Lawn Manager

One of my new gigs in this stay-at-home deal is 'lawn care' - I like to say 'managing the estate'. Of course, I enlist help/entertainment while I move sprinklers.
Reese is a far more willing helper when it comes to the outdoors
Not wanting to head back inside

No spring chicken here....

Happy Birthday Grant/Dad!
What do you get the man who has it all? Well, you unload all the drawers in the family room and pile it on....

For the record, the next two weeks mark the only time all year in which Grant is married to a MUCH younger woman. Look at you Hef!

We love you!
Your ladies

You stay classy San Diego....

Thank you Anchorman as 'staying classy' is our motto around here.
Dinnertime
After the pool
Before bath
What?

The secret to it all....

Prepare to be enlightened....I have recently discovered the fountain-of-getting-sh*t-done. Ready? Take notes and get ready to be productive! Come closer as I whisper to you the secret of life.
Get out your tennis shoes and put them on
That's it. Simple. Easy peasey. If you get out of bed and immediately put on your tennis shoes, you will be AMAZED at what you can accomplish. You don't get tempted to nap on the couch, or crawl back into bed, once you have those shoes on you'll even venture into the unfinished portion of the basement that gives you the heebie geebies (you know, the part you would NEVER go barefoot) to do some cleaning or organizing.
So go forth and wear rubber.

Sunday donuts....

at Rays with special guest appearance by the Reesers!

Oh joy....

Enter sarcasm.  The atrocious Dora glasses were found during one of our latest cleaning expeditions.

Sneaky

One of my big goals lately has been getting these girls to eat better - Ryan defines the word 'picky' and Reese is slowly starting to follow in her footsteps.  Now that I can control most every meal that goes in their bellies, I have been trying to step it up a notch in the health department.   Being on a budget doesn't hurt as we are now forced to eat out of the house so trips to McDonald's are only for my coffee these days.  I try adding bananas to cereal, avocados to their turkey and cheese sandwiches, salad to dinner and the other day I thought I'd dice up some tomatoes and toss it in their eggs.
Did it work? 50/50, depending on who you ask....
Mom, I don't want these 'omatoes in my eggs. I don't like them. Not my favorite.
Reese though, thankfully she was too enthralled with Mickey Mouse to care what she was shoving in her glorious belly.
Anyway, gladly accepting advice and tips. I'm not above bribery, which I often do and luckily I can get by trading a vanilla wafer, shaved ice or even string cheese but oh how nice it would be to not have to bust out my negotiating skills at the kitchen table. Although, I do the same thing with Grant so I suppose I can't ask for much more from my babies, or can I?

Reese....16 months

Can you believe that?  Ugh.  I can't.  16 months old already and such a barrel of fun she is.  Here's the rundown.....

Language - talking up a storm in gibberish with a smattering of her favorite words:  momma, da-da, eye-an (Ryan), juice, bubbles, duck, oggie (doggie), ickey (Mickey), bo-bo (blanket), who's dat (with an urban twang) and the most prized is 'ank-you' as in thank you, offered up every time you hand her something (yes, I'm bragging).
Sleep - still LOVES it.  She takes two naps a day and doesn't appear to have any desire to pare that down to one.  God blessed us with the best sleeping baby parents could ask for - bedtime is anywhere from 6:30pm - 8:00pm (depending on what is or isn't going on) and then, like clockwork, 12 hours later she's up babbling away in her crib, happy as can be...
Likes:

• Water, adores water.  The pool, the bath, the sink, the hose.  She can't get enough, although oddly enough the cheapo plastic pool in the backyard doesn't do much for her.  
• She's also obsessed with baby dolls - she hordes them - she steals them from her sister and then loves on them to no end  
• Wrestling is apparently a passion (awesome) as she and Ryan appear to be auditioning for the WWF  
• And perhaps Reese was a dog in a former life because if you can't find her you can be all but certain she has snuck into a bathroom and is attempting to splash in the toilet water or is constantly finding any trace of food there may be on the floor
• Climbing EVERYWHERE and on EVERYTHING
• Clapping and dancing (which her signature dance is twirling around in a circle until she falls from dizziness) 
• drinking out of a cup (always an adventure) and using her utensils like her big sister
• cleaning with her broom (mother's helper)
• her mama (can't say I don't blame her) 

No likeys -

• being changed
• certain fruits and veggies (they get the very deliberate side arm chuck off the high chair)
• being told 'no' (and as sweet and fun as she is, the girl has a temper)
• sitting still

Free falling....

One of the perks of mom being home full time now?  Cleaning and reorganizing!  I am embarrassed to say I have already done a few things that didn't make the cut in the busy mom/dad working all day era.  Yesterday the girls and I decided to tackle 3 of the upstairs closet.  I have to say, while bedrooms may be small, the builder of this home didn't skimp when it came to storage closets.  My trusty partner in crime took to the air to help better assess the inventory:
I don't know how you clean in your house, but here we do it sans pants.
I got a little inspiration for Reese's room when I uncovered the sheet set my mom and I had found on clearance a year ago at Home Goods. I am thinking curtains, pillows, accessories....Gotta love a free project.
Stay tuned....

When quiet is bad.....

