Our Past Month, Ending With My Birthday

It's been an eventful past month for us.  Lots going on!  So I thought I'd share some photos and let you know what we've been up to!

 

 The end of April was busy because my youngest sister got married.  She had her bridal shower at a local park.   The kids had lots of fun, playing at the playground,...

 

...playing badmitton,...

 

 ...and swinging on the monkey bars.

 

Riley had a little too much fun, and fell off the monkey bars- uh oh!  We put ice on his arm, and gave him Ibuprofen for the next couple days.

 

The next day, we were in the wedding, and all had a great time!

 

A few days later, Riley lost his second front tooth (he's already lost the bottom ones).  It's cute to listen to him talk, because he immediately picked up a lisp!

 

 Oh, remember that fall from the monkey bars?  Yep, it was still hurting 4 days later, so we took him in.  Turns out it was broken!  Oops!  Worst parents ever, right?

 

 Then, this cutie was in her first ballet recital!  Can you tell she was excited?  Talk about cute overload!

 

 

And that brings us to this past weekend, my birthday weekend.  We had booked a camping trip several weeks ago over Memorial Day, not really thinking about the fact that it was my birthday weekend.  So I spent my birthday camping!  The kids had such a great time!  Here are some pics from the weekend.

 

 

 

Little Miss Model!

 

 (Melt my heart with the one above!)

 

 

There was an abandoned tractor near the campground that we explored.

 

 

And although we were camping, Hubby let me sneak off for a few hours to do some antiquing.  It was my birthday, after all!

 

Here's what I came back with!  Isn't it adorable?  It's bigger than a typical doll's dresser (of which I have several!).  It's more meant for a child, or was perhaps a salesman's sample.  I've seen them before, but they usually run in the hundreds.  But this one was only $40!

 

 

And so, since my birthday was spent in the woods, I didn't get any presents that day (except for the above dresser, which I bought for myself!).  But take a look what was waiting for me when I got home:

 

 

 A Keystone Put-A-Way dollhouse!!!  I love it!  I had hinted to my husband that I was interested in the Ebay listing, but didn't know if he had taken the bait or not!

 

Then, as if I weren't lucky enough, my mother also spoiled me with this:

 

 

 An FAO Schwarz Keystone dollhouse!  Again, from an Ebay listing.  When I talked to my husband and mother, both claimed they didn't know the other one was getting me a dollhouse;  otherwise they say they wouldn't have both done it.  But hey, I'm certainly not complaining about their lack of communication!!!

 

So that's what we've been up to.  If you've followed my blog for a while, you know that every year, I try to do a piece of art on my birthday.  Because of the camping trip, I didn't make it this year, but I hope to do one in the next couple days.  I'll be sure to show you here when I do!

 

Avery's Journal

I've just finished up Avery's most recent art journal.  Although I'm doing Project Life scrapbooks for the boys at this point, I'm still doing art journals for her, until she turns five, which will be in a little more than a year.  I really love the art journals I've done for my kids (you can see them all on my Flickr page), but I have to say, it's getting harder and harder for me to do them.  My artistic style has changed over the years, and these journals are more challenging than they used to be.   But enough of that!  Here are her most recent spreads:

 

 The above is about Playball, a sports club that meets once a week at her preschool.  My boys also are in Playball at their school, and Avery just loves that she gets to do it, too!  She has so much fun- I usually go to pick her up a little early, just so I can watch her having fun!

 

 This next spread is about a little tea party we attended.  All the girls in our family (aunts, sisters, cousins, etc.) went and had tea together.  Avery had the best time dressing up and pretending to be a grown-up drinking tea!

 

That was the last page in her book (I do her journals in thrift-store books, so they have a limited number of pages), so it was time to make the cover.

 

I love the way the cover turned out!  I love the colors, and the little girl is such a perfect representation of Avery, cuddling with the kittens...  The spine is actually a really saturated teal velvet, but I couldn't seem to get the right color on my computer.

 

 Here it is, sitting on her dresser.  You can see some of her other books over to the side.  I always like the way they look lined up, with the different spines next to each other.

 

Time to start on a new book for her.  I suppose it will probably be her last (before I make the switch to Project Life scrapbooks), which makes me a little sad.  But maybe that will be good incentive for me to do some really nice artwork in it!