Independently Crafty

I caught the bug, recently, to do some 4th of July crafts. A few weeks ago, the kids were sick, and after spending the most of the week cooped up inside, I was going a little stir crazy. I had found some cute crafting ideas while I was blog surfing, so I thought it was a great time to get to work. The first craft was a ribbon wreath, flag style: My inspiration was found at http://thelongthread.com/?p=1310. Theirs was a cute Halloween wreath, so I just did a different twist on it. I also used a 14" styrofoam wreath instead of a 12". Cute, huh? It was a bit tricky to hid the white styrofoam underneath. If I'd been smart, I would have painted my wreath first, then tied on the ribbons. But I didn't want to make another trip to the craft store just for paint, so I simply slid coordinating ribbon under each section as I tied it. A bit more work, but worth it.

Originally, I didn't have the stars on there. As I was driving away from my house the next day, I realized my wreath didn't look so much like an American flag as it did a giant peppermint. Delicious---but not very patriotic. So, I cut out some stars on my silhouette, and painted over them with liquid glass to make them pop, and to keep the cardstock from getting weathered too quickly. We'll see how long they last. But, they definitely gave it more of a flag feel, and less of an I-wanna-lick-it-to-see-how-it-tastes feel.

For quite some time, I've had several 2x4s plaguing my garage. My first thought was to just throw them into the garbage, but then my crafty wheels began to spin, and I decided they could be used for something. I used some of them for Family Blocks that I made a while back, but still had plenty left to do this craft for myself and a few friends:

My ispiration was found at http://www.howdoesshe.com/cheap-home-decor. I ended up cutting my blue colored blocks a bit differently then they had suggested on the blog. I am totally crazy and anal about things being symetrical, so I just couldn't have my flag be a none rectangle. Instead of cutting it at 3 and 1/2", I cut two blocks at just 3". Worked great.

And voila! My house is ready for the 4th of July. Bring on the fireworks!

It's All Part of Growin' Up

Lots of big things happened in Maryn's life last week. First off, she finished Kindergarten. On Monday, she and the rest of the Kindergarteners had their little celebration out at the park by their school. They performed some cute little songs: (sorry, my camera would only focus on the girls in front of her, or the trees behind her--hence the blurry Maryn) Then, each child took a turn and told us what they wanted to be when they grew up. Here's Maryn, telling us she wants to be a vet when she's older:

And lastely, before we took off, we had to get a picture of her cute teacher, Mrs. Booth:

It's funny, throughout this entire school year, Maryn has been saying that she wanted to go to school ALL day, instead of just a half day, like some of her friends. Just yesterday, she informed me that all day school doesn't sound so great, and she'd rather do half days. Hmmm. Interesting. Too bad she doesn't have a choice for first grade. Tooooooo bad.

The next day, Tuesday, was Maryn's sixth birthday. I can't believe she's six! My, how the time has flown. Of course, those pesky birthday elves snuck into her room at night, and decorated it for her birthday! I'll catch those sneaky elves one of these days!

We spent the morning running errands, which included going to Target to spend the gift card from Grandma and Grandpa. We had her favorite dinner--Tomatoe Juice Stuff (fancy name for a fancy dinner! ;) ) then a family birthday party. I like this next picture. It looks like she's ready to pounce on those presents.

Singing Happy Birthday, and blowing out candles:

She scored with a Pillow Pet (as requested), a caboodle full of fun make up, a movie, and a Star Wars Piano book. She's quite the diversified girl!
Happy 6th Birthday, Maryn. We love you, and we are so glad you are part of our family!

Oh, Remember Memorial Day? Well, We Went On Vacation

To South Dakota, of all places. As our time is drawing nigh here in Colorado, we have so many of the surrounding sights to see still. Since the Black Hills were a mere 7 hours away, we thought we should take advantage of the long weekend and head that way.
The weather was pretty dumpy for most of the weekend. It put a bit of a damper on our vacay, but we did the best we could with the breaks in the rain. On our drive there, we stopped for lunch at a little rest stop not far from the border of Nebraska. I think it brightened my day to see my girls sporting their cute new sunglasses.

What style!

The next day was, of course, raining, so on the recommendation of others, we drove out to Bear World. It's one of those pricey tourist things to do, but it was something to do that didn't require getting out of the car and getting rained on. Well, until the end...but it was worth it. Please forgive the rather drizzly pictures.

We drove around the little park, where we saw lions...

...and wolves....

...and bears...

...Oh my!

We also encountered a rather friendly big horned sheep.
Our final stop in Bear World was to check out the baby animals. The baby bears....were SO cute! A wild animal has never been so tempting to pick up and cuddle.

Totally worth getting drenched with rain for!

We continued on by driving out to the Badlands, which seemed surprisingly green to me. But, I think it was just from all the rain.

A quick photo of the Bad Fam in the Badlands:

The next morning we woke up to sunshine and beautiful blue skies. I don't think we could have asked for better weather to see Mt. Rushmore. We got some great pictures, and enjoyed walking around the trails there.

