It's A Wonderful Life

Ice Cream in a baggie

2012-01-18T10:13:00.000-05:00

So I saw THIS idea on Pinterest for making ice cream in a baggie and decided to try it this morning. The kids loved it and it actually tasted pretty good. Grayson asked if we could do this at his party.....I'll have to think about that....

Christmas 2011

2011-12-28T16:18:00.001-05:00

Mark and I spent Christmas Eve watching “The Help” and putting together this doll house for C. My grandma (Hi Ma) got this for her. It took a while and it is BIG, but she loves it! We set out all the Santa goods and hit the sack about midnight!

Boyd and Grant’s loot.

Grayson’s Playmobil police station.

Caroline’s leappad

Grant was the first one awake at about 6:30….He didn’t quite know what to do.

C and G were up pretty soon after……Caroline wouldn’t wear Christmas jammies, they were too hot…..she thinks she lives in California!

Mark spent almost 2 hours putting together the police station……

After a breakfast of cinnamon rolls, it was off to church……what better place to spend Christmas Morning.

After church Mom, Dad and Janet came over for tacos and to watch the kids open the rest of their toys.

We all had a great weekend! It was so much fun to see the kids faces and be together as a family! Now for the clean up…….

Christmas Eve 2011

2011-12-28T15:50:00.001-05:00

We spent Christmas Eve day at Mom’s. “The Boys” came from Cincinnati to spend Christmas with us. We all had a great time. We ate lots of yummy food and then opened presents and spent the day playing with (and putting together) toys.

When we got home it was time to put out cookies and coke for Santa. Grayson thinks if Santa drinks coke it saves polar bears…..I guess from the commercial….so cookies and coke it was. Made Santa happy to get a coke on Christmas eve instead of milk. I think he needed the caffeine! Then it was time to say goodbye to Tee-dee the elf. In elf tradition he returned to the North Pole (aka the back of the closet) until next year.

2010 in Review

2011-10-04T10:22:00.001-04:00

Ok, so I told you I was going to be going back in time :) I am using this blog as a virtual scrapbook for our family and since I totally lost the blogging bug for a while, I need to go back in time and post some older (well, really old :) events and pictures. I need to have it all in one place so that I can one day print myself one of those fancy blog books! SO I am going back to where I really left off in Jan of 2010….told you it was REALLY old stuff:) I am attempting to back date my posts so if you wanna see our adventures over the past year or so try going back to the months on the sidebar.

Tennessee Part 2

2011-10-04T08:52:00.001-04:00

While we were in Tennessee we spent lots of time in the pool! The kids had so much fun getting to play with their cousins. Aunt Janet spent lots of time in the water with them :)

Aunt Lori got lots of snuggle time with Baby Boyd!

We visited Wonderworks in Seiverville, Tennessee one morning. It looks like an upside down house. There are lots of hands on things for kids and adults. The kids had a lot of fun.

What a Cool dude ;)

Grayson has a hard time standing still, see him dancing around in the lobby!

Bryan, Cameron and Warren tried the Rock climbing wall.

Grayson BRIEFLY tried the rock wall.

We took a family picture with everyone but Heather’s husband Andy.

we had a great but tiring time :) Grant decided to sleep in Boyd’s Moses basket…..I think he is a little big :)

Tennessee Part 1

2011-09-28T08:22:00.001-04:00

In June we went to Tennessee to celebrate my Dad (Step-dad) turning 60! My whole family was together and it was a blast! The kids were so happy to get to play together. We visited the Ripley’s aquarium in Gatlingurg. The kids loved it! Picture Alert……there are a bunch coming your way!

Playtime with Papaw!!

We took a trolley to the Aquarium and it was the Trolley ride that Never ended……well, it eventually did but I bet we were on it for an hour or more and had 2 stops…..we were not well informed about the length of the ride! The kids all did really well though for such a long ride.

We FINALLY arrived at the aquarium and the kids had a blast! They had a long walk through tunnel with fish and sharks all around you, it was really neat.

They also had little mini aquariums with a tunnel in the center so you could put your head up through and see from the inside.

The little boy who got out before our boys went in had a little gas issue and this is the reaction we got……

ok as I am posting I am cracking up at that picture!!!

I was able to get some pretty neat pictures of some of the fish in these little aquariums

Whew……If your still with me….that is A lot of pictures! We also visited the upside down children’s museum and did lots of swimming! More to come…….

Caroline's first Day of school

2011-09-21T15:34:00.000-04:00

Caroline had a BIG milestone last month! She started school on August 29,2011. We are doing a homeschool curriculum that is technically an online "public" school. It is called the Ohio Virtual Academy. They use K12 curriculum. We are liking it so far. She is very glad to not have to leave home everyday and we love having her here. Her brothers wouldn't know what to do without her! I am making it work so far with all the other little ones at home. We will see what the future holds as far as homeschooling in the future but for this year it's working for us. Caroline is such a sweet girl. She is pretty quiet and shy around others but will talk your ear off at home. She LOVES Barbies. She likes to set up her little Disney princesses, her littlest pet shops and her Little People princesses. She likes to draw and color is so anxious to read and write. She loves church and is in Sparks in AWANA this year. I love my girl to the moon and back and can't believe she is already in kindergarten. Here is my princess on the first day of school......

To celebrate her big day we all went out for dinner at IHOP

Back in the Saddle Again

2011-09-21T15:05:00.000-04:00

Wow, another VERY long blogging break :( I never intend to stay away from blogging.....life just happens. I love blogging so that I can keep a visual scrapbook of our life. My kiddos keep me so busy I feel like I never have time to record memories or to "scrapbook" the way I want to. I will probably post some old posts with pictures about trips etc. from the last year for my own "record keeping". So to start back on this blogging journey let's start with the newest addition to the family......I haven't even introduced him on here yet!

This sweet thing is almost 7 months old :( He is growing WAY too fast!! He weighed 14 lbs 8 oz at his 6 month check up, 8th percentile. He has always been a little guy....He'll probably be the biggest when they are all grown! Here is in the same outfit (smaller size ;) in the hospital

SO......expect to see lots of catching up posts! Glad to be back in the blogging world!

Caroline turns 5

2011-01-19T11:40:00.000-05:00

We started 2011 out on a bit of a bad note. Mark and I had been having some issues and were seperated. Unfortunately this wasn’t the first time but was definitely the worst and longest. The good news is that through the grace of God we are doing much better and back together today (October).We had been staying with Mom for a while so we spent the kids’ birthdays at Mama Lisa’s. I got balloons and donuts for Caroline to wake up to. She wanted a Rapunzel cake and so that’s what we got. She loved it! We went to Toy Story 3 on Ice on Grayson’s birthday for both of them.

The Big Move

2010-10-05T13:46:00.006-04:00

I haven't blogged in FOREVER. I have good intentions of keeping up with it, yet I don't. I need to be better about taking pictures. So, we moved in to our new house. 2 weeks ago. Things are slowly coming together. We have less boxes but there is still stuff everywhere. I have been promising pictures but have yet to post them. I keep thinking I want to wait unti lit is more cleaned up, together etc. Well, who knows when that will happen!! So here it is in it's natural state!

Here is the kitchen. I feel like it is always a mess! The kids like eating at their little table. It is sort of in the way but it works for us for now. The day we moved in the fridge stopped working and so Mark had to go to Lowe's @ 8 at night to get a new one. It was an unexpected expense and headache (there was no water line as the old had no ice maker since it was OLD) but I am glad to have crushed ice an filtered water!! I already can't wait to replace the counters and hopefully cabinets sometime in the relatively near future (next 2 years maybe??).

