{Backyard} Lily's Play Yard

Last year we created Lily's swing set and for her birthday this year, my parents gave her a gigantic spiral slide. The slide needs a place to be put though, so enter in what we finally got around to building yesterday. It's not done, it needs about another day of hard work or so (minus the concrete in the holes and its dry time).

Here's the crew (minus me and my mom) - Lily in her pink, frilly Dora dress, my dad and Doug.
Those are 6x6 posts for support. This baby's built better than the majority of new homes!

Lily helping her Papa checking the distance between the two poles. 

Another cute shot of Miss Lily helping.


And Blogger's being weirdi about the next images and not letting me make them bigger ... sorry!


The supports. The "frame" around (horizontal) will be the floor. It's 5 feet up from the front and a little more (over my 5'6" head) on the back due to the slope of our yard. It'll be where the slide attaches and will have some more supports of course for safety. We're thinking below the deck underneath would be a good place for something extra fun but we've yet to decide. Suggestions? We've thought of a little picnic table for her, a rock box (instead of sand), or a little house. 

Another shot of how it's attached to the previously built swing set. They are two bolts (possibly 2 more will be added) attaching the swing set to the 6x6's to keep it more stable too).

{Lily Lately} Trains and Conversations

While taking a bath and sitting on her nonslip mat, Lily says:
"I'm too big for this mat. I'm a big girl and soon I will shower like a big girl. I be big like mommy and daddy and Babby and Papa and Mary."

She also said her hair is crazy and it tickles.

I'd like to continue these since I know most people read this blog for Lily updates (well, the family at least... or at least I think that since no one comments on here but will tell me in person).

And because no post is complete without a picture...

As we were getting ready for bed, we had this little conversation:

M: Lily, it's 8 o'clock, it's time for bed.
L: But Mom, it's not dark out.
M: I know honey, but it's late and it's your bed time.
L: But I don't want to go. What time is it?
M: It's 8.
L: 8 o'clock?
M: Yes.
L: 8. O. Clock. (emphasis on every single word)

Once we get into her room and we're cleaning up after brushing her teeth and changing into her jammies, Lily has a wipe in her hand.

L: Look Mommy, I made a ball.
M: Yes, it is.
L: It's very fragile.
M: It is?
L: Yes, it's fragile. (she is carefully holding it in her hands as if it was really fragile and whispering)
M: What are you going to do with it?
L: Keep it for Daddy and Mommy and Lily.
M: Oh yeah?
L: Yep, so we can play.
M: Daddy's not home, can we play later?
L: OK (kind of sad).
M: Can I have it?
L: Yeah...

As we were doing good night kisses and hugs, she kisses me quickly and says "I need a better one!"

We then play "hide 'n' seek" while I'm holding her.

It's the little things.... and I definitely want to remember these moments before she's giving me more attitude!!!

{Missouri} Lake Trip 2012

For the past 10 years or so, my family has been getting together to go to a local lake. We definitely have our favorite lake and little cabins we rent from a sweet older couple. They aren't 5 star hotels by any means but they are great for our little getaways.

This year I didn't take nearly as many photos as years passed but that's ok. We also normally go for a sunset cruise but I didn't get to do that this year. As Lily gets older, our normal routines change to fit her needs. Maybe next year I'll do a sunset cruise with my parents. They make for beautiful photos!! And speaking of beautiful photos, these are shot with a 6 year camera that I'm afraid is on its way out. Some photos I swear will turn out great and they aren't, it'll make some photos blurry when I have everything in focus. It's annoying, but it'll do until I can afford a nice DSLR (mine's a Canon Digital Rebel XT and has been known to take some beautiful photos).

Anyway, enough about that, here are some photos. If you're family, you'll notice there are more on Facebook.









Last year we didn't go to this lake but did spend some time on the water, as seen here, here and here.

{Family Fun} County Fair

Here are the pictures from this year's fair. She enjoyed it a lot but was terrified of one ride and wouldn't go on another although she thought part looked fun. It'll be interesting next year to see what she likes and doesn't like. She still prefers the flying ride and motorcycles.

