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!

Busy at dinner

This is how my handsome boy managed to keep himself busy at dinner each night of the trip. It distracted him from complaining about how much the collar and buttons on his shirt are hurting him.

Cooling off

Not the most lady like position, little one.....

Soccer and other ramblings.....

I've spent ages away from the blog, mostly because I was anxiously counting the moments until our fabulous spring break trip and I had little else to talk about (and if you're just now tuning in, scroll down a little for thorough cruise coverage).

However, we had some major events happen in the weeks prior to the break. Well, not so major, but major in the life of our little family.

First: Jacks started soccer.

I've been dying to get Jacks involved in a sport, mostly because he could use the energy release AND he's getting a little doughy. (I know, I know, who am I to talk? But the kid's a natural athlete - he needs an outlet for that!). We made the trip to the Academy Sports to buy cleats and shin guards, we had several full dress rehearsals in the yard with the soccer ball, and we spent many days counting down to the first practice. Then, we had several days of rain and the fields were rained out. CATASTROPHE! The day we were waiting for, the first day of practice, had to be postponed. It was heartbreaking, but luckily our coach hosted a little unofficial practice in the field down the street from our house on the day before we left for our trip, so Jacks got to put on all his gear and get to running and kicking.

We took the wagon to practice since it was so close.


This one was dying to get in on the action....In fact, both of these were dying to get in on the action......


He LOVED it. I was a little worried when he became visibly fatigued in the last 15 minutes of practice. He started wandering off the field, finding big sticks to wave, coming over for one more sip of gatorade, but he managed to get through it. And rather than complain about being tired, he said that he loved it. He can't wait to play again. We have another practice this week, and we are pumped up.

Second: Valentine's Day
Good grief, it's been a while. Jacks and I enjoyed an evening at Storybook Farms for their Cowboy Roundup event. It's kind of the mother/son answer to daddy/daughter date night. We got to pet the horses, learn how to rope, see a roping demonstration, eat dinner, take a hay ride, paint horse shoes, and watch a puppet show. And several of Jacks's school friends came, too. It was a blast! We will definitely do that again.

Here is Jacks with his friends who were in attendance at the Roundup. These boys were beyond thrilled. Jacks loved learning to rope a bull!


Joe and Nealy took a date night to the Chick fil A the same night, and they had a really great time, too. I mean, it's Chick fil A. Who doesn't love that?

On the night before Valentine's Day, we had a special dinner with heart shaped pasta and a theme cake (from Cakeapotomous). Luke came and we had a lovely dinner. I really love heart shaped things, in case you didn't know that about me.Oh, and I made my heart shaped crayons for Valentine's gifts again this year. This time they were multicolored and big. I don't think everyone appreciates these as much as I think they do. A friend of mine asked me if it was a cookie when I proudly presented it to her daughter, and then she looked at me like I was mildly crazy when I told her it was a crayon. I could tell she wanted to throw it in the garbage. People just don't know the blood, sweat, and tears I put into my holiday crafts! I thought they were really cute along with the heart themed mandala I printed out for each child. I'm sure those went equally as unappreciated. Deep exhaustive sigh......


Third: Warm weather

After a pretty brutal winter (for the south), the spring weather arrived quite suddenly at the end of February. The flowers all started blooming almost immediately, well before the time when the lawns start to turn green again. It was a little weird to see all the camellias and magnolias blooming like crazy over brown, crunchy lawns. But as the groundhog predicted, at least I think - who can remember? - spring came early this year and so did days at the park. Nealy is finally old enough to properly enjoy a playground, and Jacks is loving every minute of having a playmate to run around with on weekend afternoons. We've found that we really like the play grounds at the Auburn Early Ed Center, but Wright Mill Road Elementary is pretty great, too.

Other than the fun times we had on Spring Break, that's pretty much it for February and March. We've got 9 weeks till summer, guys. Smooth sailing!