School Pictures are In!

Just got the girls school portraits today and had to share! :-) I think they both came out great (as their mother I can, of course, give an unbiased opinion on such matters...ahem).


My third grader



















My kindergartener




















OK, now that you have seen my cute kids you can get to bed so that tomorrow you can get up bright and early and GO VOTE! Polls open at 7am around here and I'm sure they are open early at a polling station near you. Just do it!

Easter Eggstravaganza!

Just a few pics from Easter to share.

Saturday, we did our traditional egg dyeing project. E obviously needed a lot of help this year but the older two are getting more skilled in their egg handling. The day before we dyed the eggs A asked why we needed to bother boiling them first. I explained that it made it easier to handle them and that we would get to eat them later. She was less than thrilled with the prospect of eating eggs of any kind but agreed to help dye eggs for other people to eat.



One of the egg artisans at work.



E and her cheesy grin that appears whenever there is a camera nearby.



The glorious eggs.



On Easter morning the girls woke up at their regular time which surprised me. They rushed into our room and asked if they could see their baskets. I told them to go see if the bunny had filled them and I'd be along shortly to get a few photos.

They could not wait to get started on the candy...









I helped organize the Easter Egg Hunt Mad Dash this year. It usually takes about 6 people at least 20 minutes to get all the eggs thrown out on the lawn each year...and about 45 seconds for the kids to descend upon the common and make a clean sweep. This is one of the easiest events to sign up for because there is literally NOTHING to clean up! The kids do it all for you - and without a single complaint!

E needed much prodding this year to actually collect eggs. I had to keep pointing out eggs and prompting her to pick them up. She was far too interested in the sight of all the big kids running from one end of the common to the other. I think she wondered what the big rush was all about! After all, the little kids get their own little space full of eggs that is cordoned off by cones and orange string (which you can see in the top left corner of this picture)...



R and her bag of loot. She is now officially one of the "big kids" who can run far and fast and can get quite a lot of eggs along the way.



A also managed very well for herself. In fact, she did so well that she took the advice given by the Christian Ed. Director very much to heart and shared some of her bounty with a child who wasn't nearly as fortunate.



After the hunt we were off to grandma and grandad's house for a yummy ham dinner with all the fixin's. I offered to bring along dessert and decided to make a cake. Do you think I maybe had a bit too much fun with the frosting?

In which I finally get around to sharing some pictures I've been meaning to post...

I'm obviously not participating in NaBloPoMo this year since I haven't posted a damn thing yet this month. But there are a few participants I'm rooting for this year and will be stopping by to check on them daily (just giving them fair warning....if they happen to stop by here).

I have yet to post pictures from my October girls' birthdays! Horrors! And then of course there is Halloween. I'm slacking off around here. I guess I've been a tad busy with other things - sewing for the church fair, reading The Outlander (instead of the book I'm supposed to be reading for my book club**), failing miserably at learning to crochet (OK, so I did teach myself the basic stitch but the 'square' that was supposed to 13"x13" came out as 11"x12" and I decided to just ditch that project for now...I don't need that kind of stress! I want my projects to be fun and I use them to reduce stress, thank you very much), and just generally surviving our crazy fall schedule (I'm happy to report that this was the last week for session one of swim class - I have the girls signed up to take their swim lessons on the same day at the same time for session two - Phew!).

So, without further ado, here are a few shots from October that I wanted to share...

HALLOWEEN

R dressed as Violet from The Incredibles. Her personality changes completely when she dons this costume.

A as a Barbie...gag...cheerleader. Not my choice for a costume and I made her wear a leotard underneath for warmth and modesty. She was originally going to be a pink fairy but then found this evil lovely get up and decided to spend some birthday money on it. Her personality was not a whole lot different, just notched up a bit when she put this costume on.

Little Miss E dressed as a Ladybug - but hard to tell since all she was willing to wear was a pair of wings clipped to the back of her jacket. The cheesy grin speaks volumes about her personality.

The Thrilling Threesome ready to go get CANDY!


E's 2nd Birthday!

The birthday girl - see? there's that cheese-factor going full force again.

However, since we are talking about a 2-year-old, that cheese-factor can swiftly change to Major Meltdown in mere seconds.

E has never seen a single Dora episode, but thanks to the whacked-out world of preschool marketing she can certainly recognize a Dora figure 13 aisles away. So, I figured she would appreciate a little Dora-themed family celebration this year.

Happy Birthday, E! She did a great job blowing out her candles this year...even if she did try to actually eat the wax Dora candle later. Notice the wine in the foreground - I was not to be outdone by E's earlier whine, you see. Mothers have a way of getting by. Seriously!

