The Finished Product

We got to pick up our hand-painted platter yesterday and I was really nervous. I have very high expectations for things like this and I was almost to the point where I didn't want to see it because I was nervous that I would be disappointed. Well, all fears were unfounded!!! We L O V E how it turned out and it is now my most prized possession in my kitchen :) Can't wait to make some cookies and put them out on this platter :)

12 years!

Sunday the 22nd, Shawn and I will celebrate 12 years of marriage! I know the Bible says that pride comes before the fall, but I think it's okay to be really really PROUD to be celebrating staying married for 12 years! I have said all along that marriage is not for wimps! It has been a lot of hard work, but it is such a wonderful feeling to know that we have stuck with it, even during the extremely stressful tense times. It definitely makes the good times so much sweeter. This weekend is going to be packed with birthday parties, graduation parties, and youth activities so the only time we could squeeze in a date was this morning. Thank goodness our wonderful friend, Christian sister, and neighbor, all rolled into one was more than happy to come down with her two girls and babysit while we went on our date. I am so thankful for friends that not only are willing to babysit, but act like it's an honor! She rocks!!! Okay, anyway, something I've wanted to do for a very long time, but never have done is go to one of those pottery places and paint a piece of pottery. A few weeks ago we were driving around and happened to pass such a place called The Ceramic Lodge. Then the idea hit me. I wasn't sure which way Shawn would go with the idea, but without hesitation, he said it was a great idea! We looked at the calendar and checked the businesses hours and Friday morning was perfect! We got there around 10:20 this morning, with scrapbook papers as design ideas and got straight to it. It helped that I had been thinking a lot about what we should do all week, because if I had gone unprepared we would have spent an hour thinking and planning and trying to make decisions. We both agreed on a specific design and got straight to work. Can I just say, if you are looking for a great date idea, I think this one rocks....of course you have to enjoy painting. But, we had the whole place to ourselves, our faces were inches apart, and we had to work as a team to create something that hopefully we'll have forever to cherish and remember this anniversary by. It was just a great date! We spent 2 hours painting as quickly as we could and really I could have spent longer there. I told Shawn that this would be a great mommy retreat for me in the future...hint hint. After we finished there, we decided to go to a place we'd never eaten before so we tried Thundercloud Subs. We both liked it, but I like any place that does subs. Shawn liked it more than me go figure. But, it was just a wonderful date to try two new things and spend four hours alone and able to get a complete sentence out without being interrupted. What a wonderful day it was and I'm so thankful to have married someone who is as committed to staying married as I am---and it doesn't hurt that he was excited to go paint pottery with me :)

Tracing the design on tissue...we were too nervous to free hand it...the plate was too expensive to be haphazard with the artwork!

Tracing the design onto the platter
Beginning to paint--notice the colored tiles on the right side. These were our colors and it's hard to tell because pottery paint looks pastel when painted on, but comes out much more vivid after being fired.
Making some progress--Notice the scrapbook paper on the left hand side--this was our inspiration paper thought we didn't follow the same colors.
As far as we can tell, it's going to look great! We are very very excited. We will get the finished piece on Wednesday. In the bottom right corner of the plate, we put our anniversary date so we can always remember that we did this for our 12th anniversary!
Thundercloud Subs---their version of his and hers :)

Minnows

I wouldn't call them fish, but minnow will do. They have successfully gone from being pretty wary of the water, to quite confident. Both of them can swim on top of the water with their face in the water for a short distance, though I'm pretty sure if we got in a real pool, they might not do quite as well. But, it's a start. Hopefully this summer, we'll be able to go swimming very regularly and they will figure out the rest on their own from repeated exposure to the water. I absolutely love swimming so maybe this is the summer that they will grow to love it too! The swim lessons were a wonderful experience and we all loved their swim instructor. He was so so good with how he taught the girls and they adored him. We are all sad that the lessons are over!Here's a couple of videos of the girls doing their thing! This is a HUGE accomplishment to do in only two weeks!!!

