Foto Find Friday!

Angie From Angelica Grace Designs is hosting Foto Find Friday on her blog and the theme for this week is Eyes! I knew exactly which pictures would be perfect for this post! These are photos of my youngest little one Jacob who is 2, they were taken in the middle of this past May. Jacob had just gotten his very own pair of shades from Target and in the photo below he is pointing to them calling his sunglasses "my eyes"! 

I love this photo below, he is just too cool with his shades on!

He is such a fun little guy! I also found this one below with his real, pretty eyes! 

Given all that Jacob has been through the past couple of months, he is such an amazing little boy! We are so very blessed!!! Be sure to check out Angie's blog for more Foto Find Friday! Thanks Angie for Foto Find Friday!!!          Lisa

I've been featured!!!

I am so excited, I just found out that my Riley's Pop Garden Knot Dress has just been featured on Etsy's The Storque listed under "Making The Honor Roll"!!! I was so excited when I found this out I was jumping off the walls! (OK not really but I could have!) I was one of the 36 to be chosen for this category! Here is a link so you can check out all the other really neat items that were featured! So I snapped a picture of it on my computer screen and here it is!!! (sorry its not the greatest picture!) Can you see it on the bottom right hand corner?! I was so happy that this dress was featured because a portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Riley Hospital for Children Burn Unit!!! Here is a much better picture! (Lindsey was wearing my glasses for our photo shoot!) Someone even commented on "the little girl at the desk w/ the glasses?! Priceless!" that just makes my heart flutter, how sweet!!! Also a friend of mine featured me on her blog last week, Heather from Choosing Simplicity. (Thank You Heather!) Heather is such a sweet person I feel so blessed to have met her! She is a very creative, thrifty, inspirational and gracious woman, be sure to check out her blog! My goodness it's getting late and I have school in the morning!!!              Lisa

Foto Find Friday!

Angie from Angelica Grace Designs is hosting Foto Find Friday on her blog today and the theme is Color! Well, normally this one isn't a hard one for me! I had to try to find pictures that I had not yet posted here on my blog and I finally found some from when we went up to Lake Michigan on August 1st. The day seemed as though it was going to be fine just a little cloudy until we got to the beach and unpacked everything, it started to sprinkle then of course it started to rain! It was quite interesting to see how fast the people packed up and got out of there! My theory of it was I drove an hour up there and I was going to enjoy myself so I took the kids up the big sand dune with towels over our heads we went! 

From left we have Jaci (my niece) Kyle and Lindsey.

After we left the beach we decided to go site seeing along Lake Shore Drive and in this really cute little community called Beachwalk, I just love how colorful all the houses are!

I love the sage green door on the house below, very unexpected, yet very chic!

The Pink house, how fun is that!

The Coral house, which has a very beautiful two story front porch that I unfortunately didn't get a picture of!I just love how bright and vibrant the house is below, not to mention the tin roof, very modern! After our tour we had to hit the outlet mall for some great sales and of course it then stopped raining, just my luck! Rain or shine we still had a good time!!! Well I hope you enjoyed my colors for this week, now swing on over to Angie's blog for more great colors! Again thank you Angie for Foto Find Friday its been fun and quite colorful!!!         Lisa 

It's Back to School Time!

Kyle and Lindsey started school on Monday and life just hasn't been the same since! It's so quite during the day without them here, Jacob and I kinda miss them when they are gone! The first few days Jacob would wake up after Kyle and Lindsey got the bus at 7:10 and he would go into there rooms and looking for them! He got up early this morning and got to see them get on the bus, Chad had to drive them down the lane because it was pouring down rain! All day long Jacob reminds me that Kyle and Lindsey are on the bus, I don't think he understands that the bus only takes them to school and then picks them back up after school, so I guess Kyle and Lindsey must ride the bus all day or so Jacob thinks!! The kids are adjusting well to going back, they were both excited to see their old friends and meet new ones, have a different teacher and new classroom! Lindsey unfortunately has gotten in trouble already for what you ask, talking to much! Her and her little girlfriends! I have to admit she does talk a lot, Chad always says "I wonder where she got that from?" I wonder, I don't talk that much, do I?! I have been running almost everyday for the past week and Lindsey usually goes with me down the road (just in case I pass out on the side of the road, just joking!) and I am telling you what talk, talk, talk! I really don't mind, its actually kinda nice just us girls! That and I can only last about a mile OK 3/4 of a mile! (some times I walk half way back!) In other news, (I sound like a TV reporter!) I have added a new very special dress to my shops that I am really excited about! Here it is Riley's Pop Garden Knot Dress! (The desk was a $10 yard sale find this past spring!)

