Weekend Whirlwind

Well, as anticipated, this weekend was a whirlwind of fun. It was nonstop, action-packed, fun. And now we're exhausted. I hope all 3 of us sleep exceptionally well tonight, as tomorrow starts the week before PASS testing stress-cram session.
I will attempt to recap the weekend the best I can:

Friday - field trip to the Children's Museum (which I loved!) - haircut/trim - Greenville for dinner & birthday gift shopping

a huge lite brite!

I had never been to the Greenville Children's Museum before, and I absolutely loved it! I can't wait to take Tillman this summer. Even though she won't be old enough to do too many of the activities the way they are intended, she will still love exploring and checking it all out. They do, however, have a few sectioned off areas for children 5 and under which would suit her well.

Saturday - farmer's market - jockey lot - cookout - birthday party

strawberries, dakota bread, spinach/feta bread from Great Harvest Bread Co. in Greenville- yum!

sliced & ready for convenience

Hadley & Tillman taking a break from running around at the Sunday school picnic to enjoy some food.

These two had a great time along with all the other kids and families there. Fun was had by all!

The birthday girl, Ryleigh, turns 4! with a Hello Kitty themed party.

dunking the ball

Somebody was worn out from such a long day.

 

Sunday -  church - lunch/chores - out on the boat & dinner w/ the Garretts

She loved the water splashing up. - She kept trying to catch it.

Loving life!!  :)

Thankful for great friends!

guy talk

the kids waiting to get in the (cold) water

She wasn't too fond of the temperature of the water - or of the fact that she didn't have much control in her life jacket.

These two had a blast in the water.

being goofy - would you expect anything less?

He was soo good at this!

Enjoying a snack while the daddies tubed & skiied. 

Driving the boat so Tyler could ski

Blurry, but Tyler is really good at skiing slalom. (sp?)

Love this one!!

Happy girl after her first boat ride.

Josh & I agreed that it was such a nice treat to end our weekend whirlwind with a ride on the lake w/ such good friends. It was very relaxing and got us itching for more.

 Random - 2 quick crafts I have been working on from Pinterest

I like these, but have plans to make some more in the future using mason jars instead. I also need to work on perfecting the burlap rosettes. I like the one on the left, but not so much the one on the right.

A prayer board - for all prayer requests I receive from friends & family - as well as personal ones I may have for myself . I put this in our bathroom b/c I figured it's a place I spend a lot of time at each morning and evening as I get ready for my day and get ready for bed. I thought this would be the perfect time to remind myself of others' needs (as well as my own) instead of staring into a mirror for who knows how many minutes just thinking about myself.  

Here is a closer look, but I turned the notes over for confidentiality reasons. Overall, I am pleased with the result. It was really easy, and I got to use a cricut for the first time. Talk about addicting.

New Design & New Toys

Okay, so what do you think of the new design and layout?? I really like it!  There are a few things, however, I wish I could figure out how to tweek.  When I pull up the blog on the iPad it still uses part of the old design mixed with part of the new design, so I hope what you are seeing is what I have intended for you to see. (a grey, white, & yellow pattern - no more orange for now) 

Again, not too much to talk about for now, but I did take a few pictures of some of Tillman's new summer/outdoor toys, so I thought I would share those with you.  Hey, at least it gives me something to write about and gives me a chance to look at and play with the new design some more.  We do have a jam-packed weekend ahead, so check back soon for an update.

Other things on my mind before we get to the good part: (the pictures)
 - PASS testing is in a week & a half!!  Can we say crunch time??
 - I'm taking my kids on a field trip to the Children's Museum & the Upstate History Museum tomorrow.  I'm excited b/c I've never been, and I plan to scope out the place well to see if it would be something we would want to do with Tillman this summer.
 - I'm getting my hair cut (trimmed) tomorrow after the field trip.  I'm contemplating some sort of bangs, but not sure yet.  I'll let the lady with the scissors decide.
 - After the haircut, we will head to G'ville as a family to do some birthday present shopping for a party this weekend.  Josh takes gift shopping for kids very seriously.  :)  I mean, he would know what toys kids would like.
 - Saturday morning we want to accomplish 2 great things:  the Easley Farmer's Market & the Jockey Lot!  I haven't gotten into yard sales, and I'm not huge into the Jockey Lot either, but Josh thought we might be able to find some cool "scraps" to turn into little projects.  Thank you, Pinterest.
 - Saturday afternoon we have a Sunday school picnic planned and a birthday party to attend.  I'm looking forward to squeezing both of those in and getting to hang out with some new friends.
 - Sunday will be spent at church & then putting finishing touches on our Luke Court house b/c there is a realator's luncheon planned for this week.  Please pray there is continued activity with the house and that it sells soon.


...And... here is what you are looking for, and the only real reason you check my blog in the first place, to see pictures of Tillman. Let's face it, it's true.

This was an Easter gift for Tillman ordered from Grandma & Grandpa that arrived this week. Tillman is pretty good with puzzles, so I'm excited to use this one to help her learn the letters of her name, and eventually, how to spell her name. Clever idea.

The inflatable was either a birthday present or Christmas gift, and we finally found a set of 100 balls to dump into it. Tillman LOVES this and squeals with glee as she rolls around and throws the balls everywhere. (Easy lesson on picking up and putting things away when you are finished with them.) Josh thinks we need to add another 100 balls.

