The Proof is in the Pin Linkup

I am linking up with Life Sweet Life to show you two successful pins from Pinterest!

The first you’ve seen a glimpse of – the backdrop I made for Reed’s birthday party.

I found the original pin on this website. It was seriously easy. Just get colored table cloths, thread them on a string, and hang it up! It’s possible to make this as wide or as skinny as you’d like. We had enough to really spread it out, but our space was small and this is how it ended up. I thought it added a really nice touch! With so many color combos, you could do this for so many things! 

The second thing I pinned wasn’t really a how to, but more of an information pin. I pinned 20 iOS tips, tricks, and secrets, and I found something on here ALL parents will love!!!! Seriously, I’ve been wanting this since I started using an iphone and then again with my ipad. There is now a way to LOCK the device to prevent your child from exiting the app they are in!!!! And it’s SO easy!

This can be done through what is called Guided Access. Go to Settings>General>Accessibility>Guided Access. Then you will be at this screen. Swipe this to on. Then you will need to set a passcode.

Once you have opened an app, click your home button 3 times in a row. Once you have done so, you will see this.  

Like it says, draw a circle (or really a rectangle) around the part of the screen you want to show. Hit start and it will ask you for your passcode two times. At this point, it will lock it. When you are ready to unlock, just hit the home button three times again and enter your passcode when prompted. If you put a passcode in wrong, or can’t get out of it, you can shut your phone done by holding the power button and home button down at the same time until it switches off. I love this feature and only wish it’d been around years ago! Hope you find it useful!!!

A while back, I also posted a review of recipes I’ve tested from pinterest. You can find that post here.

Thanks for coming to check my pins out. I hope you find them useful!!

Weekend life

How do the weekends go soooooooooooooooo fast? It makes me sad that another one was over before it started.

Friday we had a low key evening. We had dinner and just took it easy. I found a new coloring app for Ava (Paint Sparkles) and she played it for so long. She loved it!

Zach had to be gone ALL day Saturday to take kids to the all region jazz band clinic and concerts about an hour and a half away. He was gone before Ava woke up and got home after both kids were fast asleep. I was praying we’d have a good day, and we did!

We were dressed and out the door by 8:00 and decided to make a stop at Target! Ava of course likes when she sees stuff she wants, but Reed has started showing excitement too. I laughed at this photo – they both saw stuff they liked in the Target $ spot – my favorite part of Target!!!

Ava told me she likes headbands now, and she wanted to try one on. 

We did Ava’s favorite thing, looked at toys. She is pretty good about looking without wanting, but lately when we are at the store and I say no, she’ll say to me, “Mom, you always tell me no.” She forgets about surprises we bring home. :) We found several things she liked in the Dollar Spot. I thought they’d make good stocking stuffers so I kind of hid them in the cart. She didn’t notice them for about 10 minutes and then she said “Hey what are those doing in here?” I made a big show of taking them out of the cart and setting them down. Then I diverted her attention, put them back in the cart, and moved my purse to block them. Thankfully, I was able to move her attention elsewhere at checkout as well and successfully got the items! Woohoo! :)

After Target, we went to Wal-mart for our groceries. We checked out the toy section there too. :) They were really SO good. I was worried about how they’d behave but I was so pleasantly surprised that they were so good. Ava asked me on the way home if she could take a three hour nap. I told her sure! ;) Reed fell asleep on the way home and we napped while I unloaded and put away groceries, cleaned out the pantry and freezer and cleaned the kitchen.

We spent some time playing. Ava likes to games on the Wii. And Reed looks like a man…. remote and no pants. ;)

After lunch, they both did actually take good naps, although a little staggered (and not quite three hours!).

We had dinner with my parents and sister. I left the kids at my parents for a bit, and Ava acted a little unruly. When I asked her that night what was wrong, she said she was sad they were leaving. They had shown their house and I said something about it, not knowing that it upsets her. I hate that she was so sad about that, that she acted so poorly. :(

Sunday after church, we came home. I worked on cleaning out Ava’s closet, drawers, and toys. While I did that, Zach took the kids on a walk. Ava rode her bike and Reed rode the stroller – ha! Then they played in the back yard, which was nice for them because it then rained all afternoon. We came up with a nice pile of toys to give to some kids in need. Ava had a little hard time with this, but by the end she was ok with it. :) And her room looks so good. I pray we can help her keep it that way. It was about to drive me to insanity. :)

During naptime, we thought we’d get to have some quiet down time. I asked Zach to fix my leaky faucet because the part had come on Saturday. I had sat down on the couch, and heard gushing water and then “Hey can you come here?!” Water was EVERYWHERE! I’m still not sure what happened, but it was a mess. Water was in ALL of our cabinets and drawers except one drawer. THANK GOODNESS, that was my makeup drawer so it was all safe. It took sweet forever to mop up water off the cabinet, wipe down the mirror, clean out all the drawers and cabinets, as well as the contest in them. So much for relaxing naptime! :) I do think my leaky faucet is fixed though!

Reed was cuuuuuuuh-ranky most of the day. We knew he was getting a tooth, but it wasn’t until I was dressing him after his bath that I saw he has some molars working their way in. No wonder he was so cranky – those things were huge!!!!! Poor boy! He was ready for bed fairly early!

Weekends are so fun – I wish they were longer!!!!! :)

Project 366: Week 45

 

Reed’s latest accomplishments

Reed has really gotten his walking down lately. It’s still so funny to me to walk around a corner and see him walking toward me. So cute.