I love how fun and fresh this dress is! Its perfect for back to school

or an afternoon tea party! 

What make this dress so special is that a portion of the proceeds from this dress will be donated to the Riley Children's Hospital Burn Unit! I feel that this is a great way to give back to the wonderful staff at the burn unit and to help donate toys for the children they may be there! I know that if it wasn't for the toys that they gave us, Jacob would have been really bored during his stay! So be sure to check it out in my shop, it won't last long so get it before its gone!!!       One last thing, I will be having an End of Summer sale this Saturday in both of my shops! So be sure to stock up! I am working on lots of new things for fall so out with the old, and in with the new!!!                   Lisa

Foto Find Friday!

Today Angie from Angelica Grace Designs is hosting Foto Find Friday on her blog and the theme is water! Here are some of my favorite photos that I took from the beach at Lake Michigan when we went this summer. These pictures are from one of my favorite places to go with the kids, Washington Park in Michigan City.  On the day that we went the water was freezing but the kids sure didn't seem to mind!

 Lindsey is chasing the seagulls in the photo below!

Towards the end of the day we went back to the beach to walk down to the lighthouse that you seen in the first photo. The time of day was absolutely beautiful I ended up getting some really great shots.

I hope you enjoyed my  beach water pictures, now hope on over to Angie's blog for more! A huge Thank You to Angie for hosting Foto Find Friday, its been fun!!!            Lisa

A Little Something New!!!

I have finally added a few new items to my shop, some of the things will be very limited edition so once they are gone, they are gone! Speaking of being gone, the Forgotten Knot top is no longer available, its hard to see it go but the fabric is kinda hard to find! Not to worry, I do have lots of other cuteness in the works! I am try to go for more fall like colors, which has been very hard for me since I am definitely a pink kinda girl, not to mention Lindsey is too! Here are just a few new things that you can find in my shops. 

Sweet Carolina Peasant top and coordinating Capri's.

Summer in The City Twirl Skirt

The Enchanted Pillowcase Dress

Very Limited Edition Vintage Chic Capri's, love them! The top is available in Ruby Red dots, (slightly darker than the pink dots shown.) 

Pocket Full of Posies Capri's

And that's not all, I do have lots more to come! I also have a very very special dress that I am working on, which a portion if not all of the money will be donated to the Riley Burn Unit where Jacob had to spend a week this past June. We don't know for sure yet if we will purchase an item for the unit for the kids to play with during their stay or if we will just write a check. I am anxious to see how much we can raise! I figure we would take our donation with us at Jacob's next appointment for a glove fitting which is supposed to be in the middle of October. (it may have to be sooner since his glove is getting kinda tight already!) I am hoping to have the dress listed sometime soon, so be looking for it! You can find all the items on my website or my etsy shop, thanks so much for looking! 

Lisa

Boat Racing at The Beach!

That's right folks boat racing, we got to experience our very first boat race by accident on Sunday! We had been planning on going to the beach for a while and when we got to Michigan City and we had to wait longer than usual to get into Washington park not knowing what the hold up was! When we finally got to the check in post to pay, I asked the girl what was going! She said this was the city's first ever boat race, and it starts at 1:00pm, since they are on slow time we had an hour before the race started. We had to park all the way out by the road, when we normally park just a few rows from the beach! Our first thought was, a boat race really, not a big deal! Little did we know that it really was a big deal, you can read about it here, they had some huge sponsors such as Geico, Panasonic, Hard Rock Cafe and Lucas Oil just to name a few! Also CBS Sports was there along with four different helicopters that kept driving around! Needless to say, the beach was filled with so many people that finding a good spot was fun! That whole walk way to the lighthouse was completely filled with people!

And more people! They were expecting about 40,000 people to be there!

 When the race did start I was surprised at just how close they were to us, only driving about 185mph! It was definitely exciting and the kids sure did get a thrill out of for a while anyway, the race lasted about an hour. We really didn't know how long it would last and I left my 55mm-200mm zoom lens out in the van and really didn't feel like walking about a mile to go get it! Lazy I tell ya! 

