July Sponsor

This is the first ever sponsor post here on my blog, and though I hope it goes uphill from here. I'm making myself a personal promise not to sponsor/promote any blogs that I don't personally like for the sake of them promoting me just so I can increase my blog views/followers. That being said...Meet one of my lovely July sponsors.



Hi, Im Kristy from the blog The boy named after a car. Wife to Matt mother to Harper. This is our life.


Check out her blog, because it's worth a read and once you're there chances are the handsome mr. Harper, his mama and all their little adventures will keep you coming back for more.

July 4th.

Our 4th of July was simple. We didn't have family visit, We opted not to go out to our town's firework celebration, and we didn't spend the day trying to make it to whatever barbecues our friend's may have been having, and it was perfect. We're tired, and I don't think we would've handled anything more right now than spending the day in our own backyard. We swam, we grilled out, We had our own fireworks and we stayed up later than we should have.












(Yes that is the same green gap shirt Jon was wearing in my last post about him. He's an 11 year old boy and he'd wear the same outfit everyday if we let him. I literally have to peel some clothes off of him so that he'll be forced to pick out something else in his closet FULL of clothes .. anyone else have this issue?)

Hanging rock.

Back in May I sent my Biggest boys off on a camping adventure to celebrate my husband's birthday. I had spent weeks texting back and forth with his childhood/current best friend, and younger brother planning for them to come up (from Florida) to surprise him. The camping trip was a surprise too - My husband didn't have a clue about any of it. They went to the mountains in North Carolina for a couple days. Here are the pictures from that trip.

I took none of these photos. The majority of them were shot with my Canon powershot I sent off with my boys (I was too worried to send them off with my Canon Rebel) The rest are from two different point and shoot cameras and belong to either his little brother or best friend.


(My boys)




















(Jon & Uncle Neil.)





They got to their campsite around dinner time, so they ate and slept, obviously Jon slept in his clothes and without a proper mother's guidance wore them the next day too. That's what you're allowed to do when you're on a trip with just the boys.

The bloggin' atmosphere.

Okay. I've been thinking about this recently so I'm just going to say it, and prepare myself to be crucified because I am sure someone somewhere is going to be offended by this.

When did blogging become so highschool? Honestly. I've followed a couple blogs here and there for awhile now - and I have definately noticed that the more "popular" well known blogs out there are so clique like, with the exception of a very few. What I mean is the writers of these blogs (some of which really aren't even that interesting to read and offer little visual appeal) don't branch out at all unless your blog happens to be just as popular as theirs.

I see the same handful of women promoting the same handful of women over and over. Sure some of these women are great, and have really great blogs, but seriously? Everytime I see a "sponsor" post I KNOW it's going to be the same people/blogs I've seen talked about on countless other blogs. No variety, because there are a lot of little blogs out there that are unknown and are really great reads , but I've yet to see ANYONE take a chance on these blogs by advertising them on their page. What is the damn point of doing sponsor posts about blogs if you're only going to do it for your "blog friends" who really don't need much help getting their blogs out there?

I've yet to see a blog advertised on someones page/highlighted in a sponsor post that didn't already have 13876375 followers/hits a day. The funny thing is a lot of these blogs I'm thinking of (interesting or not) have the followers they do because they literally begged/pleaded in every post for someone to "vote for me" - I actually know of one blog in particular, that had hardly any readers (under 5) and then as if overnight the lady started making posts dedicated solely to asking people to vote for her on topbabyblogs, then she started doing give aways. I mean the craziest things! weird odds & ends from walmarts clearance section, the catch to ALL these give aways?? "you must be a follower" "or you can follow me here, here, and here..or blog about my giveaway on your own blog" lol so c'mon people - the few blogs who do that are they popular? sure they have hundreds of followers, but honestly how many of those readers give a damn what they're saying? and how many just wanted to win something? to just want followers so bad, that you cannot waste your time being associated with a blog who doesn't get a lot of hits or doesn't have a hundred people to advertise your blog to is ridiculous.

I've had my blog for two years, and until a couple weeks ago my blog wasn't listed ANYWHERE. I think it's safe to say I've blogged for myself, but sure it would be nice to know other people are reading or even like my blog -getting your blog "out there" is hard unless you're willing to become obsessive about people voting for your blog. whatever, I'm done with this rant. have a good day?

