Summer Update

I just realized how little I have been blogging lately.

I guess we can chalk that up to how much fun we have been having! Oh my gosh- my heart is just bursting with tiny hearts and sparkles at the amazing fun I am having with my sweet kids and hubby!! 

*Are you gagging yet? I know I am. I will never seriously refer to George as my hubby, nor will I act like "we are just having the best time ever, and my family is so wonderful, and I am 'one blessed momma'(gag me), and we never fight, and I most certainly never tire of spending every single second with my children!!" 

HAHAHAHAHAHA. Im real people.

I will tell you though that Summer is the absolute best season for stay-at-home-moms. We are getting out of the house pretty much every day, and that in itself is awesome. 

We spend most days at the pool. Are you picturing me laying on a chair enjoying a magazine and some sort of cold beverage while my children play happily in the water?? That would be nice. Reality: I'm playing referee with my kids and the other wild beasts in the pool trying to steal my kids toys, going back and forth from the big pool to the toddler pool with the kids, dishing out melted chocolate cookies, and for the 10,000th time yelling at Lucy to "QUIT DRINKING THE POOL WATER!!" 

One Wonder Mom thought it would be the best idea to bring her daughter's Beauty and the Beast tea party set. Yes, thank you for aiding my child in consuming a gallon of chlorine by letting your pink and purple tea cups float right in front of her. You are practically begging her to have a seat for a spot of pool water.

I have gotten a pretty sweet tan though, and truly I do love going to the pool. If I didn't I wouldn't truck it out there everyday.

 Ryder has continually gotten better and better about not being fearful of the water. The first couple of times we went he wouldn't even think about getting in the big pool. Even with floaties, a life jacket, and my arms around him. But slowly, slowly, he is becoming brave. He will get in the big pool now with just a float around his waist, jump into the water from the edge, and will stick his head under with his goggles on! This is great progress guys. The first time we went I made him get in the big pool to prove to him that it wasn't scary. Yea, that was a disaster. He cried the whole time and during the few spurts of time I convinced him he wasn't going to die he did his usual high pitched nervous laugh the entire time. 

Lucy is the exact opposite, that girl is a fish. We just got her one of these guys:

 

A pink Puddle Jumper float. She loves it. She can swim around in the water without us holding on to her.

Seriously the reason I love Summer so much is because there are so many things to do with the kids.....and they all usually wear them out so they crash super hard for naps. Ahh, my favorite time of day. 

*Side note: We are working with Lucy to start potty training. And when I say "working with" I mean I went to Target and bought her some cute underwear and a Froggy Potty. The End. She has showed some interest in the potty, so I bought her the supplies. Im not really that concerned with rushing her to kiss diapers goodbye though. I have a very casual approach to this. We battled to the death over it with Ryder and I just don't feel like taking a trip down that road again. If she's into it, AWESOME. If not, it will come. I'll let yall know how she's doing :)

Thanks for reading my book of a blog post! Are you having a good summer??

Geometric Fun

Look out my former math teacher.

I know ALL ABOUT Geometry now!

Im not ashamed to tell you people that I had to take summer school EVERY SINGLE YEAR for math starting in 8th grade. I SUCKED AT IT.

Yeah, maybe math isn't my best subject. But when you go to a small private school and your math teacher for your entire life is the same older lady we all called "PeeeJ" (short for her initials) who I think smoked every chance she got- and did lessons on the overhead projector, not really caring if she was connecting with us or not......well, what do you expect? *Disclaimer-she really was super nice, just bad at getting the information across.

So, here are my lovely Geometric finds on Etsy! 

*one more thing. I NEVER learned what slope was in high school. I would hear all of my friends from public school talking about how they were struggling with the slope stuff. People, I still to this day have no idea what the heck slope is or means or anything. Granted, I wasn't in the top math class, but you would think at some point they would have covered that with us!

Moving on.....

Confetti Ring. From Twinklebird. $38.43

Geometric Sketchbook. From Happy Dappy Bits. $7

Snug Geometric Circle Necklace. From Snug Studio. $34

Geometric Linen Pillow Cover. From Paleolochic. $32.03

Handmade Round Beads Necklace. From Juli Made. $32

yay for math!

