The Arboretum

So I took the kids to the Arboretum last week.

It was beautiful! I thought I would share my pictures just in case you don't get to go.

Well, just throw me in the Briar Patch

I have a confession to make.

I don't want to work with kids at Vacation Bible School. (I know, go ahead and gasp and then sit back down)

Since I have 3 kids who are attending I feel somewhat compelled to help out. But I have specifically asked to be put somewhere that I won't have to work with kids. It must be the fact that I work with my own kids every day, because I used to love working Vacation Bible School. It was one of the highlights of the summer. I loved it. But when I worked 2 years ago (of course, I was 7 months pregnant) I was completely exhausted by noon and was almost to the point where I would just rather not have my own kids go than to feel like I have to stay and work all day with a bunch of other peoples kids.

In fact, I remember clearly that by day 3 of VBS two year ago I had 3rd graders talking to me all day. Talking, talking, talking. Then on the way home my 3 kids talked to me allll the waaaaay hooooooome. Talking, talking, talking. So by the time I got home I said, "That's it. No more talking to mommy for an hour!"

My at-the-time-4 year old daughter sweetly said, "That's okay Mommy, I'll just talk to the baby in your tummy."

At that point there was just a long silent scream in my head that said, "No more VBS!"

So guess what?

There is apparently a "photography/slide show maker" position at VBS.

And it's mine.... all mine!!!!

Can I just tell you how excited I am?!? I can work at VBS and yet not be in charge of any children! I've been doing the happy dance all day long. Happy, happy, happy!

I feel just like Brer Rabbit. No, please, don't make me take pictures. ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Is that terrible that I don't want to work with kids?

As much as I appreciate the thought...

I'm just sure if I took a picture and posted it of my mullet in it's full glory, THAT would be the picture they would use on the news if something tragic happened to me.

You know they would.

They always seem to find the most hick looking person in a crowd to interview and they always seem to have the most uncomplimentary pictures of people to show when something tragic has happened.

Besides, I have figured out that if I flat iron it really really good, that it looks somewhat decent and then if I put a ton of make up on, no one seems to notice my hair at all.

On the contrary, I've actually had a couple compliments on it.

Which actually really concerns me.

It should always be concerning when a mullet hair cut is considered to be an improvement on your previous hair style. Or maybe it was the lack thereof.

I'm at the point now where it has grown out just enough that it is a little more manageable and it is just in the mornings when it is most prominent. When I wake up it's like I have my own shoulder-length hair, and then I have this other hair entity resting on top of my head.

It's nice.

So what I'm telling ya, is if you want to see it, you're just gonna have to drive down here. I just can't bring myself to post a pic. But I will assure you of one thing.... I do have more volume on top.

Just sayin.

Someone To Pray For

I was made aware of the blog, The Simple Wife, yesterday. I had never read her before. But her story is heartbreaking. Her husband has been updating her blog. She had a stroke on Tuesday. Clear out of the blue.

She's around my age, she has 2 girls that she homeschools, she's a Christian and a wife and a really brilliant blog author.

They had to cut part of her skull away yesterday because there was so much swelling.

Monday, she was just like me. Today she is lying in an ICU, completely sedated and they are not for sure what is going to happen on Saturday when she should wake up.

Please pray for her. She has been heavy on my heart.

It makes you totally reconsider everything you are thankful for.

I said "Volume" She heard "Mullet"

A good hair cut can make a girl feel like the queen of the world. A bad haircut.... well, a bad haircut won't grow out soon enough.

I've got a bad haircut.

I'm pretty sure I told her I needed more volume up on top. You sit and chat and watch them trim and cut and it really isn't until the hair is dried and styled and they turn you around and show you in the mirror what the back looks like that you really understand how much they cut off.

And you then see that instead of trimming it up to add more volume, she just cut a layer of bangs all the way around your head.

So you pay the nice girl and hope that when you get home things look a little better.

And when you get home your husband says, "Well,... if you like it, I like it" (bless the man)

And then it really hits you. You have a mullet. I would take a picture and post it so you can judge for yourself, but I'm afraid the reality of it all would be too much for me.

It reminds me of the time a different hair stylist was cutting my hair and we started discussing her family. I asked something innocent about her mother and come to find out she's adopted and only recently met her real mother.

She started to cry.

While she was cutting my hair.

And the harder she cried, the faster she cut.

I lost 8 inches that day. Was only wanting a trim.

Lesson learned.