 

Not only has he gotten his walking down, he’s also mastered a new trick. 

Waving bye-bye because he got the door open and was heading out!

I was doing Ava’s hair in the bathroom the other day and he likes to come in there and climb on the stool and it’s just chaotic, so I closed the door while I was fixing her hair. Next thing I knew, the door was opening & I thought it was Zach coming in. Nope. Reed. Guess we’ll be locking doors now. He is growing by leaps and bounds. I love this age where they learn SO many new things. It seems like he does something new every day! I feel such a huge sense of accomplishment for my kids when they achieve something new and I love watching them be SO proud of themselves!!! Can’t wait to see what’s next!!!

The weekend the clocks fell back

We actually had a calm, quiet weekend. It was the first in about six weekends that we haven’t had ANYTHING! It was NICE. We just lazed around the house and ran a couple errands. I snuck away for a while Saturday morning and got a mani/pedi. I had a gift certificate from Mother’s Day that was about to expire so it was nice to use that!

We went to dinner Saturday night and Ava posed for me. She won’t take a picture for anything but if I tell her to pose, she gets into it.   

Can we talk a minute about DST? I used to love this, when the clocks fell back and we’d get an extra glorious hour of sleep. Do I still love it? Yeah. Not so much.

Reed woke up Sunday at 4:37 a.m. Yes, that’s right. He sometimes will wake up and fuss and go back to sleep. Not the case yesterday. I got up with him, gave him some milk and laid him back down in bed around 5:00. He didn’t fight it. I went back to bed and laid down, only to hear our door creak open around 5:20. Ava came to tell me she couldn’t sleep because she kept coughing. I got her a drink and sent her back to bed. However, after all the being awake, I never did get back to sleep. I headed to the couch around 5:45 to catch up on some DVRed shows so as not to bother Zach. I got about 5 minutes to myself when Ava joined me. She was then loud enough to make sure Reed heard us. :)

Ava needed a nap for a while. I was in the bedroom and went to look for her and found her on the couch sacked out. When did she get so big??? ::SOB::

Reed didn’t nap worth anything and was soooooooooooooo cranky and tired as the day wore on. He was seriously ready for bed at 5:00. We made it to shortly after 6:00.  

And really, it felt like the LONGEST day. I’d look at the clock and it would only be 15 minutes from the last time I’d looked. ha! Usually I like my weekends to go slowly, but seriously? With the whining and griping, bedtime couldn’t come soon enough! Ha! I’m praying it doesn’t take too many days for them to adjust! I’m grateful we had some down time at home. It was much needed!

Project 366: Weeks 43 and 44

   

Halloween 2012

I’m not the BIGGEST fan of Halloween, but I have to say seeing Ava’s excitement made it all worth it! She really had a great time. When we started talking about costumes, Ava said she wanted to be a My Little Pony. She watches the episodes on you tube and knows all the long, hard to pronounce names. I wasn’t sure how we would make the costume. A story I want to remember is that I told her I didn’t know how we’d make her costume and she said “well, just buy it mommy.” I told her that things cost money and it’s not always easy to just buy them. Fast forward a few days and I found her MLP costume and showed her. She loved it and then said “how much is it?” I told her and she said “I guess I won’t be getting it then.” Ha! Sweet kid. She has no concept of how much dollars are and she got the costume. She was SO grateful and happy and giddy! I have to say, she made a pretty cute pony! She got to wear her costume to school for their party and was so excited. I went to help with the party and am so glad I get to be there for things for her. The preschoolers trick-or-treated around the school to the older classrooms. Her teacher had the great idea to make a pinata and the kids loved it! I also helped them make spiders out of their hands and paint. It was a fun time, but I’m fairly certain I didn’t miss my calling to be a preschool teacher! ha!

As for Reed, he was an elephant. We had this costume from the Halloween when Ava was 1 and decided to recycle. He was pretty cute!

 

And for fun, this was Ava as the elephant back in 2009. They don’t really look much alike!

Reed wasn’t feeling well last night and wasn’t overly cooperative so there’s not a great photo of the two of them together, but this didn’t end up being too bad.

We took Ava trick-or-treating while my mom stayed with Reed since he didn’t feel well. I have to say, Ava had the BEST time. She was SO happy and she had so much fun. SO many people told her she was a cute pony and we didn’t see ANY other MLPs. She was so proud and looked at me at one point and said “Momma, they all love my costume and think I’m so pretty!!” :)

 

As for Reed, several kids in his class have hand, foot, and mouth. We thought that’s what he had, but his case was really odd. His bumps came and went and they weren’t blistery. We didn’t want to take him to the dr, to risk catching something else, to be told he did have it and not be able to do anything for him. Then I got a call this afternoon that a 2nd dr had reviewed his x-rays from over the weekend and they saw something on one that concerned them and wanted us to bring him in for another x-ray. Because we were there, we went ahead and had him looked at. Turns out he does NOT have HFM (thank goodness), and nothing is wrong. he may have just had an allergic reaction to something and I think his not feeling well was due to teething. And his x-ray looked good. Just confirmation that his leg is fine!

And since I’m blogging, I’ll finish with a couple pictures. Reed’s newest favorite thing to do is climb in this cabinet in our bathroom. He tries to close the doors while he’s in there. 

And Miss Ava tonight – she’s such a girly girl!

Ok, I’m off to relax and watch the CMAs! Have a happy Friday!!