PS: did you suck at math in high school too? And Im not talking you made C's and it was a "struggle" for you to make a B........Im talking summer school suck, people.

Small Group Fun

Last night our small group met out at Tannehil to grill out.

 

I love this group of people. The fact that I really do get along with and look forward to meeting with every single person in our group is nothing short of a miracle. People get on my nerves very easily. Our group works so well because everyone is really laid back........and we all have kids. That will take an uptight person and straighten them out real quick! All we need is for two more people to get pregnant and the kids will outnumber the adults. We look like a village when we are together.

 

It's awesome.

 

We grilled hotdogs and black bean burgers and ate Smores. 

 

When I was putting my smore together only the skin of the roasted marshmallow made it in the graham cracker. So when I pulled the stick out the inside of the marshmallow was still hanging on. 

So, I did what any normal person would do. I plopped the sticky mess right on top of Lucy's hands. 

She loved it.

 

 

Ryder and Simon look so awesome. Eating a smore is serious.

Why can't George ever make a normal face?

The kids loved running around playing. Not one of us remembered to bring bug spray so Mollie and I walked to the little store and picked up a bottle. After we sprayed ourselves down I tossed the bottle to George. He didn't catch it so it hit the ground and the pump broke.......which meant everyone else had to splash the bug spray on like it was cologne. We didn't get bit but OH MY what a nasty feeling it left on your hands

What a great night. I love that the days are longer :)

Life Lately

Some changes are coming our family's way very soon. Nothing major, just day-to-day life kinda changes.

Here is what has been going on in the Edmondson household as of late:

• As you can tell from the pic above, I have been dreaming of the beach. Planning our beach trip every year is really fun for me. Aside from the actual trip being awesome, planning for one is a list makers dream. I get really excited when I can start making lists. I am a bit of a condo snob though, so it makes picking a place to stay kind of annoying. If the decor looks like it hasn't been spruced up since the 80's I won't be staying. If the deck to get to the condo is made of wood, I won't be staying. Concrete all the way. We learned our lesson last year when Ryder got two HUGE splinters in his feet. It was horrible. 
•  This week is Ryder's last at pre-school. Technically, he can stay through the summer before he moves over to the big boy school and starts 4K. But I thought it would be pretty crappy to be in one class with a teacher and friends you have been with for over a year, then BOOM, the next week you are in a new building, have a new teacher, and probably only a few of your old friends. So I am taking him out for the summer. I'm pretty excited about it. I have been trying to come up with all sorts of fun activites to busy us every day. 
• Since I am taking Ryder out for the summer, I am trying to transition Lucy from two naps a day to one. Last Thursday and Friday I did a little test run; after we dropped Ryder off at school at 9 we ran errands and busied ourselves outside until time to pick him up at 12. She did really good, and didn't start completely melting into a pool of tired kid until around 1:00. Ryder didn't officially switch to one nap until he was two years old. So maybe this is coming a little early for her. But it will be pretty boring for Ryder if we are chained to the house EVERY SINGLE MORNING for at least two hours so little sis can snooze. Resentment anyone?
• After small group last night we drove by our dream house. This house has been on the market for a couple of months, is a bank owned foreclosure, is right in the area we want and has room for our family to grow. We got out and peeked in the windows and fell even more in love with it. Ryder kept asking when we were going to move in. If you are the praying type, prayers for us to get our dream house would be most appreciated. In a few months we will be ready to start trying for baby #3, and we can't really do that in a 2 bedroom 1 bath house and stay sane. In fact, Im not sure we are really sane now lol......four people in under 1,000 square feet is challenging :)
•  I have been searching for some athletic type shorts for the summer. While the Nike Tempo shorts are awesome, I am just not paying almost $30 for shorts to wear with a big T-shirt. I'm just not. If I have $30 to spend on shorts, I am going to be hitting up Anthro to find some on sale that are really cute.......not on some that advertise that they will wick sweat away. So, I have been scouring EBay for some at a cheapo price and always come up empty handed. But this weekend I was at Old Navy and found these guys on sale for $12.50!! I only picked up one pair since I was at the summit and the summit Old Navy is a HOT MESS. Hopefully I can scoot on down to my Old Navy later today and pick up a couple more for the summer. When I am taking the kids to the splash pad, or doing anything where I will be facing the Alabama sun I am in shorts and a tee, so these are super important!

