How Many Cousins Can We Fit In One Car!?!

THIS MANY!!!! (side note-We were only driving from the condo to the lake on side streets so don't act like I'm a horrible auntie who doesn't care for their safety!!)

Summer Project

This summer we have two big projects: girls' bedroom and our backyard. We are almost finished with the girls' bedroom. Their old room was messy, crowded, and blue. The girls share a larger room, but their bunkbeds were very bulky and the color was meant more for a boy. We allowed them to pick out their own colors. Taylor choose neon green and Kala selected purple. I was a bit hesitant at first for the combo, but I am quite happy with the outcome. Eric was wonderful and painted the room as fast as he could. The girls helped a little bit, but even I started to get a headache being around the paint fumes for too long. Here's a rundown of the project:

3 days of painting (including priming which is annoying!)
6 cans of paint
2 weeks of searching for the correct color of purple for the sheets (I found the green but NO PURPLE!) and approximately 10
stores and numerous online searches
2 new closet organizers
2 nights sleeping in the living room while we finished their room
6 new shelves


This room isn't 100% finished. I still need to do the window treatments (WHICH I HATE!) and we are waiting for the new wall decorations to arrive. Taylor will have a trumpet and music notes and a large "T" for her wall. Mahkala will have a large "M" for above her bed. We are still searching for gymnastics pics. They are also super excited and anxious because we promised them our flatscreen TV once we buy ourselves a larger one (Eric's wish). We are going to mount that on the wall across from their bed and set up the Wii, but that is probably a month out. As for the backyard-it's still a work in progress. So no pics of that right now. It's about halfway done. We left all the really expensive stuff for last (concrete, patio, hot tub, etc).

Happy July

Happy 4th of July. July? NOOOOOOOOOOO! That means summer is moving by too fast :( We don't want school to start yet. Stupid Target already has their back-to-school stuff out. What is wrong with them? I feel like I should sue them or something. They are bringing my happiness down. 4th of July was the best this year! Eric's brother, Joe, and his family came to stay with us for 5 days. Colton is 2 3/4 and Sylvia is 9 months. They were a lot of fun. Sylvia is so cuddly and sweet and Colton is hilarious. He is so talkative and he understands so much. He loves going to get snowcones and run errands with Auntie Stephanie. He also does not enjoy being at the lake if he can't ride the jetski with Uncle Eric! We went to the lake one day and rode jetskis and went on Dennis' new boat. I wanted to learn to wakeboard so bad, but I couldn't get up. Boy was I sore the next day! I did manage to kneeboard, but I did that all the time growing up so I don't feel as though I achieved much. Kala tried to kneeboard as well. It was a lot of fun. The weekend was tons of fun: BBQ's, dinner for David's 14th b-day, swimming, park, snowcones, and, of course, FIREWORKS! Joe's family lives down south where they cannot have fireworks, so this was a special treat. Colton loved watching them go off, but his favorite was the pop-its you throw. He'd laugh every time one would pop. If it didn't work, he'd run over and step on it. It was a fun, safe holiday which is the best. *Our dogs, Soy Sauce & Brownie, came outside to watch as well. Soy Sauce is a big baby and kept crawling in my lap and hiding her head. Mind you-she's a 50 lb lab!!