Spring is almost here...

I hope you all had a great St. Patricks Day! Catherine had an early dismissal at school due to the snow we had. Beforehand they had some shamrock cookies that their teacher got for them. :)

We ended up canceling our sitter and reservations at the restaurant on Friday. We let ourselves stay snowed in. It was nice and relaxing. We'll go out sometime to the nice restaurant just for the fun of it. Bobby and I normally meet for dinner on Wednesdays. I drop the kids off at church for their Awana groups then I meet him at whatever restaurant we've chosen (lately it has been Thai - I love their coconut & red curry chicken! - Yummy!). It's nice having a scheduled date night mid-week. It has done wonders for us. I really look forward to it. I love my husband, it's been a great 11 years!

Sunday after church we went to our friends Tim & Lisa's house, Dave & Ruth were there with their kids, and Steve & Neva and their older sons. It was our potluck dinner that we have every other month. I took brought very traditional American food! :) My meatloaf recipe that's made with stove-top stuffing (every time I've ever made it for someone, they're surprised how good it is and they always want the recipe), home made baked macaroni, pink lemonade (in my new juice decanter from Target) and a German chocolate cake. I made the Lava Cake - using Pampered Chef's quick rice cooker - it takes 10 minutes in the microwave. I mixed the cake mix up according to the package (I replaced the oil with apple sauce...something I always do to make it just little better for us) the night before, and placed 3 scoops (I used my medium pampered chef cookie scoop) of the coconut/pecan frosting in the middle of the cake mix. At their house, while we were eating, I put the cake in, and 10 minutes later, it was done. The icing was all gooey and melted - the cake was cooked just fine and very yummy. Everyone loved the novelty of it. There happened to be 3 cakes though...mine, a yellow/chocolate birthday Cake and Tiramisu Cake (Lisa turns 40 on Thursday).

Spring is tomorrow!!!! Rita's Italian Ice gives away a free small ice, and Duncan Donuts gives out free iced coffee. I think I just may have to go out and get some spring stuff done tomorrow and pick some up! ;)

Paris

Anyone who knows me, knows that I have a fascination with Paris.

What you might not know, is I keep a live stream of the Eifel Tower on my google homepage, and I listen to music in french! Weird huh? If you're interested....here's my links.

Music - now, there are songs in english - but it's so cool to hear them singing in french!
Web Cam I can't figure out how to give the cool little window of just the eifel tower...but at least you can see it. It looks so gorgeous at nighttime. Love it!


I'll have to update on our anniversary plans later...as of now, we're snowed in!!!!! There's tons of snow!!!!!!!!! Right now there's a foot of snow outside. :0 Hello, it's March....let's bring in the spring weather, like we had earlier in the week! From 75 degrees to 30 in just two days (yesteray was a transitional day - lots of rain!)

Anyways..........have fun wherever you are - hug your loved ones and enjoy the weekend!

I love Target & all things pink! :)

I had a great day today! First off, it's our 11th Anniversary!!!!!! It sprinkled off and on today, which it did 11 years ago down in Virginia when we got married. Although, on our wedding day we had rainbows that popped up all over the skies.....including double and triple rainbows! :) Our very own special wedding day gift from God! :)

Anyways...this morning I had a MOPS meeting - great food and fun as always. We did a round of Fast Friends (kinda like speed dating, but speed friend chatting) it was a fun way to get to know other women that I really haven't had a chance to talk to before.

After that, I had lunch with Jenn then we decided a trip to Target would be great! ;) I don't know what came over me, but I bought a ton of pink things today!

Every spring I look at the pink mixing bowls and think, I would love those! Well, I finally bought some! :) The two smaller ones are ceramic while the larger one is that melamine plastic type. I also bought a really cute bunny egg holder along with two other (for soft boiled eggs...not that I eat them...but hey they were cute, and they always look so cute in magazines!) pink egg holders. They aren't in the picture, because apparently Abby walked off with them some time earlier this evening. I'll find them tomorrow, probably in her room with her little bitty dollies in them or something! :)

Oh, I got a really supper cute little plush white bunny for Abby (in the dollar spot). I picked Catherine up a Hello Kitty Stationary set too.

I got some really cute spring shoes for Abby. I have to go back with Catherine so she can pick out a pair, after all she is 7 and loves picking out her own things. I did pick up a couple cute tops and tennis skirts.

I got myself a pair of pink shoes at Payless last night after I got a haircut. Today, at Famous Footwear I picked up a pair of slides and a pair of sandals with a good heal on it for when I wear jeans this summer. I had hoped to find some brown shoes, but I didn't find any I really liked. So, these will do for now. :)

Oh, so I got a couple really cute little skirts (with the shorts under them) for Catherine when she plays tennis this spring...well I also bought PINK tennis balls!!! :) How cool is that? A portion of the purchase goes to a really great cause and we get PINK tennis balls....I'm loving it!!!!!!! So cool!

