president's day

we can be the best and worst at celebrating over here.. i`m not going to lie. we can skip entire birthdays but somehow manage to honor holidays like groundhog day and presidents day and even find time to blog about them. backwards and crazy is just how we do and there's no way around it. for example-- i bought myself a SUV, and don't have a license to drive it.  and worse, we have a kitchen in this house when i don't even know how to cook!

  it just never ends.

my friends and family-- they accept these things. god bless them. they laugh at me and encourage me and congratulate me on grown up things like carrying a purse and combing my hair (the lack of pictures of me on this blog is quite purposeful).  and somehow, they still find it in their hearts to love me when i forget their birthdays or send them valentine's in march. oh, what would i do without them.

so anyway...
that kitchen of ours came in handy today! because today was president's day.... at our house.  last night while haley was watching the 4th of july rerun of jon & kate plus eight, she declared she wanted to bake a strawberry and blueberry flag cake like "the kids" and so our belated president's celebration was born!

we made log cabins out of popsicle sticks for honest abe, learned bits of "you're a grand old flag" and recited the "pledge of allegiance" and played little games with coins to help us learn some of the key presidential figures in american history (or maybe i just liked the way cameron calls every president george washington and how cute haley is saying "abe-wa-ham win-con")

in true rakes' timing/fashion-- 

i would like to dedicate this slice of strawberry presidents day flag cake to my friend Tasha Horsley in honor of her dreamy new fabric line that she announced last week. it is every bit as sweet and lovely and charming as she is and the colorways are every girly girl's dream!

and who else but her to remind me that i should learn to sew!?
i did make nick buy me that sewing machine...

backwards, i tell you...
<3

sea of snow...

ohhh, our first true snow day! we've had such a time and an even bigger time after that... and being snowed in and snowed out together has been the best of days. catching snowflakes on our tongues, donuts (for breakfast and lunch), sledding, snow angel making, singing christmas carols when christmas is long gone, buying the ugliest new socks for the occassion, trying to fit little fingers into gloves that swallow a whole arm and dressing little bodies in at least 3 layers of clothing for lack of adequate snow gear. oh boy!

and while i do love the magic of a good snow day or two, i am still more than ready for spring and for my toilet bowl seat to stop being completely frozen in the morning! 

flower children

haley has gotten accustomed to attending story time at the library every wednesday, but since it's summer and they are on a little break, we started off the morning with a few stories underneath the shade of the tent and one of haley's favorite parts about story time... cheese doodles!  i normally wouldn't count that as an acceptable meal for breakfast, but since summer is all about breaking the rules (even if you're only 3), i figured why not. we added go-gurt to the mix and had a real big mess on our hands. good thing tie-dyed apparel has an uncanny way of hiding stains!

this is just a small preview of the tent (it is unfinished- i`ve got some major hemming to do), but i`ll be sure to post more pictures of it and all the kids when it is given to the birthday boy this sunday!  we used the a-frame tent tutorial and spent less than 15.00 on the whole deal. it would have been even cheaper had we skipped the whole tie-dying thing, but my girl whitney (ryder's mama) loves her some tie-dye and i couldn`t think of a better way to personalize it for their family and make a fun day for my girls.

(haley tie-dyed the shirt that is on cameron and i tie-dyed the dress that is on haley... not too shabby!)

i plan on fixing a girly version for my two little ladies at some point over the summer, but until then...

the hunt for the perfect vintage sheet is on.

...well, after we're done licking our fingers clean!

happy wednesday!

<3

there's nothing like the view from the cheap seats...

speaking of summer traditions, another new one for us is monday night softball games at rotary field.  our nicky bobby is playing on a team, "the country boys," which i've informally renamed "the D.I.L.Bs." he plays with some of the prettiest men in the county and even if they lose the season and a little bit of their pride in the process, at least they`ll have their looks (and their beautiful, supportive lady figures) to fall back on 

i think nick has the cutest butt out of the bunch, although i may be a bit biased and this is definitely my favorite look for him!  he thinks he's just so cool with his sweatpants rolled up like that. what really gets me; however, is his prized lowe's kobalt hat... mmmmm hmmmm!  i hope you sense my partial sarcasm here, though i wouldn't be surprised if i ended up pregnant by the season's end.  there really is something sexy about it all, beer guts included.

my other favorite part of ball games (you know, aside from drooling over nick) is the cute little mob of moms i see each week.  we just set around on our cute assortment of quilts and talk mom talk, regulate on our children stealing each other's snacks and toys, and occasionally look over to ooh and ahh at our men doing big things.  we have yet to successfully keep up with the score throughout an entire game.

i`ll leave you with a  few other sweet/funny captures from this past monday in case you are nauseous over all the little sentiments i made about my husband:

p.s- it just occurred to me that those of you that don't really know us might think my husband's name is actually "nicky bobby."  sleep easy, keep me on your reading list... it's just plain ole nick. i`m just a jerk that gives awful nicknames as a sign of adoration.

