Tuesday

Our kitchen is done! I just have a few touches left to do with the curtains and hang a couple of things up, but I'm calling it DONE. RJ put about 800 nails in last week (no joke) to get up all the floor boards, trim, quarter rounds, and trim, trim, trim. We've got a lot of trim work. And I love it! I got the job of priming and painting. We're a good team.

I'll post photos soon! I'm sure you are all dying with anticipation, right?! 

I'll at least leave you with some pictures of the kiddos. 

Henry talked me into buying Popsicles the other day and we've been enjoying them on the front steps. This August has been so awesome in the weather department!

My hours and hours (and years) of practicing braiding hair on my Barbie head have finally paid off. I can get Harper's hair into a french braid. One of the many (little) things I love about having a girl.

Then there's my boy. He has completely stopped napping and after a few rough weeks at first, he's doing great with it. He now just does "quiet time" either in his room or sometimes downstairs with me. One day he came down after his quiet time covered in marker:

He was pretty proud of himself and I have to admit I was a little proud too. He usually hates getting messy so this is a big step for him! 

And one of the many (little) things I love about having a boy? The nightly wrestle matches. After supper Henry has started cleaning up his toys without being asked, to make room for the nightly brawl. He's always the superhero (usually Spiderman) and RJ is always the bad guy. I sit on the side lines and save them from the bad guy and encourage Harper to get in on the action too. (and she usually does...and is pretty scary about how tough she can be) I love that she has a girly side but I really love that she has a tough side. Boys, watch out.

Hope you are all having a great week!

We kind of had a bummer weekend with RJ being sick for most of it, but thankfully we still had some fun with the kids last week when we got back from our vacation and spent the day all together on Tuesday....so it made the stuck-at-home weekend not so bad.

We had some Groupons to use up (seriously, what was life like before Groupon??) and started off with a walk to Great Harvest Bread Company.

The kids shared a yummy muffin and RJ and I got a cinnamon twist. Probably the best things ever created.

RJ and the kids did some racin'.

And then it was off to the zoo. (again...with our groupon zoo pass)

It was a beautiful day to go! I let the kids choose just one animal to feed each time we go since we go quite a bit. This time they chose the goats.

Then it was off to use another groupon at Flour downtown. They serve pizza by the slice. Pretty yummy!

We ate outside downtown. I love being outside downtown over the lunch hour for some people watching and the best part is that they all have to go back to work...but I don't have to. :)

The kids walked through the water on the way to the library.

We checked out some books and headed home for naps.

It was such a fun family day!

We also got to see Alisa and her 3 handsome boys and eat ice cream at Smokey Row.

And got the official call that Henry made it off the waiting list and into preschool! So he and I went over to take a little tour and pick up some paper work. He's going to a preschool at a church, but it works with the public schools so it is FREE. If we would have had to pay we wouldn't have done preschool, but I'm thankful for how it is going to work out. He'll go M-Th for a few hours in the morning. When we were talking the tour I actually got a little choked up...but now we're just excited. He doesn't start until Sept 6th so we've still got lots of time to party!

Here he is in front on the doors. It's a beautiful church!

We had a super fun week and are ready for another one. 

Hope you all have a great Monday!!

Maine

Talk about the best weekend evah. We left for Boston early last Thursday morning with our "free" stand-bye tickets. We got on both of our flights with absolutely no problem and got into Boston right after lunch time, rented our car, and drove north to Maine. We spent a lot of our time in Portland:

It was full to the brim with tourists, but still so beautiful and lots of fun. 

We found an amazing ice cream shop called Mountain Desert Ice Cream and we may have eaten there everyday...cuz it was seriously that good. 

The first night we ate at a little restaurant with picnic benches on the dock. It seems like a majority of the restaurants there had picnic benches outside to sit on. Lovely.

RJ is a little more adventurous than I and ate steamers (like clams) and gross things like raw oysters. Yuck. I stuck with the fish and chips, fish sandwiches, lobster and shrimp rolls. Delicious.

