Labor Day

We mostly had a pretty good Labor Day weekend.
I should start with Friday after work, we loaded up and drove up a canyon to pick wild Blackberries with our friends.  We were not very successful, we were unprepared in dress and kid to adult ratio!  We had fun though and went out for frozen yogurt after.
Saturday we headed to San Diego to visit the Birch Aquarium, for FREE!!  On the first weekend of every month a bunch of museums and zoos are free to Bank of America card holders.  We've never taken advantage of this, but I think we will more in the future.http://museums.bankofamerica.com/  This is the link if you're interested, there are places to go all over the US.  We were planning on going to the beach too, but Dustin had to go to work, NOT on our list of things to do that day.   We had lunch at Islands, never been there before, then headed back.

 Damen, doing lots of posing at the aquarium.

 I really wanted a picture of the fish in this one, they're called Dragon Fish, we've never seen them before and they are so COOL!  They look exactly like what a Dragon fish should look like, and there's Damen making crazy eyes for the camera too.

 Below is our view during lunch, so nice!

Monday Dustin wanted to go back to the Blackberry picking place, this time better prepared.  We called some more friends and headed up there first thing.  It was VERY successful!  We picked for about two hours, in the rain and humidity.  Damen enjoyed playing in the stream that passed through the little ravine we were in and Dustin enjoyed the challenge of getting the berries that were just out of reach.  We came home, rested and relaxed for the rest of the day.  All in all, it was a pretty good three day weekend with lots of memories!!    

 Our friend Tammy, up on the hill, and this is a pretty decent shot of what the ravine we were in looked like.

Below Damen's holding about half of our picking!

 Dustin with our friend Kerri, he bushwacked his way in, to get to the BEST berries!

Sisters

Me, Traci, Jodi, 

Christi, Kari, and Lori

My sisters, at our best.

At our worst we still love each other 

and now more than ever will be there for each other.

Love them:)

The morning GRIND

For the past 10 weeks or so, I've been dealing with Gestational Diabetes.  It really stinks to wake up every day and think/obsess about what I HAVE to eat for the next 15 hours.  

Is this enough protein? 

 How many carbs are in that?  

Do I have a snack to take with me? 

Etc. . . 

So, in July when we were visiting family in Washington, my great friend Yvonne gave me something to add to my mornings.  Choffy.  

It's an amazing drink that consists of ground cocoa beans.  That's it.  Cocoa!!  And who doesn't love chocolate in the morning?  Especially chocolate that's FREE from sugar and only has 3 carbs/serving!  

It's not like throwing baking cocoa in hot water, it tastes fantastic!  It's brewed in a coffee/french press for 4-5 minutes and then drink it up.

I like to add a few dashes of cinnamon while it's brewing and then a teaspoon of splenda and some milk to cool it down and make it creamy in my cup.  

It's been such a wonderful treat to have and I honestly think anyone who tries it will agree.

If you'd like to try it, or learn more about it, go to: 

http://www.drinkchoffy.com/ 

I'll gladly brew you a cup anytime too:)

1st day of SCHOOL!!

Well, we did it!  We started Kindergarten.  I say we, because it really was a collaborative event.  Dustin had to convince me to let him go, and Damen of course is the one that actually goes.   

Don't you love the posing?  He's so cute, who would want to send him away every single day??  Ok, enough of that.  

He was very excited, grabbed his back pack first thing in the morning and was ready to go (even in his jammies!)

He showed us around his class room, played with the little people castle, listened to the teacher when it was time to sit on the carpet.  And never even looked up when we left.

After school was when he told me he had cried, he wanted me.  Really, those were his exact words, who would have thought from MR. Independent?  

It's nice to be needed, but I also realize that we need this, school, kindergarten, growing up.    

Rainbows

Driving down the road today

Damen said he saw a rainbow.

It's 100 degrees out.

Clear skies. 

But he saw a rainbow.

It was right there, outside the window.

It had two humps, like in his name (the letter M).

Mom, do you see it?

I missed it, but I'm so glad he saw the rainbow, I think it made his day:)

Pregnant me!

I know, you all LIVE for these kinds of pictures, the infamous belly pictures!  Until last week I hadn't had any taken, just by coincidence I'm sure.  

The first one is from a kaleidoscope room at a museum we went to last week, it gives a GREAT 360 view!  

The second one is from Monday and the last one is from the beach yesterday. 

So, they're all from 30-31 weeks, enjoy!

 Ok, this one does not really include my belly, and it's not a great picture of either of us, but it's included anyway. . . 

Toy box for Damen

In preparation for the new baby, we've been moving Damen from the bedroom closest to us, to the bedroom at the end of the house.  It's a bigger room, but it also has a queen size bed in it so we had to change some things.

We decided to get rid of these shelve/storage bins that housed his toys and get him a small toy box.

I found this box at the Goodwill for $14.99 a few months back, it's hideous, but I knew it could look better!

I pulled off all of the green pleather, gag, the contact paper and black cardboard, took off the lid and removed the buttons and batting from it.  

The bottom was moldy and cracked so Dustin replaced that for me. 

I got new foam for the lid and material to recover it at Joanne's, and with my 40% off coupons the total was around $7!!  

I gathered my supplies and got started! 

 I forgot to take pictures of the lid process, but basically I placed the foam down on my material, sprayed the foam with adhesive and pressed the lid onto it, then started pulling and stapling the material to the lid.  I kept the black cardboard from the lid and restapled it to cover the raw edges of the material. 

Next came the bottom of the box.  I thought I had measured SO carefully!!  I had to cut an extra piece and sew it to make one long piece that would wrap around the entire thing.  I planned on having two seams, one where I sewed and one where the ends would meet up.  I started stapling along the bottom, and halfway through decided to make sure the piece was long enough, well it wasn't.  Somehow I was short by 10 inches! I had to cut another piece of material and sew that on, so now there are three seams in the fabric. 

Moving on, I got the bottom all stapled on, turned it over and started with the top of the box, pulling and stapling all the way around,  Dustin didn't like the unfinished edges on the inside, so I hot glued those down too.   

 I screwed the lid back on and DONE!!  Well mostly, we decided it needs little feet and some sort of handle and maybe safety hinges so it can't slam down.  For today though, it's done.  It looked so cute I almost wanted to take it for my bedroom, you know end of the bed little bench with storage?  But Damen's need was greater. . .

We sold the shelves for $60, so minus the cost of this toy box -$22, we actually made money on the project!


I'm linking up to  Transformation Thursday  at  http://www.theshabbycreekcottage.com/