The Story Of Us

Recently I stumbled across a lovely Pittsburgh boutique The Picket Fence  and thought I'd share it with you.. you can get in some early holiday shopping or treat yourself.  How cute is this Birthday Boy T-shirt and cape set! With the weather we've been having we all need to pull out of rain gear.. and I am loving this yellow and red firetruck rain coat. There is just something about tulle that brings out the girly girl in me.. OMG.. so cute! This pretty dress makes me want to go back to summer .. But then I see this and I say farwell to summer.. bring it on fall. This cake plate and fork set is so pretty.. how about start a new tradition.. a plate for the birthday boy or girl.. to make that moment and that piece of cake all the more special. Which is your favorite? I am giving away a $50 OFF code to go on your very on shopping spree at The Picket Fence. All you have to do is enter below! Entry -Form                  

lately things have been busy.. a lot more busy than I like my summers to be and with a lot more morning alarms than I would like. Our first two weeks of July were family filled. My parents left, my in laws arrived (they live with us for parts of the year) and then my sister in law came for a visit with her two kids.. they are very similar aged to ours which meant lots of love, laughter and lots of fights.  The next week and the week ahead are full of classes. D is taking an intense tennis class bright and early every other morning.. hence the need for an alarm. And then both boys are doing their annual summer swim crash course.. but thankfully things will all slow down as the month ends and then we can take a little break.. with no alarms.  How's summer been treating you? Now a question for my crafty friends.. my son attended a paint by arrow class. Paint filled balloons dangled over a canvas and he shot arrows at them.  This is the canvas he created. Now I was thinking this could

I haven't blogged in a bit. Since the summer vacations started things have been busier that I had expected. Ramadan ended and we let off some steam by having friends and family over, then being invited by friends. Also pretty much immediately started D's crash course swim class.. he hadn't been making much progress with all the years of classes he has taken so when someone recommended a crash course they claimed worked wonders with their child I signed him up.. it was a bit of a drive which meant I lost 3 hours every morning but D learnt how to swim.. So I am a believer and we will be doing this crash course every summer.  We have been trying our hand at growing a few things this year.. my mother in law is growing mint and coriander while I'm growing strawberries. It has been an inconsistent crop.. we get like two red strawberries every few days and most have so far been consumed by H so we can't be sure if they even taste sweet.   D turned 7 and m

Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah Synopsis - In the turbulent summer of 1974, Kate Mularkey has accepted her place at the bottom of the eighth-grade social food chain. Then, to her amazement, the “coolest girl in the world” moves in across the street and wants to be her friend. Tully Hart seems to have it all---beauty, brains, ambition. On the surface they are as opposite as two people can be: Kate, doomed to be forever uncool, with a loving family who mortifies her at every turn. Tully, steeped in glamour and mystery, but with a secret that is destroying her. They make a pact to be best friends forever; by summer’s end they’ve become TullyandKate. Inseparable. From the beginning, Tully is desperate to prove her worth to the world. Abandoned by her mother at an early age, she longs to be loved unconditionally. In the glittering, big-hair era of the eighties, she looks to men to fill the void in her soul. But in the buttoned-down nineties, it is television news that captivates her. She wi

Friday was the kids last day of school.. hello summer! Now usually I love summer vacation. The kids and I are ready to break out of our routines, we don't do any classes or camps and just try to relax (in a A type personality semi organized manner) lol. But we are in the age of COVID and I have already had three months of way too much kid time.. so let's see how this goes. Tomorrow is D's 10th birthday.. double digits.. so we threw him a surprise party over the weekend. It was a small close friends and kids outdoor backyard party.. we did our due diligence with social distancing, hand washing etc.. It was wonderful seeing everyone after so long.. Not a lot of pictures.. didn't even get one of the cake.. :(  But we had our first pinata Sunday was Father's Day.. the kids made a coupon book for M   Our restaurants are open for outdoor eating but with elderly parents in the house we are still not ready to venture out for a meal so we did what we've been doing for th

With D on his way to 3rd grade we decided he needed a desk in his bedroom. Before summer break we asked him if he wanted to go out and buy one or he wanted to find an old desk in need of some love and fix it up. To our surprise he said he wanted to find a desk and give it some love.. :) I really thought he'd want to go with the easy way but his decision made my heart so happy. This was going to be a summer project.. I made sure he understood just how time consuming the project would be.. His current desk was the little plastic Ikea desk. So I spent the next few weeks finding the perfect desk.. and we found one. $15 and it came with a matching chair  Disclaimer - This is in no way a how to guide.. it's just the way we did it.  We started by taking out drawers, the drawer pulls removed.. the chair seat taken off. And then we cleaned everything with Lysol wipes..  Next we sanded everything.. I had bought an electric sander when we were working o

Things have been busy.. summer seems to be getting away from us and I feel we just didn't have enough time. This summer we got bogged down by a lot of things that just had to be done. But we did manage a little getaway.. it had it's fare share of bumps but hey we are living in a crazy world right now and we have got to make do with what we got. We got a VBRO in Luray, Virginia, but before we got there we made a little stop to Assateague Island. We had been there before, many moons ago when D was a little little guy and M had always wanted to go back to explore it better. For those of you don't know Assateague Island is a barrier island off the coast of Maryland and Virginia inhabited by wil d Chincoteague ponies. Last time we took a boat ride around the island this time we rode our bikes through it and it was amazing! We had come mentally prepared to so few to no horses but lady luck was on our side and we saw a pack of horses even before we got on our bikes.  The next coup