This is the kids' FAVORITE place to play! I can't keep them off the stairs. I am waiting on Mark to install the gates, it is on his LONG To Do list! This is also the "dining room. I doubt we will eat in here very often though kids, food and carpet don't mix well!
This is looking from the kitchen doorway into the Dining room. The first doorway on the right is the main bathroom, the second door is the living room and the one straight ahead is the playroom.
This is looking from the playroom door....Stuff, stuff and more stuff!
This is the master bedroom but we decided to use it as the playroom, it has the most room and I knew it would be too hard to be running upstairs to break up every fight!
This is the front door and the living room.
Here is our very messy living room!
There are 3 bedrooms upstairs but the kids are asleep....well supposed to be anyway. I will have to post those another day. Mark and his brother have been working hard to put up a fence outside the past few days. We also had something dead in the dryer vent. They had to clean that out last night cause the dryer and clothes smelled AWFUL!! There is still a lot of work to be done on the house. Our purpose for moving here was to save $$ and pay off debt. We are going to have to be patient if that is going to happen because we could easily spend more than we realized getting everything like we want it. Oh, well maybe God's plan is for us to continue to learn to be content with what we have and to be PATIENT!!

Today

2010-05-12T21:56:00.004-04:00

Craziness Today...

AHHHHH.....BEDTIME!!!!

I Love being a Mom but some days are CRAZIER than others!

Easter 2010

2010-03-28T12:17:00.000-04:00

Anyone ever get tired of cooking for holidays?? Our family celebrations are not very large since we moved to Ohio. We all decide to take a break and enjoy the holiday and go out to eat after church on Easter. Young’s Dairy farm has an annual easter egg hunt. They have a wonderful restaurant The Golden Jersey Inn. We planned to eat and then go the egg hunt but we missed the egg hunt. We went home and had our own :) The boys looked so cute in their little suits! I am not usually a fan of suits for kids. I prefer smocked clothing BUT I couldn’t resist the pink with navy gingham ties. SOOOO cute! I searched everywhere for a matching dress for Caroline we went over to the outlet mall the day before Easter and lucked out with this darling dress at Heartstrings.

Valentine’s Day 2010

2010-02-14T11:32:00.000-05:00

Our Valentine’s Tradition is that I set the table for a “formal” meal. I like to dress it up and we eat in our valentine’s colors. Mark usually brings the kids and I flowers as well.

The kids made Valentines for each other and Mom and Dad.

Birthdays

2010-01-29T12:34:00.004-05:00

Wow, it has been almost a month since I have posted anything....too long! I tried last week to post with my live writer and it is not letting me. Something is wrong with our computer....Almost every website it has started saying is a security risk and we have to click through like 3 screens to get on to anything. It is annoying! Anyway I will have to work on setting up live writer to work again because it is sooo much easier to post with!
So I have been sooo busy planning and having birthday's! Caroline, Grayson and Mark all have bday's within 4 days of each other. I made cakes for each of them on their Bday and we had a joint party for the kids in the same week! AHHHH, fun but glad it's over! Anyway I will preview a few pics and then post some more bday stuff throughout the week as time allows!

Cake Transfer Tutorial

2010-01-23T11:49:00.000-05:00

So, what do you do when your kids want a cake with the SuperFriends from the 1970’s?? Well, we made our own. We have actually used this same technique to make several Bday cakes!

You start off with a cake frosted with buttercream icing. Try to get it as smooth as possible. I am NOT an expert at that part!! There are lots of tutorials on you tube that explain it much better!

Find a drawing of your subject that doesn’t have too much detail (unless you REALLY like making stars with icing).

Trace the outline onto Parchment Paper with a sharpie

Next tint some piping gel with black gel food color

Next use a piping bag with a #1 tip and trace the outline of your picture on the parchment.

Then flip the parchment over carefully onto the cake where you want your design. This is tricky and it helps if you have someone help you to hold two of the corners while you hold two. Then GENTLY press along the deign to ensure the gel transfers onto the cake.

Wow the Wonder Twins morphed into Batman :) Just how it goes when it is late and you are trying to finish a cake AND a tutorial.

You are left with this……

Then mix the colors you will need for your designs. I HATE this part :) Just use white buttercream and gel foodcolors. Place each color in a piping bag ( I use Wilton disposable bags) with a coupler so you can change tips if you need to. Be sure to make a small amount of black for outlining. Using a #2 pointy tip begin outlining over your piping gel. Then using a number 3 or 4 star tip depending on how big you want your stars, just fill in the design like you were coloring in a coloring book.

Probably a good idea NOT to have soft scrub and resolve on the counter while you do it……just keeping it real.

Complete all your details, writing and a border and you have a cool cake your kids will love!

Grayson turns 3

2010-01-22T11:09:00.000-05:00

Caroline turns 4

2010-01-19T11:03:00.000-05:00

We usually have a joint party for Caroline and Grayson since their Birthday’s are so close together. I always try to have a little family celebration on their actual birthday. For Caroline’s 4th birthday Grammy and Pap came down for supper and we had cupcakes.

Christmas 2010 photo shoot

2010-01-08T10:53:00.000-05:00

Holidays are always so busy and a few years I have done a little photo shoot with the kids in their outfits after an actual holiday. Christmas 2010 Mom made the kids their Christmas outfits. We got the appliqués at Joann's and put them on their outfits. They were sooo cute! I loved the bright green color. They always have matching Christmas jammies so we took some photos of all of them in their jammies too. I used some of the pictures to make Christmas Thank You’s for their presents.

How very true....

2010-01-02T09:17:00.004-05:00

MckMama posted this video on her blog today. I was convicted that it is so very true! Penn of Penn and Teller is an atheist. He has this video about a man who gave him a Bible. He talks about how if you truly believe in a heaven and a hell why would you not tell others? Odd that it takes an atheist to convict christians that they should be telling everyone about what they believe! I know without a shadow of a doubt that there is a heaven and a hell, that Jesus died for me and that I am nothing without him. I don't deserve his amazing grace and mercy! I am no better than the worst criminal imaginable! It is only through him that I am forgiven and able to enter Heaven when I die. I am so thankful I am able to have him by my side through trials in my life! I hope that all of you who may be reading this know these truths as well. I am posting the video of Penn telling about the man giving him a Bible as well as a video by Francis Chan. I am reading the book Crazy Love and it is amazing. This video describes christianity so well! Hope you watch them!

More pictures of Christmas!

2009-12-27T03:43:00.000-05:00

After the kids saw their Santa presents, we Skyped with Papa Bob, Aunt Mooie and Uncle Doug. We let the kids start opening gifts so they could watch. We had to keep stopping to clean up so they had room to open more. They definitely had TOO MUCH for Christmas. We are so blessed to have so many people who love our kids! Material things are not necessary but it symbolizes to me just how blessed we are!

Time for Breakfast…. Blueberry pancakes with Christmas sprinkles and whipped cream!

Mom, Dad, Bryan, Lori, Janet, Cameron, Warren, Jovan, Jave and Jaylin came over for tacos on Christmas afternoon. The last three are boys my sister has spent lots of time with for the past 9 years or so. She works at a school in Over the Rhine and they go to the school. She has sort of adopted them as hers and pretty much parents them, making sure they get their school work done, stay healthy etc. They have been with us on Christmas for the past few years.

I made my first piece of clothing on my own from start to finish for my Mom. I made her a pair of jammie bottoms and an appliqued shirt to go with them.

We had a fun and FULL day. There are toys EVERYWHERE! TOday will be a day of organizing and rearranging! Last night I trued to get a picture of the kids in their other matching Christmas jammies.

We let the kids watch a new movie in their room at bedtime. They were still in there making a bunch of noise and this is what we found…

The horses were “sick” according to Caroline! We had to turn the movie off after about an hour because they were still awake! They FINALLY settled down and went to sleep about 10pm after going to bed at 7:30pm! Hope they get back on schedule soon. We had a great few days and still have 2 more celebrations to go!