(disclaimer: just to be clear, I never said this is how every blogger has run their blog, or gotten their followers. This is simply what I have witnessed on quite a few known blogs,and I'm sure others have noticed this, or feel the same but saying anything could be blog suicide. haha. But I'm okay taking that chance because I have absolutely nothing to lose right now anyway - what am I going to lose? followers? not likely considering the content of this post, but anyway - if you feel at all offended by this, then it's likely that youre guilty of what I've pointed out)

Word Vomit

Every little thing I've thought about recently. However boring, trivial or ridiculous.

Okay so Jack is two and I'd be lying if I said he never has meltdowns. He does - and when he does, he's good at it (I really think it's his red hair - those redheads are fiesty) but it's always been at home and could be easily fixed. For the past few days we've gone out somewhere, he's had a meltdown each time. Right there in the middle of the grocery store (over cheap sunglasses) Right there in the middle of the same grocery store over the fact he wanted to use the potty - but we had literally just left the restroom (and he went..so he was fine). Honestly I don't get embarassed over the occasional tantrum, I don't like them and try to find ways for them not to happen, but I just don't understand why he's started doing this out of nowhere.

My husband and I are trying to have a baby. This sounds almost funny after what I wrote first ("this lady wants another baby? and a screaming toddler? she's crazy") but we are. - trying, not crazy. Let me say this, it's almost funny how when you're not trying for a baby - getting to the point of actually taking a pregnancy test is nerve racking. You put it off because you're scared it'll say the opposite of whatever you're hoping for. Since We've started trying all I can think about is how far away it is til I can accurately take an at home test. Waiting, and waiting with the same feared end result, that it could be the opposite of what I'm hoping for. - also why does it always seem that it's harder to accomplish when you're actually trying?

Current joys of My new (old - built in the 1940s?)House.
1. The fridge leaks, it's the double door type with a water & ice dispenser in front? - we think the water dispenser is what is leaking. Either way we randomly wake up to a puddle of ice cold water on the kitchen floor, and it's always a surprise when it'll happen.
2. I still have yet to get my hardwoods totally clean, but our feet are more a grungy brown rather than black now.. making progress, no?
3. Half of our laundry room still has no wall , because the people have yet to come fix it after tearing it down to fix our leaking (and then flooding!) pipes to the washing machine.

I am obsessed with "The Glee Project" I have NEVER watched a single episode of "Glee" but I love this show. I can't miss it. Infact I watched this past weeks episode the night it aired (sunday) and then again tonight just to hear Cameron again. My top 3 picks are Cameron,Samuel, and Hannah. So as long as one of them wins it's all good.

We moved into our house in Early June a couple weeks after close, because we're tired of apartment life, but our apartment lease isnt up until sometime in July. We tried our best to find a house and get a closing date as close to July as possible it didn't work very well. This means that in July we will be paying rent on TWO places. This makes my heart race.

Composting - a first attempt.

One of the many things I was excited to do once we moved into a house with a yard was compost. I have always wanted a garden, and composting kind of goes hand in hand with that. Living in an apartment with not so much as a patio space has kept that dream from happening for the last four years. Now we own a house - with a pretty big backyard, with lots of trees and plantlife. We moved too late in the year for me to really start a garden that will flourish during the summer months so we're just getting our land prepared for things that can be planted & will grow in the late summer/early fall months. I've been reading You grow girl to help with the initial understanding of composting and gardening. it's a pretty easy to follow straight to the basics book.


(none of my boys believe in wearing shirts. It's actually a miracle that the oldest is wearing one in this picture)


This being our first attempt at composting we decided to start small, because apparently it is actually possible to mess up a compost pile. In our apartment we had different bins for recycling, now That we live in a house & have trash days recycling is actually mandatory and the city provides the bins. So we took one of our old (apartment sized) recycling bins and decided to give composting a test run in that. baby steps.


We just started out saving our kitchen scraps - fruit & veggies peels, or unwanted raw pieces that didn't end up as dinner. Coffee grounds left over from Karl's daily morning thermos etc. We've been doing a lot of yard maintence due to the fact this yard has been unkempt for over 7 years, so the dry leaves and grass and branches from that have gone into the pile as our "brown layer" with all of the newspaper we used to pack breakables in to move. (that's also recycling - right?)

We'll have to see how it goes over the next couple weeks - and hopefully we don't end up those people that somehow mess up the simple task of having trash basically decompose - that's a natural process from organic trash, so if we mess it up it's pretty bad.

A Boy and Summer..

Ingredients for a fun summer? A little dirt under your nails from playing outside and helping mama dig up plants. Skinned knees from running, jumping, and trying out new 'tricks' on your tricycle. Sticky ice cream hands.