I've had a bug...

...the crafty/creative bug! I'm pretty sure this is partly due to the fact that I joined Pinterest, a virtual bulletin board where people can share their own collections of ideas. Several of the people I follow have do-it-yourself boards, and the creative juices just got flowing in me!

A couple weeks ago I made a cake for our friend Noah's first birthday. His parents call him "monkey," and asked me to design it based on Noah's room decor. Here's a picture of the inspiration: and here is the cake: The cake was delicious, and it turned out just how I'd pictured it. I love it when that happens! Then last week I went to a baby shower and decided to give the honoree some homemade, embellished burp cloths (cloth diapers with fabric and ribbon attached). They turned out really well, so I made some for my friend Anne's baby Lucy! Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of that project, so you'll just have to take my word for it that they were precious! On to the next craft...last night we had a preseason "tailgate" party (in quotes because we weren't actually using a tailgate...just a tailgate-style party) for our fellow Michigan football fans, so I decided to make some fun treats: football-shaped Oreo balls and Michigan football helmet cake balls! They were a big hit, and I was really happy with the way they turned out. Here's what the helmet looks like, for those of you who may not know the iconic winged helmet: and here are the cake balls and Oreo balls: This morning Bryan had to go out of town for a meeting, so I thought it would be fun to do a project with the kids. We peeled our broken crayons, broke the into small pieces, put them in a mini-muffin tin and melted them down to make rainbow crayon discs! I'd seen these several times over the years, but never tried it myself. It was a huge success! Peeling the paper off the crayons occupied us for about an hour, and Andrew loved that he was actually given permission to break something, ha! Both kids were so excited to watch the crayons melt in the oven, and thought it was the coolest thing when the rainbow crayons were done. They are indeed pretty cool! It's fun to be creative! I wonder what my next project will be?!

Don't faint!!

I'm actually posting something!! I knew I'd been neglecting my blog this summer, but I didn't realize I hadn't posted anything in May, June or July! Yikes! Therefore, I'll do a quick update of what we've been up to for the last three months.

May

• Grandma and Grandpa came to visit! We took them to the Toledo Zoo so they could ride the infamous zoo train (Andrew always talks about it!) with us. We loved having them here!
  
• We celebrated our 10th anniversary! The whole family went on our biannual (every two years, right?) trip to Kauai, and Bryan and I had the treat of going to a different hotel for two nights to have a "real" getaway! The kids especially loved being in the pool this time.
• Andrew finished up his first year at Teddy Bear Daycare. We attended parent night, where each class does a little performance; Andrew's class "sang" and "danced" (intentional quotes, people) to Who Let the Dogs Out, which Andrew happens to LOVE...however, he must've been shell-shocked by the large audience, as he just stood there staring the whole time. He did look stinkin' cute in his accessories, though!

June

• Amelia finished Kindergarten! She had a wonderful school year and it's amazing to see how much she's grown physically and intellectually in the last nine months.
• I had a great time helping host (and make a cake for!) my dear friend Anne's baby shower. It was such a fun event, and the cake was a hit!
• We said a sad "see ya later" to our dear friends (and the kids' surrogate grandparents) Terry and Paula. We hate that we can't see them often anymore, but are so happy for them that they get to finally move back home, close to their kids, grands and great-grands!
• Anne and I went to see Taylor Swift live in concert. It was a fun, girly time (after we almost missed it because of the crazy traffic and parking!). The funniest thing to me was seeing how many dads were most likely dragged there with their daughers!
• Our cherry tree produced a gigantic load of cherries that we happily picked, used, and froze. Cherry preserves for Christmas!
  

July

• We had dear friends in town for 4th of July weekend and went to the Greenfield Village Celebration of America concert. It was fantastic music provided by the Detroit Symphony, beautiful fireworks, and wonderful fellowship! We also had friends over for dinner for the 4th and cooked up a delicious spread, including a homemade cherry pie made with the cherries from our tree!
• We had fun playing in the slip 'n' slide...Andrew's first time at it!
• Our area had the hottest July in 135 years; we had highs above 95 (including one day at 100 with a heat index of 114) for a whole week, which NEVER happens in Michigan. Of course, our air conditioner decided to go out near the end of that week and we couldn't have it fixed for a couple days, so our good friends the Stecks graciously took us in and kept us cool until we could go back home. Thank the Lord for good friends!
• My college roommate (and dear friend) Martha came to visit with her two kids while her husband and my husband were each working out of town for the week. The kids loved playing together, and it was so nice to have another mom to commiserate with! We try to make a point to see each other at least once a year, and we always treasure and look forward to those times.

So now (if you stuck with me) you're up to speed on our life. Not much earth-shattering has happened, but I can't believe the summer's almost over! The kids go back to school Sept. 6, so they've only got 4 1/2 more weeks of freedom, ha! Hope all is well with you and yours! Check out a slideshow of some pics of our summer below.

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