Merry Christmas

2009-12-26T09:25:00.001-05:00

We had a GREAT Christmas! It was so much fun to watch the kids this year! They really knew what was going on and they were so excited. My sister,Lori and her family were here from Oklahoma too. We had so much fun having a “big” Christmas with so many people. It felt like old times! We celebrated at Mom and Dad’s house on the 23rd. We went to see the new Chipmunk movie. It was the first time the kids have been to a movie. Caroline did great. Grayson had to go out a few times and threw a BIG fit towards the end. We may be waiting a while for another movie for him! We went back to Mom’s and did gifts and dinner…..I forgot my camera so I will have to wait to put pics up till I get Mom’s.

On Christmas Eve we went to church with Mom at her church. It was a beautiful service! I love the worship at her church. Then we had pizza and went to the Christmas Ranch.

We came home and Skyped with Ma. We let the kids open tnhe gifts that she sent them so she could see. We wanted them to be nice and sleepy so they didn’t go tot bed until about 10:45. They were great….stayed in bed until about 7:45 Christmas day!

Notice the Webcam in my hand…Hi Ma!

CRAZY PRESENTS!!!

Santa’s elves went to work after the kids went to bed….Here is the finished product.

These turned out to be the FAVORITE present for both kids! They came from Pappy Eddy.

As this elf was putting together Caroline’s Barbie house, I came upon this little thing…..Not sure what it is supposed to be? Modern Art for Barbie’s house?

The Cat enjoyed the Barbie house!

Christmas Morning……the Little guy woke up first. He played for a few minutes then Pooped all over his jammies and the carpet…NICE….Oh well…

Caroline walked right by the Barbie house to the Batman house. I think she liked Grayson’s presents better!

Santa was good to Mommy too…..

It was these…..but without the diamonds…..They must be out of the ones i got because I couldn’t find them on their website.

I will save the rest of the pictures for the next post since there are already too many here HA! Until tomorrow……enjoy the pictures!

Creation Museum December 2010

2009-12-21T11:52:00.000-05:00

Bryan, Lori and the boys came to visit for Christmas. While they were here we went to visit the Creation Museum. They have a wonderful Christmas celebration. Their Gardens have tons of lights and they have a live nativity in the evening. We went during the day and the kids loved looking at all the dinosaurs. They also loved the figures of Bible characters. It was like the Bible was coming to life. They had a really good time.

A visit with Santa

2009-12-18T16:56:00.001-05:00

Mark’s old post had a Christmas party this week. They had Santa come and visit and hand out a gift to each of the kids. Caroline was 11 months old her first Christmas and HATED Santa as she has every year since. We have never gotten a good Santa picture. As a matter of fact last year Santa had to leave her gifts on the porch because she didn’t want him coming in to her house! Well, this year she was scared of Santa until he handed me her gift. She saw Grayson go up and decided maybe he wasn’t all that bad. She eventually even hugged him! Breakthrough for her!! Here are some pictures of our evening.

Daddy had to go with her and about drag her at first.

Grant’s turn…..Who’s this guy?

Now it’s Grayson’s turn….Check out Caroline eating her shirt sleeve….her new nervous habit.

Caroline decides to have a little chat with Santa…

And finally….a HUG!!

and the best I could get of all 3 of them….not great but that’s what happens with 3 kids and Santa!

Christmas Card

2009-12-16T15:17:00.002-05:00

I wanted to join up to the Christmas Card Carousel. I LOVE getting Christmas cards and even better Christmas Pictures and Letters! I love being able to catch up on old friends and all my family and see how their families have grown. Here is our Christmas Card for this year. I took the pictures myself and edited them in Creative Memories Memory Manager and used Storybook Creator Plus to make the card. I LOVE how they turned out!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Tour of Homes

2009-12-14T09:41:00.002-05:00

I am a little late in getting this post up but I wanted to participate in the Nester’s Tour of Homes.

I participated last year and have been waiting to participate this year, but life happened and I haven’t gotten the post up….So here we go….

My grandma gave Mark this John Deere village a few years ago but we haven’t had it up due to little hands! We decided to put it in the hutch in the dining room to keep them out of it!

Our John Deere/Travel tree in the dining room. We had so many John Deere ornaments and ornaments from places we have traveled they needed their own tree!

Tee-Dee (Grayson named him) the shelf elf joined us this year. They kids have been behaving very well since Tee-dee reports to Santa every night! My Mom Gave me this stocking/card holder a few years ago. It just happens to be Tee-Dee’s spot for today!

This is our tree and mantle this year…..I had good intentions of sprucing up the mantle garland but haven’t yet and probably won’t…..I am waiting until we are finished having little ones to buy or make coordinating stockings. We have a hodge podge of left over ones.

These are my favorite ornaments this year…..These are the first one’s my kids have ever made!! See how to make some of them HERE and HERE….

One of my favorite decorations…..this Santa I splurged on after Christmas a few years ago….

Hope you enjoyed the tour….Off to embellish some towels for Christmas gifts…..tutorial for that tomorrow!

Win an HP TouchSmart

2009-12-10T08:54:00.001-05:00

Want to win an HP Touchsmart Computer? Go Here to sign up!

Ladies Christmas Banquet 2009

2009-12-09T10:07:00.001-05:00

Last night was the annual Ladies Christmas Banquet at church. There were SO many beautiful tables and ideas. I LOVE going to this every year. I have hosted a table myself the last 3 years. You can see pics from last year HERE. If you are looking for creative Christmas tablescape ideas…….here ya go……

My Table

I didn’t get very good pictures of some of them because I tried to get there early but so did everyone else and it was already crowded!

Love the red and silver at this table!

This one had Lime green tulle and lights down the center and the silver glittered Happy Holidays……So pretty and different! Love the apples as the lime green centerpiece.

Here’s my favorite red and silver again…..loved this simple design so elegant!

Here is a Primitive looking table with a sweet wagon centerpiece. Love the paper sacks tied with ribbon as favor bags!

Loved this Coca-Cola themed table. They had the little ornament bottles of coke at each place setting. They also had a bucket of coca-cola bottles and had snow cover in the center like it was snowing……so cute!!

I think this one was my favorite!White and Gold and checkout those centerpieces. White roses and gold Christmas balls….

The Pastor’s wife did this blue and white table….I love the chair decorations!

This one was so cute…a chocolate Moose cake and chocolate Mousse for dessert :) She even had chocolate moose lollipops as favors…..so cute!

So many great ideas! I can’t wait until next year!

Craft Day Continued

2009-12-08T15:59:00.001-05:00

One of the other crafts we made on craft day came from an ornament that my sister and I made as kids. Our church had “Deck the Halls” every year and kids and adults would get together to make ornaments. We made an ice cream sundae out of communion cups. Here was our version:

You Need: communion cups (available at christian book stores”

Batting (or you could use little pom-poms in Neopolitan colors)

Straws (cut in thirds)

Red small pom poms for the “cherry top”

Glue

Put a little glue on the edge of the communion cup and stick the straw in.

Fill the cup with batting or you could use large pom poms in pink,brown or white for chocolate, vanilla and strawberry ice cream. We had batting on hand so we just used that.

Glue on the “cherry top”

The ones we made as kids had the colored pom-poms and were really cute too……

Craft Day

2009-12-05T13:26:00.002-05:00

When I was a kid my Mom and my Aunt Melanie (Mooie) would have my sister and I and all my cousins make cookies and crafts together. We all loved it. Now that we are on the next generation my Mom is continuing the tradition. Last year she had the kids as well as their cousins from West Union and some friends come over to make crafts. We did it again this year the Sat. after Thanksgiving. The kids had lots of fun and I thought I would share a few of the crafts…..

First, we made little snowman ornaments. I made these one time for gifts when I was in high school.

You need: small wooden spools, small woooden round balls or “heads”, black plastic top hats, snow-tex paint, scraps of cloth for the scarves.

Use hot glue to glue the “body and head” together.

Paint with Snow-Tex and let dry.

Hot glue the hat on.

Use a sharpie to draw on the eyes, mouth and buttons and an orange one to do the nose. You can use cream blush or lipstick or a pink marker to smudge on the rosy cheeks. Tie string around his neck for the hanger and then cover with a small strip of cloth for the scarf. Stay tuned for some more pictures from our craft day tomorrow!

