It's My Life

Have you ever noticed that people want what they don't have?  My children want summer birthday's. They want to be like Olaf (you know that cute snowman from that movie about ice?) They want to play in the sun. Lounge on the beach. They want to celebrate their birthday's without overcoats and gloves.  In fact, they want summer birthday's so badly, that one year The Boy forgave his birthday and opted to celebrate his half birthday...right smack in the middle of S U M M E R! The Boy loved slip and slides but he always wanted one longer. To make his summer {half} birthday dreams come true, I created a large DIY Slip N' Slide for his "Half-Birthday" celebration. I started this project off at the local home improvement store. I found 10 feet x 100 feet of plastic sheeting for less than $60.00. Plastic sheeting comes in different weights so I used the 6 mil which was pretty thick plastic.  It was a little bit on the pricey side but it was t...

Every spring we look forward to the return of longer days, green grass, and warmer temperatures! But we also look forward to the return of baseball!  The Boy has been playing for a few weeks already and boy have some of his games been pretty chilly. The Husband and I are co-managing/co-coaching an all girls tee-ball team for the second year with another couple.  Five of the girls returned to us from last year. We are so happy to  have an amazing group of girls who will become great ball players. Managing and coaching little ball players comes with a few struggles: they misplace equipment, they grab each others things, they get distracted, and of course they get excited. We learned a few things last year that have really helped us this year. 5 Tee-Ball Lessons We Have Learned Sharpies!  We made sure on our very first practice that we had Sharpies in hand. Sharpies have been great at marking each girls equipment. We had them on hand again the ...

Missouri is full of vacation spots. Some of them are obvious {Kansas City, St. Louis, Branson, even The Lake of the Ozarks}but some of them are less than obvious. We recently went on one of those less than obvious ones. We planned a four day getaway to Dora, Missouri to camp and canoe on The North Fork River. Here in Missouri, we call it a "float trip". What can you expect on a float trip? 1. Some driving. Most of the rivers that we float on are in the southern part of our state. It took us a good 5 hours {not including stops} to get to Dora, Missouri. At this point, even Missourian's are probably asking, "Where is Dora, Missouri?" Well, it is 40 driving miles away from West Plains, Missouri. As is typical with most float trips, you can not access the river by interstate. Nope, in fact you must get off the busy roads and take the roads less traveled. We prefer to pop in a CD full of good ole country music and just enjoy the ride. Of ...

We live in flip flops all summer long. Who doesn't? The other night The Short Chic suffered a blow-out in her flip flops. We threw them away and walked home barefooted. The Short Chic has a hard time letting things go. I had to promise her a new pair or she would not have thrown them away. I found super inexpensive flip flops at a large craft store. They were less than $2.00 a pair. I also picked up some ribbon and some sparkly buttons. Total project cost: $7.00 a pair.  Making these flip flops is easy and quick. You simply cut pieces of ribbon, tie them around the straps of the flip flop. I used pink and black ribbon and alternated colors. You can make a pair with all one color or go crazy and use a whole rainbow of colors. After I was finished, I trimmed the ends of the ribbon and used my E-6000 to glue a sparkly pink button to the center of each flip flop. I really don't think it needs this step, but the sparkly button sure made The Short Chic happy....

While camping Memorial Day weekend, The Short Chic and her running partner, Miss B,  learned to fly kites.   It was a super windy day that was perfect for flying kites.  When was the last time you flew a kite? For us adults, it had been a while. Even putting a kite together was a bit of a challenge for us rusty parents. Who ever realized that some thin wooden rods {now plastic rods}, some paper {or plastic}, and some string would provide hours of enjoyment was a pure genius! Happy Wordless Wednesday! {or slightly wordless!}

Did you know that my home state of Missouri was named as the 2013 Best Trails State Award by American Trails ? One of our favorite summer weekend activities is to get up early and head to Smithville Lake in Smithville, Missouri and bike the trails. Here in Missouri, it gets hot and you want to be up early to cycle before the heat sets in. The trails at Smithville are covered with large trees and you never know when you are going to round a corner and find you are sharing the path with a deer.  This summer Missouri has started a 100 Missouri Miles initiative. Walk, bike, run, skate or however you like to do it, Missouri is encouraging you to get out and visit it's trails. I signed up this morning. I am so looking forward to hitting the trails and logging my 100 miles. You can sign up too! It is super easy: just go to 100 Missouri Miles . Besides getting my miles in I am looking forward to trying out a few trails I have never been on before. Do you have a favori...

Oh it is summer time! The weather is hot and the drinks are COLD! Even my coffee goes cold when the tempature surpasses 90 degrees.  Last summer The Pioneer Woman changed my life with one single blog post,  The Perfect Iced Coffee .  Prior to this I was spending a fortune on iced coffee's from coffee venders. Or wasting my time making waterdown versions with traditional  brewed coffee {The ice melts as soon as hot coffee is poured over it, therefore diluting the coffee and not getting the right flavor}. Oh how I hate love the Pioneer Woman! Her food is divine. Her desserts rock my world. And her ice coffee made me sing! But the calories!   Everything she makes is full of them! I guess running around the farm she is able to burn off those calories and maintain her figure. I found her iced coffee to be a little cu mbersome to make. I did not have a tub large enough to soak. The straining process left me messy. And while I found adding sweetened conse...