The Flick Four

I've been a photo taking SLACKER lately, so I wasn't even planning on doing You Capture this week. But when I opened Beth's blog, and saw the theme was "Looking In", an Instagram photo I took a few days ago immediately popped into my head. And I couldn't NOT post it...

My babies. Hanging out. Being brothers. Why Gavin is sitting on the dog crate, I will never know...

Check out more of this week's You Capture, at I Should Be Folding Laundry.

Remember last week (or was it the week before?) when I mentioned I had eleventy billion projects on my waiting to be done list? Well... *insert drum roll here*... I FINISHED ONE! Woo hoo! AND- I took pictures of it, just for you :)

Wanna see? No? Too bad... you're here, so I'm showing you. It all started with these awesome clipboards I saw on Pinterest. Since one of my kids isn't in school yet, and the other one is only partially in school, I didn't need totally school based clip boards for them. So I put a few little chores that they can start being responsible for around the house. Even Grady, who's only 3, has a short list of stuff he will have to do every day.

These were really totally easy. I bought the clip boards at Wal-Mart for less than $2. I used plain ol' acrylic paint that you can buy anywhere, and a sponge brush to paint them. White vinyl cut on my cricut for the words, and papers I already had (and even the letter stickers that I never use) for the personalization. The most labor intensive part was finding and ordering a sheet of dry erase vinyl for the squares. I think regular vinyl would have probably worked with dry erase markers, but I wasn't positive and I didn't want to do the project then find out it didn't work.

I ordered it from here. They shipped super fast, and have tons of other vinyl to choose from. I'm thinking there will be chalk board vinyl in my next order. (the shipping is a little high, but this is pretty much the only vendor I found, so I sucked it up and bought it anyway). I'm glad I did decide to order it. The dry erase vinyl is a little heavier, and FAR shinier, than the regular stuff. It works GREAT!
 
Because I made my boards for every day use, rather than school week use (like the original ones I found), I put 7 squares along the bottom, for a parent to mark off that the kid completed their chores each day.You can see in the above picture, that Gavin has already used his and gotten marker on the painted part. He used a marker that wasn't dry erase. I think that's why it smeared, rather than breaking up, when he erased it. I'm hoping I can peel that square off and touch up the paint in that spot before I hang these on the wall for regular use.

 I used all Echo Park Playground papers on these (including one for myself that I didn't take a picture of.). They aren't hung on he wall yet, so I cant comment on how well they are working. BUT- Gavin was very excited when I finished them. He loves to check stuff off!

On to the next project in the queue... Still working on the elements to put on that blank wall in the kitchen... Here's a little sneaky peek!

About 4 months ago, I got a wild hair and decided to start running. I have never run in my life. Well, I have. But never willingly. And not for a consistent form of exercise. Until now! I find myself actually enjoying my runs. Don't get me wrong- its not necessarily FUN- its *hard*. ESPECIALLY when you haven't ever done it before. But I'm getting better, and enjoying it more and more. I like getting out and enjoying our sunshine (that we have plenty of), having more energy, and seeing a difference in my body (especially through the middle, where all my "baby fat" hangs out).

Shortly after I caught the running bug, a good friend said she had just started running too. She also told me that she and another girl I know were planning to run a 4 mile race on Superbowl Sunday. She invited me to run with them, so I took a leap and said yes!

Yesterday was the big day. My first REAL race. not that I was racing really. Not anyone else anyway, just myself. I was planning on finishing the race and running as much as I possible could. I was secretly hoping to be able to run enough to get a time of 45 minutes. But I was also realistic with myself and knew I would likely get somewhere closer to an hour. And I was OK with that. I mostly just wanted to do my best.

It was a gorgeous day for a run! Chilly in the morning, but the sun was out and it warmed up pretty quick. This is my friend Jazzmine (the one who roped me into this whole deal) and I right after we picked up our T-shirts and numbers. We were freaking freezing at this point. And I was standing on a little bit of a hill and look oddly tall...

The race started at 9, so when it was time to line up- the sun was shinning and we were warming up. Here is one more pre-race shot of the three of us... That's Raquel in the middle. Shes an old hand at this running thing. She beat my time by like 20 minutes. We saw her at the starting line, and that was it until the end. lol.

