Some pics to fill you in

I just emptied a couple of memory cards into my iphoto, so here are some things that we've been up to....

My old college friend, Ashley, who now lives in Sydney, Australia made her annual visit home to the states. Her itinerary was fierce, but we managed a fun visit with her family as they made their way south from Atlanta to Fairhope. Jacks and Nealy had a great time visiting with Ollie and James, their favorite friends with the most charming accents (well, we assume young James will have that Aussie lilt). We were honored to have made their dance card, because it was already full. Maybe next year we can visit a little longer - or the Dyer family will find their way to the Southern Hemisphere.


And I've been sewing a good bit. Here is Nealy demonstrating her swashbuckling skills in one of her new outfits.
I also made some matching outfits for the kids to wear to my friend Paige's wedding. Jacks's pants came out a little.....shall we say, Mediterranean? He is clearly irritated by something in this picture....Speaking of irritated, Nealy is really good at this furrowed brow look. I'm sure many of you have been flashed this hairy eyeball by the little one....


Summer time is hot, so laying around in the air conditioning is a great activity when the heat gets to be too much.

The army men in this house have been very busy.
And I've finally busted out the ice cream maker for the year. Jacks took it upon himself to compliment me on my ice cream making skills, which was probably the nicest thing he's ever voluntarily said to me. As you can tell, Nealy enjoys homemade ice cream, too.
Jacks has been talking a lot about waffles lately, so we decided to have lunch at the Waffle House last weekend after attending the turtle demonstration at the Ecology Preserve. Jacks and Nealy had a blast, the short order cook made Mickey Mouse shaped waffles, the kids got paper hats, and we were extremely pleased with our bill for lunch (quite possibly the best deal in town).


Lastly, we have thrown ourselves into city based programs for the kids. Jacks has already taken one round of swim lessons at the city pool, we are looking forward to art and soccer camp coming up in July, Jacks has been enjoying a Smart Arts class with our dear friend Summer, and both kids have LOVED being a part of a toddler yoga class (a shout out to our teacher and new favorite friend, Peach!!). They spent some time decorating their new mats, which unfortunately didn't last because we used a kid friendly, washable paint, and it peeled off almost immediately. But it was still fun while it lasted.

We've also been putting some serious mileage on our Splash Pass for the city pools as well as spending a fair amount of time in my new classroom at work. The kids love the computers. And a week during the summer is not complete with at least 3 or 4 visits to Hobby Lobby and Chick-fil-A. So, as you can see, we are enjoying our time off by filling our days with as much as we can.
I hope you all are enjoying your summer just as much as we are. More soon!

Summer time!!!

Well, summer time has arrived! We spent the greater part of May focused on making it through May 25th, which was the last work day of the school year. And, although we weren't sure, we actually survived. We had several things distracting us from the rest of the world: making it to the last day, learning where my school administration would be moving me (I changed teams and subject areas - both things that caused me great stress and a chin zit the size of Everest. For those who know what this means, I am now a Panther. And I'm now teaching math.), getting the kids prepared for their last day of day care until August, getting signed up for summer programs and lessons, and preparing the house and my kids to stay with my parents for a week while Joe and I took a cruise!!

Here's a picture......

Yeah, well, we didn't take all that many pictures, and those that we took were in Nassau and involved me wearing that hat a lot. This was a trip focused on rest, relaxation, alone time with each other, and eating (lots of eating). The cruise took us to a small island in the Bahamas called Cococay one day, then to Nassau the next, and a few days at sea. This picture is of Joe and I at Fort Charlotte. We took a little tour of the island, which took us to Fort Charlotte, Fort Fincastle, the Queen's Staircase (below), and Atlantis. After the tour we rooted around the Straw Market for presents and tee shirts for the kids.
This shows me how much I need to work on my posture. Of course, I was working very hard at not making eye contact with the sellers who were calling to me constantly. I was attempting to appear withdrawn and not personable. I know - not much of a stretch for me.

We arrived home after 5 blissful days of rest to a house of insanity. My kids were TERRIBLE for my perfect and angelic parents who happily endured five days of no sleep, hissy fits, the kids refusing to eat proper food, and bad behavior. Jacks even attempted to BITE my father one night when dad tried to get him to sleep. BITE. Yes, it's true. After a rough interrogation, he admitted it. At which point I assured him that if it happened again, I would be biting him back. Hard.

