Oh, What do you do in the Summertime

We have been doing so much lately, that I have just not had the time (or energy) to post all the pictures on our blog. I hope to have our family website up and running by the end of the year – it will contain our blogs, photo albums, and scrapbook pages – ha, that’s another story entirely. I really am working on those. I’m about half way done with Vincente’s title page. Ha ha. That means about 48 more pages to go before I am finished with his and Joseline’s first year books. Better get on that! Especially since I said I wanted to finish them this summer... er. We’ll see.

What do we do in the summer time?

Just take a look!

Vincente likes to draw with Grandma on the whiteboard-

He also likes to take pictures – I’ll feature his photography one of these days-

 

We go to weddings (three to be exact – Megann, Christy, and Jessica) -

It wouldn’t be summer without the swimming pool – our favorite place to be during the day-

  

We visit the parks (Pinnacle Mt here) -

         

We make homemade pizza – and cookie pizza!

  

 

Vince likes to race cars:

  

We take road trips with the cousins -

 

We roll our ankles running -

Vince does impersonations of Alakay from Madagascar 2 (in his underwear...) -

We have puppet shows at The Wonder Place -    

Thanks for checking out our summertime fun!

What do you do in the summertime, when all the world is green?

What the...?

Lately I've been cutting my sandwiches this way...



The same way I cut them for Vince and Joss. Motherhood. That's all I have to say about that.

-- Post on the go

Monday Musings –- Seven Brides

This past week has been crazy. It went something like this:

Piano lessons, tutoring, rolled ankles, lack of running/exercise = cranky mamãe, making homemade pizza and pizza cookie = happy mamãe, swimming lessons (in which Vincente nearly drowns – but that’s another post), bachelorette parties (in which there is no drinking, but lots of laughter and conversation with a bunch of really smart ladies – a vet, a lawyer, a business owner, and an accountant. Whoa.), wedding preparations, wedding ceremony and reception, and finally a day of rest.

I attended the wedding of Megann Hamlin (now Edwards) on Saturday (picture at left with Jannae – one of the bridesmaids, and hopefully a soon-to-be bride ;) ) – the last of three weddings for this summer – phew!

I feel really blessed to have been able to attend so many weddings this summer! I have been thinking about my own marriage, and the beautiful covenants that I made that day.

I am so grateful for my knowledge and testimony of eternal families, and of the blessings of making covenants in the Lord’s temples. I found myself feeling very grateful for the covenants that Russ and I made in the house of the Lord. And wanting to live those covenants better and more fully. There is an earnest desire in me to live the gospel – a burning that guides my actions, and brings me to my knees when I come up short.

And I am so grateful for the atonement – the love of Christ and God – that allows me to be better than I was before. Sunday was a much needed day of rest for me.  I love the chance to reflect and be taught by the Spirit.

I posted some more motherhood thoughts over on my scripture blog. About the story of Ammon and motherhood.

I am going to post a “Monday Musings” post each Monday – just my thoughts, maybe a few pictures, and hopefully some of my testimony – because I need to share it more often.

This week I will be posting lots of pictures from our fun activities last week – and we’ll be visiting the puppies so I’ll probably write an entire post about them.

And don’t forget to check out my first ever giveaway – going on now!

How was your week? Does Sunday refresh you like it refreshes me? (I can’t live without Sunday!) What blessings are you grateful for?

 

 

 

 

My First Ever Giveaway!

So, you like my new header, do you?

You want a cool header, too?

Well, for my FIRST EVER GIVEAWAY on my blog (this is so exciting, I’ve always wanted to do this!!) I am going to make someone a header for their blog. Okay, yeah, I know – not too terribly exciting (I'm not THAT great at photoshop!), but I’m excited!

So – how do you enter into this giveaway? It’s pretty simple, actually…

Just start

FOLLOWING

the

front page

of our family blog

(the present)

Don’t worry – I’m going to give you instructions if you don’t know how (and if you are already a follower of the FRONT PAGE blog, don’t worry – I’m going to put the names of ALL the followers of my FRONT PAGE blog into a hat, so you’ll be in there):

1.) Go to the present – front page

2.) Click on the box that says ‘Follow’ on the left hand column.

3.) You can follow ‘anonymously’ if you prefer (it tells me who you are, just doesn’t tell anyone else who you are)

4.) Make sure you follow the FRONT PAGE blog. I will pick the winner from my FRONT PAGE blog, not my actual blog (this blog)

And don’t worry, you’ll get a say in the design of your header, if you want. If not, then I’ll just check out your blog and make something you’ll like. I’ll even show you how to do a few other things to your blog, if you want.

I will pick a winner (randomly – I’ll throw all the names in a hat and have Vince pick one) on Saturday, August 7 at 10:00pm. I will announce the winner on this blog. So you have exactly two weeks to start following my public blog! One… Two… Three… Go!

