My First Cake

Just thought you all might want to see what I've been up to! Not that I need another hobby, but I thought I'd try my hand at making cakes. This is my very first. Thanks to a little tutorial from Aunt Connie, I think I did ok! I made it in time for her to come up for Grandparent's Day at Sophie's school. Sophie thought we should write "Welcome Aunt Connie" on it. I thought that was a fantastic idea!

Waffle's Birthday

August 22 was Waffle's Birthday. He turned 1!!! Sophie, being the party planner that she is, required that we throw a party for him. So here are the details...

Waffle, a.k.a. The Birthday Boy

The Cake for the Humans

We made dog treats for Waffle. The kids had a lot of fun doing this little project. It was much like making sugar cookies, but not nearly as tempting to eat the dough! The dough consisted of cornmeal, flour, chicken broth, peanut butter, eggs and a little oil.

Mixing it up...

Rolling it out...

The final product...

Waffle loved the cookies. The kids loved making them. It was a big puppy party success!!!

Vacation- Part One

Ok, ok, I know.... we went on vacation in July and I'm just getting around to showing you all what a great time we had! This year we went to Wisconsin Dells for vacation and got to do a lot of very fun things. Our "biggie" this year was going on the Zip Lines. Both of the kids loved the zip lines and Travis and I did too! It was an absolute work out as well!! There were 6 zip lines that each started at the top of a 6 or 8 story tall tower. And on an 85 degree day, with zip line gear, a helmet and gloves on, it was a lot of work climbing every one of those towers. Yeah, that's right... we climbed close to 40 stories that afternoon! Travis climbed all of them carrying not only his gear, but also carrying Aiden! Whew... makes me tired just thinking about it!

On Sophie's first trip down, she wanted to go with a guide. As soon as she saw that it was safe, though, she decided to go on the next five by herself!!! What a brave girl!!!


You can't see Aiden's face in this picture, but he was LOVING it!!! He went with a guide on all but the last zip line. That one was a double zip line and he got to "race" momma, so he decided to go by himself. I got to watch his face the entire way down. It was awesome!

Daddy....

.... and Mamma.

Ok, zip lining was so much fun. You should all try it! It was our adventure for this year. If you remember, last year we went white water rafting. I wonder what kind of adventure we can take the kids on next year! I'm open for suggestions!! Stay tuned for more vacation pics!!!

This one's for Aunt Connie... (and of course everyone else)

Aiden started t-ball this year. These are the kind of things I live for as a mommy!!! He has so much fun and loves playing!!! Here are some pics from his first game.

First time on the field.

Some pre-game stretching.... is it bad that he can't quit looking back at his momma???

"Hey Batter, Batter!!!"

His first at bat. He was so proud to finally get to put on that helmet!!!

The first swing wasn't successful, but the second swing was!!!

Yay!!! I hit the ball!!!

Running to first...

Looking for second base...

Scoring his first run!!!

High-five for the coach!!!

This game was soooo much fun! It is such a joy to see your children completely enjoying themselves! I loved watching his little personality come out when he was interacting with the other kids and the coach. It's not very often that I get to watch him "from a distance." Even more than that, it's so much fun to see the self-confidence they build when they accomplish something! He was so proud of himself. He felt like a really big boy! We have four games left. I'll be posting more pics soon!

It's been a long time...

Yeah, I know it's been a while, but get ready... A LOT has happened since my last post. (That's about 2 months ago.) School started for the kids today and school is OVER for me in less than 3 weeks! That means more blogging, or at least less excuses for not blogging often enough!

So here we go. Let's start with back to school photos!

Today was Sophie's first day of 1st grade and Aiden's first day of preschool. I recently went part-time at work, which allowed us to put Aiden in preschool this year instead of daycare. It is seriously A LOT cheaper!!! He is going to have a great time! Oh, and that's also one less excuse I have for not blogging very often... you should hear a lot more from me!

This is Sophie's new outfit that she picked out just for her first day of 1st grade. She has been daydreaming about a new outfit from Justice, so we went to Justice and picked out a look and then went to Kohl's with my 30% off coupon and tried our best to re-create that look, obviously for less $. She was very happy with the result. I was very happy with the price! Everyone wins!!! (Except for Aiden, who had to sit there while she tried on outfit after outfit.)