Homemade Donuts (sort of)

2009-12-03T03:53:00.000-05:00

I told the kids we could make donuts after we got the tree up. I made these once before Caroline was born….not sure why I have waited so long to make them again because they are GOOD!

You just use canned biscuit dough. We used the Grands with butter. I rolled each one a little but so they were a little flatter. Then I used a biscuit cutter (which belonged to my Great-grandma ;) to cut them.

Since my cutter doesn’t have a hole in the middle I just used a paring knife to cut out the center.

I had heated up some oil on the stove. I ran out of vegetable oil so I used half olive and half vegetable…..it worked! Then you just drop in the donuts. It worked best for the oil to be on medium low once it was hot. They won’t get done in the middle if it’s too hot. It took us a little bit of trial and error on this part.

Then I put a cooling rack over a cookie sheet lined with paper towel to catch the grease.

Then the fun part…..decorating! We used a bowl of powdered sugar, cinnamon sugar and some melted chocolate squares with sprinkles on top. The kids kept eating them as we were going….imagine that!

YUMMY!!!!

Decking the Halls

2009-12-02T15:45:00.001-05:00

I have been in the Christmas Spirit since before Thanksgiving. I couldn’t wait to put the tree up. We did it the weekend before Thanksgiving. The kids had fun putting their own ornaments on. Caroline was saying all of them were her favorites until she saw the Tinkerbell ornament Ma gave her last Christmas, after some squeals of glee, she said “ACTUALLY, this is my favorite”! It was fun to have them help this year. I wanted to put up 2 trees so we could have one with John Deere ornaments. Mark didn’t want the mess…..I won!! I will put up pics in another post of the decorations. Here is us decorating the tree.

Trick or Treat

2009-12-01T12:50:00.001-05:00

Before I left to go to Delaware I decided we better carve our pumpkins in case we didn’t get home before Halloween. My Mom got the kids the Mr. Potatoe head parts to do their pumpkins.

Mark carved what Caroline called the “princess castle”.

In the process of packing to go to Delaware I luckily remembered to grab the Halloween costumes, just in case we were still there. It was a good thing because we were. Mamaw’s funeral was Saturday morning and Sat. night we all went to Aunt Mooie’s to Trick or Treat. It was a fitting way to spend the evening and was so nice to be able to be together as a family! Caroline dressed up as a Cupcake “with a cherry top”. Grayson was supposed ot be the Lone Ranger and Grant Tonto. Well, Grayson insisted he was going to be Batman about a week before Halloween. Soooo, Mamaw Lisa had ordered him Batman PJ’s for Christmas and he got them early and wore them as his costume. Grant wore my cousin Landen’s Pumpkin suit from last year. We had a great time and the kids were so excited!!

This is my grandma’s best friend Becky, she is as beautiful as my grandma was.

Little Tiger Landen

Mark carved these foam pumpkins while we were there!

Trick or Treat

Here comes Batman…

Sorting the booty…

“I want some candy too!!”

Pumpkin Butt!

Mama Sue

2009-12-01T12:19:00.002-05:00

On October 27 my maternal grandmother passed away. I have so many wonderful memories of her. We lived close to her my whole life and her house was one of my favorite places to be. She used to do fun things with us like making dough out of flour and water to sculpt all sorts of things. She would let us give our dolls a bath on her front porch with a little bowl of water and a cut up sponge. When we would play dress up with her hats and scarves (and sometimes wigs,which I used to call mugs??) she would say to us “Hooray for Hollywood”. I remember sitting in church and having to sit still so I would play with her wedding rings and her jewelry. Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays. We always went to Mamaw’s house and had spaghetti and then went trick or treating in her neighborhood. She had 5 children and my grandpa was in the Air Force. They were away from all their family, her mother died when she was 19. She had her first child at 18 and did not have a driver's license until she was in her late 20's. I can't imagine being on my OWN with my kids with my husband gone and unable to drive!! She was so classy in the way she dressed and was a self taught decorator. She liked to paint ( I have a painting of a basket of daisies she did in my bathroom). When I have a bad day with the kids I remind myself of all I have that she didn't and I know I can do it! I miss her smell, her hands, her elegance,her voice saying “Hi, Jenn” like she was so glad to see me. Her funeral was on Halloween and it was really fitting because she loved Halloween and it was one of our favorite memories of her. Here just a few pictures I had on my computer of her. I haven’t taken many pictures of her in the last few years because she hasn’t felt well and didn’t look well. I am so glad my kids got to meet her and know her a little bit. I only hope they remember her a little as they grow.

Here are both of my grandmothers together at my Mom’s 50th birthday. I am so glad I have had both of my grandmother’s and have so many happy memories!!

I'm Back!

2009-11-30T11:14:00.002-05:00

I haven't posted in over a month! My Grandmother passed away at the end of October and I was in Delaware for about 10 days. We have just been busy and I haven't been on much. I have been behind in even reading the blogs I follow! I am ready to get back to posting and reading. I am in the Christmas mood early this year! We already have our trees up. I have lots of cleaning up to do today after the busy Thanksgiving weekend!
We went to Mom's house for Thanksgiving and the kids and I stayed the night down there. Mom and I got up at 3:45 and went shopping. I pretty much finished all my shopping!! It wore me out though, I have been trying to catch up all weekend! We had "craft day" at Mom's on Saturday. I took pics for some mini tutorials of the crafts we did. I will try and get them up this week. Here are a few pics of the last few weeks. Stay tuned for more posts to come :)

Little Pumpkin

2009-10-21T17:00:00.001-04:00

Sweetest Pumpkin in the patch!

“Mommy, I’m done!”

“That bad witch won’t get me will it?”

The only picture I could get of all 3 of them…

Brothers…

2009-10-20T14:22:00.001-04:00

Yesterday I heard Grayson saying “He’s awake Mommy”!

I went into Grant’s room and this is what i saw….

Pudding Monster

2009-10-19T11:39:00.001-04:00

5 Minutes for Mom is having a silly kid photo contest with $1000 up for grabs. I think this could be the winner don’t you?

This was not staged….Caroline did this all by herself and when I tried to take her picture she gave me the “monster” look!

My blog featured!

2009-10-19T09:08:00.001-04:00

I found that my blog has been featured on the website for the Strasburg railroad! They have a list of blogs with pictures and stories from visitors who have been there. Thanks Strasburg Railroad for linking to my blog!

Gap Casting Call

2009-10-18T15:48:00.001-04:00

I entered the kids in the Gap casting call. You can vote up to once/day at the following links. I went on the site and noticed that the kids in the lead for fan favorite votes have like 11,000 votes. How is that possible? Anyway you can vote if you want but they have no chance of winning in the fan favorite category!

Caroline

Grayson

Grant

Cutie boy and Candy Apples...

2009-10-18T08:44:00.001-04:00

Cutie Boy

AND Candy Apples

Putting sprinkles on…

Daddy is stirring the caramel…..

YUMMY…Cavities!!

Potato Soup

2009-10-17T20:23:00.001-04:00

We had some YUMMY Potato soup for dinner! I made it in the crock pot and it was really good. The only time I have ever made potato soup I made it with lots of milk, sour cream and butter. It was baked potato soup. This had a chicken stock base and it was a little more runny but very good! The recipe I just sort of made up as I went along. All measurements are approximate!

4 Large Potatoes diced

3 Cans Chicken broth or chicken bouillon and hot water (or mix both like me cause I only had 1 can of chicken broth)

About 1/2 cup carrots and celery (I cut mine up and freeze them when I buy them so I always have them in the freezer for soups so I just used a Lg. handful of both)

Parsley, salt, pepper, sage, thyme, onion powder use as much as you like but this makes A LOT so be generous

Mix all together and put in crock pot on high for about 6-8 hrs. Mash the potatoes up a little bit about 1 hr before you are ready to eat. Then in a small bowl mix 2 tbs of flour or corn starch with about 1 1/2 cups of half and half or milk. Mix until smooth then pour into the crock pot. Let heat up for 45 min or so until it is all warm. ENJOY

You can add cheese and bacon bits and scallions if you want….

