Dylan is Three!

Oh, blog slackerdom. It's overtaken me and this blog. Many apologies. That being said, let's discuss one of the recent events in the Harris home: Dylan's 3rd birthday . 

As you may remember, I may have gone big for Dylan's first and second birthday parties. This year, I decided to go waaaay low-key, since we returned from Lake Powell just two days before Dylan's birthday, and I knew we'd still be a little exhausted from vacation. I know that it's not necessary for Dylan to have a big party every year (or ever, for that matter), but I still feel bad that I didn't do more. Dylan didn't seem to notice not having a huge party, and he was thrilled with everything we did that day.

The day started with a balloon drop, an idea that came from Pinterest .

As expected, Dylan loved the balloons. When he first opened his door he just said, "Woooooooooow!" We spent the morning playing with the balloons in every capacity- soccer, volleyball, etc. 

Later that day, we headed to Thanksgiving Point's Farm Country, since Dylan loves to see all the animals. 

After Dylan's nap we had a few friends over for cake and ice cream. Again, super low-key, but Dylan had a blast.

Happy birthday to my sweet Dylan!

Lake Powell {part 2}

Alright friends, here are some more of my pictures from Lake Powell. It really was such a fun week, and I now understand why people make such a fuss about this place. It's fabulous.

Did I mention that this vacation had a name? Yep, it was Chranksgiving. Thanksgiving+Christmas, of course. Carl knew that the whole family may not get all together for the holidays this year, so we had a week together pre-holiday craziness. Pretty genius if you ask me. 

Here you have the most amazing slip-n-slide fail ever. My father in law Carl brought along a 100 ft. plastic roll and a special hose all for the purpose of the coolest slip-n-slide ever. Unfortunately, things just didn't work out. No one really figured out why, but you could not move on this thing. Even with the slide being soaped down and taking off with a running start, you had to scoot all the way down. Bummer, because it was such a fun idea. 

Here we are! It was a week of no makeup or blowdryers, as you can tell. 

We had a birthday night on Wednesday, since there are seriously 6 family birthdays within 2 weeks of each other. 

Cool picture, right? This was on the way to Rainbow Bridge.

The whole family got mooned by Benjamin about 2 seconds after taking this picture. The husband has no shame. When we said, "Look at that view!" we weren't telling Ben that we wanted to see some skin!

Rainbow Bridge was gorgeous, but stressful- kind of like the Grand Canyon a bit, as there were no railings and about a million ways for kids to fall to their death. 

Aaaaaaand onto the hilariousness...

One night the adults participated in a While Elephant gift exchange. I lucked out with a box of Aveda hair product (SIL Ashley works for the salon- score!), and Ben ended up with Brokeback Mountain. The movie remains in its plastic case.

Senior citizen substance abuse. Not sure if I'll get in trouble for putting this on the blog, but a certain over-70 member of the family smokes a lot of pot. Rumor has it, this has been the case for decades. Nothing was ever smoked in front of anyone, but phew! we sure could smell it a lot. 

The family vacation was, without a doubt, absolutely amazing. We can't wait to get together for Chranksgiving 2013! 

Lake Powell {part 1}

Last week we headed down to Lake Powell for a vacation with Ben's family. I had never been to Lake Powell, so I had no idea what to expect. I had heard enough about the lake over the past 9 years that I knew it would be fabulous. And fabulous it was. 

Ben's dad rented a house boat for all of us- there were between 14 and 17 people there at a time, so it was a full house. Each family was responsible to do the cooking on their assigned day- we had Wednesday, so we made french toast for breakfast, sandwiches and chips for lunch, and pork burritos for dinner. Honestly, all of the food during the week was divine and I was seriously bummed to leave all the yummy meals. 

We left our house at 4 am on Monday morning, and got to Bullfrog by 9. After a few hours of chaos and unloading the ridiculous amount of stuff that we brought, we were out on the water. Prepare for a photo overload... Mind you, this is just post one of 2 or 3, so brace yourselves. 

My mother in law is amazing and had a daily craft to do with the grandkids. 

Joel brought his dog Atticus, and he was amazingly well behaved. 

There are no words for this one. I hope you all are sensing my eye roll. 

After playing outside all morning, the kids usually came in for a lunchtime/pre-nap movie. Dylan really wanted to watch from the floor, as you can tell.

More pictures coming soon! Also, here are way too many funny things to discuss- Brokeback Mountain, senior citizen drug use, slip and slide fails.... get ready!

A word from The Boss.

Sorry that my mom has been such a junky blogger lately... vacation and back-to-back birthdays have made life pretty busy. She promises to catch up soon!

Hanson + Taylor Swift.

One thing that I absolutely love is a good cover song. When I found one of my oldest favorites, Hanson, covering Taylor Swift it immediately brought a big smile to my face. Whether you are a Hanson or Taylor Swift fan or not, a good cover is always fun.

What do you think of this one? What is your favorite cover?

And the winner is....

Thanks to all of you for entering this fun giveaway! I'm so excited that one of you will be getting one of these fun boxes of Skippyjon Jones goodies from Kohl's. 

Here's the winner:

Hooray, Sarah! I hope you and your kids love these books!

Again, thanks so much to my lovely friend Ale for making this giveaway happen!