So, last night at Sears I found a $60+ Levi Denim Jacket on the clearance rack for only $3.99. Needless to say I snatched it up. It was the only one there, the sleeves are a little long, but I just rolled it back once into a cuff and it works! :)

Bobby has the day off tomorrow (YEAH!) which means we get to stay up late tonight! :) LOL So I'm blogging while he's playing his X-Box 360. Tomorrow night we'll go out to diner at a really great restaurant that Jenn told us about then maybe catch a movie (I want to see Premonition with Sandra Bullock, Bobby wants to see 300 both are supposed to be really good movies....but a girl wants, what a girl wants!) We might not even go see a movie, we tend to play things by the ear, personally I'd like to have it all scheduled out, but hay, that doesn't work for my guy! :) LOL -Anyways we have the whole night because the girls are spending the night at our friends house -Thank you Laura! :D Yipee!

Catherine is all excited about St. Patricks day. She had her teacher in stitches on Tuesday because she was talking in her "Irish accent"! :) LOL It was way too funny! Monday, she told me that her favorite part about St. Patricks was the saying "Kiss Me, I'm Irish!". I told her that we were Irish (good ole American Mix; French, Scottish, Irish, etc..) She lit up, and asked what language they spoke. I told her they spoke English, but with a thick accent then proceeded to do my feeble attempt at an Irish Accent. :) So, apparently she went to school the next day talking in her Irish accent - which cracked up her teacher! :) I was in the school on Wednesday to do the Famous Artist program that our PTO supports and her teacher told me all about it! :)


Speaking of the art program, I played with water colors this past week. I forgot how much fun painting is. Granted, my stuff looks like a child painted it (which was a little intentional since I was taking them as examples...I did some other easier ones like balloons and fruit but I also did a really cool castle...one of the boys took it because he really liked it, and used it as a guide to paint his own castle), it was so much fun just playing! I need to pull out my good set of water colors and pick up a few crayola sets for the girls so we can paint together for the rainy days that will be coming up here this spring.


Well, I think that's enough for now! Have a great weekend!

I am 29, did you hear me? I'm 29!!!!!

At least for another 5 months. I feel like shouting it from the rooftop while I'm still in my twenties.

I'm already having a hard time turning 30 this year. I even hate typing out that ugly little number. I don't know why it's hitting so hard, but it is. At first I thought is was because I'm leaving the decade of the twenties...but it is more than that. I feel like I haven't done a lot of things that I had hoped to by this age. (That's not to say that I am not happy with my life - I am very happy!)

(((EDITED)))
I ranted a bit about turning 30 and deleted those 3 paragraphs....it just read really negative and I don't like to put out such negative vibes - there's enough in this world without me adding to it. Needless to say, I'm just not cool with turning 30. For anyone out there that is 30+ please take no offence...maybe you went through this and can understand where I'm coming from.
I was the "baby" of the family, I've always felt young, I've always been the young one in my circle of friends growing up my whole life - so turning 30 just marks the begining of being old somehow mentally. Although I know that 30 isn't old, I don't think of my friends that are older than me as being "old". Does this make sense?
(((yeah, that's about it)))

I just don't want to turn 30! Can't I stay 29 forever??????? :D

Did I tell you I'm an Aunt again?! :)

I've been meaning to upload this picture of my darling new little neice (that hopefully I'll meet before too long, being that we live hundreds of miles apart!) LOL





My twin sister and her husband had a baby girl. There little 3 year old son is a proud big brother too!

She was born early February 18th a little premature and weighed 5 lbs and some odd ounces.


Here's a quick digi card I made for her. It's funny because I LOVE pink and she HATES pink! She says that she won't ever put her daughter in pink and is giving our mom a hard time about it too (Our mom says that she'll wear pink when she stays with her!) LOL....oh the joy of family!

Family Fun

We had our Family Fun Day at Catherine's school earlier this month. It's a typical carnival type day at the school. The night before Bobby and I went to help pull all the games down from the attic, then we were there early Saturday morning to help set up.

Towards the end of the day I realized I hadn't gotten any pictures, so I snapped a few of the girls, then Catherine took the camera and went around and too pictures. I'm amazed at the pictures that she took. They came out so well, she focused on getting pictures of people, and she did a great job I'm proud to say. Here's one I took of Abby on the inflatable.

Here's one she snapped of me. This was just after a few of us PTO moms, a couple teachers and the principal did a Video-Kareoke song (it was a beach boys song that I didn't know - something about school). Warning though - this was taken after I've been up since 5 am and working/running around all day. :)

Bobby was away earlier this week - he's home now, and we're all happy! We miss him when he's gone. He's such a good dad! Bobby helped out all day at FFD too, it was a STOP! No work, All Play Saturday...with a bit of a construction/traffic signs theme. The guys all helped out with the food in the kitchen, and they wore those bright yellow reflective vests, while the rest of us had these cool t-shirts (it helped the kids to identify those who were "working" and could help them if needed).

The weekend is coming up and we hope to do something fun. Our 11th anniversary is coming up (on the 15th) so we have the girls scheduled to have a sleepover with a friend. We're not sure what we'll be doing this year. Last year we went to a great B&B. I don't want to spend too much this year though, we have lots of summer vacation plans.

I'm still planning on our big 25th annv - we want to travel to England, Ireland, and Scotland. Of course I'd love to make a day trip over to Paris to see the Eifel tower, and to eat some pastries at one of the cafe's outside.

Oh, so Dr. Suesses birthday was this month. Last week I went in to the school to cook some green eggs and ham (sadly, I forgot to take my camera) but before Catherine went to school I snapped a quick picture of her. They were to wear red & white in honor of Dr. Suess...but we went a little further (yes, her hair is frizzy on purpose).