Yes Grayson is wearing a skirt and Caroline is topless as usual…..

Beach Baby

2009-10-04T22:38:00.001-04:00

While we were in Delaware for a wedding last weekend we spent a day at the beach. We had to have pictures of Grant on the beach like we do for Caroline and Grayson. By the end of the photo shoot he was putting sand in his mouth….just like every other kid in our family! Here is my little Beach Baby!

Favorite Baby Gear

2009-10-01T23:27:00.001-04:00

I am participating in the Baby Gear post at Kelly’s Korner. We have acquired quite a bit of baby gear!

My favorites are the

SwaddleMe blanket by Kiddopotamus….Grant HAD to sleep in his for the first 4 months of his life! He also had to have the sleep sheep on (I don’t have any pics of it though).

We also LOVED the boucy seat…This is the 3rd one we have had due to the “Big” kids breaking them by sitting in them when they aren’t supposed to! I would suggest getting one that converts to a rocking chair for a toddler or the ones that double as a swing to get your money’s worth. I wish we had done that!

We LOVE the Britax Marathon carseat. We have other brands but it is WORTH the $$. WE wish we would have bought one for Grayson. They come apart so easy to clean…which we do often! They also install very easily.

Those are probably my top products. I really just wanted to look through pictures of my babies! Hope some of you expecting little ones get some good ideas!

Homerama #4

2009-09-28T10:49:00.000-04:00

The Winchester by John Henry Homes

5600 Square feet $699,900

Check out this chalkboard wall!

I think they Mod-Podged sheet music to the wall to create this! Now that is some serious Mod-Podging!

Loved the flowers painted on the wall…

Envious of this built in entertainment center/office space!!

LOVE this ceiling!

A master suite with it’s own seperate sitting room….I need that kid free space!!!

Looks so cozy…

Look at this pantry…That’s what I need!

Tomorrow is the last house of our tour and my favorite decorated house!

Homerama #3

2009-09-23T22:29:00.000-04:00

The Broadmore by Drees Homes

5,947 Sq.feet $819,000

The metallic look was in a lot of the special paint treatments on the wall.

I LOVED this room. I am not even a big fan of dog’s but I thought the paint and the colors were so cute and different!

LOVE the ceiling!

This was a glamour girl room….posters of Audrey Hepburn and a quote from Coco Chanel….cute ideas and I loved the black and white.

These tiles were really neat. Made this bathroom look very modern and cool for a teenage boy.

This headboard was made of leather. It was really neat looking.

My dream laundry room…on the second floor with the bedrooms and the perfect size…not too big, not too small.

And here’s your room Ma….

it has it’s own little kitchen…..

The Basement….

I think was my favorite kitchen. I love the dark cabinets with the white ones in the middle. All of them had a slightly distressed finish which I LOVE. I can’t imagine having all those cabinets!

I love this mudroom too!

This was on the wall opposite the mudroom cabinets. Cork boards with initials for every member of the family and mail racks. Very practical!

This is a close up of the cabinetry in the mudroom. I love the little drawers to hold things…cabinets up above and I LOVE the black beadboard in the back. So different than the typical white that you see.

Well, that concludes today’s tour……phew….that was a lot of pictures!

Homerama Tour #2

2009-09-22T21:51:00.001-04:00

The Susanna by K homes

4,400 square feet $638,900 (sorry it was sold ;)

Another adorable kids room….

Cute robot room

Adorable princess room. I loved how the bed was in this alcove like a window seat.

I loved this green color in the bathroom with the pink in the bedroom. Pink and green are two of my favorite colors!

The kitchen…..wasn’t my favorite.

I loved the paint in this dining room.

Close up of the paint…I loved the flowers, they were metallic looking and so pretty.

I didn’t take pics of the bathrooms or master’s in all the homes. Some of the decoration I didn’t really like. It just seemed so plain or just not at all my style. If I had planned topost them all on here I would have……sorry!

On to house #3 tomorrow…..

100th Post!

2009-09-21T22:44:00.001-04:00

I can’t believe this is my 100th post already! I have been thinking about something special I could post. Well, we went to Homerama tonight in Cincinnati. I thought I would take you all on a virtual tour of the city’s finest homes for my 100th post. So here we go….(if you aren’t interested just ignore the next few posts). There were only 5 houses this year. Mark and I said you know the economy is bad when there are only 5 houses, all of which were less than 1 million dollars. A few years ago there were like 10-12 houses all of which were over a million dollars! Anyway, I will post each house for the next 5 posts. I looked around fro signs about taking or posting pictures and didn’t see any so I hope I am not breaking any laws :)

Nottoway by Fischer Homes www.mygrandestate.com

5,819 Sq.feet It could be yours for $799,900!!

My favorite part of the Homerama houses is almost always the nurseries and children’s rooms.

I loved the autumn decorations!

Can’t wait until we move so I can try this idea. I would love to replicate this frame with a large frame without the glass and inside little individual frames.

This was the basement decorated with a game theme. I loved these pillows spelling out game night!

Love the two colors of cabinets in this kitchen.

A great laundry room is a must!

I wish I would have taken more pictures! I always feel like I am holding up the line if I take too many. Anyway, stay tunes tomorrow for house #2!

A Few more pictures from vacation

2009-09-12T14:11:00.002-04:00

My sister Heather got married while we were in Delaware. These are a few pictures from the wedding. My mom made the kids’ outfits. They were adorable!

These kids LOVE coffee. If they can get it they will drink it up! No sugar either….just cream and coffee like their Mommy and Mamaw!

Aww, sibling love!

This was taken the day we got back from the “cowboy show” Grayson and daddy were getting the bad guys!

I think we should be in the covered buggy with this many kids!

I can’t believe it but my next post is #100!!! Guess I should do something special and fun…..wonder what I could do, I’ll have to think about it….see you for post #100!

Strasburg Railroad

2009-09-07T08:43:00.001-04:00

While we were in Delaware we went to the Strasburg Railroad one day. We took a ride on the train and stopped for a picnic lunch. It was so much fun. It was a beautiful day, in the 70’s with little to no humidity. Crazy for August in that part of the country. The kids loved the train!

Yummy picnic!!

Aunt Mooie and the babies

Papaw Harold and his boy

It was a great time. If you are ever in the Lancaster, PA area you should really go!

Vacation Pictures at Last

2009-09-06T06:42:00.001-04:00

Hello again Blogworld! I have been MIA lately! We went on vacation to Delaware the last week in August and have been busy since we got back. I am finally getting around to sorting through the tons of pictures! Warning: Picture overload ahead! I am sharing the highlights of our trip over the next few days! We had so much fun and did a LOT!

The first day we were there we went to see my Dad’s horse “Ace”. Ace is a very expensive fellow! He had colic back in the fall and was treated at the hospital they took Barbaro to. He is all better now after a long recovery but boy did he rack up a bill!! Anyway, the kids loved riding him and got in the cowboy mode for our next adventure…..

…Frontiertown in Ocean City , MD. The kids call it the “cowboy show”. They had a shootout….

Our Little Cowboy and Cowgirl got in on the action from the sidelines!

We rode a little steam engine train and got robbed! See the bad guy coming towards us…

“Stick em up”

Don’t worry “Trooper” Grayson will get him!

Someone doesn’t seem very afraid!

Next we went on a Stage coach ride

and it was not our day because we were robbed again!! Grayson was ready to protect us with his rifle again!

We then made our way to the indian village to see some dancing. Our little cowboy and girl turned into an indian boy and girl with face paint and feathers in their hair.

A FULL day of fun. The kids were knocked out on the way home!

