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Paisley serenely watches our neighbor from her beloved swing as he climbs a ladder and serenely cleans his beloved rain gutters.

Girlfriend had her very first little black eye this week. She got it last Monday morning (after taking a head dive into the ledge that separates the kitchen tile from the hard wood floor in the living room), and you can still see a bit of the bruise. I figured I better document it.

Those Monday mornings I tell ya. Rough.

And if she isn't the just spitting image of her dad right here then I just don't know what.

What happens when I am left to fend for myself for a week

My sister lived with me last week while the hubs was out of town. And though Brian was quite dearly missed, what a grand week of sisterly things it was! Filled with late night chats, thrifting adventures, seriously good food and drink, more episodes of Friends than I even care to count, and general overall goofiness. Plus Paisley was thrilled to have someone besides her mom to play with and wrangle into her pj's at night.

And then...there was also the bug incident. Hannah and I don't have very good records when it comes to dealing with large insects showing up in places where they shouldn't be (when I come across large insects outside it doesn't bother me...that's their natural habitat! but an overly large bug IN MY HOUSE is VERY disturbing and a call for extreme action) and so the two of us together against an enormous, seriously hairy looking centipede-like beast was recipe for disaster.

I'll set the scene. We were downstairs in the family room binging on Friends when I happened to glance up at the ceiling above our heads and see it.

"NO!" I shouted. "NO, NO NO!"

Hannah was confused by my shouting until she also looked up to where I was pointing, which was when she became equally concerned. 

"OH MY GOSH!!!" She shouted. "IT'S SO BIG!!!"

We considered the option of trying to ignore it and get on with our night but...it was obvious that this guy was absolutely too horrifying to just leave there.

So. I brought in a chair to stand on and grabbed a wad of paper towels which was to be my squishing method of choice. But the closer I got to the beast the more petrified I became and the more intense the spine shivers quaked. It was SO BIG! And SO DISGUSTING! After much shouting and whining I climbed back down on the couch in defeat.

What could we do? The obvious answer was to find a manly man who enjoyed killing bugs with tissue and then opening it up to look at the squishy remains. I was seriously lamenting the fact that the hubs was out of town at this point since he is an expert bug killer (much to my joy and a relief) and also prefers to look at the smashed bug carcass (much to my chagrin). So since he was out of the picture I texted our brother in hopes that he would love us enough to drive the half hour at midnight to take care of our insect problem.

He said no. But was sympathetic to our situation. 

That is until I sent him a picture of what we were dealing with. 

"You mean the blurry little dot?" He wrote.

Well of course it was going to LOOK little in a PHONE PICTURE, I couldn't very well get close enough to show it's ACTUAL size!

"Horror!" I wrote back.

He didn't answer.

So. Hannah and I reassessed our situation and decided that we would get one of the hubs' heavy shoes from upstairs with which to smash the bug while standing on a chair. And we also put duck tape on the shoe so that the bug would stick to the shoe and not fall down on one of us.

Horror!

We sat on the couch discussing our plan, all the while eyeing the creature above our heads.

"Right. So all you have to do is stand on the chair and smack it with one swift motion."

"Yes. That's all you have to do! One swift motion!"

"Yes. All YOU have to do is get it with one swift motion."

"Yes that's all YOU have to do."

"FINE!" I shouted, figuring that since it's my house it would be rude to make the guest kill the bug (dumb rule though) and somehow my jittery legs made it to the chair. I climbed up, the beast growing larger by the second. "C'MON! DO IT!" I shouted to myself. Hannah cheered me on too.

This went on for a short amount of time while I believe I was also shouting "NO! NO! NO!" when suddenly, with one swift motion, I smacked it.

And it fell down to the ground.

And we both screamed. At the top of our lungs. Simultaneously.

Then! I pounced on the wriggling beast with a huge wad of paper towel (so that I would block my fingers from feeling any potential crunches) and with much spine shivers and shrieking got the wad of paper towels to the garbage.

