Take me out to the ball game

...take me out with the CROWD! We went to a baseball game this morning with Ali, Stacy, Ashley and their kids. I'd never been to the new stadium--it's so nice! It's such a neat atmosphere, and we had fun, but it was so crowded that I was really nervous the whole time. It's hard to keep a close eye on the kids, no matter how hard I try! I told Ashley that I thought I had high blood pressure from the stress of the crowd. There were hundreds of school bus loads of kids on field trips. Our kids really had fun though. It was such a beautiful day--a great time to be outside.

Here's our group of kids...I couldn't believe they lined up for a picture!


I liked this picture of her hair blowing.


Cotton candy--yum!

Watermelon Bubble

These were made this morning before we left for the baseball game. She is wearing a little bubble that belonged to her cousin, Jaiden. I thought it looked so cute on her!

I love how she collects things in the yard. Here she is holding a clump of dirt. :) Don't her little chubby fingers look so sweet!?

Cook/Gardener

Rhett asked me Monday if we had any bananas because he was wanting to make banana muffins from a recipe in one of his books. We only had one, brown banana so I went Monday night and bought fresh ones so we could make muffins Tuesday morning. They were actually really good (I'm usually not a big fan of banana anything).



Yesterday morning we went to the garden center near our house and bought a few new ground-cover plants to go in a certain part of the back yard landscaping. I've never bought these before, but they looked really pretty and seemed to fit the description of what we needed.


Rhett and I planted them yesterday afternoon, then he watered each one with the squirt gun.

I think my hydrangea is going to bloom this year! I planted this last year on our anniversary (6/30), but it didn't do anything. In fact, I thought it had died, but it's looking great so far this spring! I think hydrangeas are so gorgeous!

Cars

My Dad took this picture of Rhett at his shop last time we were visiting. I thought it was such a cute picture--I love how R's posing so proudly by Granddad's old suburban. Dad mentioned that the way R stood there reminded him a lot of a picture from years ago, when he (Dad) stood proudly next to his brother's race car (I think that's who it belonged to, if I remember the story correctly). See if you can guess which one is my Dad in the second picture.



I've always loved this photograph. My Dad is the one just to the right of the "33". His oldest brother is at the very front, and his youngest brother is climbing on the tire.

Visit with Aunt Judy

My Aunt Judy is in town babysitting two of her grandchildren this week. We went over to visit with her and look at her picture albums from her recent trip to Italy--it looked like they had an amazing time! Then we went to lunch together, and Lane met us there after class. I'm really glad we had a chance to spend time with her today. I snapped a cute picture of her holding Rhett and Alexee, but there was a memory card error and it got lost--so frustrating.

P.S. Did you watch the Big Brother finale last night? What did you think? I was happy with the ending.

Weekend Update

I just received an e-mail from Dad showing me a picture of the watermelon sprouts that he and Rhett planted a few weeks ago. Rhett was excited to see these!

The caterpillar that we found at the park on Friday formed a cozy little cocoon under the Japanese Maple leaf that very afternoon. We're enjoying checking on him. Rhett asked me this morning if I thought it would be a butterfly, a moth or a bird that came out the cocoon. I told him I was pretty sure it wouldn't be a bird because they hatch out of eggs, but we'd just have to wait and see if it was a butterfly or a moth.


It has been a fun weekend. Friday night the four of us ate at Chili's. Saturday morning I left early for a warehouse sale (scrapbook paper, accessories, books, etc.). I picked two friends up and we all shopped together. I bought two scrapbooking books, a cookbook, scrapbook tags, cardstock and ribbon all for $19. When I got home, Lane and Rhett went to Wal-Mart to get gas for the lawn mower then Lane mowed and cleaned out part of the garage. Rhett helped him with his little mower. Saturday night Ali came over to babysit while Lane and I went to dinner. We went to Capers, which was great. The only bad part was that I was even too full for creme brulee. When we got back home, I got my scrapbooking stuff out off the closet and Ali and I worked on scrapbooks until midnight! We had fun, as always! Church was great today...a powerful sermon on the life of Caleb. I even got to take a short nap this afternoon! Hope you've had a good weekend, too!

