Friday

I came home from work last Sunday and was about knocked over by Camdyn.  They had found a baby turtle and she couldn't wait to show me...and beg me to let her keep it.  I believe it was a baby painted turtle, Camdyn dubbed her "Swimmy".  Swimmy is back in the wild, but not before many tears were shed.  She even colored Swimmy a picture of the two of them and sealed it in an envelope with two pieces of leftover Easter candy.

My go to flavor right now.  Extra bold and magical...yes it is.  Good stuff.

Rowyn is working on writing her name and learning her address.  The latter is pretty important to me, since Rowyn is very proficient at disappearing.  There one minute, gone the next.  We've talked about what to do if she were ever lost...and telling a police officer you live in Asbury and your Mom's name is Mommy is not going to cut it.

Grammy gave us her collection of Berenstain Bears books, the girls love them!  I'm pretty sure they were Aunt Meghan's favorite's too. 

A nap.  A rare moment, since she gave up napping a long time ago.  She must have been tired, she made herself a spot on the floor and out she went.

Today we practiced putting makeup on.  She has her ballet/tap pictures tomorrow and they have specific hair and makeup instructions.  I have no idea how much they are supposed to wear, like just a light amount or pageant heavy?  Either way, she was all about it.  I think I'm more nervous about this recital than she is.  


I'm off tomorrow, but work Sunday, so we have a ton of things we're going to try and squeeze in and get done on Saturday.  


Have a great weekend!

Ducks

It warmed up yesterday afternoon, so Rowyn and I took Booth for a walk.

He had his tail up the whole way, you could just see how happy he was to be back out on the trail.  Sniffing things, investigating, being a dog.

Rowyn was happy too.  She did her own investigating, running, and flower picking.  She chattered the whole way.  It reminded me of a quote my friend Anna posted on FB...


“Listen earnestly to anything your children want to tell you, no matter what. If you don't listen eagerly to the little stuff when they are little, they won't tell you the big stuff when they are big, because to them all of it has always been big stuff.” 
― Catherine M. Wallace

What a good way to look at it.  The constant chatter is sometimes overwhelming, especially when it's coming at me from four small mouths.  But it's important to them...and sometimes the things they say are pretty darn funny.  I just need to stop and listen...and write down the funny stuff. :)

Back in his element.  
One happy, wet, smelly dog.

She couldn't find a bench to sit on that didn't have bird poop.  She was pretty disgusted and announced that birds need potty's. 

A pair of blue-winged teals flew in.  How sweet are they, bonded for life...or so I thought. I read today that pair bonds usually dissolve after incubation.  So he leaves her high and dry with a bunch of ducklings to raise.  Not just limited to their species, is it?  ;)

Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

It's official.  I have little to no willpower.  So, if there is candy lying around...I'm going to eat it.  A whole bowl of Reece's peanut butter cups was staring me in the face every time I walked in the kitchen.  I'd reason with myself that I could eat one, because they were so small...not nearly as big as the full size ones.  That lead to...well, I could eat two, that still probably is smaller than a big one.  That lead to three and then four and then, yeah..I probably ate the equivalent of two king size packs of those damn things.  I decided it was time to use them for something.  So, Rowyn and I made cookies. 

I followed the recipe on the back of the chocolate chip cookie bag.

Except, I put those evil little peanut butter cups in the center.

I used my cookie scoop and put an unwrapped peanut butter cup in the center and then formed the dough around it.  I put them in a cupcake liner, because I was afraid they'd melt all over a cookie sheet.

I baked them for about 14-15 minutes.

Ooey, gooey, goodness.

And I still ate those stupid peanut butter cups.  But now I ate them with about double the calories.  Brilliant move.  Thankfully, between my kids and the neighborhood kids they didn't last long.  Ha!

My plants and I are ready for this weather to warm up again.  It teased us with warm weather and now these last few nights we've had a freeze warning.  Boo!

While the cookies baked, I made pinwheels for my spring mantel.  Easy and fun to make.  




On a side note, Rowyn saw an episode of Toddlers and Tiaras the other day and was entranced.  She even picked up this lovely finger kiss and blow move she saw (that's what she is doing in the mulch picture).  Next thing she'll be asking for fake lashes and a spray tan.  Something tells me she would love the pageant world.  So not happening.  Go-go juice (Mountain Dew and Red Bull).  Thousands of dollars on skimpy outfits and stage props.  Eyebrow sculpting.  Crazy moms.  No thank you.

Easter 2012

Easter morning...three of the four were happy and excited the bunny came.

Someone else had a tantrum, because I had the nerve to ask her to throw her Pull-Up away. 

Thankfully, it didn't last long and soon it was smiles and begging us to let them have chocolate for breakfast.

After church, we headed to my parents house for an easter egg hunt.  Excited much?

Booth joined in, but found sticks instead of eggs.

The eggs were filled with candy, money, hair pretties, and other little goodies.  All planned and hidden by Grammy and Papa. :)

Camdyn found the golden egg filled with two silver dollars!  

Which led to tantrum number two of the day for this one.

The table and food were amazing, as always.  We had ham, baby reds, asparagus, corn, pineapple, relishes, Hasselback sweet potatoes...

baby chick deviled eggs

French Palmier salad she made with inspiration from here.  Since she couldn't find Petit Palmier's, she made her own from scratch and made them into bunny ears.  So cute...and so yummy!  

For dessert, she served lemon bars topped with powdered sugar and blackberries.  Divine!

We also celebrated my husband's birthday.  He and I are officially the same age again for another six months.  Something I like to remind him of often.


Cooper and I made cupcakes for him.  


Thank you, Mom, for another amazing Easter!  All the effort into planning, delicious food, all the little details...it was perfect!


We missed having the rest of our family there with us.  I hope you all had a wonderful Easter...we love you guys!   

Eggs

On Saturday, we colored eggs at my parents house.

The kids actually waited patiently.

We used Kool-Aid this year, an idea I saw on Pinterest.  It worked pretty well and it smelled nice too. 

Looks like someone was drinking the Kool-Aid.

Meghan helped with the coloring.  
She had all four kids stay over on Friday night.  A first!  Clyde and I rented a movie.  He fell asleep five minutes into it.  Ha!

Friday night fun at Grammy's!

Camdyn made a lot of multi-colored eggs this year.  I think if she could have figured out how to make a rainbow egg, she would have. :)

Pretty, no?

The dogs were not invited to color eggs.  Instead, they spent most of their time wrestling outside.

My parents already have tomatoes growing.  Courtesy of the crazy warm March.

The lilacs are in full bloom.  I LOVE that smell.

After she was finished coloring eggs, she had to make sure they tasted okay.  Apparently, Tucker thought he'd better sample it as well.


Meghan is in the background playing Draw Something.  I'm a little bit addicted to that game.  It's like Pictionary for your phone.  Fun times.  I had to draw Ludacris, which was looked so ridiculous that I laughed about it to myself for so long the kids thought I was crazy.  Meghan drew JLo back to me with what I originally thought were balls, but apparently were supposed to be big hips.  I'm erinmichele1014 if you want to play! ;)    

Camdyn the slighty creepy Easter Bunny. :)