Click here for last year's pictures.


This is her new smile when you tell her to smile for the camera. It's slightly better than the "cheese" face last year.

Enjoying her first ride.

Getting the beauty wave down.

Riding with Mommy and Daddy.

Getting back to herself after the horribly scary (this year at least) roller coaster ride.

Not happy! Look at that face! She LOVED it last year!

Watching Mommy and Daddy on the big kid rides with Babby.

One of the big kid rides.

Daddy won her a duck. It squeeks. It's lovely....

Helicopter ride at night.

Loving the ride (sorry for her scary eye, it was red and the red eye reduction thing made it odd...)

Fun at the Fair

Summer in Missouri means lots of local, small fairs and our favorite (and only one we really go to) is one that's halfway between my parents house and our house. Here are some pictures from last year and if you are my friend on Facebook, you've seen two from my phone. I have a bunch on my camera that I need to go through and post soon.

She rode this guy once this year then prefered to switch to the helicopter (seen in the background).

She loved the motorcycles again but prefered the backseat every single time she rode this year.

She LOVED this ride last year. She HATED it this year. Rode it once, was terrified, almost in tears.

Even rode it with Daddy a few times. Pure joy. Not this year!

Pure happiness. She wouldn't ride theses "boats" (as she called this last year) this time around.

This is on the ferris wheel, which wasn't even there this year. Bummer!


5 Years

As we celebrate our five year anniversary of living in our house, I can't help but think about all the projects we've done to make it more us and less of the previous homeowner(s). I hope that in the next 5 years I will be as equally happy or more so. I hope that we will see even more renovations, maybe a new bathroom? Or perhaps a new kitchen? We already have plans to build a deck off our back door and to add onto Lily's swing set. And then there's still progress to be made on Lily's Garden and don't even get me started on the front yard. I definitely think we have 5 more years of projects to work on!

In the past five years, our lives have definitely changed.

On the personal front:
2007 saw my introduction into education, which has definitely changed my life.
2008 included our biggest surprise when we found out we were pregnant with Miss Lily. The end of the year saw the passing of Doug's grandfather.
2009 was all about Miss Lily, as shown with her four baby showers (family, friends and coworkers x2!) and of course, her arrival.
2010 had a mix of feelings throughout the year - we lost my grandfather, Lily celebrated her first birthday, and my family had some other sad news come their way, I also finished up with my teaching certification.
2011 was somewhat of a blur but definitely wasn't a good year. We lost my uncle, great uncle, great aunt, and my brother. On the plus side, since we try to focus on that, we celebrated Lily's second birthday and it helped us come together as a family after all the negative.
2012 has gone by quickly. I graduated with my master's in teaching, Lily had a great third birthday, and we've spent more time with family that moved nearby. We did say goodbye to Doug's grandmother after she passed earlier this year.

On the home front:
I think 2012 saw more progress done to the house than the previous four years, with the exception of the upstairs remodel.
Since buying the house, we've completely changed our side yard into Lily's garden.
We've painted almost every room of the house to help tone down the previous crazy color choices.
We've fenced in the backyard and added Lily's swing set, or as we sometimes refer to it "step 1" in the project.

In the next five years, I hope to accomplish:
A bathroom gut job and reno.
The backyard deck.
Lily's "theme park" of a backyard - slide, so on.
New appliances in the kitchen.
Finishing Lily's garden - although, is a garden ever really done?! I'd like it fenced in, the arbor added, grass replaced with rocks and mulch, and more plants.
Lily's "big girl" room completed - gutted and made over like our upstairs.
Lily's current room turned into another bedroom...
And yes, that means, having another baby.

There are more on this list but some projects are those "if we have money" projects - like the kitchen. Some day....

The Brick Bungalow - new name!

