My dad sent this today.

This is a picture of my mom, my sister and me, probably taken in late summer of 73.

It makes me kind of melancholy.

I remember the Raggity Ann doll Chressen (my sister) is holding. We also had an Andy doll.

It is kind of ironic that he sent this today. Just this morning I was thinking about scanning in one of my favorite childhood pictures and blogging about my parents.

Lately, I have really been missing my family. We talk often and email regularly. But I miss being in the same room with them. I miss some of the stuff that used to drive me nuts as a kid, like how my mom holds coffee in mouth for just a few seconds before she swallows or how my dad can passionately argue either side of an argument, just for the sake of argument. I miss hearing Dad laugh at David Letterman and watching Mom doodle while she talks on the phone.
I just miss them.

And even yesterday, for the first time in an extremely long time, I thought "Chressen would crack up at that.", in reference to something Dad did. And she's been gone for 23 years.
I still miss her. Or maybe I miss the idea of her.

My parents made my childhood a great adventure. And through the rough stuff of life, they made our family the priority.
I am blessed.

Blushing Buttercream Pettiskirt GIVEAWAY!!!!

Blushing Buttercream Pettiskirt GIVEAWAY!!!!

I would be interested to see if Piper would wear this!!

Communication is vital

So...(how many times do my stories start with "so...") Sunday was kind of busy day around our house. After messing up the kitchen royally, going to a friends house after church, not getting home until after 10 and finally putting the girls to bed, I was too exhausted, lazy, whatever, to clean the kitchen. This could have been a fine decision but for two things. 1. A plumber was coming to our house in the AM and 2. Josh's parents were coming in the PM.

Fast forward to 9:45am, minutes before the plumber was scheduled to arrive. My sweet husband, working quickly to tidy the kitchen so the man would have a place to work, tucks a few remaining dishes in the oven. Yes, you know where this going.

Fast forward to 5:30pm, hours after my sweet husband has forgotten his quick fix to my lack of cleanliness, I begin fixing an impressive dinner for my in-laws (I really don't try to impress them anymore. Thankfully, they know me and love me as I am). A lovely portobello chicken which requires the final touch of a quick broiling to melt the heavenly provolone cheese and trap the bacon. As I begin sauteing those mushrooms, I preheat the broiler.

Need I say more? Not when I picture is worth a thousand words, or so they say.

This was immediately after I discovered what was making that wretched smell in my kitchen.

A close up of the gooey mess.

Turns out this is/was my very favorite, most-used tupperware dish and lid. Thankfully, we were able to salvage the spatulas, spoon, pot, cake pan and cookie sheet. We did have a casualty of a knife. By the time the plastic cooled enough to touch, it had encased the knife in a secure tomb. Really, it could have been MUCH worse!


Oh, and while I am thinking of it...check out Andrea's give away this week!

Piper is in speech therapy. (Have I shared this yet? Hmmm...this might be new to many of you.) She goes twice a week to a lovely woman here in our great town. As a side note, she is doing remarkably well and we all are very pleased with Piper's effort, work and results.

The building we go to is a small building with about 5 or 6 offices all rented by different people and occupations. They all share on set of public restrooms. I can only speak for the women's restroom here, and say it is a "one seater" with a separated sink area...you know, a little waiting area inside the bathroom.

On the inside of the stall in the restroom is a sign that says; "Make sure the toilet seat is cleaned before you leave this room." Nice. But really, what toilet cleaning person wouldn't want to post that on every bathroom in the house.

On the outside of the stall door is this:


Seriously? Do you think one of these offices is rented by a therapist who specializes in Ligyrophobia?* And is therapy really something we are "under"? In my opinion, the only thing this sign is missing is a few mis"quotes".

*Which brings me to a completely unintended topic. Check out this list of phobias. Who knew!?! I need to go over this list carefully. As many as there are, surely I have ONE of them. :)

Also, this morning Piper picked a few clothes to take when she goes to visit Mama Mia's house next week.

New dessert - Cake Pops

We found this recipe on Bakerella. We are NO Bakerella, but after a few tries we got it figured out. And even the ones that didn't look great, sure tasted great!!

Just a regular old cake, we used Red Velvet.

A can of icing - we found a whole can actually was a little much.

Mix it all together. Pretty easy.

It really is better if you use your hands...

And there are perks!

form balls and put them on lollipop sticks

Dip in almond bark.
(These were too big. I should have rolled them smaller because the weight was too much for gravity.)

We opted to decorate these for Valentines day and give them to B's teachers.

The second batch we mastered...ok, Josh mastered. :)

White cake and white icing dipped in chocolate almond bark with sprinkles.

We are also considering dipping in fudge. And making chocolate cake with peanut butter icing dipped in fudge.

Invisible Friend

So...it turns out Piper has an invisible friend. So far she is just a friend that we talk about, not to or with. And we aren't saving placing at the dining table or on the couch for her. Whew.

This is what we know so far...
She is a grown up like Mama.
She has brown hair.
Her daddy's name is Josh.
Her sister's names are Piper and Brenna.
She likes to play dolls and doctor.
She has two dogs; Sam and Wa-Wa (Chihuahua).
She lives in a big house, but likes to play at our house.

Her name, you ask? Well, her name is...

Mama Mia

Go figure.

