Category: Random Stuff From My Life

These past few weeks have been crazy around our house. Katelyn, in an attempt to save a prince, had an unfortunate scooter accident.

We go back on Thursday to see about getting it off. She is looking forward to that. It was fun at first and she enjoyed being able to have it in her favorite color, but it’s been 2 weeks and she’s ready to see it go. I let her take a Sharpie to school on Thursday. She spent recess letting kids sign it and draw on it. It’s cute!

This year for her birthday, Emily picked a Strawberry Shortcake theme. At the party the kids had fun coloring pictures, playing games and eating cake. I can’t believe Emily is 5! I still need to edit pictures from the party, but here’s the cake. I was pleased with the way it turned out especially since I had no idea what I was doing for a theme when I started decorating it at 10pm the night before the party! I was smart enough to purchase the Strawberry Shortcake and cat figure for it. That allowed me to get a bit of sleep that night.

Well, not quite curls yet…

I just think they look so sweet with their hair all up in rollers.

Happy Birthday Pawpaw!

Hosted by Cecily and Carissa

I haven’t blogged all summer and then some. I’m so far behind, I won’t ever catch up anytime soon, so I’m just starting again from here.

I was searching for coupons to print and use at Publix and found this sweepstakes for free groceries. It’s easy to enter and you could win $5200 in groceries. Sounds like a great prize to me!

Hurry and sign up for your chance to win, they stop the entries on Oct 30th.

Rozoni Free Grocery Sweepstakes

As a Kindergarten graduation gift from Grammy, Katelyn got to take her first trip on an airplane. They flew to Charleston for the day and had a wonderful time. Katie loved the plane ride, but was quite nervous. After they landed, she was also able to get into the cockpit and wear the captain’s hat. They went to the children’s museum and ate lunch at Bubba Gump’s Shrimp Co. Katelyn learned that she loves shrimp! They ended the day taking a horse drawn carriage ride. By the time Grammy brought her home that night, she was exhausted!

Thanks for the wonderful memories, Grammy!

Yesterday the girls started swim lessons. They are all doing well!

Katelyn already moves through the water and easily holds her breath and puts her face under, so she is learning to blow out the air and how to correctly move her arms and legs.

Emily finally got her face wet yesterday. They have to reach into the water and grab a ring. She would stretch her arm as far as it would go and turn her face up so it wouldn’t get wet. After several brave attempts, Emmy put her face in the water. She is working well with the instructors on the swim movements too.

Madison was so cute about putting her face in the water. You could tell she did not want to do it and way psyching herself up. Then she just went for it. When she got that ring and pulled her face back out of the water, you could see her beaming! She was so proud of herself. Mama was pretty proud too!

The lessons run for 2 weeks and I can’t wait to see how they are doing at the end of next week.

Today Melissa, Gibran and Sofie were in town so we took advantage of the opportunity to take some pictures. There is a cute, cute, cute little park downtown that we thought would make a great place to take some pictures of the girls. Last year Mom got the girls all coordinating outfits and that is what they are wearing for the pictures.

Here is the park. It has several nice areas to take pictures. It was a hot and sunny day, so we did not get to take advantage of all the little areas. We’ll be back!

Group shot of all the girls

Sofie was not in the picture taking mood. We tried several times and she just wasn’t going to go for it. Look at the tears!

So the rest of my pictures are of my girls. We’ll catch Sof next time.

Daddy’s girls

Sweet individual pictures

This picture makes me smile. They just look so happy.

Their favorite thing was exploring the little stream. They found all kinds of little leaves, rocks and even a couple of pennies. They are always up for an adventure.

We get this look from Em all the time!

Finally, a family shot.

Wow. Our baby turned 3 today!

She requested a Barbie party, complete with a standing up Barbie cake. We invited family over and had a wonderful party.We grilled out hot dogs…her favorite food and let the kids play.

They jumped in the garage.

They colored on a huge Barbie coloring page.

Of course there was also the Barbie pinata. This picture also reminds me that I still really want to change that light fixture out!

Then it was time for cake and ice cream. Madison blew out all three candles with no help even though Barbie was towering over her!

The birthday cake. I really enjoyed making it!

Time for gifts. Madison got some really fun stuff!

She even read the cards.

Madison had a wonderful day and she claims it was as fun as she imagined it! She has been waiting not quite so patiently for her birthday to arrive.

