and Pinterest-ed it to see how others had transformed them into headboards.  After some browsing, I just decided to wing it.  I bought a door and some 1x4s, and a couple door jamb pieces that I planned to use as a kind of a border frame of sorts and jumped right in to my project. 

Here's my door:

I measured the head end of the bed frame, between the parts that you would attach a headboard to.  That section is slightly wider than the rest of the bed frame, I measured about 62.25 inches for our queen size bed.  But don't take my word for it: Measure twice, cut once.  Or in my opinion, measure at least 5 times!

This is where I measured between, but all the way between the outside edges, of the frame.

Here's my door after meeting my circular saw:

I have a pile of scrap wood sitting in our basement that I was able to pull a piece of 1x4 from and cut it to size to fill the gap.  TIP: Brush wood glue onto your filler piece before you insert it in the space you are filling!  I had some fun trying to squeeze glue in there after the fact!

This is where I stopped.  For about a week.  I was stuck.  I wanted the headboard to be high enough to lean against without having a board in my back, but not too high- our bedroom is no master suite, that would look ridiculous to have such a grand headboard. But I knew the door itself couldn't rest on the floor because that would be too low, and the 1x4's wouldn't support the door off the floor.  Hmmm....

Then, one wintry weather day, we were released from school early and as soon as I looked at my mess I figured out how to make it work.  I measured from the top edge of the bed frame to the floor, it was about 8 inches, but measure for yourself, of course.  I decided I would use 2x4's (which I already had from a basement renovation) to create "legs" for the farthest sides of the door.  I would cut two pieces of 2x4 to 42 inches long (the width of the door plus 8 inches).  Then, I would cut two more pieces of 2x4 to 8 inches in length, these would be attached to the bottom of the 42 inch pieces, they support the door.

I also mitered one end of each 42 inch piece at a 45 degree angle.  I didn't want to be able to see the 2x4 from the front of the headboard.  I drilled pilot holes from top to bottom, then used a countersink bit to shave some wood away from each hole so that I could fill in over the screw heads with wood putty.  I secured the suckers to the door with 2 3/4 inch wood screws, about 6 inches apart along the EDGE of the 2x4. Remember: it's a HOLLOW core door, and the frame of the door is the only thing that's solid.  The small 2x4 went under the door and I attached that with 4 wood screws- one in each corner about an inch in from the edges.

It is important that you drill pilot holes before trying to attach screws, even if you don't drill countersink holes also.  The pilot holes allow a path for the wood screws to grab the 2x4, and ensure the screw goes right where you need it to go.  Without them, the screw will likely get stuck, go in crooked, or splinter your wood.

To attach the headboard to the frame of your bed you'll need to drill holes that match up with the bed frame.  I used a page from a shopping list pad and lined up the top and side to the top and side of the bed frame, then I traced the spaces where you put screws through.  I took the template downstairs, lined the top and side up to the part of the 2x4 that was just beneath the hollow core door and traced over the lines with a pen until marks showed through.  I used the biggest drill bit I had to make large holes for my carriage bolts to fit through easily.

Adding the trim around the headboard was as easy as measuring, mitering, and attaching the pieces with my brad gun.  The pieces I bought were already primed.

This is what it looked like before all the finishing touches.

I filled in all the holes made by the brad gun with wood putty and went over the gaps of the mitered seams, too.  Then, I lightly sanded everything down (door, posts, and all) once the putty was dry.  I didn't want gaps anywhere so I also piped some white silicone along all the seams where any wood had been put together and smoothed that out.   I primed the whole thing with KILZ, and then went back and painted it white with some paint we already had on hand. 

When it was dry I attached it to the bed frame using four carriage bolts, 8 washers, and 4 wing nuts (like this: insert carriage bolt through a washer from the back of the headboard and through the bed frame, secure with another washer and a wing nut; tighten securely).

And look!  Plenty of room for the curtains to hang- NO room for pillows to fall behind the bed

I would have been lost without my miter saw and my cordless drill on this DIY- these are probably my two favorite tools ever!