a new summer tradition

if one thing's for sure, it's that i thrive on tradition and familiarity. there is comfort in the joys each season brings and in checking these things off my list. when my girls look back on their childhood, i want them to remember the events that made up the soundtrack to each season.  just a few on our summer playlist include: backyard camp-outs, fishing, homemade freezer popsicles, ball games, growing vegetables, and TIE-DYING!

i suppose i associate tie-dying as a summer activity because the first time i ever tie-dyed was at girl scout camp in first grade and the last time i tie-dyed was with my best girlfriends the summer before i headed off to college.  we made pillowcases so we'd be the last things on each other's minds before we laid our heads to rest (or maybe it was just cheaper to do pillowcases, haha, the details escape me now). either way, these memories are etched in my brain, and that has got to count for something.

haley really enjoyed the whole process and became quite good at it, while cameron was just content to sit around and mix the bowls of dye for us.  and that's okay too.... maybe next year! we spent at least 3 hours in the summer heat banding and dipping and ringing out and speed-drying things on the hot black pavement.  we learned that blue and yellow make green, and that wal-mart needs to restock their red dye to this can double as an educational project too.

our big project was a tie-dyed a-frame tent for our little friend Ryder who has his 2nd birthday party this Sunday.  i think the results are every little hippie boys dream. for the girls, we made shirts to wear to daddy's ball game that night, capes, blankets, and even a pretty dress out of one of my old tank tops. i`ll be sure to share our results with yall later.

by the end of it all, each bowl of water seemed to have turned a murky greenish-blueish-grey color and my cuticles were rubbed raw from rubber-banding so many different things.    i think my fingernails are stained a permanent shade of green, but my heart.... it must be tie-dyed.  i had myself a ball!

busy bees

remember the sweet rustic clubhouse we bought cameron for her birthday? well, i figured i might as well give y`all a small peep at the progress we've made since there's no telling when we'll get around finishing it up. we`ve still got a few more details to add ::: the chimney isn't painted and neither is the inside, the potted plants are missing, i have yet to find the perfect little mailbox to replace the wooden white one (though i may just settle for painting what's there red), and a house without an address is like a pizza without cheese... so fingers crossed i can bring my address plate vision to life. there are also plans to homey up the inside a bit, too. although it sure won't be anything as jaw-dropping as this or this (we've only got a 4x4 space to work with), i know it will be loved just as much and that's the most important thing.

how do y`all like color scheme we settled on?! SUPRISE!! we originally painted the whole thing red and white and it was just WAY TOO WHITE (even for me), so i grabbed some leftover paint and went to town on painting all the outer support planks in a wanna-be shade of haint blue because only the kindest of spirits are allowed to gather here. my favorite addition to the whole thing is the little chalkboard sign hanging above the window on the right.  we took one of my old country signs and gave it a coat of chalkboard paint and now this little shack of love also rotates between being a general store, a lemonade stand, and a flower shop.  such fun!

this is my first wedding-free weekend in quite some time so i am looking forward to just sitting around and soakin' up a saturday at home...  what are y`all up to? anything good?

happy weekend, friends! <3

lookin' out my back door...

today wasn't too shabby for a thursday... we checked most everything off our checklist and have the bug bites and blueberry remains on our clothes to prove it! and even with all that we accomplished, it really feels like we did a whole bunch of nothing and that's probably the best part about it all if ya ask me. woolwine definitely has a different pace to it than the rest of the world... the days are slow, the moments are easy, and it's just a good place to catch your breath and rest your soul awhile.  oh, and enjoy a meal on the grill with watermelon for dessert... mema haden is just that good to us!

we spent a good chunk of our day down the river- my favorite spot of all. it provides the perfect amount of solitude and a little bit of action if you're up for it! this time, swimming and fishing were mandatory events for my girl haley, queen of the smith river. nick and i tallied 3 fish each and our gal caught one too!  i gotta hand it to her, she caught the only trout in the bunch and the biggest fish of all.  and little did i know that she would shed her princess clothing for the afternoon and try and bait a hook herself or touch the fish we caught with her bare hands!  that girl, she's a brave one!  and she just may have a little bit of her mama in her... finding so much peace and happiness down by the river.

on a different note,
i know no better river music than creedence clearwater revival.
it seems to bring out out the old soul in me...

poor cameron, she didn't get to join us on our big excursion. the heat had her tuckered out quite quickly and she napped in the comfort of the a/c. she did have great timing though... waking herself up just in time for juicy watermelon and kissing mommy and daddy goodbye!

tomorrow, i get the day all to myself... but sadly, have to spend it editing pictures and doing house chores. maybe i`ll take a cue from haley and do it in my underwear... cause lord it is hot and this heat is no. friend. of. mine!



wishing you all a happy friday!
<3