Big Four Year Old!

Elena turned 4 on the 6th of July, and we celebrated by throwing a HUGE block party! Just kidding, it was only us and Grandma Feagin. We did a Hello Kitty theme, as Elena feels like she is her own personal friend. (Don't worry we don't promote fantasy worlds beyond the norm with our children.)

I made the cake. It was a risk I had to take after searching several stores who had no cake mold, and I can't afford the lady at work who makes cakes as a side job.

So what did I do? Improvise!!

I went online and got some ideas. I made the cake on a rectangle pan and then froze it overnight. Then I drew the outline on a regular piece of paper and cut it out. The next day I put it on top of the semi-thawed cake and cut around it. Success! Then I used those hand-dandy frosting-in-a-bottle thingies. And voila!

I was very proud of the results. Every time something turns out right I feel more confident to try something else new! And it was right tasty too! Lemony inside, and cream cheesy outside.

However, we did not eat the cake until after our little scavenger hunt. I placed little wrapped Hello Kitty goodies all around the house, inside and outside, along with instructions as to where to find the next present. Aaron and Daddy had a blast helping her find everything. As did she, of course. Here's the loot--

The final prize was a new Hello Kitty bicycle! It's her first bike of any kind, so we get to learn on some training wheels! She loves it to pieces.

We got to open some other frizzits too! (frizzits=presents)

I can't believe my baby is FOUR! **sniff, sniff**

Next year she'll start school!!

crazy, crazy...

A Vision and High Temperatures

One day in May I woke up with an idea in my head. Something I had been pondering for a time and a vision formed. I did a little reasearch online, then headed for home depot. You see, I have been wanting for years to have a successful vegetable garden. But because of many factors; abundant wildlife, poor soil, awkward location, etc etc.- I have been unsucessful. Until now! This is the result...

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Drumroll please!

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A 4'x4' raised bed garden! Fully enclosed with a net to keep birds and vermine out (supported by pvc), and underneath the box is a fully reinforced steel mesh to keep out burrowers who like to munch roots, as well as a mat of burlap to keep weeds at bay. I must say, I was incredibly proud of my efforts and the results. It took maybe 4 hours tops, and the kids splashed in the pool while I hammered and poured dirt. Jim was pleasantly surprised when he got home from work, expecially since he had no idea it was brewing. This photo was taken a month ago or so, and the plants are doing really well. I do my best to keep it watered in this 100 degree weather.

Which brings me to the next topic at hand. The Heat! They say in the month of June, our area had 16 days of over 90 degree weather. 2 of those days were over 100. So far July is pretty much the same. Yesterday it reached 105, hotter than Vegas, baby! Hopefully today it will only be 100. So we've been doing a lot of swimming.

Ahhhhh, sweet relief!

We don't have a membership at our pool, and it would cost like $16 for all of us to go swimming one time. So I am grateful to have a good friend who lives in an apartment with a pool!

Here are the kids on the 4th of July, waiting for it to get dark.

We had fun watching our local fireworks display. Hope everyone had a happy holiday weekend!

More Ketchup!

Early in April, James and I enjoyed my Christmas gift by going to Baltimore and spending te entire day there. The first event was an Orioles game at Camden Yards. One of his co-workers had tickets so he hooked us up- even though it was in the nose-bleeds.

It was also extremely frigid with the wind blowing right at our backs at the top row. I knew I should have grabbed that sweatshirt in the car. Jim was a gentleman and let me use his new t-shirt as a blanket of sorts. What a selfless guy!

This was his new shirt, and his optimistic early season grin. Those of you who follow baseball will understand why he's no longer grinning.
 

But we had a good time. All we had to pay for was food and parking! I can't remember whether we lost the game or not, but I'm fairly certain it was a loss.

   

I love the atmosphere of a good baseball game, during warm weather at least.
   

Next we went back to the parking garage and changed into our fancy, night-on-the-town clothing, and headed to the Hippodrome a few blocks over. I might add that it was quite a few blocks, and wearing heels did not exactly make me a happy camper. Thankfully, the crazy man on the corner blowing me kisses raised my spirits immensely. Needless to say, I forgot about my aching feet entirely.

These are professional photos of the historical theater. Much better than mine turned out. Is anyone curious as to what show we saw?? Some of you probably already know...For Christmas Jim presented my with two tickets to see Phantom of te Opera. The show was excellent, very enjoyable! I realized I practically have the script and score memorized myself. I could be an understudy! (Yeah...right.) Although, my father received a callback to perform as the Phantom in San Fransisco a while ago. He chose not to be away from his family. He would have done a killer job! (Happy Father's Day, Dad!)

I had to walk back to the parking garage barefoot because my feet were killing me. I have learned to keep a pair of flats with me when going out on the town. Since I'll be doing that so dang often. Oh, here are my pics:

I am so grateful to live near family who can help watch our children, so we can make memories like this together and have some alone time to keep our marriage fresh! Speaking of the family near us, Jim's father just suffered a major stroke and is currently in the hospital, so we are praying and hoping he'll have a quick recovery and be home soon. Please keep him in your prayers!

