School and A Birthday

Back to school shopping and lunch at our favorite place.

Waffles, whip cream and blueberries!

Cupcakes and ice cream. Everyone is focused on dessert.

Oh man it has been a busy end of summer. I can not believe how fast summer vacation flew by. Blah. I hate that. The last few weeks of summer were spent swimming, hanging with cousin Xander, and Lovey and Grandpa Darryl. It was a great finale for a fun summer.

Monday Ethan started 7th grade, at a new school. He changes class every period, and has a locker! Big stuff. He already really likes it. Hayden started 3rd grade. He really likes his teacher, but I think he misses having his brother at school. And Libby started preschool. My babies are all growing up. (Sob, sob!)

Tuesday was Hayden's 8th Birthday! He brought treats to school to share with his friends, and we had Grandma, Poppa, and Noah over for his special dinner. Hayden was very excited about getting a new bike, a football and even some cash. We are having a "Glow in the Dark" birthday party next week with his friends. And he will get baptized in September. Eight is a big year! I love you Hayden. Happy Birthday!

Another Project Completed

 Ethan has been at scout camp all week! I am so happy he will be back tomorrow. This picture is of him getting ready to leave Monday morning at 4:45. He was so excited. I was so sad! But I didn't cry!

This last weekend Shawn came home from work with the materials to build another built in bookcase, as well as frame out a niche. Our home has tons of these weird little niches. I wasn't really sure what to do with them because they really limit what I can hang on the wall. So I figured we would put some moulding around them to make them more pretty. It is a little more work then slapping up some moulding though. To be honest I wasn't really looking forward to it when Shawn announced his plan for doing it. But how could I discourage him from completing something off the "Honey do list". That would be blasphemy! Our deal is that he installs and I sand and finish. Pretty good deal. I am very happy with the project. It makes the niche look more finished, and I love the white against the dark blue. Three down, only two more to go! You can see the last two to be completed in the bottom picture of Ethan. Although it might be awhile. And I am okay with that! These took me three nap times!

A Crafty Week

We made a trip to the Lego store.

Card games.

Potty Training.

Quilting and a new party.

These are all pictures from instagram. So in love with instagram lately! If you want to follow me on instagram, my name is ashleyelizabethhancock. Do you instagram? 

This week I was feeling a little inspired to craft. I bought coordinating fabric for my office, forever ago, to make a quilt. But that was maybe two years ago, and it has been on my to do list for that long! Yes, I know. I can be the queen of procrastination sometimes! This was the week I was determined to check it off my list. I choose to do a very simple strip quilt, which honestly, can we really even call it quilting? Probably not. But it is done, so who cares! My other craft inspiration is a new party for my shop. I have a few parties I am working on. The first is a butterfly party. Then I am going to get started on a Halloween party, as well as a black cat party. They will all coordinate, which makes it easier/cheaper for me to make. I am excited, I think this butterfly party is going to be really fun. I love the black and white chevron, with the gold and bright colors!! More pictures to come!

We also decided to start potty training. Libby has really sensitive skin and gets really bad diaper rashes, therefore spends a lot of time, when we are home, diaper-less, (Au natural). So we decided to make it official and she has been doing awesome. The easiest of the three. Hayden was really easy too, but Libby is a champ.

This week has been stormy! Gray clouds, windy, rainy. Love it. Ethan has taken advantage of it being slightly cooler (like 97) and went to the skate park with cousin Noah. This stormy weather makes me want to curl up read....but I have kids, that want to be entertained (so inconvenient!) so we've spent a lot of time playing cards. I taught the boys how to play speed, one of my favorite card games. And Ethan taught us how to play crazy eights. Its been so fun. When the kids get bored they start to rough house so I've been trying to come up with new things to do to redirect their competitive and aggressive behaviors. Some days are really long! Not going to lie! But we are having fun together coming up with new things to do.

What are your favorite things to do at home??

Fourth of July 2012

Fourth of July in Anthem, always comes on the third of July. Why? We are still trying to figure that one out. This year we decided to check out the firework show at Lake Pleasant, which was also on the third. It was so fun. Shawn's parents got a camping site and stayed there two nights so we were able to meet up with them there. They had music playing, lots of food vendors, and big blow up slides for the big and little kids, there was dancing and of course a big fireworks show. Grandma and Poppa had the perfect site for watching. Shawn, Libby, Hayden and Kristian sat up on top of the RV to watch the show. I decided to sit on the ground in case I needed to catch Libby; I might have been a little worried about Libby up there. We all know that girl never sits still! We were originally going to take the boat out to watch the fireworks, but it was windy. Big bummer. But it was still so fun. Tonight we are going to have pizza with Grandma and Poppa and cousins, and set off our own fire crackers and sparklers!