We stopped and asked people to take pictures of our family in front of Mt. Rushmore, but they didn't turn out very good. I mean seriously, people--We are standing in front of a great monument that took years to create! Don't you think we want it as our background? It's rather uninteresting to have a picture of us all smiling in front of a pile...of...rocks. Giant heads! [whispering and pointing] They're right there!!

Luckily, I snapped some pictures of proof that our family was there, taking it aaaalllll in.

And proof that our kids were there, too.Girls, don't say we never take you anywhere awesome!

It must have been meant for us to see Mt. Rushmore, because not long after we left, we lost our sunshine to more rain clouds. After lunch, we took a drive out to see the up and coming Crazy Horse Monument (not pictured, because this post was getting crazy long). Then, we drove back to Rapid City, and decided to get some energy out at Story Book Island. It was cheesy, fun for the kids, and my favorite: free. Plus, we got to snap some cool pictures.

I'm surprised that nobody here has asked for a unicorn for their birthday, yet.

Following the Yellow Brick Road:

Awesome water fountains:

And my favorite (and probably Ailee's, too) picture of the day:
My prince charming and two little princesses.

Just down the road from where we were staying was the Stav Kirke. I forget all the details, but it was a cute little church donated from another country for reasons I can't remember. But it was pretty cool. The wood working was uh-mazing! And it felt like we were walking into a giant hand carved coo-coo clock.

That completed the Roundy Memorial Day 2011 vacation. My only regret was that we didn't stop to see Car Henge in Nebraska. Google it, people...it looks awesome!

He Ran

This morning, Kade ran the Utah Valley Marathon. The kids and I weren't able to make it there to watch as he victoriously ran over the finish line, but my little sister, Marybeth, was. Hence the pictures.
Here he is, in his moment of victory. Well under his goal of 4 hours. Only Kade, after running 26.2 miles, could even have a desire to be goofy. Most people, I believe, are just content with still being alive.

Oh, wait, at least he's pretending to be exhausted. Kade and his parents

My brother in law, Mike came up with a fab idea to make it feel like we were there cheering him on.

Brilliant.

Even more brilliant that I didn't have to actually kiss the sweaty, smelly man.

Can we keep the Emily Head?

Congrats to Kade for accomplishing his goals!

Summer Days and Disappearing Babies

My friend, Valerie, invited us over for a swim at their community pool last week. Needless to say, the girls were ecstatic. The girls (Maryn, especially) love anything that involves water. I had to get a picture of my three girlies in their swimsuits, all hyped up and ready to roll.

My sister, Jill, sent me this cute sun hat for Cora, before she was born. I thought I was pretty lucky to have found a sweet little swim suit that matched it perfectly.

And a silly picture to finish off our photo shoot.

On another, and completely different note, Cora turns 7 months old today. She is my little explorer. Cora the Explorer. I know, go ahead and laugh. My brother was so good to point out that Cora rhymed with Dora not long after she was born. I'm ok with it, as long as Cora doesn't develop an annoyingly loud voice, and talk in a mix of English and Spanish daily.

Little Cora loves to roll around on the floor. She usually keeps rolling until she hits something, or gets stuck. The other day, I had put her down on the floor in her room while I helped Ailee. When I came back, I could hear her fussing, but I couldn't see her. I peeked under her crib, and there she was, a little sad, but kind of curious about all the junk under there. Today, she decided to give it another try. I mean, what better to keep a baby entertained than crinkly bags of diapers, boxes that make squeaky noises when you rub your feet on them, and lots of "lost" toys?

Whatever keeps her happy!

The Piano Man....or Girl

I've been trying to post about Maryn's piano recital for several days, now. Unfortunately, our internet was acting up, but I am finally able to upload pictures onto our blog. I would LIKE to also include the video, but alas, the internet gods will not allow it, so we will have to settle for pictures instead.


Maryn started piano sometime around last September, I believe, with a wonderful teacher, Katie Rowles. It all worked out so conveniently for us. Katie, too has a Kindergartner, so she would just walk over to the school (she lives three houses away) and pick them both up on Wednesdays. All I had to do was drive over and pick Maryn up at 12:30 from her house. It was a wonderful arrangement. Hopefully it will work out just a great when the girls start first grade this August. Maryn loves playing the piano, and has picked it up very quickly. We are very proud of her and her accomplishments. I amazed at what she can learn when she puts her mind to it.


Katie arranged a recital for all of her students, one Friday evening, at her house. They hauled the piano outside to their back patio, and we all sat on blankets to listen to the performers. What a great idea, huh? We were lucky to have nice weather with mild temps.


We parked the car on the side of the road. As Maryn got out, I noticed we had a pretty sunset behind her, so I had to snap a picture of our little pianist all ready for her recital:
Ailee was there to support her big sister. She loves doing everything Maryn does, and I hope she follows in her footsteps when it comes to the piano as well.

Maryn's pieces were "Once Upon a December" from Anastasia, and "A Whole New World" from Aladdin. She did wonderfully.

We hope that once we move this fall we are able to find a great teacher like Katie. I'll keep my fingers crossed. Maryn has a lot of talent, and we hope that she is able to continue to advance her piano skills.