Colorado Vacation: Wildflowers

My husband and I drove our children all the way from Houston, TX to Denver, CO to visit my family to have a vacation, celebrate my birthday, celebrate my niece Jordie's birthday, see my new niece Julia, take the boys on their first real camp out and just have a great time!  All week, I will be posting photos from my vacation, grouped by categories.

It was wildflower time up in the mountains.  On our camping trip, there was beauty all around us.  The weather was mostly great, a few rain showers happened, but that didn't dampen our spirits.  The mountains were in desperate need of the rain and it just helped the wildflowers look even better.

Alpine Yarrow

Aspen Sunflower

Maben blowing a dandelion seed head.

Colorado State Flower: Colorado Columbine

Not sure what flower this is, any ideas?

Paintbrush

Lovage

Thistle

Wild Iris

Most of the photos were taken in Golden Gate Canyon State Park.  The photo of the thistle was taken at Red Rocks Amphitheater. 

June Best

I completely forgot to put up my monthly best photos for April and May, which I will do sometime this month, but didn't forget about June.

Top: (left) My sleeping superheroes, (right) Kids running down a path
Center: (left) Ribbon snake, (right) Red-eared slider turtle
Bottom: (left) Magnolia flower, (center) New Mexico landscape, (right) Maben with his teacher on the last day of school

Happy Birthday To Me!

Yesterday I celebrated my birthday surrounded by my family and a whole lot of love.  It was great.  One of the perks was that I got to hold my beautiful niece Julia for the very first time. 

Is she the cutest?  Also, that hair shimmers red...I love it!

A big thanks for my family for making my birthday extra special.

Ribbon Bookmark

The first round of ribbon bookmarks for teacher gifts turned out so wonderfully well, that for a friend of mine's birthday, I decided to make her one.  This friend of mine also runs the book club that I am a part of.  I also know that she doesn't have a totally awesome bookmark.  So I made her one.

These are so remarkably easy to make.  Ribbon, ribbon clasps in the same width as the ribbon (found in the jewelry section of a craft store) and whatever charms you want to attach.  I had to bounce to a couple craft stores to find the wider ribbon clasps, but so worth it!  If you can attach jump rings for the charms, you can do this project. 

Do you want to make your own yet?  I need to make one for myself.  I am terrible about making stuff that I keep just for me. 

What I Do While Waiting

This summer has me waiting around, a lot!  I enrolled Maben in swim lessons and both boys are in gymnastics.  This has me sitting around for at least 40 minutes a day.  While, I spend most of my time trying to watch my children in their endeavors, sometimes they have to wait too.  When instruction is given, or another kid is taking their turn, there isn't much for me to do, other than trying to entertain the other child and myself.  I have started bringing a busy bag with me, that contains some busy things for myself too. 

In the past week I have done a few watercolors in my sketchbook and Colton has done a few paintings as well.

The whale was requested by Colton.

I love my travel watercolor set.  You can find it here or at your local Hobby Lobby or other art/craft store.  This has become my go to watercolors since I have been doing most of my painting at the park/pool/gymnastics.  I have fallen in love with the journal too.  I found mind at Hobby Lobby, but you can see it here on Amazon.  The pages are thick, absorb the water well and do not buckle as easily as other watercolor journals.