Embracing What Mommy Likes....

Mommy likes tea!

Hot tea that is. I do like sweet tea as well, but I really enjoy some hot tea.

So I thought I'd try a tea party with the kids. I was really unsure how the Little Man would like it. I thought it wasn't boy enough for him, but I was wrong. He had a blast. I let them dress up and wear hats. They thought it was such a fun thing and I had to make it be over finally.

Here are some of the cutsie photos I have of the littles:

Here they are enjoying the tea (apple juice for the first couple of times/hot tea isn't great for toddlers). They liked holding the tea cups.

Little Man even did a great job pouring the tea.

Baby Girl looked soo sweet in her tea hat!

I so wish I could share this super sweet picture of my Little Man.

I even let the kids help make the jam thumbprint cookies.

That's another post for another day.

I only wish I had a better wide angle lens to get all of their cuteness!

I mean come on now, seriously adorable!!!

And this picture is too sweet for words. I did make them do this : )

And only because it's Embrace the Camera day over at The Anderson Crew blog, here is a picture of mommy with her tea party guests. I must say I hadn't had a shower yet and have one of Baby Girl's clippies holding my bangs back. : )

Go check out the other Embrace the Camera posts at Emily's blog!

what's for supper?

Not sure you've noticed, but I make lots of pasta at our house.

Partly because I'm selfish and it's my fav. Also because it's easy. I like to think I got inspired cooking Italian while I was in Rome for the summer in college.

I do like to try other than pasta italian dishes.

Whenever we light a candle which was advice given to me to celebrate a meal with family, little man calls it "Real supper". He knows it takes a little longer and that it is going to be a little better than turkey wraps. : )

Here's my little monkeys enjoying "REAL supper".

This night I tried this new concoction: chicken florentine wrapped in ham

*would have been better with prosciutto (salty, thin italian ham)

but it turned out pretty good.

little man had seconds

but of course, he'd eat seconds of cooked liver

notice my front yard hydrangeas on my table?

They are soo pretty and have my mother-in-love to thank!

about two years ago she gave me part of her bunch from her yard.

they've done well.

So what's for dinner?

Chicken florintine wrapped in ham: chicken, spinach, mozzarella, ham

Pasta salad: pasta with cherry tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, olive oil, garlic, balsamic vinegarette

bruschetta (can't even type this without thinking of you Mer): toasted bread, olive oil, balsamic vinegarette, diced tomatoes, grated parmesan, basil

peaches from a can : )

and just to keep it real:

My kitchen after I cook in it.

messy mess mess

usually my computer is open for recipes, music (when i have my husband's laptop), or other things I'm working on when I have a few seconds.

I was watching Everybody Loves Raymond, and Deborah was sneaking around to find Marie's (her m-i-l) secret recipes. It made me hope that one day I'll be a fantastic cook and my children will want my recipes. Of course, I'll just have to hand them Betty Crocker cookbook, Pioneer Woman cookbook and the web address for allrecipes.com : )

Happy cooking!

P.S. Please feel free to leave me any amazing recipes you have. Thank you very much!

summer lovin...

Besides the heat, summer is pretty much the greatest!

Here are some of the reasons why I love summer:

1. Homemade ice cream. This might be my favorite though these are in no order. I'm not a huge ice cream fan, but I just cannot resist the creaminess. My favorite way to have it, is made by my Daddy and topped with blueberries!

2. Visits with out of town friends. This is just one of the pictures of our summer trips to see friends. Summer just seems to allow time to get out of town and clear schedules so we can all get together. I love all of our children to meet and start building life long friendships like we've found.

3. Backyard Play! I wish you could see their faces in the picture below. I love this pic and it makes me so happy that they get excited over little things like a foot deep plastic pool. (BTW, don't you love our ghetto grill in the background. Yeah, long story. But The Man is due a nice grill. )

4. Enjoying friendships over long dinners. Whether it's family, a friend or just the four of us. I've noticed dinners start later these days and last a good while.

5. Sitting on my parents porch watching everyone play! I like to think that the memories I had growing up on this very same piece of dirt will be the same place my kids enjoy childhood. I know you can't tell through my many rants, posts and pictures...but this is my favorite place!

6. Going on adventures with my favorite two blessings. We've covered many trails, parks and country road to see where our newest adventure will come from. They love it and are such troopers. It makes me excited to see what all our family will get into for years to come.

7. Treats!!! I asked Scott the other night if he had to choose from one nice sit down dinner or a month of Gas Station treats. You see I'd probably choose the latter. I LOVE treats from a gas station. Weird, I know. But I get excited to go on trips because I feel justified to get an Ale8, candy or a bag of chex mix! My kids feel the same about bug juice and gummies!

8. Being Granny and Grandaddy's pool rats! It's soo nice having a pool to go to on hot days. We even get to have play dates there and swim with our cousins too! Thanks, guys!

9. Lots of fresh produce! I love all the fresh fruits and vegetables. It just makes me happy and feel more like a real cook when it is with REAL produce instead of from the can.

10. I feel like I should have one more just to make it ten so I guess why I love THIS summer so much is that I've had so much more time with my bestfriend and husband, Scott. It's been neat to see how God has used all our free time and days at home to grow closer as a family!