The boats did make some fun waves for the kids to jump over! 

Lindsey looks thrilled! She kept asking me if I could take her picture instead of the boats!

 When it was time to leave the kids were completely exhausted! Kyle looks really tired below!

On the way back to the van I made the kids stand next to a few of the big boats they could really care less at that point and were just ready to leave! They sure look like they have traveled about 700 miles in the past two days!

I did get a picture of the drivers of this boat, they have two drivers the one that is on the boat and the guy with the long hair on the right in the picture below.

Over all we did have a great time, we definitely had a very busy weekend! I am hoping to go back to the beach one last time this Saturday before the kids have to go back to school!   Lisa

Road Trip

We took a road trip yesterday to Moline Illinois, this is were the John Deere tractor was born! Just to warn you this is yet another post about tractors, can you tell were farmers! The five of us and Chad's bestfriend Jerry went with us to the John Deere tractor Pavilion and World Headquarters which are in Moline Illinois. It took us about four hours to get there, driving all the way across the state of Illinois, spent about four or five hours there, then drove four hours back home! Crazy or what! Did I mention we had three children in the back, one of whom is two! I do admit they did very well the whole way there mostly because they were sleeping most of the way! The last two hours home Jacob just wanted out of his car seat, poor little guy, I felt so sorry for him, he's not the best rider and being harnessed in a car seat doesn't help! We did have lots of fun while we were there and I took lots and lots of pictures! Imagine that! 

The first place that we went to was the John Deere Tractor Pavilion

Jacob loved being able to get up in the tractors!

Kyle and Lindsey in the Combine. They both have this "really, do you

 need another picture mom" look on their faces!

Girl's can drive tractors too!

Little mother hen telling Jacob that he can't get on that tractor because its too old! (antique)

Jacob wondering where the rubber tires are!

Then we drove to the John Deere Tractor Headquarters and when we pulled into the long lane we seen some real deer! (sorry about the orange reflection, its a Washington beach parking ticket from last Saturday, the 1st, when we went and got rained out!)

Lindsey and I sporting our new pink John Deere hats!

Below, Lindsey is telling me she wants to take this one home with us! (Not sure how we can fit that one in van honey, not to mention the price tag that baby's got! WOW!)

           I love how Lindsey has her seat belt on, like she's really going somewhere! Too funny!

Taking a family picture isn't always as easy as it sounds! We are sitting in a huge loader bucket.

We finally got a good one!

Here is one of the guys, Jacob didn't really want to sit on the tractor so Chad is telling me to hurry up and take the picture! Look at Jacob's face, poor little guy!

On the way home Chad drove a different route and said he wanted to show me something that he had scene one day when he had to go to Illinois for his work. Well this is what he wanted to show me!

Not everyday you get see something like that! The people that live here must be used to visitors stopping by to take pictures from the drive way! I'm just glad they didn't have a big dog, other wise I wouldn't have gotten out, I would have made Chad take pictures! Well I hope you enjoyed more tractors! I do have lots of beach pictures to show you from today, we went back to Lake Michigan and it was amazing! I think we dove about 700 miles this weekend, so I'm ready to stay home for awhile!       Lisa

Hole In One or Twenty one!

Yes that's right folks hole in one or well in some cases it was more like twenty one! I took the kids to go play putt putt last Friday and they had a blast! This was Jacob's first time to play putt putt and he did very well the first 6 courses then he lost interest! I think the course had around 18 holes, which is a lot for a two year old! Kyle, Lindsey and Jaci (my niece) enjoyed playing and the weather was absolutely beautiful! I told the kids that I hadn't been to that putt putt course since way back when Chad and I were dating, back when I was in high school! 

This is how Jacob plays putt putt!

Lindsey finally got the ball in after about twenty one tries!!! It took me about that many on this one too!

Jacob learned how to play the easy way, just walk up and put the ball in the hole!

Below Jacob is tell me that his ball is stuck under the green in the water! Thankfully Kyle was brave and got it out for him!

The three older ones trying to see who could get their ball in first!

Below, Jacob is trying to roll the ball in!

Over all I think the kids had fun, I know I did but it does take much for me to have fun! I think next time when we go, we just do the driving range, 18 holes was just a lot for the little guy and his mama, chasing him around!      Lisa