Just a summer night

Yesterday was one of those Fridays that was just good for the soul.

We fed the Sister Misharies (missionaries), which is always the best.

Then, Danny and I went on a date. We sat on the beach and talked and watched the sun set.

Probably one of our best dates ever. I do love that man. 

Strawberry lemonades in hand, we got home to a little girl who was still awake (thanks, 4:00 nap!) but it was totally okay because she was suddenly beyond adorable and I realized that she had never been awake late enough to see the fireflies. 

And fireflies are magic.

So we sat on the front porch and she? Geeked. Out. about the fireflies. It was one of those moments that, if harnessed correctly, could bring world peace. 

I love summer.

The Fourth

We had a fantastic 4th of July with my parents this year. Gotta say, I'm totally a fan of four day weekends. Let's have some of those more often, K? K.

We had a fun day together and then headed to the beach around 3 with lots of snacks and dinner.

Water fight with GramGrampa ("GramGrampa is how Ava refers to Grandma and Grandpa Brown. It's awesome because it reflects how my parents are each other's besties and are always together.)

Me and my boo:

My kind of sunset:

We met up with some more friends while we were there so Ava had lots of entertainment after it was too cold to be in the water but before the fireworks started. 

 Some of Ava's friends. They were all decked out in facepaint and glowsticks. Good thing other parents were prepared with festive things to occupy the children.....

My sassy kid:

Fireworks in St Joe are lit from a pier so you can hang out on any of the surrounding beaches and watch them. So that was the plan. But we left before they really started because they didn't really start until 11 and my kid was a zombie. But we had fun, nonetheless!

Armstrong Family Reunion 2013

I totally read back through my blog the other day and realized that I am a horrible blogger now-a-days. Horrible. So maybe I should be better. I'll try but I can't make any promises.

ANYHOODLE, we totally had a little family get-together with Danny's side of the family a couple of weeks ago. People flew in and drove in from all over and we got our camping on. Yes. Camping. 25 weeks pregnant. Thankfully my SIL, Mandy, was 27 weeks pregnant at the time so we were all, "solidarity, sister" and, "yeah, we'll go on a hike....for like 3 minutes." I really would not have made it through without her. She is the best.

So once everyone got to our house, we headed up north to Sleeping Bear Dunes and stayed for 3 nights and then went to the Great Wold Lodge and stayed for one more night and then called it good. Ava was in heaven. She's been asking to go camping for quite some time and the fact that she got to go with her cousins alllllllmost made her head explode. Especially Lydie. Ava and Lydie arelikethis. It was really fun to watch but also weird because she had no time for me.

Sleeping Bear, aside from the mosquitos, was beautiful. Lake Michigan is so clear and blue and absolutely freezing up there. And the dunes. Man. I called them dune cliffs. Huge mounds of sand. So, without further ado, here are some pictures (thanks, Mandy!! My husband thinks I don't need a good camera.....or a camera at all.... and maybe these will help him realize that I do! Maybe.)

Regard:

On a huge dune:

 How cute are they??

Allll the Armstrong cousins:

 trying to stay away from the mosquitos (notice the tutu):

sandcastles!

Inseparable the entire time:

Heh heh. I love this one. Nana and Ava:

Burying Ava:

More cute husband:

Lydie and Ava. Heart melty.

Singing with her cousins:

Yeeeeeah. If she stays this beautiful, we're in trouble. Don't mind the s'mores all over her face.

Yes. Pregnant. Wicked sunburn lines. Embracing it.

Washing the "shampoo" our of her hair (handfuls of sand served as a the shampoo):

This is TJ. She is the youngest right now and she is adorable. In her free time she enjoys eating, being sassy, keeping up with the older kids, and yoga. 

The pedicures my sweet broham-in-law treated us ladies to after we got back to civilization. Don't mind the bellies. 

So grateful for my bed and my house and pedicures. And famiry. Heh heh.