Several years before that I had just had my second boy (so I guess that would be roughly 8 years ago) and it was winter, my hair was dark and gloomy and I desperately wanted a highlight. I compromised and went to someone that I had not been to before who was pretty cheap and could get me right in (let me just say, if someone is very cheap and can always get you right in, that also should cause you some concern).

I just wanted a highlight. Nothing fancy.

Halfway through the rinse she said, "Uh oh."

What?

"I need to go grab some toner"

WHAT?

She then proceeded to spend the next 10 minutes washing my hair. I will just go ahead and tell you that that is not a good sign.

By the time I made it back to the mirror, I was very concerned. As I should have been. Apparently. Because my hair was no longer a mixture of several shades, but in fact one very solid shade.

Of orange.

Or a derivative thereof.

She said she could try to fix it. I paid the nice girl and vowed never to return.

Mrs. Troop came by the next day to bring us a meal (since we had just had a baby) and I mentioned how I looked like an undercover spy agent with my solid orange wiglike hair. I may have even mentioned the name Sydney Bristow. It was at that point that our lasting friendship really began. She revealed to me that she too secretly admired the undercover spy agent, Sydney Bristow from the show Alias. (oh how I miss that show) We were best friends from that day forward.

We spent more money on my hair trying to get it back to something closer to what it should be than we would have had we just paid someone the big bucks in the first place. So my husband decided that we would no longer skimp on my haircuts but go with someone who knows what they are doing.

Lesson learned.

So now I am wondering how I should have communicated differently to avoid having a mullet. (and if you are reading this blog, and you have a mullet, please know it is not the mullet I have problems with directly, the shape just doesn't compliment my face). Who knows, maybe I'll start a new trend.

The Mom Mullet.

But if not, fortunately it will grow out in 3 - 4 weeks. And if you see me between now and then, you can just smile at me and nod sympathetically. That will be sufficient to convey your empathy.

Mrs. Troop really wants me to post a picture. If I get up the nerve, I'll do it.

But don't hold your breath.

The Lego Party

My 8 year old wanted a Lego themed party for his Birthday. That is pretty much all he is into these days.

Legos.

So I scoured the Internet and found all the best Lego party ideas and implemented the ones I could. We decided to make it an Expert Lego Builder Training Camp.

Lego cake, covered with fondant. It's a good 10 footer. As in, it looks pretty good from about 10 feet away. I used half a jumbo marshmallows and covered them with fondant for the knobs on top of the legos. I cut the name out of fondant to look like Lego font and then traced it with an edible black marker.

Lego candy. Found at our local candy shop. You can stack them and they will even lock! I used little clear plastic jewelry bags from Hobby Lobby to put some in for each kid and we used them as prizes.

Lego head marshmallow pops. They were seriously cute.

We had custom shirts for all the kids that said "Expert Lego Builder" and their name. You can buy t-shirt transfer paper at Target, Hobby Lobby etc and print your own design right off of your printer! How fun is that!?!

Even our Lego Destroyer got a shirt.

Activites

Each Kid had a booklet they got to decorate when they showed up with Lego minifig stickers (found in the Lego Minifigure Sticker book). Inside were listed all the activities they needed to do in order to be an Expert Lego Builder. When they completed an activity, an adult gave them a lego sticker to check it off in their booklet.

1. Lego Uniform. The first activity was to be dressed in their Lego uniform (custom shirts). All the kids seemed pretty excited about these. One mom told me later that night that her son loved the shirt so much, he wanted to sleep in it.

2. Picture with the birthday boy. Everyone had individual pics with the birthday boy. If I had not put it down, I probably would have forgotten to do this.

3. Minifig Construction. Each kid got to make 2 minifigures. We bought a HUGE tub of legos about 7 years ago at a garage sale for $25. It was one of those times where you try not to look positively elated and you get the tub in your car before someone offers $200 for it. There were probably about 100 minifigs in there with a gazillion other legos. We divided about 30 - 40 of them and put them in for the kids to each make 2. Just like at the lego store. They loved it. We put them in the little plastic jewelry bags and then they put them in their gift bags to take home.

4. Guess How Many Legos. We bought a $10 149 piece lego creator set and poured it all into a plastic container. We then added 10 lego duplo blocks (to make it look fuller) and let the kids guess how many legos were in it. The one who guess closest got to take the lego set home.