Feed Thyself

Things are about to get interesting.  Alexee has decided that she can now feed herself.  She'll spoon a few bites out, then decide to just stick her face in the bowl...it's much more efficient that way.  :)

Metamorphosis

We're attempting to watch a caterpillar make a cocoon.  We were at the park with my friend Ali and her kids this morning, and the boys found a caterpillar.  Her son asked to take it home, but she told him that they already had two in jars in cocoon stage, so they didn't need another.  Then she suggested that Rhett take it home...thanks, Ali!  So we did.  

Here is the little guy in the home Rhett made for him...it's very cozy.  It includes azalea blossoms, sticks, Japanese Maple leaves, and a few other pieces from the yard.  I'll keep you posted...I hope something interesting happens!

Beach Prep

We're so excited about our upcoming beach vacation!  We are meeting two other families there, and I think it's going to be a blast!  Our kids have never seen the ocean.  I think Rhett will be impressed, and Alexee is pretty much game for anything.  I bought these beach towels for the kids at Target earlier this spring--they're HUGE towels!--and I had their names put on them. They were excited to try them out today in the kitchen floor!

Meringue Tarts Recipe

I think I've posted this before on our old blog, but it's a yummy recipe, so I thought I'd share it again. I made these Tuesday night when we hosted Bible study.

3 egg whites, stiffly beaten
1 cup sugar (add in gradually)
1/2 tsp. cream of tartar
1 tsp. vinegar
1/2 tsp. vanilla.

Combine above ingredients, continue to beat until stiff. Spoon onto parchment paper-lined cookie sheets (or spray your pan...they tend to stick and break...the paper helps A LOT!). Use a spoon to make a small indention in each cookie for the yogurt mixture to go in after baking.

Bake at 250 degrees for 1 hour, then turn off oven and cool overnight without opening the oven door (I just cooled mine for about 5 hours last time and they did fine).

Just before time to serve, fill each cookie with the following mixture
(equal parts of each):
--Cool Whip
--Yogurt (I used strawberry)

--Top with sliced strawberries, blueberries, etc.

Note: The meringue cookies can be made ahead and stored, but they don't last long after you add the yogurt part.

Fairy Painting

Yesterday I delivered a painting to my friend, Kristy, that she ordered for her little girl's room. The painting was based on the bedding in the room, which is so cute, colorful and girlie! Here is a picture of one of the pillow shams that she let me borrow for guidance:

She also e-mailed me lots of helpful pictures of different parts of the bedding and other decorations in the room for color matching, etc.

Here's the painting before I went back and used a darker blue on her eyes because I realized that they didn't show up very well! (I thought I took another picture after the eye update, but I guess I just meant to and forgot to actually do it).

I thought the little bluebirds on the sham were so cute (especially their tail feathers), so I used a few of those on the canvas:


Thanks, Kristy! It was a fun one to do!

Scrapbooking

My friend, Ali, came over last Saturday to hang out and scrapbook. We made a comfortable workspace in the dining room and had a lot of fun working, talking and laughing.

The workspace:


I copied off of Ali's ribbon organization ring. I love to organize things...my life used to be a lot more organized...now not-so-much. Sorting ribbon into color groups and placing them into their own little bags was good therapy:


This was the only page spread that I did, but I'm glad to have one more done! It's Rhett's 3rd birthday. I only have two more things to do (birth of his sister and Purple Cow birthday lunch) for his 3rd year book, then I'm going to focus on Alexee's 1st year book. I plan to do a digital Shutterfly book for Rhett's 4th year--for now at least. Maybe someday I'll find myself looking for something to do, but I can't keep up right now!?.

Morning at Aunt Kala's

This morning we quickly ate breakfast and hopped in the car to drive up to my sister's house to spend the morning there. It was a beautiful day, and we enjoyed sitting outside watching the kids play together.

Rhett & Jaiden had a picnic lunch in the living room.

Alexee deciding which color chalk to eat first.

Cute cousins and best buddies!

Jeryn is crawling everywhere, and my sister said he took two steps a few days ago. It will be fun when he can run around with Alexee!

Sidewalk games

She wanted to do everything that the big kids did.




M, J & J, Thanks for a fun morning!