On Friday we drove up north to Bailey Island. It was my favorite day! The drive was absolutely breath taking. There were times where we were surrounded by water. I think I said "I can't believe how beautiful it is!!" about 100 times. Just gorgeous.

There were tons of little tourist cruises you could go on and we settled on one of the cheaper ones that was about 1 1/2 hours on this boat:

We saw all the little islands around, learned how they catch that yummy lobster, and even saw 2 dolphins!

After the boat ride we ate at Cook's and had our first lobster. It was really good, but we honestly didn't love it as much as we were hoping we would. Still pretty delicious though. Now, put that lobstah in a yummy roll with a tiny touch of mayo and we were in love.

These are just some more pictures from the edge of Bailey island.

There were so many beautiful homes! Probably a majority are just summer homes. Can you imagine living in this one?!

On Saturday we took a ferry over to Peaks Island. We walked around and ate some lunch. Again, it was beautiful!

We walked out on the rocks and read and relaxed for a while. It was so peaceful.

That night it was more yummy food, of course, and went to this cute little shack that was about 1/2 mile from our hotel. It was so good! And of course we just sat on one of the picnic benches they had in the back.

First thing Sunday morning we headed back to Boston. We were going to stay until Monday, but were a little nervous about the stand by tickets getting home. Plus, it rained all day so we couldn't have done much anyways. We couldn't get on the 11:00 flight....and couldn't get on the 1:30 flight....and barely, barely, got on the 5:30 flight. We didn't even get to sit by eachother, but were glad we made it! 

So it was a short trip, but by far the best trip we've ever gone on together. It's a bit heartbreaking thinking we'll probably never get up there again, or at least not for a very, very long time. It was exactly what I was hoping it would be. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Seriously, it was beautiful!

And now this week I've had the blues. Thinking "last week at this time we were...." but it is good to be home. In the middle of nowhere. Far, far, far from any ocean. But it's home. And I love it.

Finally take the time to blog, but no pictures....I'll try and work on that. 

We've been hitting up the splash park a lot these last few weeks and the kids are loving it. We've also been playing tons of "Spiderman and Spidergirl". Henry IS Spiderman. Constantly.

Henry is also going to preschool this Fall. I've never been a huge preschool person and never planned on sending him, but we are all so excited about the decision. I think the transition to full day Kindergarten will go so much more smoothly to start off this way (and it's a nice transition for mamma too). He is SO excited to meet new friends and play and learn. He's probably the most social little human being I've ever known so it's probably going to be the most exciting thing he's ever done. I/him/we can't wait!

I'm getting wicked excited for our trip to Boston next week. Wa-hoo!!

We should probably be responsible and get a cheap hotel, but there's a bed and breakfast on an island that you have to take a ferry too....I mean really, we're probably not taking a trip like this again for a long time....right?? Maybe at least one night there?? Please, RJ?? :)

I signed up for Pitnerest and just as expected, I want to change my entire house because of it. I've been wanting to paint the trim in my house white the entire 6 years that we've lived here, but was constantly talking myself out of it. And now I'm very seriously considering doing it. I may lose a few friendships over this decision, but the thought of the amount of light and freshness it would bring to this house makes me kind of giddy. I'm so over dark. And I'm sure all you die hard natural woodwork people would eventually forgive me and love me again, right?! Right??!

I made some roman shades for our kitchen and once we get them hung up I'll post some pictures. Still have to get the floor trim up and a few small things, but then it will be entirely done. Phew.

Hope you are all enjoying this beautiful (and hot!) summer! 

Maine

I'm sure I've told you all a bazillion times (because I'm so excited!) (not because I'm bragging) (really!) but RJ won a couple of free airline tickets a while back at his job to ANYWHERE-IN-THE-UNITED-STATES. I guess they were technically $12.50 a piece since he spent $25 on raffle tickets for a fundraiser they were doing, but still, they feel free.

