Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Today I decided I we are going to try and do at least one fun thing a day while we go through the summer and also count down the days until we move!  Tomorrow we are going to make a calendar page for the month of June so we can 1) Mark off the days we have left in our beloved South and 2) Write the one fun thing we are going to do each day to celebrate summer!  I got the idea of making a summer bucket list from my friend who got it off none other than.... Pinterest!!  I love me some Pinterest!
For us, our summer vacation started May 22- which happened to be the first day V was done with school and also my birthday!  The best birthday present ever- having my 2 precious girls home with me!  :)
We started it out by singing at the nursing home- something H and I do with our church on the 4th tuesday of every month.  We were blessed to have V with us this time making it even more special!

Here is V with one of our special friends
we visit with each time we are there.

There are 2 rabbits that live in the courtyard of the
nursing home we go to and the girls love to stop
and try to pet them!

Sometimes they just like to be left alone!  :)

On our way to our next stop with H
sporting her new mustache.  :)

I HAD to stop at Starbucks for my
free birthday coffee!  Venti caramel
macchiato with skim milk please with
a slice of iced lemon loaf.  Mmmmm. 
Thank you very much!

And of course, I had to get my girls their
treat also. 

You might be asking "what is this a picture of"??
Well, we stopped at the party store because
V wanted to surprise me with some candles
for my cake and a birthday balloon.  We
stopped there before Starbucks and had my
balloon in the car.  When we came out of
Starbucks, we kind of forgot we had a balloon
in the car, opened the door and out it flew!
So, I had my birthday balloon for about 10 minutes
and this is the only picture I got of it.  Very sad.

Then we stopped at Wal Mart clinic.  V's ears hurt and I
needed to get them checked because the next day we were
leaving for our house hunting trip and the last time she flew,
her ears bothered her a lot.  We had to wait about an hour
to see the dr. so we wandered around the store.  V was
insisting on buying me this pinata for my party!! 
I assured her that I was happy with just a picture of it
and she could save her money.  :)

Well, that hour seemed to draaaag on so we decided to camp
out on our favorite swing in the garden section!  I felt like
I should've been telling people as they walked by us why we
were sitting on this swing for a half hour but instead we just
swung away happily enjoying our time together! 
Ahhhh, memories.  :)

Finally we got to see the dr. and being the
wonderful sister she is, H insisted on holding
V's hand while the dr. checked her ears.
Good thing we went....
she had a double ear infection!  That might've
been a wee bit painful on the 2 planes we were
taking the next day!

We had an amazing time together on our house
hunting trip!  We flew into MSP airport, spent
the night at my parents, saw my sister and neice
the next morning and then drove to Wausau in
time to meet with V's new high school.
We spent the next 2 days looking at houses where
we found our wonderful new home! 
Monday morning, we decided to have a fun day
where we took the girls swimming and they
had so much fun!  I must add, they were
sooo good while we dragged them through at least
15 houses, had them sit at the realtor's while we
signed papers, etc.  It was not "fun" for them until
monday morning and we had been there since thursday!

We also had to eat every meal out but we had fun picking
out new restaurants to try and I certainly enjoyed
not cooking! 


This one was one of our favorites- it was a fun
place to eat and it had my newest pregnancy
craving..... fried pickles!  Oh  my, that is so not
a healthy obession to have but let me tell you-
they are delicious!!!

And I was so proud of this little girl- it couldn't
have been easy to be eating out every meal,
sleeping in a different bed, sitting in the van
much of the time and being dragged in and out
of houses but she did so good.  She really got good
at finding the crayons and kids menus at each
restaurant and went right to work creating
masterpieces!  :)

Our last morning at the hotel, the girls played
checkers and had a great time!  It was and is so
cute to watch them play together.  Especially
as H is getting older.  :)

Now we have been home almost a week and have been
enjoying our summer vacation at home! 

This morning after our breakfast, the girls went outside and
V weeded the garden area (where I have nothing planted!) and
H just decided to run back and forth between her sister and
her "fun spot".

Here is her "fun spot".  This girl loves to bring everything outside
and set it on the lawn!!  I have found many of my bowls, pans,
utensils, books, etc outside next to her chair lately!!  She is
just too funny!  And she just sits there looking pleased.  :)

V LOVES animals.  She would live at the animal shelter
if she could.  So, today I decided we would go there so she
could play with the animals and give them some lovin.  :)
Here she is with the kitties and she is in heaven!!!

H enjoyed looking at the kitties also.
But notice, she is on the outside of the door...
not the inside. 

Her and I are both allergic to cats and dogs!!
So, we both sat out on this bench and watched
V through the door.  H and I lasted about
20 minutes- after that I was so tired of sneezing
and being stuffed up and H was sneezing a lot too.
So, I told V she better run by the dogs and get her
fill of them because we needed to get outta there!  :)

She did so good waiting for her sister!  :)


I was sooo glad we could do this for V. We used to go about
once a month to volunteer at the shelter but after we got our
dog, Leo, from there we quit going.  Not quite sure why!

Off to the dogs!

It's so cute to watch H walk up to the
 barking dogs and say in her
little voice, "hello puppy!"

I love seeing V with the animals!!
She just loves them soooo much!!!

I wonder what adventure we will take tomorrow
as we celebrate summer and count down the days
until our move!!
Happy summer!!! 



































Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Random Musings

These are just random musings over the past 2 days.  And yes, it's from a happy housewife! :)

Yesterday  H
and I went to the park for a picnic
and some fun. Only it's not so much
fun when your mom is sitting at the picnic
table eating her delicious Panera and you have
to sit on one end of the teeter totter waiting
for her to be done!  :) 

Her favorite thing- the slide!

Every day H and I go out and get the mail.
First, she has to look both ways to make sure
there are no cars, then she walks to the mailbox,
stands on her tip toes to open it up and pulls out
the mail, shuts it and proudly walks back in
the house carrying it.  Then she dumps it on the floor
and proceeds to sort through it and open whatever
she thinks is addressed to her! On this particular
day, there was a card from her Auntie Sara
(addressed to me) but she declared it was hers.
So she opened it, "read it" to me, went and colored
it and has carried it around everywhere with her for
the past couple days.  And I mean everywhere.  Into
her bed for naptime, she asks about it before bed
and it goes to the store with us too.  Precious!!

Yesterday, H (who loves to get her nails painted) decided
she wanted them done.  So, she went and got the tray out of
the closet, set it down on the carpet, sat there and called for V
to come and paint her nails.  :)  The only problem is that
H LOVES to have each nail painted a different color
and that drives V NUTS!!  She hates opening a different color
10 times.  And watch out- when she (H) paints your nails,
you will get exactly the same!

These girls argued over and over- V didn't want her nails
painted a different color but that is H's "specialty"!  :)
Translated: that's all that girl will do!

The past 2 days, we have had quite the treat.... daddy has
come early in time for dinner!!  Yesterday, I made one of his
favorite dinners (not knowing he would be home early) and I
also made ice cream for dessert!  We were enjoying our
homemeade butter pecan ice cream.  Yummy!!

Daddy + homemade ice cream=
a perfect night!!!!!

Lately I have mentioned how picky my little H is and
last night she ate all her dinner plus the ice cream!
And I was thinking she was going to pick out the pecans
in the ice cream but nope- she ate it all up and fast!
She was so happy to have him home that she must
not have thought about being picky.  ha!


This girl has "graduated" from always wanting to play
the ipod to now always wanting the ipad. 
I play Sirius radio through my ipad every morning while
I am getting ready (either Elvis or Southern
gospel!)  and when I am making lunches I set it on the bar.
Well, H saw this up there, pulled up a chair, stood up on it
and proceeded to play her games!  That girl, I tell ya!!

This morning, V had a presentation with her Spanish class
after chapel which H and I attended.  It was so fun to hear her
sing praise songs in Spanish plus many other songs!!
Can you find her?  See the girl in the back, middle in the
blue?  Well, count down two to the right and V is in the gray shirt.

After watching V, we came home to clean up
the house and have a tea party.  H discovered
V's tea set last week and since then, at least
5 times a day, she has tea parties.  She sets
everything up and tells us all to come and drink
our tea.  Too cute!!  Except, she has broken 3 pieces
by dropping them but she always says "I sorry"
and then continues to play.  :)  V isn't too happy
but I'm hoping I can glue them back together!

Then, we were off to library
storytime to learn about bugs!
She learned specifically about
caterpillars and the craft was making
a bug jar.  Too cute!!!

I never know how much she truly
remembers about the topics at
storytime but I sure found out today!
As soon as we went outside, she
immediately went over to the plants
and told me she was searching for
caterpillars!!  I couldn't believe it!

Searching for some here....

and here!  And she claims she found
some which I think were just sticks.  :)

She got really into it!!!!

And outside the library, they have
a butterfly garden and today we
found one!  It was sitting on top of
the rock!  Can you see it??

During library storytime, we discovered her
flip flops were breaking (because that's the
only pair of shoes this girl wears!)  So we went
to Old Navy to buy some more and thankfully
they still were selling them so she got 2 new pairs! 
We haven't been to the mall in ages so it was fun to go!

Then we came home and she played with Gage.
They played with chalk on the driveway and
drew pictuers.  Actually she drew polka dots
and he drew me dinosaurs!



Well, hope you enjoyed my "random musings". 
Happy wednesday!!

































Monday, May 14, 2012

Mother's Day

Yesterday I had an incredibly blessed Mother's Day.  After church and lunch, my family blessed me with a scavenger hunt to find my gifts!  Chad had taken the girls shopping saturday afternoon and V prepared hints and hiding spots for me- she sure is Chad's daughter!  He loves to do that for Christmas gifts- it's not "fun" for him unless you have to search around to find your gifts!!

Ok, I am going to ask you to ignore
the look on my face and just notice
all the hints V created for me on the
post it notes on the wall.  :)

She had me going all over the house-
even outside to find then.  Every gift
had 3-4 hints so after I found the first
hint, I had to find 2-3 more before I found
the gift!  I love that girl!! 

Poor H- getting smothered in kisses
from her mom!  This is after I found
my Barnes and Noble gift card.

These are my precious gifts from my
precious famly.
A card, box of delicious Lara Bars,
Barnes and Noble gift card for my nook
and a much-needed, asked-for-gift for
this pregnant momma and her heartburn-
 Tums!! 


After the gift opening, I put H down
for a nap and I ran to Panera for a
bit of "me time".  I only lasted an
hour- I ate my scone, drank my
coffee and read a book.  Then I
decided I couldn't be away another
minute from my family so I went home
and had a blessed afternoon with them all.

My 3 girls are precious and amazing gifts from
God that I am so incredibly thankful for every day.
I couldn't be more blessed!!!!!!!



I hope you had a happy Mother's day too!!