The first half of the race was along the streets. It was mapped out well with cones and spray paint, and people on several corners to make sure there were no wrong turns. Just after the start of the 3rd mile, the course cut off the road and continued on a trail along side of a small lake. You cant see the lake in this picture (it was before I realized that's where we were headed) but I had to stop and snap a quick shot of how GORGEOUS it was out side.

'Round this house, we don't do Army men. We do police men...

and firemen...

But apparently, they sometimes get a little rambunctious,

and need to spend sometime in a special magnetic sky scraper holding cell...

I really dont know what it is they do, to tend up here... I get distracted by the cute boys. (and its not the ones in uniform)

See this kid? Hes 6 now. Every once in a while, Ill get a shot of him where I can still see the baby face... Like this one. By his mouth, you can see a bit of cheek chub. This kid was born with cheeks, so when I get a little glimpse of them on his new big boy thinned out self, it brings me right back to the baby days.

Theres a never ending supply of projects to do around this crazy house. Home improvement projects, cleaning projects, craft projects- theres a million and one of them just waiting around for their special day. And I have every intention of completing them... once I quit adding to the list and can pry myself off of pinterest and the interwebs.

Lets look at the current projects. As in *right this very second*...

There is a little of this going on-

See the wall behind the TV? That's new. I didn't like the TV just hanging on the wall. Floating out in space. We have no mantle to hang it over, and we just got rid of the HUGE (ugly) entertainment center it used to sit in. That big empty wall definitely needed something more... So, a little looking around and I found THIS on line. Her post is all about her Christmas decorated mantle- but check out what fills the wall above the mantle... behind all the Christmas goodness... YES! That's IT! I loved it as soon as I saw, and god busy convincing the man that I *needed* him to build it.He wasn't TOTALLY sold on the idea... but has enough vision to just go with it and trust me. That brings us to that little picture up there. Its a wood grid, with luan behind it. That brilliant man of mine even routered out  a path on the back side of the lower grid pieces for the TV cords to slither through down to the plugs. No wall drilling to hide cords! No fishing in said wall to find the cords and feed them through! YAY! But like I said- this is about projects in progress... An this bad boy isn't done yet. (Dang work got in the way). Its primered, but still needs a coat or 2 of good ol' glossy white. There are also going to be a couple floating shelves on each side, just for funsies... Hopefully in the next weekend or 2, that will be finished up.

Whats next...

Oh! Just today I started a couple of these cool clip-boards-

woo hoo! Another post! This time its for You Capture. The lovely Beth, over at I Should Be Folding Laundry, supplies the theme and hosts this photo link up each Thursday. There are some amazing photos to be seen, so go check it out when you're done here!

This weeks theme is Morning. At our house- morning is all about the sunlight pouring through our sliding glass door and into the kitchen. I talked about it in my last post too. Its seriously how these crazy boys- and their equally crazy dog- spend each morning. As I do the dishes and make breakfast, they lay on the rung, in the sun, and talk. Mostly crazy talk, to each other. :) I cant remember now what they were discussing when I took these pictures, but it was silly. I dont think it started off silly, but it morphed into silly as the discussion went along. Do you remember those days? When you were a kid and hanging with a friend (or your siblings if you had them) and EVERYTHING always ended up being hysterically funny. I remember. And I love reliving those kind of moments with my little guys.

Speaking of silly- in that first picture, the little one is mocking me taking pictures of them. lol. See his little hands making his pretend camera? Little punk... ;)

Now that you have seen what I have to offer- go check out the others at

So I had a whole 10 on 10 blog post written for you, then I went to edit the pictures I took for it. I wasnt thrilled with them. They were all taken with my phone and I just wasn't happy. I did have one though... the ONE shot I took today with my actual camera...

I was in the living room talking to my hubby and I looked over to the kitchen and all I saw was feet. Both the boys and the dog laying in the sun. Its their favorite thing to do in the mornings. (Another morning shot coming on Thursday for a different post). We have a HUGE (dirty), west facing, sliding glass door that makes for a perfect sun spot each day. Imagine how much better the sun would be in there if I actually cleaned the glass?