Aiden was super excited about his first day of preschool. The let the moms stay for the first 45 minutes on the first day so the kids can get used to their new classrooms. Aiden was ready for me to leave as soon as he got there! I stayed for 5 minutes and then he said I could leave! I almost, just a little bit, wish he would have wanted me to stay!

That's it for now. Check back for vacation pics...coming soon!!!

Time to play catch-up...

It's been a long time, I know. It tends to get pretty busy around here!!! I have had a lot to do and have been complaining that I don't have time to update my blog, but Travis keeps telling me that my blog is the last thing I need to worry about!!! Well, I'm between semesters right now. My new (and last) semester starts tomorrow, so I thought I'd give you all a big update on everything we've been up to this spring.

We went home to visit family in March over Sophie's cycle break. It was a pretty quick trip, but the kids love seeing their grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. I really wish we got to go home more often. While we were there, the kids and I made some Easter sugar cookies. It looks like they had a good time!

How did he get icing there???

Sophie is our party planner. She plans parties nearly every week. We get invitations to things such as Easter egg hunts, dress-up parties, sleep overs, etc all the time. It's pretty fun. This time she wanted to have a "Fancy" party. She made me a list of things that she needed at her party. It included red cups, red plates, red napkins, red streamers, lemonaide and a cake with strawberry filling. The attire was formal, so Aiden wore his Cars costume from Halloween and Daddy also dressed up for the occasion. You can't really get fancier than a suit jacket and a mullet wig!!!

There was silliness....

And dancing....

This is a random picture of Aiden "hugging" the dog. Poor poor Waffle. His neck might not survive! This is one boy who loves his dog!!!

The kids have spent most of the spring outdoors. The play in the backyard. It is so nice to have kids who are still BFFs. They play so well together. They made a secret club out of Aiden's soccer net.

You can see the TV from only one chair in the dining room. Every morning, the kids eat breakfast sitting in the same chair!!! They know the TV goes off after breakfast, so they have to squeeze every little bit of viewing time in! I could solve this problem by turning the TV off, but then I wouldn't have this story to tell them when they get older! (Those are my new dining chairs, btw. Yes, they are aluminum and yes, they are cold, but they are uber washable!!!)

I have been spending a lot of my time with Aiden teaching him how to cook. I know he's only 4, but he's a quick learner! In this picture he is making pancake batter. He also can pour it onto the griddle. We've also made cookies, cakes, pies and pizza. Maybe I should have said I'm teaching him how to 'bake'!!! Cooking will be next, but for now we're sticking with baking, which is my personal preference!!! Aiden is a great little helper.

They love posing for pictures!

We have been doing a little family golfing. Daddy has taken us to the driving range a few times. These are pictures of a time when Travis took Aiden.

My little golfer!!!

And to the end of our update... I recently purchased the ITSO storage system that Target carries for some storage in Aiden's room. They were super easy to put together and made a huge difference in the appearance of his room. We spent an afternoon cleaning and re-organizing his room. I know it's been 2 1/2 years since we bought this house and we still have almost nothing on his walls. I guess I'll have to be getting around to doing that soon!

What I did today.

My front flower bed is HUGE (9'x14') and was really bare. We did a little work on it the first year we moved here, but really all we did was clear out the debris and yuck aside from that sedum in the front left corner. We put down some mulch, and of course we added a Cardinals flag. But is is very lacking... so I spent my entire day working on this lovely "little" project. Aiden was my big helper for the day.

Here is the before picture:

And 8 hours later, here is the after picture:

I bought everything but the sedum. I split the sedum into 3 segments because it was so large. They are falling over a little, but they are supposed to be tough to kill and easy to transplant. I'm hoping they perk up soon. I put one of those plastic borders around it because the rain tends to wash the mulch out onto my sidewalk. I'm hoping that will help keep the mulch in. Don't look too closely at the picture, or you will see the weed barrier sticking out. That's right, 7 bags of mulch wasn't enough. Travis thinks we need about 4 more to get a good cover. We'll have to save that for another day. I'm going to bed!