I also used the holiday as an excuse to whip up a little "peace dress" for Libby. Every girl needs a party dress!! She loved that I was making her a dress, and actually let me work on it uninterrupted for over an hour!

Happy Fourth of July!!

Our Cali Trip

We started our California adventure with a camping trip in San Clemente. We were lucky enough to have Shawn join us. Usually I am on my own! The weather was lovely. Warm enough for the kids to play in the water (although not warm enough for me!) and cool enough to put on a warm sweater, which is decidedly the best. You might not appreciate that if you don't live in AZ! Our camping trip this year was a lot shorter, hence the main reason Shawn was able to join us for the whole time. But we still had plenty of time for beaching, relaxing, biking, and plenty of camp fire time! We even tried going to church. I say tried because we got to the San Clemente building, right on time, a huge feat in itself (have you ever got ready for church in a tiny, steamy tent? Not fun.) But anyway we walk up to the building to a large 'Welcome to Stake Conference' sign on the door. Argh! We get points for trying, right? So we made the best of everyone all dressed up and had an impromptu photo session instead, with the scenic ocean in the distance behind us. Beautiful!

On our last day of camping everyone cleaned up the site and met at Dana Point Harbor. My Mom rented a Catamaran for everyone, my Mom's cousin Julia and husband Mickey, and my Uncle Phil from Northern Cali joined us for a very special memorial service for my Grandfather who had just passed away about two weeks earlier. It was his wish to have his ashes placed in the ocean. It was an amazing afternoon and was the perfect celebration for my Grandpa. My Mom grew up going on special vacations to Catalina Island every summer because my Grandpa loved the ocean and boating. Everyone loved it. The weather was beautiful, and the kids loved the ride.

A Patriotic Banner

Fireworks, barbecue, watermelon,
red white and blue,

patriotic, freedom, land of the brave.

A new banner. Find it here: A Lovely Party

Lemons, Hide and Seek and Life Vests

Yesterday Hayden, Ethan and Libby played hide and seek. It was so sweet the way they were including Libby. Libby was in heaven, she loved it. She even came up with a few hiding places too, but mostly she liked looking for them. After playing for awhile she put the boys hamper on her head, and said "where is Libby?" It was so funny. She couldn't see anyone, so of course no one could see her, right?!

Libby finally held still long enough for me to do a quick little braid. It was sloppy, but I was elated. She has so much hair I've been wanting to play with it and do some cute hair dos, but she apparently doesn't share my enthusiasm for hair styling. I have also recently started using regular shampoo on her hair, I know your thinking who cares, but it feels like a huge milestone to me, because that means she does not have baby hair anymore, she has little girl hair!! And its so EXCITING!! (oh I love having a girl!)

 We haven't been able to talk hayden into trying the wakeboard yet, he will do the knee board sometimes, but mostly he likes to play in the water and throw the football around with Dad. In this picture hayden is holding onto the handle and shawn is pulling him to the swim step.

Another milestone: Since Ethan is 12 he leagally doesn't have to wear a life vest on the boat, and he can "legally" hold the flag! He is so happy, and a little smug when all the other littles are putting on their life vests....Sometimes its the little things folks!

Saturday Ethan's flag football team played in the play offs. It was so hot. They had to play five short games. They didnt win, but they made a touchdown on the best team in our Anthem league, which kicked the other team out of the play offs. Oppse! Ethan has had a BLAST playing this season. And we already have him signed up for the fall season. This is huge for Ethan becasue we usally have to talk him into playing sports. Yay Ethan!

We are anxiusly waiting for lemons to ripen and check on the tree regularly. Its so exciting. We love all things lemon. Fruit trees are illegal in Anthem, so I can niether confirm nor deny that this tree is actually in our yard. We wouldnt do something like that!

The kids have only been out of school for a week and a half but I am already certain this is going to be the best summer ever. It might have something to do with the fact that I am not working this summer, yup that definelty has something to do with it. My goal for the summer is to relax (aka be lazy), but use our time effectively. I have come up with a schedule that gives the kids downtime to do what they want, but they also have responsibilites each day, some of which they can on their own time, some they have to do a certain time. Every summer I set goals for each child that we need to work on. One goal that I have this summer for the boys is to work on their typing skills. Ethan is really good but sometimes he uses the peck method because he thinks its faster. So during their computer time they will work on improving their typing skills for 20 minutes. Another goal that I have is I want to teach my boys some life skills, such as how to cook easy meals (and maybe desserts, becasue thats way more fun) and clean. They are great at helping around the house, but I have yet to relenquish some of my deep cleaning jobs because I want it done right! But I know they are capable, I just need to give them the opportuinity to learn. So we'll see how it goes, I'll keep you posted on our summer endevors!

Happy SUmmer!