My parents left smiling. I don't think they'll ever keep the kids again. Or not for at least another 5 years. That is probably how long it will take them to recover from this trip. I'm sure they are still smiling right now because they don't have to be here alone with the kids anymore.

Oh well, life didn't stop or get any easier while we were gone. So, although we have only been home for 24 hours, we are already back to real life full swing. Luckily, we managed to get both kids properly fed and to bed by 8:00 last night.

Today began with a bang. I have already managed to get both kids signed up for a weekly yoga class, been to the public pool, taken Jacks out for yogurt while Nealy napped, been to Target, Hobby Lobby, and Earth Fare (for free range chicken and natural peanut butter - we all need to get to eating better around here), checked out two new books from the library, and enjoyed a major after nap snack time. Still to come for today: dinner, laundry, baths and books, and bedtime. Tomorrow will involve more pool time, yard play while I work on sewing projects in the basement, another trip to the library, more laundry, and who knows what else. Swim lessons, work meetings, yoga classes, and getting signed up for more Parks and Rec programs are waiting for me when this next week arrives in one short day. Not to mention all the appointments I need to start making - the school year doesn't afford me much time to make regular doctor's visits.

Summer is supposed to be a vacation, right? Ahhh, I can't complain. I got to spend 5 uninterrupted days alone with my husband on a cruise ship in the tropics, I got to watch the sun set and the stars shine over the ocean, we got new I-phones (greatest invention ever), and I get to spend the next 8 weeks with my family with very few work days to get in our way. I am very, very lucky.

And with that, I'm hitting post without re-reading what I wrote. I hope this meandering mess made some sense. I'll have more to report in coming days, which will involve pictures of the kids in their bathing suits, grinning from ear to ear because, hey, everyone loves when school is out.

Touch a Truck and May Day

This post started out as a detailed account of how insane this past week has been. I mean, Nealy got 5 stitches above her lip, the washer died, the van battery died, we had field day at school, Jacks and I went to the 6th grade dance, Joe won a prize for one of his art pieces, Mom and Dad visited, we've had 2 soccer games, and more that I'm sure I'm forgetting.....oh yeah, that whole work thing we do everyday. That took up some time. Don't ask to come to my house right now. It's atrocious, and I'm clearly not doing anything about it. I'm currently preferring to sit on my big bottom and quietly enjoy this drizzly Sunday morning.

Instead of recounting every single event from this past week, I'll show you some pictures from yesterday, which among 15 other things we did yesterday, we managed to squeeze in the annual Touch a Truck event in downtown Opelika and the May Day celebration and craft show at the Jule Collins Art Museum in Auburn. Both events were amazing, and we are grateful to have had so much fun on a Saturday morning.

Touch a Truck.....
Jacks pretending to fly the Life Flight helicopter.



Nealy didn't care much about the trucks, but she did want to climb in the seat of this back hoe.


We hope that Jacks doesn't see many more of the back seats of police cars.


May Day.....
The kids LOVED the reflective pools around the museum, even though Jacks kept shoving Nealy away because he was afraid she would fall in.

They had these great easel seats for painting on the veranda.


Oh look - more reflective pools!!

All the craziness ended up being okay this week, and hopefully our wallet won't be hurting too bad come bill paying time next month. Let's hope the next couple of weeks go smoothly as we finish the school year, go on vacation, have my parents keep both kids for the first time ever, and start the summer off with a bang. Fingers crossed.....

Easter Bunny

This year I was inspired by some beautiful images I found online to create some things for the kids' Easter baskets. Plus, I'm just about sick and tired of having useless, cheap toys floating around my house from Easter baskets of years past, random party favors, trips to CVS and Target, and kids' meals from fast food restaurants. We have enough of that! It's high time I start a tradition of gifting my children handcrafted items that they just might treasure for a while. And they're still young enough to appreciate things like that.

My inspiration Easter gift is here:

found on
http://www.longingforhomedesigns.com/2011/04/peter-cottontail.html?spref=fb

I also found some other great ideas on Pinterest. You can check them out here. If you're not a member of Pinterest, request an account immediately. It is the best site I have ever found. It helps me organize all of those amazing web sites that I used to bookmark and ultimately lose in the mix of confusing URL's swimming around my bookmarks menu. And the ideas and inspiration I have found on Pinterest are endless.

