Unexpected Pickin

Last night I took the girls on a nature walk. Since Shawn was out of town, I had some hours to kill before bedtime and not much to do. It had finally stopped raining so after dinner we headed out, not sure where we would end up. As we walked along a trail, I saw some blackberry vines with the berry still on. I was excited because I love picking blackberries and the girls I knew, would get a big kick out of picking berries straight off the vine and eating them. As expected, Ava jumped right in picking like crazy and gorging herself and Elle was too afraid to stick her hand into the bush because she didn't want to get poked. So typical of their personalities.

She was trying to show me the berries in her mouth.

A Mighty Fine Life

We have a new favorite place to eat. If you come to visit us here, we will take you there. We don't care if you like burgers or not, you will eat it and tell us how you have converted and will be true to Mighty Fine Burgers only. We've already had a few converts so resistance is futile. We do not each out much because we don't have the money, but in the last 14 days, we have eaten there 4 times...seriously...it's that good. And yes, we are selling the children's toys to fund our Mighty Fine Burger fund.Here are a few pictures I took of the girls being goofy on the way to MFB. They were trying to make each other laugh with funny faces.
In other unrelated news, Ava is fully potty trained during the day. The only time she wears diapers, is when she's sleeping. We are so so so proud of how it seemed to all come together after a few months of not a lot of success. We don't even give her treats anymore. She is now wanting to wipe herself and as much as I want her to be independent, this ain't happenin' right now! She doesn't quite get the concept of trying to keep her hands clean as she wipes. Lovely.


Lastly, I'll end on a not so gross note. As you know, I have a new camera and I'm taking more pictures than usual lately while I get used to the bad mamajama. Here are a few shots from Sunday morning before church.

Today's bargain find

Two of our neighbors were having garage sales today. Just out of boredom we went to them to say hi and look around. Something caught my eye at one of the sales. This cute little thing.





I'm always drawn to pink anyway, but I really liked the style of it too. It had a price tag of $50 on it which I thought was still too expensive. The glass in the middle had to be replaced and the whole thing would need to be repainted if not stripped also. The neighbor then said she'd let me have it for $25. That made it a bit more attractive. So, we told her we'd think about it and if we liked it enough and thought we could use it, we'd come back. We headed to the Poppy Festival here for a few hours and when we returned, her garage sale was over and she still had the pink dresser?make up table? dressing table? Shawn asked her if she'd take $20 and she said Yes! So now we are the owners of the cutest little piece of furniture. I think it will be extremely useful for the girls in the future. Their bathroom isn't very big so getting ready in there probably isn't going to happen. This will help a lot. As we go through the process of restoring it, I'll update with more pictures. Right now were are trying to decide whether to paint it a light pink again which won't really match with either room, or go for a more bluish turquoise color to match Elle's bedspread that hopefully she'll have for a long time?

A week in the life...

Hadn't been blogging lately because not a lot is going on and when I have a free moment, I haven't been in the mood to blog. We tried a veggie called Rhutabaga last nite. It's a bit like a potato but tasted like butternut squash. Not bad, but like plain ol' potatos better. I need to figure out which is better for you. We also tried red pears. I don't think I've ever bought a pear in my married life because I just really don't like the texture, but I decided to be bold! (can you really call yourself bold just by buying a pear?) Anyway, I roasted them in a yummy sauce and they were okay, but still not my favorite. The girls loved them so maybe I'll get them again just for them. So anywhere, here's another week of our exciting life:

Last Saturday: Ladies Retreat...beautiful place! Antlers Hotel in Kingsland

Sunday: Paul and Carolyn came down for Elle's bday...this pic is hilarious. Elle didn't want her picture taken and instead of trying to get her to look, I just took it. Keepin it real. Thank you Paul and Carolyn for having the energy it takes to play with my kids!
I hope my kids didn't scare you away for too long.

Monday: Paul and Carolyn still here and they took the girls for the morning so Shawn and I went and had a lunch date on the square.


Tuesday: We are having record highs already. Oh joy. So I took the girls to the park to swing. I love this park because it's totally shaded and there's usually almost no one there.

Wednesday: My newest child was born, via Fed Ex. I finally saved up enough money to purchase a camera that might actually make my photography business legit.

Thursday: We were invited to a Round Rock Express baseball game with free tickets!!! Yeah! We love going to any baseball game so it was a nice surprise. We had the messiest funnel cake I've ever seen in my life.

Friday: Game night at my house. Always fun!

My 5 Year Old

Here are a few pictures I took on Sunday when the dust had settled from the weekend. We were getting ready to go to church that night and Elle wore her new outfit that Gramme got her. She loves the outfit and the fun headband we bought her for her party went well with it. I just thought she looked too cute to pass up a photo op.

Easter 2009

I loved the girls easter dresses this year. The colors were so pretty to me. I wish I could have found an adult version of one of these dresses. Oh well....we did a low key Easter this year with all the other stuff going on. We had left-over pizza from last night for lunch today and baskets that I somehow managed to cram full of stuff for $15 each! No egg hunt today since that would have made #3. The weather turned out beautiful so that was a nice little blessing!

Fancy Elle's 5th Birthday

Make a Smilebox slideshow

What a memorable birthday this was. After seeing all the pictures tonite, it made it all worth all the work. I had a lot of fun planning this party, and it went off without a hitch! Elle and the other sweet girls looked adorable! I'm so excited that I get to raise daughters and do girly things like this! Elle will always be very special to me because she's my first! :)

Dino Hunters

Yesterday we decided to explore a new area that we hadn't been to yet around here. We decided to walk a river bed that wasn't too full of water. The girls of course loved it. The riverbeds in this area are often completely stone. As we got further away from the starting point (further from the road where we parked) I looked down and noticed something that stood out from the rest of the unevenness of the rock. I called Shawn over and showed him what I believe to be a dinosaur track. There wasn't just one. There were several and they were in a patterned series as if something was walking. We were so excited....not sure if anyone had ever found this before! It was really cool!! Here are a few pictures from our find.