A Summer Education

Remember how I was doing all these mommy school updates not too long ago? We were having so much fun jumping from letter to letter and crafting and coloring and repeating sounds. Well, we got to P in February - P was for penguin and pregnant. Emphasis on the pregnant part. It took a month to get through P and then I was so sick pretty much all the time that I lost my motivation to do anything but the basics (i.e. keep Ava alive). That's also when I kind of developed a TV addiction (and an aversion to meatballs).

So. Mommyschool, as it existed, stopped happening and I felt guilty about it for 5 seconds and then, guess what! I noticed that Ava was still learning, even though it wasn't structured and planned and crafty. She still wrote 5,000 Ps and we still read a bunch of books. She certainly didn't get dumber. So I stopped feeling guilty and we all survived winter in Michigan.

And then spring/summer finally hit and beach. Beach beach beach. And she learns lots of stuff at the beach: what a dead catfish looks like, what to do with the dead catfish, how to eat fruit snacks without eating sand, the proper sand-to-water ratio for building sand castles, etc. She's also learning just how big a belly with a baby in it can get. Although, she is still quite confused about what's in her belly. You see, since I have a baby in my belly that kicks that means she MUST have something in her belly that also kicks. Regard: the other night, she grabbed my hand and put it on her belly and said, "The Holy Ghost is kicking, mom! Can you feel it?" (We have gone over the Holy Ghost thing 5,000,000 times so I'm hoping she'll just grow out of that line of thinking.)

I will be vigilant about my child's beach education all summer and then preschool will start and I will have this baby and she will get all sorts of learned and educated. Heh heh. And she, in her usual Ava fashion, will wax philosophical about it all in the car.

A princess with secrets

So here is a picture of my kid's outfit today. One of her best, I think. I feel like you need to know that she would not hold still long enough for me to take a picture. But she did stop so that she could let one. And she thought it was funny. So yeah. Here's my farting princess bahahahaha.

I'm the nicest mom ever.

Some slight organization

So I have been needing a command center of sorts in my house for a long time. Right where this blank wall with a single picture hanger sat for months and months. 

So this is the before:

And this is what I have so far:

I made a magnetic chalkboard and a letter bin. Since I already had black latex paint and unsanded grout lying around, my only cost for the chalkboard was the $4.58 I spent at Lowe's for the piece of metal. I went to the plumbing section and got this piece by all the duct work (you can get bigger, heavier pieces for $15-$20 but Iiiiiiiiii'm cheap and this was the perfect size for my space). It had a little piece at the top that I bent to create a little ledge for holding the chalk.

 I roughed up the metal with some sand paper, primed it (spray paint primer is my favorite), and put 3 coats of homemade chalkboard paint on it. I rubbed it all over with chalk and erased it - to "cure" the chalkboard surface and attached it to my wall with 3M picture hanging strips (GENIUS, those strips are). 

For the letter bin, I used these plans from Ana White's website and some spray paint. My cost for this was $5 for the 1/4" plywood and $4.67 for some spray paint. 

So. For about $15, I have a little command center. Not too shabby. And, as with everything in my house, it is a work in progress so this corner will probably get more awesome later on.

This was the first of MANY organizational projects I am attempting to get done before this baby boy gets here. Wish me luck!

slugs and snails and puppy dog tails

So we found out last Monday that we are having a BOY! We are still in shock. We just figured we'd follow the precedent of Danny's older brother and his wife and have a gaggle of girls. But no. Regard:

It was extra fun finding out because Danny's older brother was in town (really, in Chicago but we kidnapped him for 24 hours) so he went to the ultrasound with us. Let's just say, the reaction was a loud one. 

Ava was not excited about it. At all. She said, "but we can change it to a sister." We kept asking her if she was excited afterward and she would either say that she didn't like brothers or that she didn't want to talk about it. I got the chance to talk to her about it, just the two of us, that afternoon and I discovered that she thought that having a brother meant that she couldn't keep her friends that were girls. I set the record straight, we talked about all the ways she'll be able to help me with the baby, and now she is alllllll about her brother. 

Crisis averted. 

Now, as I prepare to garage sale most of the ruffle-bummed onesies and all the pink! I've been hoarding I realize I need to get serious about my boy name list. Feel free to throw out any suggestions. And no, we will not be naming him Daniel.