PaintQuest

As if MudQuest wasn't enough........this is what she begged to do yesterday.

Like the shoes I invented for Ava? I needed to get her upstairs to the bathtub but couldn't carry her. Two paper plates and some tape did the trick!

Toddlerhood

I'm not sure when a child goes from being a baby to a toddler. I think it's around the time that events like this one happen.

Uh oh. I've been caught.
Better go charm her with my cuteness and see if she forgets about this little incident.

Okay so to be honest about these pictures, I saw him headed into the bathroom. I knew I had two choices. I could either go get him and close the door, or leave him alone, quietly get my camera, and wait for the inevitable. You can tell which direction I chose. And truth be told, I was really hoping he'd do it. See, I was trying to be thrifty about a month ago and used a coupon for some toilet paper I'd never bought before...turns out it's been the worst month of potty breaks in our lives!!!! This is the very last roll of that kind of toilet paper and I was really hoping he'd unroll the whole thing so I could finally be done with it! LOL!

Mom to the 3rd

For Mother's Day this year, I got an amazing gift! I was given an island. Seriously. It should be here in a week or two. I have wanted one since we moved into this house. There is not nearly enough counter space for a mom with 2 daughters who want to help! Finally, after I told Shawn a few months ago that this was what I wanted for Mother's Day, we started doing some shopping...and then sadness set in. Everything was either FAR over our budget, or it was in our budget but had a butcher block top which I didn't want. Finally Shawn got the great idea to call the people who made our cabinets for our house and BINGO! They could make a kitchen island with the exact same material that our cabinets are made from!!! And it was IN BUDGET! That kind of thing never happens! After we get it, we'll have to go to Home Depot and pick out a top for it and then it will be all mine to use to my heart's content, with room for the girls to help out and no getting pushed to the side. I CAN NOT WAIT! On top of that, him and the girls also went and got me a cute new scarf, a new green wallet, and some Hot Tamales. It was a great morning! To add to my Mother's Day, I pulled tooth #4 for Elle. I took a much more laid back approach to this one and let her come to me instead of me pressuring her and it still was high anxiety for her, but not as bad as last time. Her smile is as cute as can be :) I will say while I was trying to pull the tooth and dealing with her fears, all I could think was "Oh dear....I have two more children I have to get through this with. sign..." Happy Mother's Day! I'm so thankful for all my mom friends who are right in the trenches with me supporting me, and laughing and crying with me through every step of this crazy "job."

Shawn made me a cardboard island so that when I came downstairs the 1st time this morning, this is what I saw :)

How we spent our Saturday morning

Today we took part in one of the most fun things I've done in a long time! We were participants in MudQuest. Our friend Dusty told us about it over a month ago and from the second we heard about it, we knew we were going! We lined up a babysitter for Levi, dug through the back of our drawers and bottom of our closets to find the worst clothes, and set off this morning, a little nervous and a lot excited! It did NOT disappoint. There were 8 obstacles set over a one mile course around the lake to go through with all but one having mud...lots of thick, heavy, sticky, crazy M U D! We were surprised at how organized and NOT crowded it seemed. There were lots of people there, but this is the first free event we've been to that wasn't crazy crowded and unorganized. Three of us had an amazing time....one of us cried through the entire course. Oh well. Now we know for next time to leave somebody at home. Already excited about next year!

The Before shot

All ages joined in!

Can you find us?
Ava rocked the course!

Check out the mud on Shawn's arm!

This wouldn't be so hard if the mud wasn't sucking me down!

We survived!!!

Doesn't Elle look like she's having fun?

Ava liked it so much, she kept playing even after we finished the course. This was just the water run-off from people washing mud off!

This pretty much sums up her experience.

And this pretty much sums up hers. (this was her cleaned up look!)

Great great great memory!

Mess Maker

Bibbies from Emma Montandon on Vimeo.

One of his favorite activities....making a mess and then fleeing the crime scene. I've been spending a lot of time cleaning up things that he's dumped out!