5. Lego Architecture. Duplo lego build off. We had a wide variety of ages at the party so we divided up into 4 teams of 2 or 3. The 9 & 3 year old division, the 8 year old division, the girls division and the 5 year old division. We then gave each team a box of duplo legos (divided them all up equally beforehand) and told them they had 7 minutes to build a tower. They all loved this and were very creative in how they built their towers. We gave prizes to each division but they all won for different reasons like, "Tallest tower", "Most creative tower", "Tower with the most pieces used", "Sturdiest tower".

6. Lego Creativity. We then did one more build off and this time they had to use all the pieces in their box and they had 7 minutes. Even the 9 year olds had fun with this. Once again, we came up with creative descriptions and everyone won and we handed out prizes.

7. Lego Race Car Building. We bought a K'nex/Lego Race Car set for everyone at a discount store at $3 each. We set them all out and each kids got to randomly pick on and build it. Great activity! They were so quiet. I would highly recommend it. The dads had to help the younger kids but the older ones really got into this one.

8. Lego Racing Skills. And then they got to race them!

For a race track I used a craft table and put up just one of the sides and then used black poster boards taped down to the table. The kids had a great time racing their cars down. I had stuff to decorate it with but I ran out of time and the kids didn't seem to care anyways.

Gift Bags contained an individual Lego man marshmallow head wrapped in a candy pop wrapping, the lego candy, the minifigs they made, the race cars and we also added a lego set from the 'Lego Party Pack'. It comes with 8 bags of lego sets - 4 cars, 4 airplanes. On the back of the bag is a free child ticket with paid adult to Legoland (one is opening in Dallas this spring) and a free subscription to Lego Club magazine.

It was a fun party and by the time we sang, opened presents, had birthday cake and ice cream, it was time for everyone to go home.

So there you have it. All the best Lego ideas I could find.

Happy Birthday Nathan!

Just Because

I discovered this group last year but just found these videos on youtube.

And I've been thoroughly enjoying them.

And I thought I would share.



Straight No Chaser - I'm Yours/ Somewhere over the Rainbow



Straight No Chaser - The Christmas Can Can

If that's the case... I've got a list for Santa

So we had a bunch of neighbor kids hanging around the yard this afternoon. One of the girls had a hot pink ipod shuffle.

We started chatting about it and she told me how what she really wanted was an ipod touch.

I mentioned that those were rather expensive and she went on to tell me that she was going to get one for free.

Free?

Do share.

Oh, she explains, I'm going to ask Santa for one and if he brings it, it's free.

Free.

Nice.

I've got a list for Santa!

In Love with the Curls

So, baby girl's hair has grown out long enough that it has started curling at the back.

And I absolutely love it. The curls are so precious.

The only other one of my kids to have curls was our second boy. He kept them until he went in for his first haircut. I asked the lady cutting his hair if we could just keep the curls at the nape of his neck. She asked me if I wanted him to have a mullet. I said no and that was the end of them.

But I think these curls are here to stay.

She is growing up so fast and developing her own little personality.

We are throughly enjoying her.

and her curls.

I've decided that I'm not getting paid enough.

What's worse than having a kid throw up all over the entire span of your light colored living room carpet?

Knowing that you just gave that same kid a bag to throw up in 15 minutes before and then finding out that that same kid had apparently drank a copious amount of chocolate milk about an hour before because he thought it might make his stomach feel better.

Chocolate throw up.

We may have to get new carpets.

Happy Monday ya'll!

(any brilliant suggestions how to get partially digested chocolate milk out of the carpet?)

Thankful Thursday

I'm thankful for my sweet baby girl who turned 1 this week!

We find ourselves enjoying her so much. The kids love seeing her do new things and get tickled when she comes up with a new sound or a new word. They are each anticipating the day that she says their name.

We seem to enjoy each stage so much more than we did with the others. Maybe it is because the others were all little at the same time. Now, they really are enjoying having a baby in the house and they love helping out with her.

She has a sweet, infectious laugh and the cutest little baby talk. If she can find something that makes everyone laugh, she will do it over and over and over again.

We are having the best time with her and we love her dearly.
Happy Birthday sweet girl!

Nine

Mrs. Troop has left a new comment on your post "Princess Pampering Party";

Girl! I miss you in blog land! Post something! Even if you just post how many diet cokes it's taking to get you through the day I will READ it and LOVE it. :-)

Princess Pampering Party

The birthday party was a success!

Before the party we took some sibling pictures.

Go ahead and make fun of me for dressing the boys up in white and khaki. They actually wanted to dress up in some way and since I had not gotten around to making valient knight costumes, this was my best last minute idea.

The sisters picture almost makes me cry. I can't believe how much my girl has grown up. Until a year ago, she was my baby.

