Grandma Goes To Florida

We were all glad to have Grandma along for our vacation!  Here are some of our favorite pictures with Grandma in Florida...Coming soon we'll have blogs about the aquarium, the Pirate Ship, and more!! Grandma on the Pirate Ship Cruise

Grandma and her 'angels'

Liv and Grandma wearing balloon hats at Margaritaville

All of the girls playing in the waves

Picture DayOn the road...Grandma and the girlsGrandma is great at catching!

On the Ferris Wheel

  Shout out to Liv for helping me with this post!

Improving Property Value

Kevin and I spent all day extending a flower bed in our front yard.  Before it had just the row of hedges, so we wanted to add some color and texture.  We made the bed a half circle and planted 4 Indian Hawthornes, a ton of impatiens and a few celiosa, mulched it all in and called it a day.  

Josie Turns 3

Sorry for delay in blog posting--we took a vacation!  We spent a week in Panama City Beach, FL...I know all of you will be waiting on the edge of your seats for those blog posts.  But before we get there, let's take a look back at my baby Josie turning 3.  We did the party the first weekend of April, it was also the coming out party for our patio makeover.  Kevin BBQ'd and we had around 30 people stop by for the party.  Josie looked super cute--not that you'd know by the pictures.  She wasn't very interested in posing for pictures, so I have a lot of pictures of her running away.  Shout out to Dani who used her big girl camera to get a lot of these pics.  I made her tutu--the first one I've ever made, and I loved it with her '3' shirt.  The kids had fun at the playground, jumping on the trampoline and playing in Josie's new sand and water table.  Thanks to everyone who came to the party!!

Ugh, I just read back over this post and it  is lacking a little something, I guess I am still tired from the trip...I'll do better next time!

Wordless Wednesday--Easter Egg Dying and Hunting

A couple of quick notes...LOVE Josie's new Liberty of London romper and Kevin would like me to relay to the people of the internets that he doesn't regularly wear cut off t-shirts--he had just come home from the gym.  

Olivia, Bobcat Expert

All of 2nd grade was asked to pick an animal--any animal--to become an expert of and report back.  Reporting back involved researching your animal at home and school, making a visual aid, writing a report and preparing a presentation for your class.  Liv chose the bobcat, she says she doesn't know why she picked but it was the first thing that came to mind when it was time to sign up.  Liv had to research (using that term fairly loosely, as our only reference was Wikipedia) the bobcat to find out thing like where it lives, what it eats, and interesting characteristics.  Her report was almost four pages long, which was pretty brutal for Olivia--hater of beautiful handwriting.  She and I battled all week long to make sure everything was neat and punctuation was used correctly.  This project is 40% of her science grade for the nine weeks, and Liv is trying to extend her straight A's streak.  The poster was the most fun to make (I am awesome at 2nd grade).  The initial idea was my idea--with the tree and grass, but Liv did cut out the grass and leaves and glue everything to the paper.  It is done now and will be turned in tomorrow...fingers crossed that she remembers the definition of 'tufted' for her presentation (the bobcat has tufted ears, it was Liv's fave thing she learned about the bobcat).  

Corporate Life

I thought as long as I was going back to work, the rest of the family without a job might as well start contributing too.  This is Josie, clocked in and busy on the laptop.  Of course, she needed a shot of caffeine to get the day started right.  Actually this is Josie on the car ride over to Dallas to come see me during my work 'bootcamp'.  My transition to work has been pretty good--I don't have to get up too much earlier than I always did with the kids and I like what I know about my job already.  I have my desk set up and feeling personal with pictures and whatnot.  This week I have been shadowing people who are already doing my job and next week I will do more classroom training.  I like the people I work with, so that is great.  Josie loves school and already has favorite friends.  Liv loves being back at Kid's Campus and doesn't want to be picked up too early.


The only thing I am having trouble adjusting to is getting off work at 6.  Bedtime is 8:30 for the girls, so in 2.5 hours I need to cook dinner, check homework, pack lunches, do bathtime, clean, do laundry, water flowers, and a million other little things.  I feel like I have no time to do housekeeping stuff, much less spend any quality time with family--I did it for years so I am sure I will get back into the swing of it.  But for now, I am overwhelmed.