Ketchup!

Or, catch up, rather. So much to tell...Where to start?

I will start with our butterflies! We started with 5 little caterpillars who soon became cocoons. The kids really enjoyed watching them grow and grow, and they only were in their chrysalis' (chrysali?) for a week or so.  

In no time they became beautiful little butterflies! Painted Ladies to be precise.

They all emerged at different times as they went in their cocoons at different times. We let them go in our garden where we have some flowers the butterflies liked. It was a fascinating process to watch for all of us! They all had names, but it was hard to tell them apart! We had lots of fun watching them fly to their freedom. We'll definitely do it again next spring!

We also went to Elioak farm recently, for the second time. It's a petting zoo with a maze made out of fir trees, and lots of fairy tale pieces from the Enchanted Forest. I didn't get any pictures of the kids with the animals this time...

Even thought it sprinkled a little rain on us, we still had fun with our friends!

Random

No big events to post about, just little tidbits of life. If anyone is wondering, the homemade laundry detergent has been working great, so I highly recommend it! Find the recipe here.

Yesterday Elena gave her first talk in primary, and she did pretty well. It was a brief talk on the Fourth Article of Faith. I think most of it was unintelligible, but towards the end she was clear and succint. I stood behind her while she repeated it in the microphone. I was so proud because she wasn't afraid.

James and I got to go to the movies saturday night. Yippee, a date! We saw Robin Hood, which we both really enjoyed and recommend to all who may be interested.

Garden update: We've got everything mulched, front & back yard. The chrysanthemums are about to burst, and the 38 year old rhododendron is awful purty. The rhubarb is coming back in well and I see the pears beginning to form. I am determined to do better with watering this year. We also put in the tomato plants, we'll see if we can keep them from wilting this year!

The kids are having fun watching our caterpillars grow- we are growing butterflies too! Just like you see on the tv commercials. They should be in their coccons soon.

We have some indoor seeds sprouting, which we will transplant later. Peas, pumpkins and watermelon. There was some weird mold on the sprouts, so I realized I had to keep the lid off. Oops! I hope the mold doesn't effect anything.

Here are my two sweeties in the Meadow- bella and edward! Haha.

The weather has been great- so much warmer! So we've been outside a lot. (Aaron in the lilacs)

Mmmmmm! Popsicles!

Tasty, tasty.

But, what to do on those rainy days when you don't have a car...

Proud Mama!

A couple of firsts today- on Mother's Day of all days! I apologize if this seems silly, but I am so proud of Elena. She had her first wee in the toilet today. Yippee! Potty training continues to march forward.

Also, today all the children got up in church today to sing a few songs to the moms. This was my first time having a child old enough to join the throng. I must say I was busting my buttons, especially since I had not anticipated it and it took me by surprise- I forgot the kids sing every Mother's Day!

Even though she mostly was digging for gold the entire time, I was still beside myself with pride.

My little girl is growin' up! *sniffle, sniffle*

The Meadow

So, those who read or even watch Twilight, you will be interested to know that we found the fabled meadow- right in our backyard!

 

We frolicked in the beautiful Spring foliage, taking full advantage of the warm weather.

Edward and Bella, eat your hearts out!

Ladybugs!!

Part of living in a lush and green part of the country, is dealing with an endless amount and variety of insects. Most of them stay outside, but aaaallll through the winter we have an infestation of ladybugs that wake up and live in our windows.

This is much to Elena's delight. She has become the master hunter of ladybugs and is constantly crawling up on any furniture to look for them in all the windows. Mostly they live in the two windows in our bedroom because of the sunlight we get on that side of the house, so she gets up early just to hunt in our windows. (Above is one of her hauls.) I was concerned for the welfare of the ladybugs she captured, so we made it a game that she relocates them to be with their "friends" in our potted plants in the kitchen windows dowstairs. My hope is that they'll eat the ants which are just beginning to appear indoors. (Noooooo!) I doubt they will, I think they mostly eat aphids. But I am trying a new trick that I read about- spreading cornmeal for the ants. Apparently they take it home and they can't digest it. Supposedly an organic way to deal with them. We'll see.

I also wanted to share a short clip of a day in the life with toddlers...because it makes me laugh.

At least baby powder smells good!

New Calling

I was recently released as Sunday school teacher to the 20 or so youth in our ward. (Almost two years of 12-13 year olds- felt like I was teaching release-time seminary!) My new church calling in which I have been called to serve is as the newly reinstated Activities Committe Chair. We haven't had a committee for a while, so I am the one they've decided to trust to keep it all on track. Needless to say, I am very humbled. I want very much to have some awesome ward activities, so I feel a lot of weight on my shoulders. So, I was hoping that I could get some ideas from everyone- just tell me about your favorite activities that you have had in your wards! Thanks!

Morsel of Life

During the snow we did lots of fun things, like eat popcorn and watch lots of tv and movies. The kids, of course got creative and it was good exercise for me to clean up after them. Here are just a few excerpts of their cute snowday playtime.

I wish I had some high-tech software to edit myself out of these.

Apparently I don't ever dress my children. What can you do...