Other materials used:

1. Clamps

2. 1 3/4" wood screws

3. Measuring tape

4. Wood filler (wood putty)

5. Wood glue

6. 4- 5/16"x4" carriage bolts

7. 4- 5/16" wing nuts

Not pictured but also needed: 8- 5/16" washers, paint

This whole project cost me under $60! 

I hope my trial and error on this DIY have been helpful to you!

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Summer Vacay Dailies- 3 weeks down

Saturday June 21

Rose Festival Saturday was full of excitement and family.  Jerod's parents made it up so that his mom, Deb, could do the 5K in the morning, and then they hung out with my siblings and the kids and me the rest of the day.  My little brother and my sister-in-law made it up, too!  The kids were thoroughly exhausted having sat through the 5K, a parade, two baseball games, and Cailyn went up to the carnival rides for the first time.  Do not be silly- she wanted nothing to do with the actual rides (and I don't blame her- have you watched those things jerk when they start up?!), but she was very interested in the foods that were available and settled on sno-cones...hers and mine!  We capped the night off with fireworks and my youngest brothers stayed at the house with the sleeping kiddos while the adults went up town for the street dance.  It's the one night a year that Jerod and I stay out until the bar closes- not to drink excessively, just to catch up with everyone and have some fun outside of the bar in our basement. 

 Sunday June 23

I'm not gonna lie- we did SQUAT.  We felt fine the next day after all the previous night's fun, but it was the exhaustion that got us.  We slept in as late as the kids would let us, which I think was until about 9, watched 1 star movies on cable, played, and went shopping in Ames.  The Yellow Sale was happening and I have a weakness for B&BW's anti-bacterial soaps, and I had a coupon for 40% my entire purchase at the Gap outlet.  Psh!  You know I'm not turning that down!  So I bought a very teacher-esque denim chambray dress and a couple things for my babes.  LOVE that place!

 Monday June 23

Ames day #1 of the week!  I brought the double stroller and while Jerod donated plasma I walked the kids on the part of the awesome paths they have in Ames.  You can go about anywhere in town on those things!  We stopped at a park and then went to Hobby Lobby where I found that lovely cork board, but wasn't willing to spend $40 on it.  I'm pretty sure I can replicate it for much less, so I took a picture for inspiration.  After Jerod picked us up we had lunch at Panchero's where, for me, it's never about the tortilla and ALL about the queso and chips! 

 Tuesday June 24

I found Mega M&M's- they are seriously the size of a nickel!  I've been using a new chocolate chip cookie recipe, too, that makes giant cookies, so I figured it was only fitting to use the Mega M&M's in that recipe.  I can't tell you how much I love these cookies- there are no words.  Try them out for yourself here.  These are not low-cal cookies, so I tried to balance out my indulgence by doing a little workout before we took off for baseball.  Cailyn pet a puppy she had just met that night on her own!  Small victories folks, small victories.

Wednesday June 25

On our baseball-free night we thought it only fair to finally hit up a softball game.  The above gems were also at the game and were happy to play with Cailyn and Colby, which is always very much appreciated.  I love my kids, but it's always nice to get to watch a game that I attend and not have to run around all night tracking foul balls. 

 Thursday June 26

Cailyn found my pink heels from my college days.  I'm not sure why I still have them around or how on earth I was ever able to stay out all night in them!  The home game was rescheduled to Tama because of rain, so instead of tagging along we went grocery shopping, which was looooong overdue!  The evening was topped off with bath time, which is a fan favorite around these parts- especially for me, because then they are so much easier to put to bed.  :)

 Friday June 27

'Nuff said.  Thanks to Jamie, Jenna, and Brody for helping me fill up my flat since Cailyn is still learning how to pick berries efficiently!