I think most every parent will agree that when your rambunctious children get a little too quiet for a tad bit too long you are almost certainly guaranteed some sort of trouble when you finally get up off the couch to investigate the silence.  As I naively was enjoying some peace in the house last week, I sat up suddenly when I had realized that while Reese was napping, Ryan had gone AWOL for a bit too long.  What did I find....this:
In order to comply with the Child Protection Acts (I'm making this up), I will refrain from showing you the full body shots. But rest assured her markers didn't miss a single inch of flesh. You know you're in trouble when your first bath of the day is before 9am.
So apparently Reese wanted in on the 'quiet' action and later in the (same) day, disappeared while the girls were playing and I was trying to get dinner ready. I turn around, only to find this:
So that's when I promptly turned to this:
*PS - I know Reese is in pajamas (at dinnertime) but rest assured, we had been out and about, all dirtied up, so for her nap time I changed her into her 'comfy clothes' and kept them on after she woke up.....She was NOT in pajamas all day.  Okay?  

Unabomber

Circa 2011.  Be warned.

Sunday Spencers Series

via Ray's donuts:
Please remember that Reese and I are always gone prior to Ryan and Grant leaving....hence the questionable outfits and brushless hair.  That is a completely see-through blue 'princess' skirt that would normally be worn over some tights, pants, even shorts.   But rest assured, because as I was giving Grant the 'why the hell did you let her out of the house in that' look, he says 'I put bloomers on underneath'.
Okay then.  Note to self.  Totally okay for a 3 year old to wear some $.10 mesh as long as the bloomers are on.  

And off she goes.....

Pardon the slow shutter speed and bad lighting but I thought these were pretty cute regardless. Let's just say I was using my artistic license with these shots..... Typical Ryan running like the wind.
Lest we forget this precious babe:

Thanks for all the nice comments regarding the room redo:)

Ryan's room

Creative title.  Long post.
After three years, I finally got around to doing a bit of 'decorating' (as Ryan would say) for the little chica's room.  When we first moved in, it was an ode to Jamaican yellow:

I'm sure our Ryan hated it, and us, for forcing her to sleep in obnoxious sunshine (much like cheese ball Ryan from the Bachelorette....not that I'm watching) for over a year. Perhaps this explains the attitude nowadays.
We swapped out the paint color a while back and were gifted some adorable new furniture but I never really did much with the room:
Until finally a month or so ago I got the itch and the inspiration to get this sh*t done! I never wanted to go the traditional uber-pink room for Ryan (b/c she is so not an uber-pink kind of girl) - but I never really knew what color I did want until I stumbled upon one of those Target clearance end-caps and saw a lone lampshade that was a simple white with a teal border. On a whim I bought it, brought it home and then discovered that it matched the cover of one of our Dr. Seuss books perfectly. I tucked Dr. Seuss under my arm and skipped off to Lowe's to have the paint matched so I could tackle my first project stolen from the Young House Love creative masterminds: http://www.younghouselove.com/2010/03/nursery-progress-closet-quick-change/
The girls bedrooms are both tiny and have lots of windows (which is actually a curse as it leaves us with hardly any wall space for furniture placement) so after seeing how we could create a little more room by taking off the closet door, we did so in both rooms (more on Reese's room at a later date - aka, when I get off my rear and fully redo her room as well).
Ryan's closet before:
During
And with the help of my JV-grade sewing skills, the after:
Side note on the curtain fabric - who would have guessed how hard it would be to find a fabric I loved that had a hint of teal in it. I must have gone to about 8 different shops looking for a budget-friendly find (finally scored at Hobby Lobby, go figure). To girl it up a bit, I did buy some hot pink fabric to add as a trim.
Another bonus to doorless closets - no more slamming of fingers and hours of endless fun playing peak-a-boo
Once that was done, the next project was simple - redoing Ryan's letters in the same fabric with a little help from my favorite guns: staple and glue
I used my leftover paint to coordinate a few items, first being a little box to hold her hair bows, brush, cigarettes, whatever. Ryan and I busted out the painting supplies and went to town on a box that used to house some adorable toy of some sort that had long since abandoned it's container:
This project made possible by my new BFF the $1.08 McDonald's coffee
And voila
Moving along....I also repainted the mattes from the 3 pictures I originally had hanging (and swapped out the photos) to match the new teal theme we were rocking. Note the inspiration lampshade.
Switching gears...again...I attempted to make some corresponding pillows with my leftover fabric. Beginner note: regular pillows are cake but it's those effing decorative pillows and my attempt to add some contrast piping that sucked.....just don't look close, it's not pretty. Or also the fact that I got ahead of myself and thought I could 'wing it' - next time, I will get a tutorial and follow it - better yet, I need to start practicing with zippers.
And I suppose I could have tidied up and staged the room, but let's just keep it real here. This is what it looks like 99% of the time:
Disclaimer: we are not DIY-ers, at all, but that brown dresser is actually one item we did steal from my parent's basement (it was my dresser as a newborn, precious right?) and we painted it and gave it some new hardware and it now is tortured and beat to hell by two little misfits
Aaaaaannnnddddd....done.
Thanks for playing!

Dealing with the heat....

Hot is an understatement lately, or perhaps I'm just a big ole wimp. But it has been steamy here in St. Louis - typical for this time of year, yes. But do you ever get used to it, no.

Park time has to be in the morning or after dinner if we're going to get it in - here we brought our homemade blueberry muffins to enjoy (keeping within the new Stiff mantra - budget friendly):
Yesterday Dad suggested we run up to the Kirkwood pool before lunchtime to beat the heat - Ryan rode down the big waterslide all by herself (twice!) and Reese had NO fear of the water - wanting to walk in and explore and laughing hard when water came tumbling down on her from the waterfall. My favorite was the lazy river. Shocking.