The Best Cake

Have you all discovered The Pioneer Woman yet? I have made 7 of her recipes so far and they are all fabulous. This cake in particular.

Green Thumb

I love rununculas and they don't last too long. But this is the second sprouting. Are any of you as excited as I am about this? I may be getting better at this gardening thing or it might be the compost. But, nevertheless, my confidence is increasing.

When I'm At Work

When I go to work, it's usually before Blynn is awake. So my mom helps her get dressed. Last month, when I came home from work, this is the outfit she had worn to school. This looks like a lot of excessive layering if you ask me.

Teeth Brushing

My least favorite parenting duty is brushing teeth.

Unfortunately, they are still not old enough to do this whole process by themself. At what age does that start?

Brick House

The boys put on a riveting performance of The Three Little Pigs for us. It was full of intrigue, loss, and triumph.

Notice the sticks, hay, and bricks...or pipe cleaners, pom pom, and legos.

Of course, the brick house prevailed.

Blynn is a graduate

Blynn has graduated from preschool. I loved her preschool class and her teachers and we needed to figure out a gift to thank her teachers for being wonderful. I bought some mismatched dessert china and some candlesticks and put them together with epoxy.

This allowed me a cute pedestal to put these scrumptuous delightful lemon squares.

I have made them three times now and they are sooooo good. In fact, I am eating one as I post this.

Voila! If I was a teacher, I would like this gift.

My latest thrift store find

These remind me of the wallpaper of the first house I lived in as a little girl.

I love this guy

I love him in flip-flops and I love taking pictures of him sleeping.

His version of a neck pillow.

Uh oh! Not sure what happened there.


My dad recently did some repairs to the side of our house. Rusty was a good student.

I asked Rusty what he was doing here and he said he was "caulking". And now I have little black lines all over my wall to prove it.


We also found this in Todd's tool box out in the garage.

He loves his daddy and grandpa.

A new season of vacations

We just got back from the coast. My family has always taken a summer vacation and every year since my sister and I have graduated college we say, "This may be the last year we can do a family vacation." And yet, we have still managed to do one every year. And it has been some years since college. Even though we live in the same town and see each other a lot, I still am very grateful that we make this a priority in my family. But, I have learned some things about myself. I am really paranoid when it comes to the safety of my children. I may need to start taking some prescription medication when we are staying in a house that isn't childproof. And I confirmed this weekend why I don't like or want to live in a two story house.
Secondly, my sister and I parent very differently, so blending this when you are in a house together for 5 days takes a lot of communication and breaks. Luckily we don't have any problem with communicating or taking breaks.
Thirdly, my nephews are 100% boy. Whew, enough said!
Fourth, I love my family (husband, kids, dad, mom, brother-in-law, sister, nephews).



We gave each kid a day to choose what we did. Yet everyday ended up having the same schedule, dance party before breakfast, candy, park, beach, walking on some sort of pier, eating, playing, candy, eating, watching the sunset, candy.

Avila Farms is the greatest.

Said dance party.

Brother in law forgot his pajamas, so had to wear my sisters. I couldn't stop taking pictures of this.

My mom bought inappropriately aged toys for the kids. Thus, Todd ended up putting it together.

Cycling.

And tennis.

These trips used to be all about the guys golfing and the gals shopping, but we had children and the world came to an end. But I actually like this new season of vacations. Where we do things all together and the kids are getting old enough to be involved in all activities. I also enjoyed not packing diapers, bottles, and a pack and play. Travelling is getting much easier.