Shower curtain playmat

I saw this idea the other day on filthwizardry.com and it looked like a lot of fun. So today we devoted our afternoon to making a playmat out of a shower curtain liner. The kids already had the matchbox cars out before I really started drawing all the buildings.
And here's the finished product! They love it. Natalie especially. She drives the cars over to the gas station so that they can drive up to the zoo, etc... The little poly pocket type dolls have gotten involved too. What I love, is that its huge and fun, but folds up as small as I want for storage.

For any of you thinking, wow, that is a great idea... Here's a few tips. Tape it to the floor before you start. The roads are really easy and fast to do if you tape two Sharpies to opposites sides of something like a bottle. I used my shaving cream can. Then you can draw both sides of the road nice and evenly and at the same time. Also, on the other site, they colored it with crayon. So I colored ours with Natalie. The crayon went on really well. However, it kind of comes off if you set your hand down on a colored spot for a minute or so. So...I might skip the coloring with crayons part and use colored Sharpies if you want it colored. Although, I wouldn't really want Natalie let loose with colored permanent markers... Even though the crayon kind of comes off, she had a TON of fun coloring it. So, I guess its up to you. Have fun! We did.

Gotta love this time of year

Natalie came up to me the other day and said, "There is no more cold water in my sink. Only warm and hot." For those of us in southern AZ, that is the sad truth once summer rolls around. No more cold water. It reminds me of a time a few years ago when my sister-in-law, Jen was at our house and needed to take a shower. After the water being on for a few minutes she had to come out wrapped in a towel in order to tell me that she couldn't get the water to not be burning hot. I then had to show her that you have to make sure the dial isn't pointed anywhere near the hot side. I remember when I first moved here--I was shocked to come to this realization about the water here. Now its just a way of life. The only cold water to be found is in the fridge.

Smiles

If you chance to meet a frown

Do not let it stay...

Okay, so Damon has been smiling for weeks now, but we have failed to really try to get a good picture of it. Part of the problem is that Nate is gone all day studying for the bar, even on Saturdays (poor Nate) so I have no one to take the picture. I'm sure Natalie's trigger finger wouldn't be fast enough. It's almost impossible (almost, because I did take these pictures) to be the one trying to make the baby smile and taking the picture. Damon sees that camera appear right next to my face and all of a sudden it becomes far more interresting than me, and he zones out into another dimension while staring at it. Anyway, Damon has a really cute smile. He is a pro at the open-mouthed smile. He's getting good at laughing as well. It's so much fun. Natalie loves to see him smile and can't stand to miss a single one. If she is in the other room and hears me talking to Damon in the "I'm trying to get a smile voice" she will yell, "Mom, don't let Damon smile!" and then comes running in. So hopefully I will get some better pictures soon, but for now, these are the best I have. :)

Damon's blessing

We had Damon's blessing yesterday at church. We had a lot of family come to be with us. It was really fun to see everyone and to cram everyone into our little house! Fortunately, the weather was unseasonably "cool" for mid-June and we were able to sit out in the back yard under canopies without being too uncomfortably hot while eating our lunch.

Our handsome little man.

Go Diamondbacks!

With advertising this cute, do you think we would get put on TV if we went to a game? Although, I haven't been keeping up much--I'm not sure we even have Brandon Webb anymore... But that's okay. WE still have Kelton and Damon and that's all that matters.

Just another cute picture of the kids.

Damon's photo shoot

My neice, Delsy took these awesome pictures of my cute little baby. She did such a great job!