Love Summer

Guess what I did this afternoon?

Summertime Fun and Activities

I disappeared for a while!  No great adventures or fabulous vacations to write about, just life with three kids at home all day.  It's been a busy mix of swimming lessons, summer camps, play dates, and other random things from our summertime bucket list.  (We're actually making some good progress on this!).

It seems to be that the kids' new favorite activity is geocaching.  I am hoping it is because they love to explore the great outdoors and see new things, but really I think it must be the swag.  Either way, I'm happy.  It gets us out of the house and away from passive activities on electronic devices. 

Here's a few pics from our latest exploits:

Caching In!

We finally tried geocaching for the first time over the weekend, and the kids had a great time.  (We've been loyal letterboxers for 7 years now, so we'd been reluctant to think about geocaching.)  Now we definitely have a new family hobby to add to our list of things to do.  

Our very first attempt at finding a cache was not successful.  The girls were disappointed that we didn't find anything at first, but we later found out that that particular cache was missing.  We located another geocache on Sunday, and our second try went much better.  We found the cache, the kids traded trinkets, and we logged our first find!  Hurray!  

Because of where the cache was hidden, it sort of looks like the kids are in jail.  I took another photo close by so I could get all the kids together.  I think we will have to do this again.  

Ribbon Bow Hair Ties

I originally made these ribbon hair ties for my two youngest daughters for the Fourth of July.  (I apologize for the awkward photos.  One of my little models was being sort of wriggly!). I found a beautiful tutorial for these at The Ribbon Retreat's blog (there are lots of great ideas for ribbon if you are a ribbon addict like I am).  They were super easy to make and come together fairly quickly.  This project is also a fun way to use up scraps....you end up using a little bit of lots of different ribbons.  

 

 

I altered the directions slightly.  For the hair bow with the dark blue ribbon, I used their recommended lengths (7-8 inches).  When I made the bows for the baby, I used ribbons cut to about 4-5 inches.  Also, I just heat sealed the ends instead of using Fray Check...no waiting for anything to dry. ;).

The girls really enjoyed wearing the ribbons, so I made them a set of pink hair ties for every day.  I can see this continuing for all the holidays--Halloween, Valentine's Day, every color!

Summer Fun Update

Hope everyone is enjoying their summers. We've gotten to several things on our summer wish list, but it seems like we are constantly adding new things that we would like to do. Regardless, I love having an instant list of activities to choose from with the kiddos. How's your summer? :)

San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers

I took a day trip to San Francisco with the girls to see the Conservatory of Flowers.  We thought we would take advantage of the free admission that the Conservatory offers on the first Tuesday of the month.  While we planned to go see the new butterfly exhibit, we never actually made it inside.  We packed a picnic lunch and ate in the outside gardens.  The kids ended up having such a wonderful time playing and exploring the area that the Conservatory was closed by the time everyone decided that they were ready to go in.  :(  No matter--I don't think the kids minded at all.  They had such a great time looking around, no one felt like the missed out on anything!  Audrey was fascinated by all the flowers, people, birds, and activity.  It ended up being a great outing anyways.

Beaded Dangle Necklace

I saw this necklace over at My Girlish Whims and loved it right away. (She has great tutorials for beautiful jewelry pieces--this is one of my favorite blogs to browse for inspiration.)  I ended up making two different necklaces for myself and one each for my mom and mother-in-law for Mother's Day.  This necklace is great because you can switch around the colors to customize it to match an outfit.  The sparkly beads make it a little extra dressy.  The most challenging part was trying to find beads that were just the right size to space correctly across the chain.  I couldn't decide what I would wear more often, so I made one with gold chain and another with silver.  So happy with the way they turned out!