Tillman's favorite toy of everything we picked out. She literally wakes up, gets dressed, and goes out in search of, "ball.ball.ball."

And this is where we like to put the ball. Don't worry about the breakable picture frames and lamp. Yes, please go ahead and put a $2.50 ball on the table instead.

A mixture of fun, cheap toys: watering can, bubble gun, sidewalk chalk, jump ropes, bubbles, bubbles, bubbles.

I can't wait to see her use these. She's in a copy-cat stage and wants to help out with everything. Now she can without risking injury.   :)  

We were copy-cats, too, and got T an adirondack chair for the back deck. Mom & Dad got her a purple one for their house first.

Yes, this is one of my favorites.  And, yes, there is cold rain water in that inflatable. Josh gave me a guilt trip b/c I was more caught up in taking the picture than I was keeping her from falling into the cold water. In my defense, though, I told her to wait one minute and that it would be cold. Her response was to literally dive in head first. So, I warned her. Maybe she needs to work on her listening/following directions skills.  ;)

This is T changing out of her cold, wet clothes and into some dry ones. What a ham.

Reading a book in her dry, warm clothes.

Oh, and need I not forget to mention....Josh got a new toy too. Yes, that's a Nerf gun.

And, yes, he will shoot you with it.  What can I say? He knows how to keep things fun & interesting. Never a dull moment.



Picture Break

Well, even though this post is entitled "Picture Break," I still have a few pictures to share with you. They were all taken by McKinley using our iPad. We have been plenty busy and having lots of fun, but I decided this week not to worry about the camera and to just go and do. And it was fun. Now I just have to remember everything we did. The pictures usually help remind me of that. Here's my best recap since the last post:

Thursday night:
We (all 3 of us) went to Josh's softball game. He plays for BCBC, the church we have been attending and hope to join in the near future. Tillman had a blast running around, weaving in and out of bushes, and watching the 5 year olds play. She was so funny because she got a kick out of crawling around and around, over and under the bleacher seats. She also thought every bat and ball she saw was hers. She even tried to sneak into a few dugouts to get her hands on one. She was also entertaining in the fact that the last 5 minutes or so of the night out at the fields she decided she would crawl around everywhere. An up and running full on toddler crawling around on all fours for no apparent reason - really makes me wonder what was going through her head at that particular moment.


Friday night:
McKinley babysat for us Friday night so Josh and I could go out for the evening with some new friends from Sunday School, Scott and Amanda. We ate at the Mellow Mushroom downtown Greenville. After dinner, we walked to the Greenville Drive baseball game. It was a nice night weather wise and company wise. A coworker asked me if the Drive is any good. My response was, "I don't know. I didn't watch much baseball. I just talked the whole time." And to top off the night, there were amazing fireworks shot at the stadium after the game. I love fireworks.



When we got home that evening, these pictures were waiting for us on the iPad. I feel confident in saying these two had a fine time themselves.

Saturday:

Tillman and I ran several errands, including a trip to Hobby Lobby, while Josh did yard work. I grabbed a few things so I could do some Pinterest crafts while Tillman napped. She is napping between 2 and half and 3 hours, so it gives me plenty of time to get some things done, assuming I use my time wisely. :)  Along with some new crafts, I also did a pretty quick deep clean on the house. I will have to take some pictures of the crafts and of the huge blister on my finger I got from getting reacquainted with the hot glue gun.







After T's nap, we all went out for the Pickens Azalea Festival. I can confidently tell you that we will likely not be going back again any time soon. It paled in comparison to the annual Azalea Festival we are used to attending back home in Summerville. We were disappointed, so Josh was in charge of coming up with what to do instead with the latter part of the day/evening. He was hugely indecisive, so we ended up going to dinner at Five Guys and then spending $53 on some new toys for Tillman. Why? Because Josh couldn't decide what he wanted to do, not because the child needs new toys. I will admit it was really fun and we ended up getting her some pretty cool new things. They were mostly summer and outdoor toys. I will try to get some pictures of these, too to share. I still want to get her a sandbox and some sort of slide/swing contraption. Hopefully in the near future.



Sunday:

Sunday school, church, lunch, T - 3 hour nap, Josh and me - school work, piddly things around the house, chores, etc.  After Tillman's nap, we played with all her new toys. We wanted to take her outside and play in the rainstorm we were having, but once we got outside, it was way too cold. So, instead of giving up on the water fun idea, I decided that T and I would go "swimming" in our master bath. It's one of those really big, deep kind. She was already dressed in her swimmy diaper and bathing suit, so I joined in and put my bathing suit on, filled up the tub, loaded up the toys, and away we went. We had such a good time and stayed in there for roughly 40 min. or so. T was squealing, splashing, squirting toys, laying down in the water, and she even went all the way 2 times. I was so proud of her.

She liked that bath so much, we had to bathe her in it again tonight. I didn't join in this time, I just kept it all business and cleaned her little body.

Well I hope I'm not leaving off anything too major. I am making a promise to myself to get the camera back in action this week.

We are officially on the countdown to PASS testing, 2 weeks! It's a busy and stressful time in the life of a teacher, let alone, 2 teachers. I hope everyone has a great week! Check back soon for more updates.