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Summer Vacay Dailies - Week Two

 Saturday June 14

A nothing day.  A day when we had Jerod to ourselves- no practice, no games, just us.  We celebrate by doing a whole lot of nothing.  Our gems love wands.  Colby thinks they taste great and Cailyn thinks she can say spells that make Colby walk- let's hope not.  This mom could wait a little longer before hitting that milestone!

 Sunday June 15

We celebrated Father's Day by making monkey bread for breakfast and getting some household work done.  The front door needed repainted after being scratched by wreaths, keys, and bags and such.  I am still in love with the orange door- and I'm going to paint the back door the same color...someday.  Our garage improvements are going slowly, but we're ready to paint the back section so that we can put in the first shelving units and get the tubs out of the middle, hence, giving us space to finish the rest.

 Monday June 16

Cailyn has been asking when her birthday is and when she is going back to the sitter's, so I made her a linear picture calendar, like the ones I use with my students in preschool.  It's been very helpful for her to see how we have lots of "No Kristin" days and when there's baseball games, or special stuff to do.  She loves crossing off days!  Crummy weather held off long enough to get in a varsity double header against East Marshall, and Colby had pancakes for the first time!  He's in love. :)

Tuesday June 17

More baseball and the discovery of Jerod's new nemesis: Mr. Rabbit.  This little guy has dig up three or four little patches in our lawn that are quite unsightly.  Let us know if you have any suggestions for keep rabbits away, besides the obvious running outside chasing it and screaming like a whack-o.  The latter is obviously the easiest, however, we'd like to maintain our dignity in this small town.

Wednesday June 18

What's better than playing at the library park?  Having an impromptu playdate with your good friends there!  I was so busy chatting it up with our friend, Jamie, that I forgot to take pictures of the kids playing together!  The rose garden was had it's final manicure before the Rose Festival weekend began on Thursday night.  Wednesday evening we took in a middle school game- it was so weird to have Jerod on the same side of the fence as us, but we loved it.

Thursday June 19

When it rained, it poured- off and on, off and on.  Baseball was cancelled, so we decided to burn off some steam by visiting McDonald's and playing on the play place.  (Ew, yuck, gross me out- but necessary given the level of energy my daughter had this day- bath night followed for sure!)  Thursday evening Cailyn and I went to our first- and probably last for awhile- Rose Queen pageant.  It was definitely an experience, but it took a long time.  I forgot to take pictures, but the girls were adorably beautiful in their gowns.  I have to give them credit because I would have never had the gumption to compete in such a thing.

Friday June 20

My friend, Mandi, invited us to go swimming with her and her uber-chubby, super adorable son.  Cailyn loves the water, so she was game immediately.  We had a blast playing in the kiddie pool at the country club, I love that they have a swing set right in the pool area so you can take a break from swimming for a bit if you'd like.  After chicken strips, fries, cheese balls, and margaritas we'd called it a day, but I'm so thankful that she thought to invite us.  Friday night our babysitter's daughter was crowned Rose Queen and we dined on Backyard BBQ grub of ribs, leg of lamb, and chili.  I love Rose Festival!

 More pics from the our Rose Festival weekend coming in the next post!  Enjoy your week!

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Summer Vacay Dailies are BACK!

It's that time of year again, when the sun shines, the temps sky rocket, we're traveling central Iowa for baseball games, and I'm desperately reminding myself to take pictures!  That's right folks, welcome back to Brown family summer vacation daily pics!

I wish I could say that we have some amazing vacation planned to somewhere exotic, but the truth is we'll be hanging out in the state of I-O-W-A until we make a short trip to Omaha for a visit to the zoo and to visit grandparents and friends.  None-the-less, we have some of our own kind of fun planned that should keep us pretty busy these next 9 weeks (1 down already, sniff sniff).  Without further ado...

Saturday June 7

The morning was spent becoming reacquainted with my kitchen sink...and ALL of the dishes that it had accumulated while I had finished my last week of school.  The evening saw me playing bartender to some friends.  I'm not an alcoholic by any means, but I was definitely thankful to be done pumping so that I could have two drinks in a row without worrying about waiting hours until all the alcohol had metabolized from my body before I could pump again!  And I just had to show you our favorite jammies of Colby's, a nice blast from the past- I can't believe TMNT is still so popular.

