Around Here Twenty-Six: 06/23-06/29

A glimpse into what it is like to live in our home just this minute.

photo cred:  The Daily American, Christina Dunmyer

Intentional Outdoor Hours: 278+ hours  (of 1000)
Such a beautiful weather week in western PA that we took full advantage of with outdoor hours.  Lots of playing outside, a volleyball game on Tuesday for B and I (we took all four kids with us!), and some dog walking.  We had a perfectly summer outdoor dinner last night and then sat around the fire ring until about 11p with a beautiful starry sky above.

Reading and finished The Girl from Everywhere by Heidi Heilig which I borrowed from our library. I started this week Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott and I'm in love with it already.

Library Haul: 14 books, favorites:  Yes Day by the incredible, late Amy Rosenthal (who also wrote this article that has lodged itself into my heart for the rest of time). Triangle by Mac Barnett (one of our fav authors! Have you seen his TED talk, it's such a good one!), and Click, Clack, Peep by Doreen Cronin

Baseballin' for Grey's all-star team.  He was 9 for 9 in his tournament last week and is having a blast and so happy to still be in season.  We have two more tournaments to come yet and he is thrilled.

Hosting our 9th annual Studer's Invitational Beer Olympics!  We had a gorgeous summer day and such great participants again this year.  I have a full post coming - including a Beer Olympic Planning Toolkit available on Etsy - but suffice to say it was another incredible day that made so many memories. We are already started planning for the last Beer Olympics next year - the tenth annual!

Giggling about the Rust Man who is just growing so much and so fast. His little front teeth have me dead with every smile.  He is such a sneaky little thing and loves stealing utensils out of the kitchen drawer and dunking them in the dogs' dishes.  He also steals the toilet bowl cleaner brush from the bathrooms just to spite me because he looks right at me and laughs and then runs.

Getting new hairdos! Grey had a playday with a baseball teammate all day on Wednesday, so the girls and I dropped Rusty off with Daddy and headed out to Peles Salon.  The girls got temp hair dye and were over the moon about it.  Gemma would have gone full head bright pink (hah), but we kept it to the ends for both.  Violet's hair is so white, you can see only the tiniest tinge of lavender on her ends.  It should wash out after about fifteen baths, but they are absolutely loving their fun summer looks.  I may have created monsters, hahha, just like their momma.  I kept it pretty low key this time, a nice, fresh cut and some natural blonde highlights.  booyah.

Suffering through some poison ivy.  ugh.  I made a big to-do last week to Brandon (who always seems to have it in the summer) that maybe 'I'm just not allergic because I've never had it in my whole life!' and then here I am eating my words big time because look who Karma came after for pretending to be an x-man immune of poison ivy.  I have it on my ankle, right arm and hand and my chin (the worst).

Making korean beef over rice and grilled chicken with this marinade with a side of grilled zucchini, cabbage, and onions (with bacon bits, YUM).  I whipped up a batch of these chocolate, peanut butter, oatmeal cookies to send along on Grey's playday.  Shout-out to my facebook followers who helped get me through an evening that I just could not bring myself to make dinner with all their helpful suggestions on what to make when you just can't even (I did end up going with cereal which was wildly applauded from our kids - hah!)