Busy Day

2009-08-20T21:32:00.001-04:00

Wow we had a busy day! I took the kids to a playdate at a local park with some other moms from church. I will post some pics of my kiddos later. We came home and the “boys” took a nap. I think Caroline is getting away from napping. It is such a struggle with her. Anyway, I tried to get housework done. Grant woke up and so I didn’t get as much done as I wanted. We decided to roast marshmallows this evening. We have been wanting to do it and it hasn’t worked out, so we decided to go for it. The kids were already wound up and not going to sleep anytime soon. The house was still a wreck and we could at least avoid looking at it if we were outside :) Anyway, the kids had fun and Caroline even said “Thanks Dad, for makin this fire”. Tomorrow is another day and the last day to get stuff ready for Delaware……better get an early start cause there is lots left to do!!

YUMMY!!!

Yes, she is topless as usual. We are lucky if we can get her to wear clothes period!To be honest, until I just posted this picture I never even thought about it. She takes her clothes off so often it is not unusual to see her like this :)

The Multitasker had to sweep while we were out there too!

Look, 5 at a time….that’s my girl getting as much sugar as possible!

Fun night, but I am BEAT! I am heading to bed and praying for a super productive day tomorrow!

Dress Up

2009-08-19T14:52:00.001-04:00

Oh how they love to Dress up…

Kmart Super Doubles

2009-08-19T14:11:00.001-04:00

Kmart had their super double coupon sale this week. They double all coupons up to $2. I didn’t get there early enough to get any of the “free” stuff. Some of it I wouldn’t have used anyway. I did buy a lot of stuff we needed for pretty cheap. I saved like $80. I got cat litter, 2 boxes of garbage bags, 2 packs of diapers, 2 big cans of coffee, 12 BOXES OF CEREAL!!!, 3 packs of dog treats, 3 cans of skintimate shave gel, a bouce bar, 8 rolls of paper towels and tinkerbell toothpaste for $84. Not too bad really. We (well Mark) eat a LOT of cereal so it was good to stock up. I paid less than $2 per box for the cereal. I forgot my $5 off $50 coupon and I got the wrong kind of coffee or it would have been a little less.

I went back last night and got 3 more packs of diapers, kiwi shoe polish, some Knorr rice side dishes (3 for less than $1), 5 more shave gels (2 for Mark), 10 pack of razors for 0.79, 2 Glade scented oil refills and 1 warmer (free), 3 gel refills, Kids’ detnagler,pup-eroni dog treats for $40. I saved $40 too!

I also got Cottonelle TP 20 rolls @ CVS for $3.00 using some ECB’s and a coupon and got $3.00 ECB’s back. I still have $10 ECB’s left too even after the ones I used so that’s $13 left…..not too bad!

Pappy Eddy’s Pool

2009-08-11T16:27:00.001-04:00

We recently took a quick weekend trip to Delaware. Mom was going for a wedding so we went with her. It was a fast trip but we enjoyed seeing everyone! We spent Sunday afternoon at my Dad’s house in his pool. The kids LOVED swimming! We had an awesome meal too. My Dad is an amazing cook. We had ribs, corn on the cob, tomato salad and the most delicious small potatoes roasted with olive oil salt and pepper. I don’t know exactly what kind of potatoes they were but they were GOOD! I don’t know how many I ate. I should have taken a picture of the food but….I forgot :(

Pappy Eddy and his name sake Baby Grant (my Dad’s middle name is Grant).

Grayson wasn’t too sure about the pool at first but he warmed up. He did like hanging on to the wall and kicking his feet.

Grant LOVED the water! We can’t wait to go back in a week or so!

Indianapolis Children's Museum

2009-08-08T22:21:00.001-04:00

We visited the Indianapolis Children's Museum in June. We had a lot of fun. There was lots to do and play with for the kids. We ended up not getting there until almost 1 and didn't have time to see everything so we will have to go back...darn :)

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Father’s Day and Grant’s Dedication

2009-08-08T21:50:00.001-04:00

I come up with such creative titles…ha! Since I am attempting to catch up on pictures I am posting Grant’s dedication pictures finally. He was dedicated on Father’s Day. We went to Young’s Jersey Dairy to eat lunch and then went to the Beach Waterpark. It was a busy but fun day. Mom and Janet went with us. We didn’t get very good pictures of the dedication because we ended up on the opposite end of the stage :(

Dayton Air Show

2009-08-08T04:30:00.001-04:00

For Mom’s Birthday back in July we went to the Dayton Airshow. We had never been before. It was a lot of fun. The only bad part was that the kids were ready for a nap by the time we got there! They did pretty good considering. We found the kids area and it was great. They had lots of things for them to play with and crafts for them to make. We could see the airshow from the edge of the kids’tent. We stayed there for most of the time and waited to see the Thunderbirds……they were AWESOME!

Grayson loved the dry erase easel!!

Time for the Thunderbirds!!!!

Grayson finally passed out on the LONG walk back to the car!!

We had a great day and will definitely go again next year!

Sprinkler Fun

2009-08-07T14:20:00.001-04:00

I haven’t been good at keeping up with posting pictures. These are actually from the end of June. The kids got a new sprinkler and had a blast playing in it!!

Kids’ rooms-

2009-07-31T06:16:00.000-04:00

WE didn’t do much to the kids’ room or the toy room. The biggest change was painting the toy room. You can see the before HERE.

I did try to declutter the toys a little and even moved some into the garage to rotate in and out. The color is so much better!

Home staging continued….the small bathroom

2009-07-30T06:08:00.000-04:00

This bathroom used to be very childish….flowers, lady bugs etc. I loved it but we felt it would look better to be more neutral and grown up for the sale of the house.

Found some “before” pictures of the bathroom!

We added a neutral shower curtain, new towels, a new framed mirror(only because Mark broke the other one while painting…oops). A fresh coat of neutral paint and some accessories.

We like it a lot better now too!

Home Staging-Master Bedroom/bathroom

2009-07-29T06:58:00.000-04:00

So back to the home staging tour….

In the Master bedroom the only major change was having my mom make some pillow shams (all the blue and brown ones), to add to the bed. I also decluttered a little more.

In the Master bathroom we added the plant and the towels.

I have since put the plant in the corner of the tub and moved the towels onto the vanity where the plant was. Tomorrow…the small bathroom.

Couponing…

2009-07-27T23:24:00.001-04:00

I used to read about people who bought bunches of groceries for only a few dollars. I thought yea right how do they do that? I figured it took forever and I didn’t have time. Well, I have been trying to save money any way I can lately! I decided to try my hand at couponing. I am just starting and know there those who save lots more but it’s a start. CVS is my favorite!!

I got all the candy in this picture for $3.03 With tax! I used extra care bucks and coupons and still have extra care bucks left! Between this picture and the one below I still have $17 in extra care bucks left!!

I got all of this at CVS for $5.57 with tax!!

Our local Community Markets had triple coupons up to .50cents. I got the next 2 pictures all for $36. I didn’t do as well as I would have liked but Caroline was with me and I had never been to the store before.

I got all of the stuff in thisstuff for $5.37. The formula alone is normally $4.69!! I think I am starting to get the knack! I was so mad all the deodorant I could have gotten for .13cents was gone!! It is only Monday! Should have gone yesterday I guess…..

Home Staging Continued…

2009-07-27T10:09:00.000-04:00

To continue the home staging tour, here is the dining room and kitchen. In the dining room, I cleared out that cabinet and removed a bunch of glassware and vases from the top of it. It is much less cluttered now. We also removed a treadmill that has been in there forever (not being used).I raised the window treatment a little to let in more light. I used a leftover piece of fabric from the curtain for a runner. I just folded it lengthwise and put it on the table. I found coordinating yellow placemats at Big Lots for $1 each. The centerpiece I found on clearance at Kroger for $1. It is just fake grass in a a white distressed pot. I set the table with our dishes as well.