Anyway, since I've managed to clean out my basement to a workable crafting space, I've been working on lots of really great projects. I might possibly figure out something to sell eventually. I'm still working on that a little bit.

Here is what I came up with for Easter baskets.....

I had to make up the bunnies a little bit with a free hand pattern and some ideas of my own for their little faces. I managed to mess up the pink face on the brown bunny a little bit, as you can see in the pictures.

The crayon holder rolls up into a little log that is secured with a stop cord. I should have looked at other colors for the cord, but it turned out okay. The ric rac on the edges of the crayon rolls is a little dodgy, but it will do for my kids. This was also my first experience using iron on vinyl, with which the insides of the crayon rolls is lined. It will take a little practice, too, because upon close inspection, you would find it to be crinkly and wrinkled.

Joe created the notebooks all my himself with recycled paper and mat board, adhesive craft cardstock, and D rings. I think they're pretty swell.

The buckets came from our very own local Auburn Hardware, who sells galvanized pails in several sizes. I got these 2 for $10 even. Note to locals - shop Auburn Hardware when you can! I fear their days are numbered in this town, so support them while they're still here.

As you can see in the picture above with Nealy, I added an extra bucket with some candy and such, and a few additional toys in each bucket (mostly from the Target dollar bins - the exact kind of toys I was trying to avoid, but sometimes the lure of $1 butterfly head bands and Elton John foam glasses is too hard to resist).

The kids were thrilled this morning. We have spent the morning in our pajamas digesting pancakes, and we plan to hide some eggs around the yard after nap time. Happy Easter to everyone! Maybe one day we'll spend the day dressed to the nines, attending church and champagne jazz brunch, but for now we're content to spend it at home enjoying this beautiful day.

Potpourri

Don't you love the potpourri category on Jeopardy?

It's one of my favorite categories, because in addition to being the perfect category for the those of us with truly trivial and eccentric knowledge, it also recalls memories of my mother's trays of drying roses and tiny bottles of aromatic oils that lined the shelves of our pantry during my childhood. Was making potpourri a fad of the 80s, or is it just a crafting phase? Will I hit the homemade potpourri crafting phase eventually? Do people still use potpourri? Have you ever seen anyone type the word potpourri so many times in one place? I'm pretty sure it's spelled correctly, but it might be one of those words with debatable spelling. Like realize and theater.

Anyway, in an effort to avoid maintaining this blog as one entirely dedicated to birthdays and holidays, I offer you a little-bit-of-everything-that's-been-happening-lately kind of a post. Although I enjoy doing a straight up op-ed textual kind of a post, being that I am a public school teacher by trade and not a professional blogger, it seems best to keep my opinions to myself sometimes. It seems the things I think are okay to say are sometimes misinterpreted by others, and in these difficult economic times, I find it wise to avoid irritating the powers that be - whoever that is. Or is it whomever? I always forget that one, like lay/lie and further/farther. Yes, I know I'm a language arts teacher. Lay off......or is it lie off? Who knows in these uncertain times when the majority of people say "supposebly"?

Anyway......first off, there's soccer. Jacks is getting better and better, although it has been in baby steps. He really needs all soccer experiences to be just practice, because he seems to fall apart in games. The good news is that he got his favorite number, 4, on his jersey, which is an exceptional stroke of good luck because he was the last to receive a jersey.
This picture shows the beginning of a game, which is a good thing to see. Because he's generally reduced to tears and sweat and fits and general pissed off-ed-ness by the end of the game. We are hopeful that soccer will continue to improve.

Next, Nealy has been warming up to Luke a little more lately, which is pretty great since she's known him for nearly half her life. She seems to be much better at being around him when she's on her own turf and she can interact on her own terms. Here she is bringing him every toy from the house.....
You can see the attention pleases Luke to no end.

Next topic of conversation, when my mother comes to visit, she brings dish gloves. What, you don't travel with your own dish gloves? Well, neither does anyone else in the world, except for my mother. The kids love this because when she comes to visit, there are two pairs of gloves to play with, and the fact that dish gloves actually exist in this world is obvious because Queenie wears them all the time (me - not so much. I'm also not cleaning so much, which might be why Mom has to bring dish gloves to my house). A great place to wear them? On your feet....They also put them on the big stuffed horse in Jacks's room.

