Summer Days Drifting Away….

Meet tractor.

Now meet "bus".

Now, meet "tractor-bus."

Deaglan believes this is the coolest thing in the world.  Something about clicking things together, having it bump up and down on various things, and snapping things on top of it makes him incredibly excited each day (sorry all of that was probably the worst grammar).  But, I will say that Deaglan is a very typical boy.  He loves anything with wheels, especially tractors!

Last night, we just waited in the car because every time I went to grab him, he would say "push" and pretend to push me away and then he'd say "bye-bye" which translates to, "Mom, leave me alone!"

This summer, we've been enjoying time at the nearby playground and I just created a make-shift water table for him to enjoy.  We have lucked out with beautiful weather so we try to be outside as much as we can!

He loves a good game of peek-a-boo still!

My really bad attempt at a selfie...

We have a zoo membership, so we try to take D there as much as possible.  The "raffs" are his favorite but he doesn't mind giving the other animals a little glance.  Nana was our most recent visitor that we took to the zoo!

We took a family vacation to the Outer Banks with Rory's family.  It was great seeing all of the cousins together and we recently found out that there will finally be a little Brannan girl added to the mix in January! Congrats Ryan & Kristi!!

Loves his pa & ma time.

Just chillin' with Uncle Ry

One, two, three….splash!!

Deaglan kept asking for "more splash" whenever we were at the beach or in the pool.  He is a little fish just like his daddy!

 Oh, bocce…

Man time

Another try for a cousin photo-op!

I love how exhausting a day at the beach can be.

In our last Brannan news, Rory just started a new job a few weeks ago.  He is still doing medical sales but he is in with a larger company. His territory is still DE but now also the Eastern Shore, instead of Baltimore.  This translates to long commutes and busy days but he really likes what he does so it makes it all worth it.

Hope you're enjoying all of your summer days!!

Slacker

I've been a major blog slacker.  My list of things I wanted to blog about starting getting so long, that I then became exhausted at the thought of blogging.  Sad?  Extremely.  Here's a start...

In April, my third nephew was born out in Colorado.  Little man Teague is adorable and I cannot wait to see him soon on vacation!  The Brannan side of the family now has four little ones…all boys!

In April, our basement flooded because our sump pump wasn't working.  That was fun. Rory wasn't home and I had no clue how to even start getting the water out of the basement.  Shovel was my first thought. Fail.  My mom came to help with the shopvac and later that night my dad fixed the sump. A company took a few days to make it out to the house (erg!) and they tore up the finished part of the basement because there was still moisture. Hopefully soon, we will have new flooring and everything will be back to normal.

In May, Rory and I were in charge of making a gender reveal box for our friends.  It was so hard to know the gender and not be able to tell them for a few days!  They gave us a wardrobe box, Rory finagled a lid to make the reveal more exciting, and together we wrapped it.  We also taped most of the balloons so they would stay in the box for photos.

Murph and Kristin were excited to find out it is a girl!  Deaglan was just excited to finally play with the balloons.  He knew they were in the box at home and kept crying because he couldn't play with the "bubbles."

Deaglan has been keeping busy.  A friend gave him a hand-me-down play kitchen which he enjoys.  It makes the MOST annoying sound but he's happy with it and likes to show off his cooking skills.

Rainy days are tough because he is bored by mid-morning.  So, drastic measures = messy kitchen = coolest mom ever.

Our friends have a large dog, baby, and a few cats.  Something had to give, so they gave us one of their cats.  Hiro is a sweetie and Deaglan loves having a furry friend to follow around and pet.  

Deaglan has also been livin' up the summer days.  He learned how to walk down stairs without holding on.  He helped daddy build his sandbox and he has been able to cool off with some cuties up the street.

My last exciting news is that Deaglan is starting to talk more!  He says some random words and then adds his own gibberish sometimes.  Some of the words he says are bus, bike, baby, bee, bug, milk, no, bush, door and a few other odd ones.  I am sure soon enough he will be chattering non-stop.

For a few years, I have been growing my hair to donate.  I was going to donate to Locks of Love but last minute after some research, I decided to give to Pantene's Beautiful Length program.  

I brought Deaglan with me so he could see that a haircut is not a harmful endeavor but he still managed to freak out most of the time….

Don't mind my goofy after photo! I was able to donate 12 inches and my neck is so thankful not to have a heavy ponytail anymore.

So, for now, we are counting down the days until the OBX and are trying to spend a lot of time outside on these non-humid evenings.  

Thanks for checking in!!

Paper Wreath

About a month ago, I finally painted our family room.  I went neutral with a color called "urban putty."  Very far from the shades of blue we had in our old house.  The neutral is growing on me but I just feel like everything in the room blends into the walls.  The throw pillows are the only pop of color in the room but I am trying not to let that bother me.  

My friend gave me some old, rectangular windows that I thought would be perfect above the couch.  I originally thought I'd put a boxwood wreath in front of the windows to give a little bit of color in the room.  Then, I looked at the price of pre-made wreaths and even just boxwood garland to make my own, and changed my mind because I couldn't justify spending that at the moment.  So, I decided to make a paper wreath.  Yes, something neutral to blend in with my neutral walls...

(I ended up staining the exposed wood with a vinegar/steel wool stain)

I have a few old books from my grandparents and I was excited to find this one because of the turquoise page ends.  I thought the turquoise would show up when the wreath was all bunched together.  I was proven wrong!  I had read a few do-it-yourself tutorials online and most said to use a grapevine wreath and to simply poke the pages through the wreath.  Welllll, my pages were too brittle and kept tearing.

A week later, I finally bought a styrofoam wreath, sat down with my hot glue gun and went to town.

I folded pages in an "S" shape and bent the bottom down to hold the shape.

 

 
I glued layer by layer. I filled in spots here and there as needed. I probably ended up with 3-4 layers.

I twisted a loop screw to the top of the wreath.  I wanted to find a colorful chevron ribbon to tie it with but couldn't find that at the store.  The loop is easily accessible so I can add different ribbon patterns as I please!

 It is a nice accent feature in the room.  I've read that paper wreaths are more of a winter decor but I don't care.  This baby will stay up for the spring & summer…until I get sick of looking at it!  One day, I think it would be fun to add color to the paper but I am not ready to do that yet.