This is our last full day babysitting Gizmo. I have a couple of silly pictures.

Apparently, he can’t decide if he wants to be in his bed or on his blankie. So he did both.

He purposefully weaved into the blinds like that. I watched him do it.

On a random note, we eat a lot of watermelon (we = Ashley and me). So I saw this awesome knife at Aldi and had to buy it!

Today I worked on a project for Kayla’s room. Her room used to have light purple paint below a purple flowery chair rail wall paper border. She had a Littlest Pet Shop comforter set to go with it. Now, her room is a really pretty shade of turquoise that she picked out. So the comforter was really clashing. The trick – she wants dragon themed things in her room now, and the only dragon themed bed sets are black and red. I got the idea that I could just use the existing comforter as filler and make a new cover for it. We went to the fabric store and Kayla found this brocade fabric. The blue matches her room!

I also picked up a turquoise fabric to make the back of the comforter. Here is what her comforter looked like this morning:

 This is the back.This is the front.

A few hours and some time with my sewing machine….

See that little pillow on her bed? That is the Care Bear pillow she has had for years! I had some leftover fabric, and now she has a matching pillow. Kayla is thrilled with her new bed, and I was amazed at how well it all matched. The materials cost about $50, which is a pretty good deal for what she ended up with. That brocade glows in light – the dragons and peacocks on the pattern look like they are on fire!

I finally pulled the SD card and got the photos from the last 2 weeks.

We’ll begin with the 4th of July. We went to the parade in Lake Bluff, like we do just about every year. It is the nicest parade around – very good old fashioned style with everything you could want. The weather was perfect. We staked out a spot and played cards while we waited for the parade to start.

The local bank hands out free snow cones for kids and drinks for adults. Real drinks. Like maragaritas and screwdrivers. Weak, but real. Guess which flavor snow cone they had?

Then we watched the parade.

The girls got stick-on mustaches from one float.

Another night, we made ravioli from scratch. I made the pasta dough, we rolled it with our pasta machine, and the girls filled them with chunks of mozzarella cheese. Kayla makes very pretty ravioli!

Then Kayla left for her retreat. While she was gone, Ashley and I took the girls’ cousins to Great America. We spent some time in the water park. This is Ashley with Seaonna, Cade, and Alec (the tall one).

Weirdly enough, there was a marching band that walked the loop at Great America too!

Kayla came home to an extra furry guest in our home. Gizmo is visiting! His first day was rough. He BEGGED us to take his car carrier off the table for him, and then he climbed in and looked all sad. He must have figured that if he sat in it long enough, we would take him home.

He eventually came out.

He has become a little less anxious now that he has been here a few days. He has his routine down now. Breakfast with Kevin at 5AM, then back to bed with me until 6AM. Step on my face at 6AM to get me up, go outside for a potty break. Nap time while I work out until 7AM. Stalk the girls’ doors around 8AM. Play and nap until lunch at noon. Play and nap until dinner at 6PM. Plenty of potty breaks, then his peanut butter and pill at 10PM. Then he gets in his “jammies” (takes off his collar), and snuggles up to us in bed. He has been sleeping more on me, but one night Kevin woke up super warm because he had fur covered feet! Today was special for the Mo. Ashley’s piano teacher brought him a little dog cookie! We let him have half. This evening, Kayla’s friend Mason stopped by. Gizmo got the biggest case of rips that has ever been seen, and all Mason had to do was just stand there. Apparently, Gizmo really likes pre-teen boys! Hmm…..