Oh, and make sure you read my post about how to use an RSS Feed Reader!

Facelift #3... and a button!

I think it’s #3, anyway. I’ve changed this blog around so many times I can’t even remember. But I think I have found a look that I really like. I hope I can keep it when/if I switch to self-hosting and WordPress and stuff (just to give you a glimpse as to what is coming up in our blogging life!).

I’m still trying to figure out how to deal with readership if I remove myself from blogger and start my own website/blog. Russ and I have been tossing around ideas for a math website that I may start in the near future... nothing’s become reality yet, but I have been toying with some ideas.

I also want to start a family website – due mostly to the fact that our server, gilgamesh, has not been up and running in the past few years, and that’s annoying, since that has been where I have hosted our family photos in the past. I don’t feel good about giving them to Facebook (you never know when they’ll decide that your photos are their property to do with as they please...) And none of the free options out there have nearly enough space. So eventually we’ll probably start paying for a family website. It’ll be good. I’m also probably going to consolidate back into the one blog (this one) since I don’t really want to make money off of my healthy living blog, or my gardening blog. I’ll probably leave My Soul Delighteth as it’s own blog for now. I like having something that is purely my spiritual reflections.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the new look of the blog – oh yeah, and don’t forget to grab a button!!:

<a href="http://rowleypoly.blogspot.com/"
target="_blank" title="The Present">
<img src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_enTqG9B6DwE/TEp_amy_ZpI/AAAAAAAAQEg/Eu7a7Y6PaBg/button.jpg"
alt="The Present - Button" /></a>

How to Read a Blog

Okay, so once upon a time, I had a blogroll on the side of my blog (actually, I still have it… it just serves a different purpose now). I got kind of sick of clicking on each individual blog and reading new posts on each separate webpage.

Sure, Chrome makes pretty fast work of it, but still… I’m not THAT excited to go to everyone’s blog (except to comment – and I still try to comment on folk’s blogs! I’ve been slacking lately, sorries).

Well, then I discovered a RSS feed and what is known as a “RSS Feed Reader.” I happen to use Google reader just because I don’t like having to log in to a bunch of different accounts, so I tend to keep everything kind of centralized with Google. It’s just more convenient. Also, when I was “adding” the blogs I read, I could add most of them by clicking a button that said something to the effect of “add blogs I’m following.” Which was fantabulous, since I was following most of the public blogs on my “blogroll.”

So now my blogroll’s role (ha ha) is mainly to show my readers what other blogs I’m reading. If the blog has a button, I’ve listed the button. If not, it just gets a linky.

So there you have it. That, my friends, is how blog reading should be done. I especially like using the iPhone layout of Google reader. That is my favorite, because it’s super clean – you know, nothing extra, just the posts. You can even add feeds right there.

Now, go set yourself up with an RSS Feed Reader and start enjoying your friends’ blogs! (and all those other blogs you know you spend your time reading! ;) )

A Note: Amy (in the comments) reminded me that private blogs do not have an RSS feed. You can solve that problem by creating a "front page" for your blog - see mine here.

Basically here is how you create a "front page" for your private blog:

1.) Create a blog for your front page. If the name of your private blog is "http://myblog.blogspot.com" your frontpage could be named something like "http://myblogfrontpage.blogspot.com" but it doesn't really matter.

2.) Every time you post a new post on your private blog, make a post on your "front page" that links to the post on your private blog. For an example - say you wrote a post entitled "My Blog Post" on your private blog. On your public "front page" you could make a post entitled the same "My Blog Post" where the body of the post is "Here is a link to my most recent post _(insert link here) " (you can be more creative with your front page posts - you can see examples of mine here).

3.) It's most convenient if you use a blog writer (I use Windows Live Writer - my absolute favorite, and I've tried a few of them - the free ones, anyway) because, at least with Live Writer, you can post the same post to several different blogs, so I just post it to my private blog, then switch it over to my public blog and take out all the text and pictures (sometimes I leave the first line of the blog post, if it doesn't have anything too personal and if it describes the post adequately). You could probably set this up pretty easily using email, too (maybe I'll address that in another post someday).

So there you have it - how to make your own feed for a public blog. So if you have a friend who only has a private blog, tell them how to make a front page so you can get a feed!! I hope any of my readers is satisfied with me providing a public feed (I also upload my feed to Facebook, and you could probably upload it to twitter, too, if you're a twittterer)

Butcher Paper

Every home with small children should have a large roll of butcher paper. Here’s what we did today with a long piece of butcher paper, some markers and crayons, and leftover stickers from our yard sale.

After a while, Vincente found all sorts of things to trace – his alligator, a fire truck... me.