Luckily my dearest, sweetest baby girl, who was just several feet above our heads in her bedroom upstairs, kept sleeping despite all the (quite loud) racket.

She's a heavy sleeper, that Paisley!

Maybe the hubs will train her in the ways of humungous bug squashing so that the next time this happens and he's out of town, I will be covered.

Well then Hannah, yet another sisterly adventure behind us.

"Yous twos. What a couple of goofs." Is what our dad would say.

Hashtag: sisterlove.

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More swimming pics! I couldn't stop at just one, these are that good. What you see is pure delight on that pudgy face. Every splash of water warranted shrieks of laughter.

We no longer fit into our snuggly two man tent.

Last weekend we decided to take our babe camping for the first time. As it turns out, she really likes tents. AND as it ALSO turns out tents are great babysitters. Just throw a few toys in there and make sure there's nothing she shouldn't have lying around and VOILA! Large and enclosed play place in which to roam free while mommy and daddy set up camp. Overall she did great! Especially considering the hot sticky weather, the extremely loud rainstorm in the middle of the night (she didn't even wake up!!) and the absolutely ridiculous amount of bugs.

Seriously, the bugs. The bugs! The hubs and I would exclaim things to each other like, "I don't think the bugs have EVER been this bad before!" But then we would remember that time last summer when we were camping with friends and the bugs were so bad that we played games inside the tent instead of having a bonfire, and that other time a few years ago when we were spending the summer up at camp and the bugs were so bad one week that we didn't spend any time AT ALL outside of our cabins once the sun went down.

So never mind, they have been bad before.

But this weekend! They were with us while we were swimming. While we were hiking. While we were eating. The hubs built us a lovely bonfire after baby girl went to sleep during which I chose to cover myself and my chair completely with mosquito netting and sit very still, silently willing the skeeters to fly on by. The hubs was mocking at first but soon found himself under there with me. And although being snuggled to your hubsie by a fire is usually very nice, when you are covered with many layers that include hooded sweatshirts, socks, long pants, bug spray and mosquito netting, AND sitting as close to the fire as you can bear while STILL being eaten alive in close to eighty degree weather...well let just tell you that it gets very hot and I found myself saying, "when can we go to bed?"

It wasn't all bad though! The highlights included swimming with our girl (she LOVES to SWIM! And SAND! Quick, let's move sand from one place to another all day long!!), all of us lounging around in our tent bug free once the afternoon breeze started blowing through, rubbing sunscreen all over Paisley's scalp when we forgot her hat on one of our trips to the beach thus bringing back crazy old man hair, putting our Pinterest skills to the test and roasting cinnamon rolls over the fire in empty orange halves (UM DELICIOUS. Way to go Pinterest!), watching the baby girl have an absolute ball spending so much time outside, and lots of good downtime for long chats.

SO. Without (very much more) further ado, the pictures! I managed to avoid the camera for the most part, seeing as I had a row of cherry sized mosquito bites neatly lined up across my forehead which, although I can't be sure because I didn't look in a mirror, most likely made me look like a chunk of walking cauliflower. Good thing I'll never actually know since the hubs is far too kind to admit such a thing to my face.

Paisley went to sleep as soon as we started hiking. That's her yellow hat blending into the scenery.

So there you have it! We are going again in September - if you have any great camping-with-a-baby tips that I should know, feel free to share!

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We visited the Children's Museum! Paisley loves to get wet. I didn't take many pictures from that day so good thing this one is a keeper!

Well last week I blogged five times and this week I will most likely only blog once. Consistency! It's my strong suit. My greatest talent! I'd love to keep telling you about it but I really MUST go to bed now.

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Another pic snapped by the hubs during our July 4th celebration! Right in the midst of kiddie pool fun, covered with as much sunscreen as humanly possible. In multiple layers. Slimy. 

I think that if someone gave me the task of describing motherhood in ten words, one of the words would definitely be slimy. 

I'll have to get back to you on the rest.