In the kitchen I just cleaned the counters off more. I even removed the toaster oven. I packed up some more extra dishes and things to get the cabinets cleared out a little too.

We even set our outside table to make it look inviting when people come to see the house…..now if we can just get some lookers…anyone….

Tomorrow….the Master bedroom and bathroom!

Home Staging- Living Room

2009-07-26T06:52:00.000-04:00

We have had our house on the market for 18 months now! It has been extremely frustrating not being able to sell, but we know the market is what it is. We just want to move closer to my parents and to Cincinnati. Anyway, after 2 realtors and no luck we decided to try a home stager and we were going to list for sale by owner. We have since decided to list with a new agent but have also done some sprucing up. I will split these posts up so there aren’t so many pictures in each post. I should have taken some before’s but didn’t…I know….silly me.

In the living room we added lamps (we just had recessed lighting and no lamps before). That alone made a big difference. We got these from Wal-Mart for like $25 a piece. We also added the iron thing over the couch. We took out a full sized sofa to make the room look bigger and re-arranged the furniture slightly. Removing the couch made a big difference. We also brought back in the coffee table. We had removed it when Caroline was learning to walk but we are hoping to be moved by the time Grant is walking…..we will see!

The curtains are fabric from Wal-mart that I used to make “mistreatments”. We added the plant in the corner and a few accessories on the mantle. The wingback chair was in that corner before and the mantle only had the clock.

We added a few accessories to that alcove above the TV as well.

We think it looks a lot better in the pictures online for the listing and in person,when we show it…..let’s hope it looks good enough to sell!!

Edible Play- dough

2009-07-25T22:32:00.001-04:00

I downloaded Windows Live Writer and am LOVING it so far! It is so much easier to post pictures and to post in general. Hopefully I can stay a little more up to date! Now on to more exciting things…..EDIBLE PLAY-DOUGH! A few weeks ago I decided to try the recipe that they had on Jon and Kate plus 8, for edible play-dough. It is equal parts of powdered milk, peanut butter and honey. I also added a little flour to make it not quite so sticky. I used 1 cup of each ingredient and had enough for both kids.

The kids used their breakfast making play-dough tools. Grayson made mostly bacon but also some waffles. Caroline made lots of waffles. They loved eating it! Mark even liked it! It was pretty good!

Almost 5 years….

2009-07-24T09:10:00.001-04:00

In just a few weeks, Mark and I will celebrate 5 years of marriage! It has gone so fast…..especially in light of the three kids we have! I am participating today in Kelly’s Korner’s “Show us your wedding dress”. I LOVED my dress. My grandma came into town to help us find a dress only a few weeks after I got engaged. There is a wedding district in Cincinnati that has all kinds of bridal stores. We hit the biggest one, Bridal and Formal. They have thousands of dresses but have a great system to help you pick one. Anyway, my mom found this dress and I didn’t really like it…until I put it on. I didn’t want to take it off. My Dad bought the dress for me and my grandma bought my veil and tiara. The dress was strapless and had beading, heavier on the bodice and then down the dress. It had a little bit of a train but not too long.

This is my Grandma and Dad who purchased the bridal gear :)

I love remembering that day. It was so beautiful and fun. I wouldn’t change anything.

Sweet Boy

2009-07-23T14:20:00.000-04:00

My boy is growing so big so fast! He is really smiling and "talking" a lot. He is already getting a tooth!! He has been really fussy for the past few days. He has had a cold and been teething on top of it, poor guy. He really is a sweet boy with lots of big smiles when he isn't crying ;)

Kids Bday Parties

2009-07-16T22:57:00.007-04:00

I am joining in Kelly's "Show us your Children's Birthday Party" Party today!

I have loved planning the kids' Bday parties. Mark, Caroline and Grayson all have Bdays within 3 days of each other and Grant and I are within 3 days of each other. CRAZY and not at all planned! Anyway when I was deciding which Bday to share I decided to share Caroline and Grayson's first joint party. I really wanted Grayson to have something special for his 1st Bday but didn't want to do 2 parties. I decided on a Winnie the Pooh theme. I used 1st birthday party stuff for Grayson and all the Pooh characters for Caroline. I set the table in the kitchen with the 1st Bday party things and the Dinning room had all of Caroline's party stuff. I used some stuffed Pooh characters we already had on the table for decorations.

Here are the cakes we made. Mark decorated Grayson's and I did Caroline's. Grayson's was a chocolate box mix doctored up and it was YUMMY! You can find the recipe here. Caroline's was a cupcake cake made with lemon cupcakes. Both cakes had buttercream icing. I think we did good for novice's!

Here is the kitchen table with the cakes and the dinning room set-up with the food. We had our standard party fare....chicken salad croissants, chips, veggies, and soda. I used Pooh "throw-away" sippy cups for the kids. I never throw those cups out we use them forever! All the kids took one home. I put labels on them that I made with my label maker.

You can also see pictures of their party from this year Here.
I have so many ideas and can't wait to have 3 parties this year!!
P.S. you can click on the pictures to view them bigger.

Bible School

2009-07-15T08:19:00.004-04:00

THe kids have been going to VBS at the church Mark went to as a child. It is right up the road from us. Our neighbor goes there and asked if the kids could come. Our church has VBS but they can't go until they are 4 :( I was so glad they got to go this year at Terry's church. Last night when we went ot get them, we were looking at pictures and there were some of Mark when he was at VBS there as a child! So fun. I love that their first VBS is at the same place he went. They have been having so much fun playing games, doing crafts and hearing stories.

Here they are enjoying a puppet show.

Lining up to play a game.
Playing Duck, Duck, Goose....they didn't quite get the rules and kept running whenever anyone got called goose.

I will take more pictures this week and post them later.

4th of July

2009-07-11T21:37:00.002-04:00

Sorry no posts recently. June flew by and we have been non-stop! Just busy with the kids and trying to get the house ready to re-list. I took pics of our "staged" house. I will post soon as well as Father's Day/Grant's dedication and new pics of the kids! We spent the 4th of July with my cousins and all the kids had a great time despite the rain. We still got to see fireworks at the post in Wilmington. Here are some pics....enjoy!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Childhood Poem

2009-07-04T19:35:00.003-04:00

This is a poem I wrote for my Dad in elementary school. I was at Mom's the other day and saw that she had it scanned on her computer. I don't know how I came up with something so silly! Check out my artwork.....It hasn't progressed very far!

Best Daddy in the World

2009-06-21T08:23:00.002-04:00

I am lucky that my children have such a wonderful Daddy. Mark is so good about playing with them, wrestling and roughing them up, taking them places with just Daddy. Grayson and Caroline both love going to JD equipment with Daddy! He laughs and tickles and plays with them. Reads books to them and even plays teaparty or dolls with Caroline! Mark- you are a great Dad and I am so glad we get to have this experience of raising our beautiful children together!! Happy Father's Day!

Mark and Caroline

Mark and Grayson

Mark and Grant

Look alikes?

2009-06-17T21:32:00.002-04:00

Grant

Resemblance, Hmmmmm??

Summer fun

2009-06-14T14:44:00.005-04:00

We have been very busy lately and I have not been very good at updating! We had a Home stager come give us advice on some things we could do to help sell the house. Good news is pictures will be on the blog when we finish (sometime in the next week or two). Bad news is it has taken up most of my time. We did go to the Waterpark for the first time last weekend. The kids had lots of fun with Aunt Janet. We got ice cream and played in the water.

Grant slept most of the time. The water was a little too cold to let him try and get in.

Love this picture!

We went shopping most of the day on Friday. We hit up Ikea and Garden Ridge and got lots of goodies.....pictures coming! We met Mom and Dad for dinner at IHOP then hit DQ. I love this picture of Grant. The sky looks so neat!

Hmmm.....his Mamaw says he is ready for cereal but I am not sure yet. From the looks of this picture he wants to move right on to the good stuff!