Noodle Neck

After seeing Levi's hair the other day and how crazy and shaggy it's beginning to get, we decided to take it to the pros. Shawn called a few places and he picked a barbershop. When we walked in, we knew right away that we were in the right place. It was exactly what you imagine an old timey barbershop to look like. All the older men lit up as our whole little family marched in. Shawn announced "Who wants to cut a first timer?!" Immediately a cute little lady said "My husband will! He's the guy in charge and he knows just what he's doing, and he's got grand kids that he cuts hair for!" We were immediately put at ease that they would know what to do with our little noodle neck. Levi was okay until the little cover went on. He slowly began to get a little frown. Then he began to furrow his brow. Next, his eyes began to fill with tears and he started having a little sniffing and a bigger frown. I knew he was about to lose it, so I quickly pulled out his snacks and he was all better :) His barbers name was Weldon and he did a wonderful job cutting Levi's hair. It cost $11 which was the cheapest we could find. We even got a punch card so I know we'll be coming back there again. Wonderful experience and biggie looks so cute!

Yeah for a cute haircut!!!

Budding Artist

Earlier this week, we were invited to the college in town to view an art show with kids work from all the elementary schools here. Sweet Elle was one of the artists :) We were so proud of her and so excited to see her artwork. I can only hope she continues to love art!

Also this past week, Elle pulled out the only Bible she owned, which was a King James Version, and began reading the scripture! We were surprised and really excited and decided that it was time to get her a Bible written in a language that she might actually understand. She helped pick out the Bible and it's just right for her and should last her for years. Every day, she is required to spend 15 minutes reading something and so a few days ago, Shawn and her read some of the book of James. I am so proud of her and so excited that she is beginning to have interest in reading and especially the Bible :)

H2O Lessons

So my girls can't swim. They sink like lead. But not before swallowing a gallon of water on the way down. And, we can't have that this summer. I officially don't have enough arms to hold all three non-swimmers and have any fun at all at the pool. So, I signed them up for swim lessons. Today marked the end of the first week and they have one more week to go. They absolutely LOVE taking these swim lessons. I can tell that they are getting more confident in the water, though I'm not getting my hopes up that they will be able to swim by next Thursday. I'm not sure what I'll do after that because I just do not have the money to give them more lessons. I can only hope they are much closer to the ability and will pick up the rest at the pool...but still that is going to be too nerve-wracking if they are still sinking like lead. We'll see. Today they worked on pushing off from the side of the pool and swimming forward. There was a lot of water swallowed, but I'm proud to say, no tears shed. They love their instructor and he is absolutely awesome with them. We'll see how next week goes....prayers are appreciated for the techniques of swimming to click before these lessons are over!

This picture cracks me up. There is a TV on the wall of the waiting room and while the girls were waiting for their turn, they both were watching the TV! Seriously girls!

Clowning around

Saturday, I had a garage sale. We made $137. This is just about enough to pay for one night in the hotel we're staying in when we go to San Antonio. I chose to look at this as positive! I'm doing a very short garage sale again this Saturday to try to sell the rest of the stuff. We have plans at 9:30 so I think I'll have it from 7-9. We'll see how well we do! While I was doing the garage sale, Shawn took the girls and a friend to a circus performance taking place at the library. They said the clown was truly hilarious. Shawn said they had to leave after some of the acrobats came out because the clothes were so immodest that it was awkward for him and our girls. The first thing they said when they came home was "those people were wearing inappropriate clothes!" I'm so glad we are instilling this at a young age....maybe the teens years won't be such a fight at least in that area. Anyway, that had a wonderful time and brought back some flavored kettle corn that was really delicious! After the garage sale was over, we took all of the change from our change jar and cashed it in to go towards the San Antonio trip. Here's the breakdown of what we had and the total. Pennies-$25.28 Nickles-$8.50 Dimes-$35.80 Quarters-$82.50 Dollar coins-$10 with a total of $162.08!!! N I C E!