Children's Museum and Rocket Park

Miss Kari invited us to join her at the Children's Museum after school yesterday. If you haven't been, I really recommend it. The girls had a great time.

Here are a few pictures....

B running the merchant store

Pipes working and cleaning

Of course, we played with the trains

Working the bank

Then we headed outside to the park right beside the Museum, which is a favorite of ours.

Piper, Isaac, Bren and Stone all climbed up here while the grown ups were not paying attention.
Yes, that is Piper and Bren way up at the top. Piper asked if she could go up and I told her no because it was too high (really because I didn't want to go up in there after her). She then said "Please? I'm a big girl!" So, I let her go, I mean after all, she had just shimmied up the monkey bars with out any trouble. After she got up there and was ready to come down, I heard this very quiet little "Help". Ugh. Thankfully, Brenna and Isaac were quick to the rescue and showed her how to get down.


While you are spending time on blogs, go check out my sister-in-law's blog (and her etsy site), she is giving away stuff!

Busy Weekend

We had a great weekend. I packed as much in as I possibly could!

Friday when Miss B got out of school, we headed to the Zoo. We were there past the point of exhaustion! We ate lunch when we got there, then headed to the play ground. I have never really understood why we play on a playground at the Zoo. I mean, we have a playground in our backyard, the park and even the mall. Why play there when we could be seeing all the animals??? Anyway, after that we because the animal tour. I had never been on the Oklahoma Trail so we headed that way. I really enjoyed that. If you haven't gone through there, you really need to.

We spent at much time with the bronze statues as we did looking for animals. Apparently there are over 60 of those statues through out the Zoo. I am currently working on confirmation of that little factoid. I guess until I get confirmation it is just a rumor. I think we found 6, BUT we probably only went to 1/3 of the Zoo before we headed home. I got some great shots, but they were with my 35mm camera so I don't have any electronic copies yet. ...probably won't.

Saturday our day started with a friends birthday party. Piper and I left a little early to go get Daddy and Brenna for the big event of the day. INCREDIBLE PIZZA.

Brenna quickly reached the mother of all ticket rewards and it was time to celebrate. Go here for a reminder of the behavior chart. Bren was allowed to invite one friend to go with us to celebrate. She chose Collin..and Katie...and Matt...and Alyssa. Have you been here? Holy Cow!!! That really is all I can say. The kids loved it. Can I just leave it at that? Really, we had a good time, but it was completely overwhelming to me. My girls were all starry eyed and walking into things because there was so much stimulation they couldn't even focus on where they were walking. Everyone else was running around like crazy - especially when they threw prize tickets on the floor. The lights and noises were almost enough to induce an epileptic seizure!! But the kids loved it! We were given several tokens that we greatly appreciated. However, Incredible Pizza has moved forward in time and doesn't really use tokens anymore. They now have Incredible Pizza debit cards. I"m not kidding. There were two machines that we found that used tokens, so we fed those machines, took our tickets and cashed out. B&P accrued 225 tickets, which got them a box of Tinkerbell crayons and a roll of sour Smarties. I think Collin got a mini game of Skipbo and a bouncy ball with his 180 tickets.

See what I mean about not being able to focus?
Usually those little girls are all about the camera!

Daddy feeding the Ticket Eater

"Thank you Brenna for doing so good on your chart
that I get to go to Incredible Pizza!"

Waiting our turn to cash out. Look at those prizes. Can you see the amount of tickets necessary to get them? Brenna had her heart set on the My Little Pony doll that was 1200 tickets.

And because my husband is SO good to me, I was able to go work on my scrapbooks (yes, that is now plural) both nights this weekend! Isn't he the best ...oh wait...it gets better...he was even sick this weekend and STILL encouraged me to go both nights. I do love that man!!!

Number 3

and three more loose ones!

America's Top Model?

I can only say...
Oi Vey!!!

Please tell me we are NO WHERE near this!! Please.

More pictures to come when I finally sit down and do it. Until then, look at this great little gadget!

Day Two

Girls Day
(since Daddy went to work)

It started with another puppet show-everyone participated this time.

Then we took showers and dried and curled our hair.

Then we put on a little make-up. Brenna was the make-up artist of the day.

Piper got the photographer's bug.

Then we baked cookies. Lots of cookies. These are the thumbprint version.

Overall, we had a great day. I have no idea what we will do with a third snow day.
Ugh.

"Snow Days"

It is really cold out there!!!

Maybe later I'll post pictures of playing play doh, puppet shows, games, baking cookies, naps, watching TV and fight with each other. If not, just know that went on all day.

The Best Husband Award

My sweet Josh took the girls to visit Grammy and Granddaddy by himself this holiday weekend, returning home yesterday. It left me with a quiet weekend of whatever I wanted. I scrapbooked and watched movies and read books. It was a delightful weekend.

Not only did he drive 10 hours in the car with both girls, but he took pictures of their trip...AND by the time I got home from work yesterday, he already had the dirty clothes from their trip washed and in the dryer and plan for dinner.

What a man!!!!

A photo shoot before they left town for the weekend

Excited

Sad

Mad (Piper is not capable)

Happy, so happy

The lines on our faces are from face paint. Brenna turned herself in to a cat and mom into an elephant. Last time, Piper was a cat/tiger and kind of freaked out so no more face paint for her.