This month celebrates our FIVE YEAR anniversary of living here! Can you believe it? A lot has happened and I'll be creating some posts about that soon. However, I decided that to celebrate our five years, I'm renaming the blog. I honestly haven't cared for the address "thependletonhouse" for awhile and after thinking of new ideas, even changing the name to "Life, Love, and Lily!" (which definitely describes us), I still wanted a change. So the new name is going to focus on our house and the blog will still be the same... it'll still be about our lives, our house projects, and of course Lily. Because without Lily, I doubt anyone would read this blog. All two of you anyway...

So, it'll now be thebrickbungalow.blogspot.com - save it, please! And don't forget to comment! :)

{Missouri} Lake Trip 2012

Last week we went with my parents and took their boat out for the first time this summer. We always like to do that before our family vacation that's coming up and with this weather, we needed it!!!

We stopped at one spot to go swimming but Lily couldn't touch and wasn't feeling it, so we found another spot. She LOVED it!

However, this is a look we get quite often from her...

And a crazy bunch of dragonflies on some driftwood.

We have a similar shot from the past 3 years and I'll get another one of their faces on our vacation.

Buddies...

Showing Lily how to kick and walk in the water.

There are a few more shots but they don't want to upload right now. I'll try again later. 

Independence Day

Pics from the 4th.

I know this one is blurry but I swear she looks a lot like me here. I need to find an old picture of me to compare...

Yes, the boat wasn't close to the lake. We didn't feel like taking her out and she was completely content to sit on the edge. Doug was on the other side to keep it from sliding down.

Looking at the big kids jump off the dock.

Walking with Daddy, watching cousin Ella's dog play.

The finale...

Part of the show...

{Food} Chocolate Covered Marshmallows

After deciding on making the Jello Cake for the 4th, I thought I'd try something else that could be eaten on go since I knew there'd be lots of kids (and adults) moving around a lot. I didn't want to do cupcakes and I had seen on Pinterest a great idea of coating marshmallows and putting them on sucker sticks. I didn't even feel like using sucker sticks... I wanted these to be easy and quick, both for me and the poeple eating them.

I used one whole bag of regular marshmallows and one bag of coconut covered. I melted some chocolate candy melts and used maybe 2/3 of the bag for all of the marshmallows. I then dipped the ends in sugar - red and blue of course!

In the future, I'd probably either pick a different type of sprinkles or just leave them off. The sugar added an extra crunch that wasn't the most pleasing. But everyone ate them and so I'll probably do them again. It'd be an easy addition to any buffet and the colors could be changed for any holiday. Orange, purple and black for Halloween? Red and green for Christmas?

{Food} Flag Cake

When we went out to my Great Uncle's place for the 4th, I knew I'd want to make something. So after some Pinterest browsing, I settled on a jello cake. The thing is, is that when I got there my dad's cousin also made two but they were different. She included jello and pudding, where as mine is just with jello. I actually never tasted hers although it looked really good. There were just too many other delicious treats - homemade vanilla AND chocolate ice cream, chocolate pie (I had one little nibble), lemon meringue (never tasted it), peach cobbler (delicious!), cupcakes, and the jello cakes. Lots of yummy goodness!!

Sorry for the blurry photo,I could have sworn it wasn't...

Here's the inside. Mmmm...

Recipe, in case someone wants to know...

Cake mix (vanilla), baked as directed. I used two cake mixes to fill my 11 by 15" pan.
Ingredients from box - eggs, oil, water (to bake as directed).

Jello mixture - I actually didn't follow the directions on the box but thought I read these from somewhere else, sorry I can't give a source though. I didn't write it down and I looked at at least 5-10 different recipes. But my jello mixture was one regular box of strawberry jello, mixed with 2 cups boiling water til dissolved and then I added 1 cup cold water.

Cake needs to be baked and cooled, then poke holes in it every inch or so with a fork.

Take hot jello mixture and pour evenly over cake.

Let cool for an hour. I let mine cool over night.

Ice with Cool Whip. I used two regular containers and had a little left over to nibble on with some extra strawberries.

Decorate as you want, I obviously used blueberries for the blue part and cut strawberries for the stripes.

Cool in fridge (we did about an hour in the freezer to keep it from melting on the 30-40 minute drive).

Enjoy!

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