I will update with pics of the home staging very soon! In the meantime enjoy the pics of th
e kiddos....Ma, told ya Grant was getting so big and changing fast!

New Do's

2009-06-03T14:06:00.004-04:00

Caroline has been terrible about letting us fix her hair. She has GOBS of hair bows and headbands but usually won't wear them. I decided to get her hair cut so it didn't look so shaggy all the time. Well the last few weeks she has been letting us fix her hair so then I was second guessing the decision. Last week we just went ahead and did it! I took her to the "big girl" salon to get her haircut this time. We usually go to a place just for kids. She did so good, even letting them shampoo her hair! She had a lot of fun with just Mommy that day! We went to Wal-mart after we were done. I think her hair looks so cute. She isn't a baby anymore....she is getting too big, too fast!!

Grayson also got to go to the "big boy" barber with Daddy a few weeks ago. He wasn't as thrilled as Caroline (as evidenced by the look on his face :)

My babies are growing up!

I Love Summer

2009-06-02T06:18:00.006-04:00

I am joining in Darlene's "I Love Summer Party" over at Our Creative Life today. So....Why do I love summer....THE BEACH!! It is the #1 thing I miss most about Delaware (besides my family). We usually spend a week at Bethany Beach every summer. This year we won't be doing our week long beach vacation due to the economy and Dad's job loss. We are going to Delaware in August though and will spend a day or two at the beach. So here ya go...Why I Love summer!

Playing in the Sand!!

Did I really post a picture of me in my maternity bathing suit?

Well, here I am in pre-baby skinny days....makes up for the above picture :)

Funland Rides in Rehoboth...the same boats I rode as a child!

Grotto Pizza!!!!

Ice Cream

And of course.....Crabs Another pre-baby, actually pre- wedding picture. Oh to be so young, thin and tan again!

So that's why I love summer. Our summer here in the midwest is great but very different. I look forward to going to my homestate every year because summer is just more fun on the East Coast!

Cheesecake Bites

2009-05-31T17:45:00.004-04:00

I am using an old post to jump in the mcklinky blog party. This recipe is YUMMY!!

My boss' birthday is tomorrow and I wanted to make her a cake or something. I was going to try out Bakerella's cake pops and saw cheesecake pops on her blog. I decided to give them a try. I used premade cheesecake filling though.
I just scooped it out with a mini ice cream scoop (it's actually marketed as a cookie scoop). It helps if you put the filling in the freezer for a little bit so it doesn't stick to the scoop as bad. This filling is way softer than a regular cheesecake would be. I decided not to do "pops" because they were so soft I don't think they would stay on the stick.I almost forgot this step. While the cheesecake balls were in the freezer to harden a little, I crushed up some graham crackers in the food processor.

I then rolled the balls in the graham cracker crumbs.

I put them back in the freezer for a little bit. While they were in the freezer I melted the chocolate coating (found in the baking aisle at Wal-Mart, nothin fancy!) in the microwave in a glass dish. I used two spoons to get the chocolate on the balls. This was the worst part and a little bit of trial and error! I just put the ball on one spoon that had some chocolate on it. Then I spooned chocolate over the top (all done over the glass dish). I jiggled the spoon a little to get rid of the excess. Dumped it out onto the parchment paper. Some of them had a little spot where there was no chocolate after coming off the spoon so I just drizzled more chocolate over them.

The coating dries hard and the inside is soft and YUMM-O! Mark LOVED them!!

Day Away

2009-05-30T08:58:00.006-04:00

Mamaw Lisa took Caroline and Grayson to Delaware to visit with my sister Lori and her family. They are coming into town from Oklahoma. My cousin Benjamin is also graduating from high school today so they will get to be there for that too. I really wanted to go but couldn't take off work again so soon after maternity leave. We are enjoying some time with just our baby! Yesterday was a gorgeous day so we went to Waynesville to walk around. We love it there but it is not toddler friendly so we don't go very often. We enjoyed lunch at the Hammel House Inn. It is a bed and breakfast and restaurant. We got to eat outside on their porch. It was so nice outside it was great to enjoy the weather and people watch while we ate!

We shopped for about 2 hours just looking at all the beautiful antiques and furniture! So many of the stores also have the neatest gifts and decorations. We got the cutest 4th of July firecracker and a little surprise for Mamaw Lisa. We then stopped for a treat!

Yum, Chocolate with Buttercream for me and Banana with Caramel for Mark!

Everyone loved our little man and he was an angel all day. It was so fun to be outside on a beautiful day and get to spend some time getting to know our newest little man a little better!

Memorial Day and Blurry Backgrounds

2009-05-30T07:53:00.012-04:00

Mark's Dad came into town for Memorial Day Weekend and we went to the Indy 500 (See below). We had a great time at the race. On Memorial Day we went to eat at Young's Jersey Dairy farm. We fed the goats and saw the cows.

Apparently Grayson tried to climb in the duck pen as evidenced by this photo taken while I was feeding Grant. Momma wouldn't have let him climb up there, Dad just takes pictures ;)

They were having a little carnival there and had some little kiddie rides. The kids went on a few and had a blast.

And now the blurry background part of the post..... I got a new camera for my birthday and have been wanting to take some pictures with "blurry backgrounds" like Mckmama. I followed her tips and I think I got some good shots.

Love this picture!

We had a great weekend and enjoyed Papaw Dennis' visit!

The boys' nursery

2009-05-29T09:17:00.003-04:00

I am joining the party over at Kelly's Korner and showing off the boys' nursery. We painted this room for Grayson but decided to keep it the same for Grant. I did make some letters to personalize it for Grant but they haven't made their way up on the wall yet! Terrible!! Anyway some of you long distance friends and family haven't seen their room anyway so here ya go.......

Mark painted this barn and Johnny tractor for Grayson. Notice the TONS of toy tractors all over the place! All Mark's, on loan to his boys!

The barn says Grayson Farms on it.

Mark and Papaw Harold made this bookshelf.

The giant tractor was supposed to be removable...NOT! The crib is currently on this wall as we have rearranged a little now that Grant is in this room. Grant's name should be on this wall over his crib but the giant tractor is in the way and we don't want to repaint, thus the reason they are not on the wall yet!

This is Grant's closet...look at all the blue :)
Here is how the room currently is for Grant. We had borrowed Grayson's crib and need to return it to my wonderful friend Joan. We moved the dresser from Caroline's room into Grant's room.

Here is the new crib and that giant tractor that is in the way!

Hope you enjoyed the little nursery tour! You can see pictures of Caroline and Grayson's room here.

Indy 500

2009-05-25T15:20:00.002-04:00

I had so much fun at the Indy 500 yesterday! I didn't think I would but I did! I wanted Danica Patrick to win. She came in 3rd so not too bad. Enjoy the pictures....

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Ladies and Gentlemen...

2009-05-16T22:54:00.007-04:00

Ladies and Gentleman, step right up to the Greatest Show on Earth......The Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey circus! That's where we spent our Saturday night! Caroline is in Florida this weekend at a wedding with Mama Lisa, so we decided to take Grayson to the circus. We had a great time! We stopped at Cracker Barrel and ate first. Grayson was not happy with having to wait for his food, as usual.

It did help that Grant was passed out and so Mommy and Daddy could both focus all attention on Grayson since sissy wasn't there either!

My boys looked so cute in matching clothes! We were on the way to the car after taking this to change diapers. Grant ended up in a new outfit after the HUGE blowout he had!

We finally arrived at the circus!

Not sure why I have such an irritated face here?

Grayson picked out a little elephant as a souvenir. He was trying to "walk" it by it's tag.

Grant slept through about the first 15 minutes and then was awake the rest of the time! He loved looking at all the lights!

Gotta have a treat....a $6 ice cream and a $9 lemonade....RIDICULOUS!!

We all had a great time. It was a late night and we ended up leaving a little early. Grayson was getting tired and antsy around 9:30. Sadly, we missed my favorite part...the elephants but oh well, maybe next time!