Embracing Parenthood....

Just found a cool blog where Emily encourages mothers to get on the other side of the camera. She wants her kids to have pictures of them with her *which for most moms doesn't happen.

I think this is a grand idea and have decided to take part of it when I can.

Here's her site:Embracing parenthood has been the biggest adjustment, blessing and challenge of our lives. We are gradually figuring it out, but knowing it's a journey we've got lots more to figure out!Father's Day was such a delight because I have soo many great men to celebrate. I stayed up late the night before Father's Day finishing his gift. Yep, that is soo me. It was a video of pictures of him and the kids. It was soo great and I loved how it turned out. I wish I could show you. It was precious!

Here is the Embrace the Camera picture. Me and my little man at my parent's for Father's Day.

I love this one of Emerson (niece) and Fynn (nephew). Don't worry we didn't actually let them ride around by themselves!

My Daddy and me!

LOVE love LOVE this sweet picture of my girl. Isn't that background great.

a VERY full Nana's lap. : )

The next day we went over to Scott's moms for some family time.

Here is our little man and Daddy in the pool.

Our nephew Jayden coming down the slide.

Here are the cousins. They have a lot of fun together!

so cute.

This is little man jumping off diving board. You can't see it because of the hearts, but he has goggles and a snorkel. Someone should tell him he's not deep sea snorkeling off Key West or anything. He would have flippers on, but they kept falling off! : )

Here is Grandaddy Herman and baby girl.

Sadly, we didn't get to see Grandaddy Jeff. We miss him bunches and love him too! We are very blessed to have such great fathers in our lives.

Especially, this one!

Words can't describe what happens in my heart every time I see this man playing, cuddling and just being a GREAT Daddy to my babies. Makes me fall in love with him all over again!

Hope everyone had a great Father's Day and please go check out Embrace the Camera!

I wonder....

I wonder what they'll remember.

We've tried to do fun things this summer to make memories and let the kids have fun.

Well, I don't have to tell any other parents out there *or anyone with an imagination what it is like going on even a day trip with a 4 and almost 2 year old.

We decided to go with The Man to a job interview in my old stopping ground, Bowling Green. (BTW, he didn't get that job, but has found a job...Praise the Lord! More on that later)

We went and played at a playground while he was in the interview, but after we had a family fun day. We went out to eat together and then decided to go to Lost River Cave.

So after we ate yummy Mancino's (oh how we miss you) we headed over to the cave. You can do several things here. There is nature trails, "panning" for treasure, and boat rides in the cave. Let me start off this part of the story by saying it was hot this day. Like DANG, It's hot, Don. Sorry, you'd only get that line if you were from Owensboro or anywhere around here. But needless to say it was super hot and super muggy. We were already red faced, drenched and a little on the irritable side. We went in to have potty brakes, change a diaper and get info on the boat rides. What we found out was that it was going to cost us and arm and a leg and we'd have to wait for and hour and a half for it to start. Hmmm.. all that to take two little ones on a boat in a cave. I'm nuts.

We decided to skip out on the boat tour and just let the kids play in the "mining" streams. They loved that and got incredibly messy. Some of our good friends stopped by to visit.

We all then hiked a little trail (which in heat index of like 102 it felt like 10 miles) to the Butterfly Pavilion. Scott and I had been here before and LOVED it. I have a slight obsession with butterflies and their were hundreds flying around this sweet little pavilion.

We however had come in August. So this trip the Butterflies were slightly different.

We had been building this up to our friends who had never been there before. After walking in and having to "hunt" for just a few butterflies in a 100 sq.ft. building, they were beginning to doubt our wonderful stories of enchanting butterflies flittering all around.

Then we figured out why...

They were still cocoons and it was pretty neat. We got to show our boy and girl (who didn't really care and would have probably eaten one if told not to) a cool this is how God makes this science project. It really was neat and if you enlarge (click on it) the picture above you can see the details of the cocoons. We could tell which ones had just been started and still looked like caterpillars. And also the ones that had wings and were almost done baking! : )

We did see a few early bloomers and the kids really enjoyed them.

We'll definitely have to take them back in August, they'd go crazy.

There are soo many great historical parts to the trails and interesting nature lessons too!

But this picture (if you could see under the hearts) would show how everyone really felt about this little adventure. They were hot, cranky and would rather be swimming.

You have to know something about me...I really build up things in my mind. My expectations of anything are always grander in my head and I can get a little disappointed at times. But what I've learned about making memories with kids is, they only remember the good stuff.

Maybe, it's just my kids. But I promise, that if you asked our Little Man about this trip he'd excitedly tell you about "panning" in the streams and how he saw how butterflies are made! He'd talk about how we got candy (the 50 cent kind from the gas station) and how he got to pee off the side of the highway on the way home. You think I'm joking, but he really forgets the hot, miserable and cranky part. I'm not sure how this rose-colored memories last, but I know it makes this Mamma a little less stressed about making perfect memories.

I know I mainly recall lovely tidbits from my glorious childhood.

I'm pretty sure there were hot miserable days, arguments and other unpleasant parts.

But that's not what I remember.