Jumping for Joy

My daughter has been sleeping on an old mattress. And when I say old, I mean really, really old. My husband and I got the bed, mattress and box spring as hand-me-downs, from my parents, when we got married - almost nineteen years ago! The bedroom furniture had originally belonged to my grandparents and had been handed down to my parents, when they got married back in 1965. (Yeah, it's old, but it's in really good shape.)

As soon as we took her new mattress upstairs and brought the mattress downstairs, the old one immediately became a trampoline. Because, I mean, who can resist jumping on a mattress? Not me. A half-hour or so later, after the old box spring made its way downstairs, the mattress was repurposed into the floor of a pretty amazing fort.

The trampoline / fort will remain until Monday when we can get to the DPW office to purchase item-removal stickers and arrange for the dray to haul them to the dump. Until then, feel free to stop on over if you feel like jumping...

Good-bye July

Dang! I can't believe July is almost over. We've been busy - really really busy. Being busy has been good, but I haven't had much time to stop and write about it...

Of course we celebrated the Fourth. But this year we were lucky enough to get to do it with one of our exchange students from year's past. Ying Ying and her fiance, Miguel, spent a few wonderful days with us. Catching up with Ying Ying and meeting Miguel was fabulous but somehow I managed to not get a single photo of either of them, though I did manage to capture the island's fireworks display.

A week or so later, we went camping with Allen's family up in the UP. Nine of us camped out in the middle of nowhere along the banks of the Carp River. Despite the mosquitoes and the lack of running water, it was a beautiful spot.

One of the highlights of the weekend was the Boat Building contest. Each boat had to be made out of 100% natural-found-at-the-camp-site materials. 

Everyone let them go at the same time and the first one over the falls won.

Even though the kids enjoyed the boat race, hands-down their favorite thing was spending time with their cousins. I just love how they all get along so well. 

A little later in the month, K got to go away to camp. It was her first time being away from home.

She spent a week down in Lapeer, MI at Lions Bear Lake Camp. The coolest part of the whole week was every camper and many of the counselors wore hearing aides. It was a wonderful opportunity for K to get to know other kids with hearing issues. She loved it, and has asked me to post more pictures, but it will have to wait for another day...

While K at camp, S got to go to "Camp Grandma," down in Southern Indiana.

She enrolled him in daily swimming lessons and made sure he got ice cream every day. (Sometimes twice!) Plus I think they went to see three movies during the week. He was thrilled and didn't want to come home when the week was over.

On top of all that I've been volunteering at the Governor's Summer Residence, the kids have been taking golf lessons and we've all been working together to care for three new pets. Not to mention I've been catching up on all those little jobs that I seem to be too busy to get to during the school year, such as washing the wool rugs, taking my wedding ring in to be repaired, cleaning out the car, etc. But tomorrow my brother arrives so we'll have several quiet days with him. And then: August...

My Singing Monsters Birthday

Back  in April my daughter asked for a My Singing Monsters themed birthday party. The only bad thing was up until she asked, I had never heard of My Singing Monsters. (She played it on a friend's mom's phone.) So, I started researching and discovered that it is a game about monsters that make music. Sure, there's a whole lot more to it, but I had enough to work with...

I started with the napkin fabric. It's usually the easiest place to start since the fabric usually determine the color palate for the party. Next came downloading images of the different characters from the game. There were a ton of them out there that I used to make the place cards, 

drink labels and the banner. (Which I may still have saved on the computer, so if you'd like the word file, drop me an email.)

For the table, I made a runner out of white faux fur (because of this character and because I can repurpose it at Christmas time) and we sprinkled little music note confetti all over the table. 

And, of course we gave everything eyes. 

The cups, the chairs and the food were all covered with eyes.

Even the fruit salad and the cake watched us as we were eating. (I must admit the fruit salad was more for my benefit - I don't think my daughter ate a single bite of it.)

(The cake was super easy - just Oreos and junior mints.)



And, of course, who can resist sticky googly eyes?

I still can't believe  my youngest is nine. And next year, my son will be old enough to drive a snowmobile. Where does the time go?

I found the monster plush shown in the first picture here, He was so cute, I had to make one for my daughter. He may not sing, but he is super snuggly...