But Really...

While at Target yesterday afternoon, I found the perfect shirt for Dylan:

For those who don't already know, I'm telling you the truth- this shirt is perfect:

I'm thinking about going back to Target today to pick up this shirt in 4T and 5T- he needs it! Also, don't you think this is a fun perk of having a offbeat middle name? You'll never find a shirt that says "James is my middle name"... especially not pictured with flames and a motorcycle.

PS-You're running out of time! Enter to win a set of Skippyjon Jones Books. I don't care if you're a blog creeper- you deserve to win too! Click here to enter!

Chair Facelift.

When Ben and I first got married, we were given a kitchen table and chairs for free. Free! It was wonderful, as we only had a mattress (on the ground, of course), a tv, and a love sac at the time. The only drawback? The cushions of the chairs were in seriously bad shape. 

Of course that didn't scare me away- that's nothing some new fabric can't fix. Seriously, recovering chair cushions like these is a cinch. All you need is fabric and a stable gun. That's it. 

I wish I had some real before pictures of the chairs- they used to be a light tan color, with a green and tan plaid fabric on the chairs. A few years ago we got sold the table and all but one of the chairs. It was an accident that one stuck around- I thought that we had gotten rid of them all. It really has been once to have that extra chair though- it gets used all the time.

Two year ago I decided to paint the chair a cool aqua color and cover the cushion with a bright, fun lemon printed fabric. It was lovely, but it wore out. I know that I had a picture of this chair, but it has mysteriously disappeared. Anyway, imagine worn out paint with lots of chips and a dirty, ripped cushion. Imagining? Ok.

I decided to give the chair a fresh coat of paint (we had an extra can of spray paint left over) and I found some fun fabric at Hobby Lobby for $4 per yard. 

Looks great, right? This project took only a few minutes of my time and cost a mere $4. My kind of project. 

Also, don't forget to enter the Skippyjon Jones giveaway- it's only open for a few more days!

Hooray for a re-cap!

Dylan and I spent last week in Indiana where we had eight lovely days with family. There's way too much to post if I want to do a proper documentation of the visit, so please accept my photo collages with minimal blurbs... I can either keep it brief and get most things covered, or long and only cover 2% of the visit. I vote brief. 

As always, my visit was wonderful and went too quickly. Hopefully I'll be able to visit again soon!

1. Dylan giving his cousin Evvie the stink eye. Seriously. 

2. Digging for dino bones at the Indianapolis Children's Museum.

3. Holy cow, it's a digger. Dylan was in heaven.

4. It's Indy, so there has to be a race car to sit in.

5. Again in the digger. He was too excited for words.

6. Cousins in their matching pajamas... trying to get picture with smiles.

7. And now for funny faces.

8. Kiddos at the park, before Dylan fell and bit his tongue.

9. Another cute pajamas moment.

1. Family lunch on Sarah's bday. Where's Sarah?

2. Cousins swinging at the park

3. Yogurt at YoYo Mama- how cute is the decor?

4. Dylan on the motorcycle.

5. Dylan and Ashton were so excited to see each other!

6. Dylan on the carousel at the Children's Museum

7. Cake, ice cream, and cute paper products!

8. Screenshot of Ben's excited face- and Brent!

9. Cool artwork at Scotty's restaurant

Don't forget to enter the super awesome Skippyjon Jones giveaway! Comment here to enter!

A New Family Favorite + A Giveaway!

A few weeks ago, I received an email from my dear friend Ale (who happens to work for Kohl's) to see if I was interested in reviewing some of the Skippyjon Jones books, which are featured as part of the Kohl's Cares program. This program is amazing, because 100% of the profits from the featured products go straight to support kids' health and education initiatives in communities nationwide.

Of course I jumped at the chance to review these cute books- in fact, just a few days before hearing from Ale I was at Barnes & Noble and came thisclose to picking up one of the books. I had heard that they were really cute books, and I definitely wanted to read them to Dylan. 

Honestly, I was just expecting to receive one book in the mail, but instead I received this amazing spread:

That's right- 5(!) Skippyjon Jones books, 2 darling stuffed animals, 2 fabulous cook books (Busy Family Recipes and Campbells Best-Loved Recipes), Eat This, Not That for Kids, and the cutest shipping box I have ever seen. Amazing.

I've read the books to Dylan, and he just loves them. They revolve around a big-eared Siamese cat named Skippyjon Jones, who pretends that he is a Chihuahua. The books have the cutest rhymes and with some Spanish and Spanglish mixed in. 

His favorite was Skippyjon Jones and the Big Bones, because he's in a major dinosaur phase right now. The illustrations are adorable as well, and Dylan wanted me to keep reading the parts with the "scary" dinosaurs over and over.

These books would be great for any kids, from preschool through elementary school. Don't have kids? Already have a few of the books? These would also make such a great gift. Really, these books are fabulous and would be a great addition to any child's book shelf.

Here's where this gets really great for all of you:

I'm giving away the assortment of Skippyjon Jones books and the other goodies featured above! Hooray!

Here's all you have to do:

Leave a comment on this post, and tell me your favorite book from childhood.

(I loved The Berenstain Bears)

One entry per person, and the givaway closes at on September 9, with the winner announced on September 10.