Sunday June 8

On Sunday Dad called and said that he was taking a load out to Michigan and was heading that way on Highway 20, he wondered if we'd like to meet up with him.  Of course, if I can get us together with family, I will always do it, so we drove about an hour North to Holland, IA and had an early dinner with him at a truck stop there.  The kids got to climb around in his rig after we ate.  Cailyn wasn't so sure about it at first, but Colby was all about it!

Monday June 9

Monday, Cailyn watched  Beauty and the Beast for the first time, it's one of my favorite Disney movies but it can get a little scary so I hadn't wanted to show it to her until I thought she was ready.  She loved it!  My mom had to drop off my sister and a coupe other high school students at UNI for  student council leadership retreat thing-y, and then came down to hang out and stay with us for the evening- which, true to our weekly schedule in June, was spent at a baseball game.  The boys played a double header in Reinbeck.  The field there is right next to a swimming pool and a park, which was a perfect way to let little gal run off some steam.  I loved they had some old school equipment, like a manual carousel and one of those HUGE twisty slides.  I went down it with her, but, I'm not gonna lie, I thought I was going to throw up climbing to the top- it was so high!

Tuesday June 10

My dad was supposed to be back in Sioux City by Tuesday, but through some mix-up he ended up having to find another load to take back to the opposite side of the state (he only gets paid for driving if he has a load, so they line up ways for him to transport something to one place and then bring something else back).  He was taking the load to Omaha, but couldn't drop it off until 7am on Wednesday morning, so he stayed with us for the night.  There was a JV double header at home on Tuesday, and Cailyn loved having Papa Mark around to buy here whatever she wanted from the concession stand.

Wednesday June 11

Exactly one month from Cailyn's birthday, and I decided we probably better get ready to send out party invitations.  We're inviting her friends from daycare for a splash party and lunch, so we're going with a mermaid and pirate theme.  I also finally attached hooks to the wall in her room so that we have a place for wet towels and her backpack and such.  When I wasn't busy with those things, we were outside on the slip and slide- which I suck at.  I am to terrified to let my body fall down.  I dropped down to my knees a couple of times and I think it bruised me up a little bit, plus the water was really cold!  Mamba didn't care for the water temperature either, he usually loves the water, but I think it just wasn't that comfortable for him.  Cailyn, however, loved it and I had to carry her inside.

Thursday June 12

The Trojans hosted Grundy Center Thursday night, which was a nice reprieve from working on the garage.  We're insulating and finishing the walls before we put in some industrial-like deep metal shelving in the back to hold our million totes we have.  It's just taking forever.  I forgot how long this process is what with the insulation, the drywall, the taping, the mudding and sanding, yadda, yadda, yadda, so on and so forth, etc. Cailyn was doing to arm stretches with the bands the players left out, and one of her favorite parts of the night is anytime her Daddy comes off the field and she can see him.  I also have been going through closets and cleaning out clothes the kids no longer fit into, and I found the Dinosaur costume I bought for Colby that was waaaay too big for him at Halloween last year.  Well, it finally fits him now, ha!

Friday June 13

Friday I had a dentist appointment, so I took Cailyn with me to get her acquainted with what happens there, and Jerod took Colby to replenish our liquor shelf (classy, we know).  Then, JB donated plasma and I took the kids to the mall to play on the play place.  Which is about the only thing we did since somebody (whose name rhymes with Waylon) was being a turd and hiding under and in all of the clothes racks of the stores we went into.  Someday maybe I'll laugh about it, Friday was not that day.  We had the final game of the week at home against Aplington-Parkersburg, and it was such a close one, that the boys lost in an extra inning.  But, they played amazingly and Colby learned how to get food out of the snack bowl all by himself, so I'm going to count the night as a win!

See you next week!

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