Year in Review - the rest of July

After so much really fun traveling, it was also nice to be home!

Here is some of what we were up to.

My sweet husband made me an awesome notepad that felt like my "Portland souvenir" (I can never spell souvenir and always have to look it up!) because it was kind of funky like that but it was actually something that I'd seen in Denver one time and wanted to try my hand at making and then Betty and I were thrifting old books and I got the idea of using various papers to make this notepad to jot grocery lists, etc.  See that yellow paper?  Betty went to the local printing place as we were getting ready to make our books to grab scraps of paper they had to give away and they told her that the bright yellow cardstock was left over from the Pizza Express menus!  That's where we'd gone on our double date!  

I don't scrapbook much anymore so if there's a paper I'm temped to keep, like the map of the Fine Arts Center when Adrian took me there for the Chiluly exhibit, I just punch holes in it and add it to my notepad and then when I come to it somewhere in the middle it is a happy memory!  

Sprucing up David's room some!  Thanks to my wonderful mom, his room now has new curtains too!  The above curtains were just a makeshift "block out the light, the time change is coming" stop gap!

My brother made the pallet bookshelf that I painted yellow and this smaller shelf was in his nursery back in Texas!  

This bookshelf already looks so baby-ish to me compared to what a big 4 1/2 year old he is now.  

The God Loves Me Bible was a garage sale find - I think at the same garage sale where I got the big blanket basket for Cora's room! - and we LOVE it!  It is a really, really good book if you can get your hands on a copy.  

organizing in the craft room

a summertime staple for us!  Sooo yummy!  

I found this little scrap of cloth with a rooster appliqued on it and I want to make it into a tea towel but here it is six months later and it is still sitting in a drawer . . . :( 

This photo was from a memorable dinner.  My in-laws came for a visit in July and my mother-in-law took us as well as my parents out for dinner at a local restaurant called Blue Star.  Well, it was raining as we drove out and shortly after we were seated (and thankfully after we'd read the menus and decided what we'd like to eat) a big storm blue out the power in the whole block I think!  All of the waiters and waitresses were gathered at the counter separating the open kitchen from the dining room holding the flashlights on their cell phones over the work space.  The chefs were amazing at being able to carry on and our food arrived and it was such a surreal experience to eat without really being able to see your food despite the candle on the table and the open door letting in a bit of light from outside.  We all had a great time and made a fun memory as well as eating some good food! 

Train tracks . . . ever present and I love it!

Backyard cousin time!  My in-laws did happen to come the one really hot week of the summer!

On their last day we all drove up to Mueller State Park for a cook out to send everyone off.  It was so much fun!  Cora did some of her first standing on her own that day for Grandma on a picnic blanket on uneven ground at that!  

my man

so thankful for my terrific inlaws!  

Auntie time

cousins

One Sunday night we just went to a new to us park and had a little impromptu easy sandwich dinner.  It is a great memory!