4th of July

And here I give you pics from our 4th of July celebrations from yesterday! Taken mostly by the hubs. Our day was filled with bike rides (with the ever accompanying burning thighs), friends, kiddie pools, delicious food, professional fireworks along with amateur ones, bonfires, and running around in the dark barefooted in the grass with sparklers, during which I succeeded in regaining some of my youth. 

Don't worry, the babes were tucked away in bed by the fireworks part of the list. But how they slept through all the celebratory explosions, I don't know.

This is Paisley and her friend Opal. Opal's mom and I have been BFF's dating back to ancient times, so naturally these two's best friendship has been pre-arranged.

And for you? How was your 4th? I hope your fires were cozy and your bug spray was strong.

Art Room - Finished!

Today! I am here to show off some pics of my art room in the basement becaaaaaauuuuuuse it is finally finished! This little room of mine has been a very long time in the works and I am absolutely thrilled that it is now functional for it's intended purposes.

Also, a post every day for three days in a row?! What am I, the Liz Points of 2011?

Showcased here is my dream desk. Huge and long and flat. Plenty of room to spread out and draw, assemble, print, create. And we made it for free! Brian's dad brought over some file cabinets and a spare piece of countertop from camp. The hubs was an absolute dear and spray painted the cabinets for me (the tall one too, everyone must match!) and threw the counter on top and voila. Free huge dream desk. 

I went a little label crazy in the closet. Which I loved doing. Who knew labels could be so fun? Everyone must have their place! P.S. Pay no attention to that brown unfinished trim, which should of course be painted white! It's one of those projects that we meant to do right away but never did. And now there's no knowing if it will ever be done!

And this side of the room is the sewing side. I expect that I will be spending less time over here, but it's nice all the same. Sigh. I DO really need to make curtains for the hubs and I's room because our blinds are hanging on by a thread (literally) and it's quite the adventure to try and open up the windows. Arrgg!! Sewing curtains. Complaining.

And of course I had to make a little space for my main girl. Right now she mostly stands at the table and bangs on it with her hands while bouncing up and down and breathing heavily through her nose (it's how she expresses her excitement.) I'm can't wait for when she gets a bit older and I can keep some paper and crayons down there for her.

Except I take that back, I can wait. I can wait! Stop with all the growing up!

Now I'm no DIY house flipping blogger or anything, but I DO want to show a couple "before" pictures. Because I'm just so proud of us.

Here we are as the hubs and his dad started putting up walls. I wish I would have gotten pictures before this - the basement was just a huge unfinished room (and that window was not always an egress!)

And here we are with drywall and non matching file cabinets and a closet.

And here we are with the finished room!

Hooray! And there was of course much rejoicing.

Instagram Dump - Take 3

Pictures of life from around these parts the past couple of months.

Father's Day Dress

I've been wanting to post some pictures from Father's Day, because Paisley is just so cute in her little dress and hat that she wore. Crafted by me own mum! We spent the afternoon at my grandma's house and ate good food, played shuffleboard (that is before the wind almost swept us away) chatted, played cards and other such fun stuff. Also, baby girl ate some grass.

Unfortunately the hubs had to work that afternoon and wasn't able to come with us to Grandma's. Fortunately we had a nice Father's Day morning at home though. Unfortunately we didn't take any pictures of him with his little girl on Father's Day. Fortunately I hopped in some photos with her in the most fatherly way that I could, being the mother that I am.

In other news, the hubs and I have been watching far too many British films as of late and I feel like I am having the hardest of times refraining from writing my posts in British speak. Fawlty Towers (John Cleese! Shouting! Chaos!), The Wind in the Willows (an old claymation production from the 80's - found at a garage sale on DVD for a DOLLAR! incredible luck, and now I get to relive my childhood), and the BBC Pride and Prejudice (yes I DID convince the hubs to watch it, and the good news is that he liked it much better than he thought he would!)  

But now I find myself wanting to exclaim things like, "Chin up old boy!" and, "My head is very ill tonight!" and, "Oh, noble badger!"

"Badger" is one of the very best words to say in a British accent, in my most humble of opinions.