…until School starts (is there a fast forward button on this?!).  I’m exhausted from all of our travels, from the monster I have created that still won’t sleep through the night, from the mastitis, from staying up late catching up on Mad Men (why am I so late to the game on this one?).  Since no one really wants to read about how I woke up in a very bad mood, let’s focus on last night.

My BIL called and said he found a projector at Goodwill (he is the KING of goodwill finds).  I told him if he came to set it up I would cook him dinner.

we ate (take n’ bake from Papa Murphy’s), and we swam.

My husband makes it look so easy to launch the children, I’ve tried, it isn’t!  The projector was set up and the kids were able to float in the pool while watching a movie.

The invites to our Labor Day Party are going to be much coveted this year.

this picture doesn’t do justice to the beautiful contrast between the white clouds, orange fields and blue sky!

taken somewhere between Flagstaff and Page.

You’ve all heard me rave about smeeks many many times on the blog, now I want to share some of the sweetness with you!

I’m giving away the following to one lucky LOCAL (greater PHX area) reader:

$5.00 in smeeks bucks so you can buy yourself some tasty treats!

One lollipop zippered coin purse that I will fill with some of my favorites from smeeks.

TO ENTER:
1. You must reside within the greater PHX area

2. Leave me a comment, telling me your favorite candy

3. for an extra entry, blog the button below (be sure to leave a second comment to tell me you’ve blogged it)

copy and paste this code:

<a href=”http://www.heatherhalesdesigns.com/blog/sweets-from-smeeks”><img src=”http://www.heatherhalesdesigns.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/button.jpg” border=”0″ width=”200″ height=”300″></a>

Winner will be announced Thursday, June 15th!

Yesterday the baby turned 6months old!  Six months, I feel like I blinked and it was gone.  She took her first dip in the pool yesterday to celebrate, she loved it.  Splashing her arms and legs about and wiggling like a little fish- so happy.

I’m wondering if there is some sort of hormonal drop six month postpartum?  I’ve been in a funk lately.  At first I thought it was everyone else…but then I decided it was probably me.  It’s the kind of funk that a little retail therapy ALONE can ease.  However, its summer time and I have three children, I don’t do ANYTHING alone and the bank accounts are a bit low (thank you major van repair).  I’ll have to settle for online shopping of athletic shoes for my son.  Wahoo!

Also, I’m thinking of turning comments off on the blog for a while…do you want to weigh in with an opinion on that?

Planning a giveaway for next week when I get back from California (maybe the beach can cure the funk?), so be sure to click over….I’m thinking a giveaway for the locals (something “sweet”) and a giveaway for everyone else.

*word has it, the bow-tie fit my Dad, he wore it to church yesterday and I saw a picture- looked good!*

I’ve been in a vintage-circus-y themed mood the last few months.  A lot of the design projects I’ve done have had a circus flair to them.  I ALWAYS look through flickr for inspiration before I start a project….here are some of my favorite circus images:

1. Mixed Berry Frozen Yogurt, 2. Circus / vintage / typography / retro / ferris wheel / Coney Island / New York / fun / photography, 3. Untitled, 4. California / Los Angeles / city / Santa Monica / color / blue / circus / ferris wheel / amazing / sky / summer / background / clouds / fun / photography, 5. Two Ring Circus Wedding Invitation, 6. circus animals, 7. The circus, 8. July 4th illustration, 9. Vintage Circus Trays, 10. (Carou)salivate, 11. CIRCUS PARTY KIT PREVIEW, 12. The Ferris wheel of Tibidabo, Barcelona

If you are local- today is the first day of Independents Week!  Heck even if you aren’t local, you can still support your own local businesses this week!

Friday morning while I was making pancakes the two older children sat on the kitchen floor fighting over the baby- who was in her excersaucer.  They fight over the baby and her toys quite often…so I sent them outside to weed the garden- nothing like hard work to take the fight out of you, right?!!

I cracked up that my oldest daughter was weeding in a leotard & ballet skirt, whatever works I guess.

*BTW- if you haven’t clicked over yet, I added a new summer-y banner & a fun new blog button.  You can download the code here, the button is 200px x 200px- super easy to resize if you need to!

To celebrate the last day of school we…

Had a picnic at the park, bought teacher appreciation gifts here (who doesn’t like macarons?!), went swimming

Had a great dinner at Joe’s Farm Grill, I don’t know why we don’t dine there more often.  It’s great to eat good, local, food while my kids happily do this:

On the way home we grabbed some fresh cherries and vanilla ice cream (I know, I am so boring…).

seemed like a fitting end to the academic year.  Now, if you’ll excuse me I have to brace myself for having 3 kids home all day every day….

Saturday I took the “girls” into PHX for some urban thrifting…I was dying to visit Hollywood Regency, but didn’t have the guts to go in with 2 kids….maybe next week.

We did manage to hit a few thrift stores, one where we found these beauties.

She couldn’t live without them…shortly after the shoes were purchased, I went and ate my 3rd Coconut cupcake of the week at Urban Cookies….and I introduced my daughter to the Chocolate Velvet cupcake.

While the boys went for a bike ride, we girls set about planning a backyard dinner.

My 5yo daughter said we HAD to have flowers on the table.  The roses are blooming in our yard (because I forgot to prune this winter…) so we picked a few for the table.

When the boys came home hot and tired, we had a lovely outdoor meal of Lemon Pepper Salmon, French Potato Salad, Green Beans, & Tomatoes with Basil and Balsamic Vinegar!

It was so nice, we’ve decided to do it again Sunday night.  Spring is very, very short in Arizona, so we are trying to enjoy it as long as we can!

where I just don’t feel like doing anything.  I’m tired, and I’m tired of being tired!  I feel both underwhelmed and overwhelmed…It’s one of those days that I have to force myself to “count my many blessing”, so I don’t wallow in self pity.

So, I got up off the couch and took the girls to the park for a picnic today (never mind that we stopped at Jack in the Box on the way there).  It felt nice to lay in the sun (it’s in the upper 70’s here) and look up at the green leaves against the clear blue sky.

I pondered things like:

• if I paint the living room this color, then I should probably paint the kitchen and dining room this color
• I bet if I made a throw quilt with this and matching pillow shams for the bed i could finally make out bedroom look nice.  Ooh, and maybe some cream curtains trimmed  with this.
• I think I should close the etsy shop for a while…
• how does one get rid of excess tummy girth?  Been doing ab excises and not seeing results yet….
• wish I could get to bed before 11.