The little kicker is that they are stand-by tickets so there's that chance we'll be stuck in an airport for longer than expected, but we're thinking (hoping) that flights to Boston via Milwaukee won't be too crowded.

It was hard to make the final decision, but have both wanted to rent a car and drive the coast of Maine for a long time and thought this was our best chance to do it. We watched some Anthony Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern on Netflix and it has made us giddy for all the yummy seafood and for the BEAUTY of the coastal towns and beaches. We'll just be going from a Thursday through Monday trip, but are making tentative plans to move there in a year of so.

(kidding)

(kind of)

Have any of you been there? Any suggestions?
Any souvenir requests?

Have a great Thursday!!

Bits and Pieces

We went to a parade (on the 3rd) for the 4th of July.

It was so funny to see their different personalities while they watched the parade and collected their candy.

Henry would wait patiently and wave. If there was some candy on the ground next to him I'd tell him he could pick it up and put it in his bag....but he already had that candy so didn't need more. (so not like his candy-lovin' momma!)

Then we let Harper get down and join in on the fun. She'd run out into the street to grab the candy. And the first piece she got, she opened and shoved in her mouth. Every piece of candy she'd open and shove in her mouth before we had a chance to stop her. I don't think the idea of eating his candy even crossed his mind until he saw his crazy sister in action.

I love how sweet he was being, but I'm sure the next parade we go to he'll be a little more ambitious....he's got to keep up with Harper!

On the 4th of July we went on a walk down to one of the new, super cool bridges. It was hot, but fun.

Harper wore a super pretty dress on Sunday, but would not let me get a picture. Sunday mornings can be so dramatic around here.

I did a couple of paintings for someone and earned myself some money to buy the supplies for the window treatments in our kitchen/dining room. 

Here's the fabric:

Love.

And here are the cabinets. I got a new green and don't plan on distressing anymore. I got some cute new glass knobs for the drawers and then we just used our old handles for the doors.

My favorite part about the island is having snacks and doing crafts.

Henry is quite the artist, huh?!

Here are some plates I've collected over the last few months for a collage above our buffet.

And this fuuuuuunky-licious clock I got at a garage sale. 

To paint or not to paint?

And a funky little bird and cute dishes (for 10 cents!) for my shelves.

And 16! tie headbands to send off to my friend's store in Nebraska.I hadn't had a chance to crafts in weeeeeks, so it was fun.

And those are some bits and pieces or life lately. We've had lots of fun playing at splash parks, riding bikes, and playing with friends. Oh, Happy Summer!

Have a good week!

We had a fun week at my parent's house playing with all the Bloom cousins. We got to meet our newest, David, too! He is super, super, sweet and I can't wait to see him again.

The fun thing about going to my hometown is all the Swedish horses...they are everywhere. Little ones on the downtown businesses, people's houses, and a couple of very large ones too.

No trip is complete without some sort of mural:

The weather was kind of a bummer and it was cloudy and rainy everyday. Which meant lots of playing inside and lots of shopping at junky thrift stores (my favorite kind!!) in nearby towns. We came back Thursday night to a house that had COUNTERTOPS! Woo-Hoo! That was a long 6 weeks to wait. Here's a tiny sneak peek at our island. You can see a part of the green paint I started with, but it's not quite right so it's back to the paint store for me.

Here's a totally random picture of our new fish. One of them passed away while we were gone, but RJ replaced it by the time we got home. He also bought a ghost shrimp, which supposedly help keep gold fish bowls a little cleaner. Unfortunately, the little shrimp only lasted a day...when we woke up in the morning we found it next to the bowl on the counter. It had jumped out. Isn't that disgusting?!

This week my in-laws are in town so we all went to the zoo yesterday for Member Monday, which means FREE train rides! 

We also got to feed the giraffes:

And the birds:

We have loved having a zoo pass this year. *Hopefully* they do another groupon deal next year!

RJ has today off so we're working on the kitchen some more and heading out to the lake house this afternoon to spend more time with grandma and grandpa. Don't you just love summer?!

Hope you all have a lovely week!