Summer

Nathan's last day of school as June 3rd and I was kind of dreading summer mostly because I wasn't sure how I was going to handle Nathan and Brady fighting all day long. And I don't really have that much planned because of some unexpected expenses(transmission on both cars died) we have to keep this summer pretty low key. Mostly I didn't want my boys just to watch TV all summer so following my sister's plan for her kids I set up a bunch of task they must complete before they can ask for any type of screen time. And so far it has been working great. Every morning they have to make sure their room and front room are clean, need to be dressed(this is a big one for Brady who would prefer to spend all day just in his underwear), breakfast and brush teeth, then they must do 30 minutes of homework and complete a chore from their list. I am actually super surprised that they never question this or argue that they don't want to do all the items. Some mornings they have everything done by 8:30 and others they spend the first few hours of the day just playing nicely together.

  Nathan was pretty excited that vacuuming was on his list and happily vacuumed all of the front rooms.

 We do try and get out of the house every once in awhile, luckily I have a friend with a pool. She is always begging me to just dropped by anytime and use it so last week I took her up on the offer and the boys really loved playing at the pool.

 We had this Gold Rush panning kit laying around our house last week so when the boys got bored we pulled it out and tried our and at panning for gold. This was actually a lot of fun and Nathan loved finding the gold flakes. This kit is from the Discovery show Gold Rush and the pay dirt they send is guaranteed to have gold. I mean it was only like 6 flakes but still cool.

How are you keeping your kids entertained for the summer?

Skin Care

About a month ago I received a bottle of Paula's Choice Clinica1% Retinol Treatment to try out from Bzzagent. I was excited to try out this product since I haven't yet added a good anti aging product to my daily skin care routine. Over the past several years I have notices more redness and blotches on my face leaving me uncomfortable with going make up free, something I use to do quite often especially during the summer. I slowly added this cream to my daily evening routine and am loving the results. The first couple weeks I was uncertain about the results. I couldn't visually see any results but my skin did feel firmer and not as dry. Now that I have been using it for a month and am pretty happy with the results. I definitely have less redness and reduce pores. My skin even feels more hydrated something I really struggle with since my skin is ultra dry. I even went makeup free the past couple days. I haven't noticed any changes in my fine lines/wrinkles but overall my skin looks brighter and healthier. Can't wait to see what happens as I continue to use this product.
                         
                                    My first makeup free selfie before starting the treatment.

                                                     2 weeks after using the product

One month after starting and even though the results aren't super dramatic I can tell that my skin feels healthier.

                                All ready for the day without using foundation or concealer.

Backyard

We have been living at our home for two years now and the backyard has pretty much been just a huge mud pit and foxtail(I seriously hate those things) garden. We had some stamped concrete poured this winter to make a back porch and decided it was time to finish up the rest so that the kids could really start enjoying the outdoors more. As you saw in the post I made in April we were able to complete the playground area so all that was left was to has some grass. This took us several Saturdays to prep for but we were finally ready and able to lay some sod last Saturday. And I am so happy with it, is is amazing how just a little grass can make such a difference.
                                                     
                                                    50/50 mix delivered to our home.

Before we got started. The weeds were actually a lot worse but a few weeks earlier Dave had cut them down and I had sprayed a a bunch of them.

 We rented a big tracker so we could rota tile the ground and move back all the new dirt.

                                                             That's a lot of dirt.

                         We also planted a tree that will hopefully provide great shade as it grows.

                                   Ready to add sprinklers and bender board for the planter boxes.

                                      Getting started on laying sod, already looks amazing!

 This ended up going really fast because family and a lot of friends from church came and helped us.

                                                  Doesn't that just change everything?!!!

The planter boxes will stay empty for now, we stretched our budget as far as we could. So hopefully by next spring we will be able to finish up the irrigation lines and plant some bushes and flowers.

8 months

This Cutie is now 8 months old. And he is such a happy baby. He has become a really great sleepr except for 4 days about 2 wks ago when he went on a sleep/nap strike. Which pretty much made us all miserable. he is very mobile now and I never find him where I put him down to play. Mostly it is just a lot of rolling to get where he wants but he has been working on scooting, so it won't be long before he is crawling all over. He loves food and actually prefers solids over his bottle. Although I tried to feed him one of those stage 3 baby foods with the chunks in it and he wanted nothing to  do with it. He is still a momma's boy like the other two but when he is tired and ready for bed he prefers Dad.

It has gotten really hot the past week, and the other afternoon we spent a couple hours out in the heat for Nathan's baseball practice. When we got home Colin was so tired that he fell asleep in his high chair while the rest of us ate dinner. I though it was pretty funny because he never falls asleep any where but his crib. Even the car doesn't help him fall asleep and here he was fighting to keep his eyes open when all he really wanted to do was sleep.

                                                                 Ready to move.

                                                    He loves to hold his own bottle!

                                    

  This giraffe is definitely his favorite toy. I keep it in the diaper bag everywhere we go. It has the perfect legs and neck to hold on and chew.