Sisters three.


This year - as compared to last - there was no question in E's mind about what needed to be done with the brightly wrapped packages. Riiiiippppp!!!

A's 5th Birthday!

A chose a puppy theme for her party this year. I found a dog bone cookie cutter and the gingerbread doggy bones were a big hit!

Pink being A's favorite color, the pink poodle cake was a must-have for the party!

Oh yeah, and there isn't much of it left in this shot but I also made the girls pink poodle pancakes for breakfast that morning.
At five, she is a pro at blowing out the candles...

And she certainly knows how best to rip into the brightly wrapped packages. She had a total of five friends at her party and they all had a great time. She was thrilled with all her gifts and she is already thinking ahead to next year and coming up with party-theme ideas!

OK, enough is enough. I think I've got the October celebratory pictures covered now. I'll be back soon and next time I'll try not to inundate the blogosphere with so many pictures at once!

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**Update on the book club comment! I'm glad I put my book club book aside because I just received this email from a fellow book club member:

At church today several of us were discussing the difficulty in getting ahold of this book/as well as not being crazy about short stories. The suggestions we came up with was to change the book to another one of Sena Jeter Naslund about Marie Antoinette . How does the group feel about that? Is it too late to change (believe next meeting is 11/19). Reply all with your thoughts,

Inger

I had only read the first short story in the chosen book so I'm glad I didn't invest too much time in it! Now I just need to get cracking on whatever book they decide on because Inger was wrong and our next meeting is actually scheduled for next Monday (the 12th)!

Don't Say I Didn't Warn You...

My new camera arrived via UPS yesterday afternoon. We were standing in the neighbors yard chatting away and I saw the Big Brown Cow come driving down the road. I ran to meet the driver so he wouldn't have to leave his truck and he laughed and asked if I guessed he was here for us (we get a fair number of UPS packages...) or if I was expecting something. I told him with glee that I was expecting my new camera and then he understood my excitement but still had to laugh at me.
I've been playing around with it since last night and I have a lot to learn but it's fun to check out some of the various built-in features and modes. One of the first things I tried out was the color accent mode:

I need to play around with it some more to get a better feel for how to quickly set the color of choice.

I also just played around with basic settings to see how things worked and it was nice to know that there were some similarities to the buttons/features that I have on my old Canon.

Here's a picture of A today at lunchtime - I used the "portrait" mode although I don't really see a difference between regular settings and portrait mode. I've noticed that in some instances red-eye is very much reduced but there is some red eye that occurred in this shot...


Last night R lost another tooth (number 6!) and of course I had to record it for posterity on my new camera! Love that gappy grin!



And lastly, I was taking a few pictures during story time last night before bed. This is a pretty typical scene right now...E wants to be in on the action so as soon as she hears the story get started she plows right in and climbs onto the lap of whoever is reading with no regard whatsoever to anyone who gets in her way.



More pictures to come. I'm off to play with my new toy some more!

Spring pictures to share...

First a few of my loveys in their spring ensembles (courtesy of a local portrait studio)...

And as a follow-up to my post about Rick and his amazing adventures in gardening here are a few pictures of "Mr. Jeanne's Greens"....get it...kinda like Mr. Green Jeans. I'm so freakin' clever.
Broccoli in the back, spinach in the front.

Lettuce in the front left and anemically in the right rear. Green onions in the right front and it was supposed to be carrots in the left rear...oh well, you can't win 'em all.
Bush beans in the corner. Nothing yet in the surrounding squares.
These are some of the stuff that hasn't been planted yet. There is thyme, basil, daisies, peppers, and something else...I forget!

This is R's very own bucket o' beans.

And this is A's bucket o' flowers. Not much happening yet but there are some small and some tiny sprouts happening.

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And in other exciting news...Rick spilled the beans and let me know that I'd be getting a new camera for Mother's Day. Can you say "Jeanne is EXCITED!" Happy! Happy! Joy! Joy!
He wanted to be absolutely sure that I got the camera I really wanted so he needed to get my approval before ordering. It will be ordered very soon but won't get here in time for Mother's Day...but I really don't care. I am getting a new camera!!!! And it will be here soon!!! Oh, and for those who care to know it's a Canon Powershot S3. They are coming out with a new model soon but I really don't need the upgrades for the extra $200, so we are ordering the S3 now. I can't wait!

So, be forewarned that this blog will soon be deluged with plenty more pictures in the near future!!!