I recently made a commitment to play with my kids more. To just enjoy them. Childhood only lasts so long, and before I know it I won’t have anyone bugging me to come play dragons and dress up and read them books. Plus, I can learn a lot from my kids. And talk about stress relief! I’m learning how to just let go of everything and enjoy the moment, instead of stressing out about the laundry, or the dishes, or my scripture study (not that cleanliness and reading the scriptures are bad things – but everything has a time and a place, and if I want to be able to study the scriptures, I am going to have to sacrifice something other than my children’s playtime to have that time to study the scriptures. There are a lot more hours in the day, it seems, when we get rid of the useless stuff).

There will definitely be more days like today in our future. (and guess what? I still read my scriptures and got the laundry done and mopped the floor. Funny how that happens, eh?)

All Dressed Up

One of our favorite games to play at Grandma’s house is dress up! Grandma has a HUGE chest full of dress up clothes, jewelry, shoes, hats, and more! Our project for the next few weeks is going to be making some “boy” dress up clothes (knight outfits, dragon wings, dinosaur tails and claws, and cowboy suits). Vincente’s favorite costume is “King Richard the Lionhearted,” complete with fairy wings.

Like I said, we’ll be getting some dragon wings in that box soon.

King Richard the Lionhearted... Fairy?

complete with scary dragon roar

Joseline just likes to do what everyone else is doing. And she LOVES necklaces and shoes. Shoes. This child is more obsessed with shoes than any adult woman I know. You wouldn’t know it from this picture, but I promise – she loves shoes.

All the Animals

WARNING: Long post alert! This post has several pictures, and too much text, but there is a FABULOUS video at the very end. You can just skip to the end if you want, but the pics are pretty cute.

Since our ward temple trip to the Memphis Temple was on Saturday (July 17), we decided to go up to the Memphis Zoo the day before and stay the night in a hotel. It turned out to be just as hot as any other summer day in the south, but little did we know what fun the zoo held in store!  I know this post is long and lots of pictures – but read through to the end – I uploaded the most awesome video. You’ll be glad you watched it!

The Water Hole

The Memphis Zoo is doing something right – they have a wading pool at the front of the zoo, and then another splash pool outside the grizzly bear exhibit. We let the kids get downright soaked (Joseline ended up face down in the water at one point – but that’s another story). Then we let the kids walk around the zoo sopping wet. Unfortunately I didn’t know about the water, so I dressed Vincente in jeans. If I had known I would have put him in gym shorts. I’m sure the kid was a little chaffed at the end of the day (if you know what I mean).

Pandas

Pretty much the first thing we saw was the panda bears. The zoo has two cute little pandas. They were both inside, since it was so hot. Most of the animals were hanging out inside their houses (or in their water holes if they had them). It is just way too hot in the muggy south to do much but lounge around in the shade. The picture above is Vincente gently tapping on the glass trying to get this panda to wake up. The video is of the other panda, who was happily munching away on his bamboo. Basically what pandas do best – eat and sleep.

And their poop looks like shredded bamboo,

clumped into light green clusters,

just in case you wanted to know.

I included this picture of a sign because it  has some Chinese characters. I was hoping Russ might read this post and translate it in the comments for us. Just for practice.

 

Grizzy Bear

Vincente holding hands with a grizzly bear. Okay, so really the bear is on the other side of the glass, and he is eating some cantaloupe. Yum yum. We watched the bear feeding for a while. It was pretty neat. At the end they gave the bears blocks of ice with blueberries and some other fruit frozen inside. It was hilarious to watch them lick at the ice in the water.

Sea Lion Show

The next few pictures are from the sea lion show. It was as good as SeaWorld at half the price! (okay, and minus Shamu. We still want to take Vince to SeaWorld to see an orca whale in person. Since we’re never going on a boat again. Ever.)

 

 

Do they look exhausted? Because they are. Don’t worry – they’re not sweating, they’re just wet from the “geysers” at the grizzly exhibit.  Well, they’re probably sweating, too. And they were starving. We bribed them to watch the sea lion show with the promise of food after the show :)

Polar Bear Show

Vincente, Karyn, and Joseline watching the polar bear dive. The kids were fascinated when the polar bear would swim by them. It was pretty magnificent. The polar bear looks beautiful under water.

Misc Zoo Pictures 

Vincente and Karyn holding hands.

And Karyn wearing my sunglasses.

Cute kids.

Checking out the baby giraffe. That’s right – a baby. This baby giraffe is about 6 months old and is over six feet tall! Pretty intense. A full grown male giraffe is something like 16-18 feet tall. Can you imagine birthing a baby giraffe? Talk about long labor. Har har har.

And no zoo trip would be complete without a ride on the carousel. The kids were looking forward to this ride ever since we went to see the pandas (which was the first thing we saw!).

 

In an effort to make this post digestible, I have only included a tiny fraction of the photos I took at the zoo. Once I get my online photo album back up and running I will post the rest for your viewing pleasure.

Monkey in the Treetop

And now... what you’ve all been waiting for... (it’s about 2 minutes long, but I cut that down from a 3 minute video I took. And I added some cute music, so it’s not terribly boring! :) )