We went to Katelyn’s moving up ceremony. I cannot believe that kindergarten is over already! It seems like my baby just started at that big school and now she is going to head off to 1st grade. This is going too fast for me! Here she is waiting in line to be seated for the program and one of her waiting for her turn.

She went on stage when her name was called and she received a certificate for completing kindergarten. Then all the parents ate hot dogs and we had a little picnic in the cafeteria. When that was over we took her home and started our summer vacation!

This year for Katelyn’s teachers, we gave one of them a journal with a jar of questions to write about. All of the questions are related to teaching. I got the idea from a website…I need to find it again and I’ll link it. For the other teacher we gave a set of coasters. They are photo coasters. I found some quotations and sayings about teaching and printed them off to put in the coasters.

For Emily’s teachers, I went in with a friend to get a joint gift from both kids. I do not have pictures of them because Jennifer got it together for us. It was a cute set with a key chain, mug and something else (for the life of me I can’t remember now what it was). They all had their initial on them.

How does your garden grow?

I am quite happy with my garden this year. I know I did not plant much, but what I did put in the ground is doing quite well. My strawberries are big, plump and red. They are sweet and delicious. I just need to figure out who is eating them before I can get the off the vine. It appears to be a squirrel or something. I put moth balls in the area tp help ward them off, but the rain melted them. I need a  new plan.

My two tomato plants are doing great. I have lots and lots and lots of tomatoes growing on them.  I cannot wait for our first home grown tomato sandwich of the season! I had to buy tomatoes while grocery shopping today…that bites when I have so many hanging out just waiting to ripen at home.

Our girls love their sidewalk chalk.

I love their chalk drawings.

Now that Katelyn knows how to read, we also enjoy writing chalk messages.

This afternoon, we also tried out sidewalk paint. That was fun too. The paint we have came in a cute kit Melissa gave Katelyn for her last birthday. I need to see if they come in other colors. The girls love their painting time and I would love for it to happen outside!

Although the all enjoy “chalking” (that is what they call it), is is definitely one of Katie’s favorite things to do.  Along with drawing pictures, we draw and play hopscotch, play tic tac toe, sudoku, and trace bodies.

Here is a glimpse at our chalk fun.

On Easter, while at Mom and Dad’s the girls got out the chalk. We also flew kites that day.

A family favorite-mermaids:

We love to play games!

I make up and draw Sudoku puzzles and Katelyn solves them. She is so good at them! I drew it in blue and she filled in the puzzle in red.

Some days Aunt Poo gets in on the fun too.

On Mother’s Day, Katelyn got Uncle G out there with her and they drew and drew. Then Katelyn came inside to get the rest of us. We all had to hop on the “World Famous Longest Hopscotch Ever” or something similar to that. Melis watched us from upstairs and laughed her hinney off at us. We must have been quite a sight! I didn’t have my camera that day so, no pictures of the world famous hopscotch.

Our final bit of chalk fun comes in the form of body outlines. The kids pose, I sketch and they fill in the clothes and faces. It is a blast for them, but it must look a bit odd when there are several that look like this left in our driveway. Makes people wonder the safety of the neighborhood!

I got popsicle molds the other day and I have been busy experimenting with different recipes. I am looking for good and healthy ways to stay cool this summer.

The first ones I made were watermelon. They weren’t too good. They looked pretty though.

Then I made some orange flavored ones. I took frozen orange juice and let it thaw a bit. Then I mixed it with vanilla yogurt. They were really good. I like these the best so far.

Today I made chocolate pudding pops. I had some fat free, sugar free pudding in the pantry. I accidently bought it one day. It ended up being taste free too. The girls seemed to really enjoy them though.

Up next is blueberry!

Tonight at dinner it was raining like crazy.

Lightning and thunder…the works.

The girls do not generally like storms. They get a bit nervous so we were talking about the weather. That’s when Katelyn said, “Tomorrow is going to be a great day!”

We were curious why she was thinking that, so of course we asked.

She said, “Because there will be huge mud puddles to jump in. Puddles are so much fun! That is the best part about all the rain.”

It must go with being the first born or something.

Katelyn is so bossy.

She knows she is bossy and likes it that way.

I say to her, “Katelyn, you are not the boss.”

Her reply is, “I want to be the boss.”

Yes, I know.

I’m sitting here listening to her tell her sisters what to do.

I said, “Katelyn, why are you being so bossy?”

She replied, “I’m not. I just want things my way.”

At least she owns it and acknowledges it. Isn’t that the first step to changing a behavior?

Wait…I think there is also something about wanting to change. I do not think she is there yet.