So, the invitations to the party were a little over the top. I'll admit that. When my husband saw them, he was a little concerned that the invitees might expect a more elaborate extravaganza than what was actually planned.
Maybe he was right.

But honestly, you need a royal summons if you are going to have a Princess party. And nothing says royal summons like a scroll invitation. I bought the dowel rods at Michaels and they also had the little dowel rod ends. We painted them pink and glued them to our paper.

They read:

Hear Ye, Hear Ye,
By order of the King and Queen:

Princess (indsert name of girl to be invited) is cordially invited to the (our last name) Castle to celebrate Princess (birthday girl)’s 6th birthday!!!

The royal celebration will begin at 3:00
in the afternoon on the 4th of September 2010.

The king asks that you come dressed as
your favorite princess in your most royal attire.
The royal cook has prepared a feast
of goodies for the celebration.

There shall also be pampering festivities for
the Princess including a royal pedicure, a royal hairstyling and fun for all. The excitement will heighten during the defeat of the royal piñata.

Have your carriage arrive for you at 4:30 in
the afternoon when the celebration commences.

Please RSVP with the Queen Mom at (phone number) or (e-mail) if you plan to attend this royal gala. It will be held at (street address) in the illustrious town of (insert town name) . This is a magical celebration not to be missed!

My daughter had us read it out loud to her quite a number of times and then she would just giggle and laugh and say read it again!

So our party started off with a Princess sign in sheet and once they signed in, one of our valient knights gave them a royal wand and a personalized princess booklet.

All the princesses went to the royal living room where they had royal chairs set up for them with royal pillows on top covered with royal satin and tuille ribbons cascading down the backs of the chairs.

We discussed the Qualities of a True Princess and then each Princess was crowned and we confirmed that they were a Princess of the King of Kings

Then the pampering began. On the inside they had 6 areas of things to do and when they were done with that particular activity, they got a princess sticker to put in the circle for that activity.

One of my friends and her 2 teenage daughters were very sweet and came over to help with all the princess pampering. They were so sweet and we couldn't have pulled off the pampering without them.

All the princesses got a royal updo.

A royal pedicure. A royal manicure, their royal makeup done and they each made a royal personalized bracelet.

The valient knights when around and presented the princesses with their choice of rings and princess shaped silly bands.

The time flew by and fun was had by all!

Their royal carriages picked them back up after the party and we gave them their royal party bags!

It was so much fun and I really wanted to go ahead and have a Princess party for her while she was still young enough to want one and to enjoy it thoroughly.

She spent the rest of the afternoon dancing around in her Princess gown with her royal updo singing, "I feel pretty,.... oh so pretty,... I feel pretty and witty and gay!" It was fun to enjoy her pure happiness.

Makes me wish for just a minute that I was 6 once again with a pretty pink princess dress to dance around in.

The Castle Cake Tis Finished

If I was Dora, I'd be singing.... I did it! I did it! Yeah, I did it!

The castle cake is finished. The princess party is in 5 hours. And I'm already worn out.

So I decided to post the pics of the cake so you could see it because I seem to need some sort of peer based approval.

I have to say, it was a wee bit more tedious than I planned on, but isn't it always? Somehow my perception of what I should easily be able to do always supersedes my actual abilities.

Anyways, there is it! I will be thrilled if the whole thing stays together without toppling until all the princess guests arrive. But my sweet girl is already tickled beyond belief and that's what really counts. Right?

Happy Birthday to my Sweet Girl

So, my girl just turned 6! It seems like just yesterday I took these pictures of her. She is really such a blessing to our family. She is sweet and kind, thoughtful and a tremendous helper. We are so thankful for her.

Grandpa & Grandma came down for a visit and it was $1 days at the Dallas Arboretum so we decided to take the day off and go on a field trip. We had never been there before and we absolutely loved it.

There are 66 acres of gardens and ponds and streams and wandering paths to explore.


I've always heard the best times to go are in the fall for the mums and pumpkins and in the spring for all the bulb flowers. I was a little concerned we wouldn't enjoy it as much going at the end of August, but it really was so very beautiful. There were flowers everywhere and enough shade that we enjoyed ourselves.

It's a beautiful place to go and take pics of the family!

Everyone wanted to take a picture with the birthday girl.

She really does have the best brothers.

Happy Birthday Sweet Girl!

Her Princess Spa birthday party is on Saturday so I'm off to bake a castle cake and get everything ready. Wish me luck!