• Can I just add that a plus for these kind of running shorts is having the underwear built in?! Why can't all shorts, or bottoms for that matter, have underwear built in?

Did everyone have a good weekend? I did, and will post later this week about my awesome Mother's Day present! But now I need to go tend to some laundry. I washed Lucy's car seat cover for the first time in......oh.........well, this is the first time :/ So please imagine the nightmare I was putting into my washing machine. Im afraid to go see if it did it's job. Wish me luck! 

Anything going on with you??

*the print above is from the beautiful THE WHEATFIELD on Etsy

I Google Everything

I really do. 

Yesterday morning Lucy and I were sitting on the couch watching Little Einsteins. That is one of the worst shows of all time. I hate that show. HATE IT.

*As a side note if you are interested in the kids shows I really don't mind watching they are as follows: Olivia, Yo Gabba Gabba, Sesame Street, Doc McStuffins, Small Potatoes, and my personal fav: Peppa Pig.

So anyway, in yesterdays particular episode they were trying to save some sort of Monkey from being stuck in a tree before a volcano erupted. It was very intense.

I noticed the monkey had an extremely large nose, like Gonzo from the Muppets. They said what kind of monkey it was, but I didn't catch the name in the midst of all their "Crescendo" talk. If you are unaware of what Crescendo means, here's a definition for you:A gradual increase in loudness. So yes, Little Einsteins taught the parent some music theory. I still hate it.

Back to the monkey.

I hopped right up and went to my BFF Google and typed in "Big Nosed Monkey". 

Oh. My. Snap.(as Ryder would say)

Look at how weird these things are.

They are called Proboscis Monkeys. When I showed them to George last night he was shocked I had never seen these crazies before. I really think they look like a bunch of big nosed old men, don't you? 

Have you ever seen these kind of monkeys? They certainly aren't hanging out at the Birmingham Zoo, I would have noticed a nose that big.

Oh, and if you are in need of a new show to get attached to, please check out the videos below hahaha!

  

Peppa Pig

Small Potatoes

Have a great weekend my friends!!!

Industrial Love

I really love industrial home decor. I have a serious crush on reclaimed wood tables with old casters on the bottom. That mix of old wood and cast iron is so beautiful.

 

Here are my favorite Etsy finds.

 

Huge letter E from junk2funkbiz. This would be so cool to have, not really sure where I would put something this big, but I still love it. I have a small letter E I bought a while back and it sits on a shelf in our entry way. Maybe I should start a letter E collection. Did you know that this is the most popular letter in these searches? Really, every page I clicked through had at least one of these up for sale. So if your name starts with an E like mine, you are in luck!

 

I just love these old wire baskets. From mjh32586

1940's Industrial School desk. Oh buddy, what I wouldn't give to have this for the kids to sit and draw at. From vagabonds and caravans

Large Industrial Whisk Pendant Light. From Dream in Paris. How pretty this would look in a kitchen above an old farm table. If you want to DIY this, here is a tutorial.

This has to be my favorite find. Vintage metal drawers that have been painted fun colors. From Myra Melinda. These would be so cute to sit on a table in an entryway or desk to sort mail. And they are only $10 a piece!

 

Speaking of a table to set those drawers on, this table would be perfect. 4ft Industrial Console Table with hanging locker basket. From Urban Wood Goods. 

 

Locker Room bench. I like that this is skinny, would be great to sit down and put shoes on or off when coming in the door. From Industrial Remains.

 

 

Lastly, metal industrial mechanic stool. From Vintage Love Market. I don't really know where I would put this in my house, but it's cute and little, so there must be some good use for it.

 

Our Favorite Summer Spot

Earlier last week we had a picnic at the Riverwalk. It's one of our favorite places to go in the summer. We eat dinner on a quilt and the kids play in the fountain.....and by "kids" I mean all of us....

Lucy loves potato wedges,

I love Pineapple,

 

and we both love each other!

Time to play! We have to watch Lucy pretty carefully because sometimes she thinks its her own personal drinking fountain. GROSS.

 

Family foot pic

Love it. It's one of the best parts of Tuscaloosa.