Next, I've been sewing and crafting. I know, I know - where do you find the time, supermom? HA! Truth be told, I've chosen to neglect the house and my appropriate sleep patterns in order to hole up in my basement and wrestle with wads of embroidery floss. And the result has been pretty great! I've made some really cute things for the kids' Easter baskets (I'll include those in the Easter post - this isn't going to be a holiday post, remember?), and I even made them some outfits to wear to their school Easter egg hunt (well, I guess this post is a little bit holiday).
These pictures show Nealy doing her "happy" face, as in, "Show me happy! Now show me sad," and she acts them out accordingly. That tactic has been working a lot better than, "Say cheese!" Also, you will notice a serious case of bed head on Jacks. Sometimes he will let one of us do something about it in the morning, but lately we've just been letting it be. It evens out during the day, eventually.

And I think that's all for today. The Easter Bunny just made a visit to our house. We'll see if it incites me to write a little something in the next couple of days.

Nealy's 2nd Birthday

And the theme was........

Sunshine and Lemonade. Do you love it? I'm determined to come up with a new and different theme for each of Nealy's birthdays for as long as I can, before she decides each year needs to be princess or Dora or Ariel or unicorns. Well, actually, I'd probably really like unicorns. But the French theme from last year was pretty hard to top. I shouldn't have started off so strong. I think I may have made a lovely choice with Sunshine and Lemonade, though. It was original and stylish, and no one else will have a party quite like this one.

Anyway, this year, Nealy had a joint birthday party with her friend Sophie. Sophie's mother, Bethel, and I go way back, and we are blessed to have two beautiful girls who were born within days of each other. Remember those pregnant pictures we took the week before we each gave birth? Sophie and Nealy are in the same class at school, so we decided it would be best to have a party together and invite their class.

(here is the part of the blog where I refrain from making pointed comments about the fact that NO ONE from their class came, even though we invited the entire class and hardly anyone else to keep the attendant numbers down, and we only had 2 regrets. Out of 16.)

We chose to enlist the help of our friend Summer Williams to plan our party. She has started a new business called Peace, Love, and Parties, and we were her first clients. We chose the theme, and she took it from there. We were able to afford her fee since we were splitting it, but now that we've seen the hard work, planning, preparation, shopping, and careful thought she puts into her parties, we strongly feel that her fee is far less than it should be. On top of all of that, we got to have the party at the Jan Dempsey Arts Center, and that means no house clean up (before or after), plenty of parking, and more room than we knew what to do with. It was great.

Since the theme was Sunshine and Lemonade, everything was yellow and pink - the decorations, the food, the activities, and the cupcakes. The favors were canvas bag (which the kids hand painted themselves with lemon slices) with lemon candies and lemonade juices placed inside. There was a sunshine shaped cake and pink lemonade flavored cupcakes decorated to look like little cups of lemonade, thanks to Cakeapotomous, of course. The music was all sunshine themed (a play list was excruciatingly planned - I'm not totally sure that it will fit on one CD, but I need to make copies of this sweet mix VERY SOON. It ranges from The Kinks to Smash Mouth to The Brady Bunch - maybe my best mix tape work to date). Nealy's outfit was carefully planned and handcrafted, and everyone else in our family was instructed to wear yellow (I was too embarrassed with my theme obsession to require the same of Bethel's family. I might have been teased a little.).

Every little thing about this party was a hit. The theme was adorable, and it was carried out beautifully. Nealy and Sophie were celebrated in style this year.

So, see a pictorial review of the party events.

The birthday girls in action.....


The decor.....
This picture was intended to view the banner, but it also managed to get a shot of some decorations which had still not been placed. We'll call this a progress shot.
Here's some detail on that banner.
The food......

The activities......

Cake time.....

General party milling around......

And a couple of amazing pictures of my two babies who are growing up too quickly......

At 2, Nealy is growing faster than I ever imagined.
She loves her paci, her brother, juice drinks, cake, monkeys, batman, swimming, music and dancing, coloring, Dora, talking on the phone, play doh, sand, cuddling under a big blanket with her mom and dad, her new tricycle, and bath time. She says practically everything - much more than I remember Jacks saying at this age - and she's already a smart girl with a big heart. Happy Birthday, Nealy Bug. You are our sunshine, and it seemed appropriate to celebrate you with sunshine!