One Thing

One of the things I love a whole lot (and there's a pretty long list) about staying at home with no kids anymore, is my ability to concentrate...for long stretches.  I rarely get interrupted anymore at all.  My brain is so very thankful for this.  About every 3ish months (when I'm really organized) I print out the last 3 months worth of photos, put them in order of date and event, and then put them in a photo album.  This is a big job and it take a lot of concentration.  It was something I dreaded when kids were home during the day.  So much distraction and breaking of concentration over and over.  It takes me about 2 hours to complete the whole thing, and this morning I was able to get it all done in one sitting.  It was lovely.  Now to order July-September's photos.

Thirty9

Today Shawn started the first day of the last year in his 30's!  We are going out to eat tomorrow night in honor, but we did give him his presents today and I made his birthday cupcakes.  This is the 5th year that I've made his favorite; Pumpkin Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Buttercream.  They.are.so.good. 

Each child picked out a gift for Shawn and then picked out their own wrapping paper. 

Time to make a wish...

Can't wait to see how Shawn's going to finish off the 30's...hopefully with a bang!

Ping Pong Pumpkins

Another year of carving pumpkins, another year of seeing just how patient we really can be.  This year, only 1 of our kids was really interested in carving pumpkins and that would be Elle.  Unfortunately she wanted to use the knife on very intricate carving and she wanted to use the extremely hot hot glue gun.  Both of these things frightened me.  We are trying to give her room to be independent, but it's causing me to need to be on anxiety medication.

The knife and a small circle that needed to be precise.

Levi wanted to scoop out exactly 1/4 of a teaspoon of guts.  

He did do a good job with the "teeth."

Ava helped for about 8 seconds before deciding this was boring.

Other than coming up with the idea and gathering the supplies, my only contribution was to color in the black dots on the ping pong eyeballs.  

The second one quickly became Elle's pumpkin, which she plans to take to the upcoming band Halloween party.  They are having a precarved pumpkin contest.  There was almost no carving done on this pumpkin so we'll see just how "specific" their rules really are.

All done!

Friends, side by side;  Ping Pong eyeing each other.

After dinner and baths, I made a little treat for everyone.  There was not a single complaint and even the hubs, who doesn't care for pumpkin pie, LOVED the Pumpkin Pie Milkshakes.  This is the only picture I could get of the milkshakes because they were all gone so fast and I didn't want to take the time to pick up my camera because they were SO GOOD.  On the recipe I doubled just about everything but the icecream...which I used about 12 scoops of icecream instead of 2.  I just used it as a general guide and tasted as I went.  I need to go find low-fat icecream to replace the regular vanilla because I think this may get made quite a few more times in the future.  All kids requested it for their birthday. ha!

Rainpocalypse Campout

This past weekend, Central Texas and really many of the Southern states endured a weather pattern that dumped up to 20 inches of rain in some areas.  Our town saw around 10 inches of rain between Friday night and Sunday morning, which just so happened to be the exact time our Girl Scout Troop had planned a camp out.  It was an "experience" for sure.  I know my girls had a great time and I truly did laugh a lot with the other troop leaders....but I REALLY missed being in my bed on Saturday morning when it was dark and rainy and chilly.  Either way, I soothe myself with the knowledge that I am going to buy myself a patch to make me feel better for enduring a very wet, chilly, not too comfortable weekend. 

 Boy do I love my troop.  

Thankfully, when we arrived, the rain hadn't begun yet so it was kind of pleasant outside.  We still had enough light to see our surrounding and enjoy the place.

Time for dinner!

 We knew what the weather was supposed to be like, so we hurried up and broke out all the S'Mores supplies and went to town on the camp stove!

 I am officially always in charge of bringing Peeps to "enhance" the S'Mores experience.  The tombstone Peeps were REALLY good! 

Saturday morning, we woke up to...rain, of course.  The two Brownies that came on the trip were in charge of helping with the meals while we were there.  One of those Brownies was Ava.  For breakfast we had pancakes and sausage.  Ava had a bit of an "incident" with the shake and pour pancake batter.  I'm thankful that she packed extra clothes.

After breakfast, we all decided to test out our rain gear or lack thereof with a little hike.

We made some snack mix to take.

 Then we took a group picture out in the rain.  Our troop is quite a bit bigger than this, but these were the only ones crazy brave enough to camp in the Rainpocalypse.

The four amigos....all of us just fit together well!  Lots of laughter to make up for the yucky rain!

Our hike begins....all is well and we are mostly dry.

Our poncho isn't working too well....the soaking begins.

It's raining hard and the wind is flipping some umbrellas.

Just keep going....Just keep going...

I had to take this picture because I captured a very rare sight.  Elle put her arm around Ava and shared her umbrella because Ava was just getting so wet and miserable.  ELLE.CARED.FOR AVA. Mark it in the books people.

Fun soggy friends!

We were all soaked through and cold by the time we returned from our hike.  The only way we could lure the girls away from sadness was with the promise of hot chocolate, with Peeps!  All was well again.

After everyone was warm again, we went to work making seed balls for an upcoming planting event that our troop is going to do.  

 These six girls and four moms were able to roll out about 1,200 seed balls in just a little while.  I can't wait to see how the area we spread them in looks in the Springtime.

 

 After that, we burned designs into the wooden stakes that will be used to mark where the wildflowers are growing.

Girls, at least the ones I'm around, don't follow "gender" rules at all.  They spent much of Saturday afternoon wrestling with each other all over the sleeping bags.  Cabin fever had set in.

Time for dinner!  We had spaghetti, meatballs and garlic bread.  It was yummy!

Then we celebrated our Troop Leaders birthday, which was Sunday morning.  We gave her cupcakes and fun little gifts.  Later that evening, we broke out the DVD player and let the girls watch the new Cinderella movie (which isn't something we'd usually do, but did I mention we had a little rain?).

Sunday morning I couldn't get up and packed fast enough.  I had my eye on the prize...a hot shower and dry clothes!  (oh and church by 9:30!)  

I'm Wonderfully Exhausted

Today has been one of those days that I'm going to fall into bed completely exhausted....in the most wonderful way!  It has just been such a wonderful day!  My best friend came into town for the day today and we got to spend ALL day together.  We had so much fun.  I warned her that my conversations would have no flow whatsoever because I was just so excited to tell her every single thing that came to my mind that I haven't gotten to tell her since the last time I saw her!  We laughed a lot and shopped so much! (She lives in a small town now so when she comes her, we have to squeeze in lots of time to shop!)  The kids were THRILLED to get to see Pheebs too, and it took us a while to say goodbye to both of them, because the kids kept getting in her car and begging for her to take them with her.  :)

There was much argument on who was going to hold Phoebe at any given moment.

The two "babies" of the family...the only boy and the only girl.  :)

Then I let Valerie hold me. lol

After she left and we ate dinner, it was time for another much anticipated moment.  Elle had her first band concert tonight.  It was so exciting to see something she has worked hard on and practiced for, come together.  Percussion has always been my favorite part of the band and tonight was even better. She did such a great job and we just can't wait to see her continue to learn more!  Oh and before we were allowed to go into the auditorium, Levi and I were watching all the band kids coming in and I was naming off the instruments they were carrying.  After a while Levi loudly proclaimed that he "LOVES LOOKING AT THE INTIMATES!"  Lovely.

Elle's the tiny whitish dot under the pink arrow. lol

Elle and her friend Collier who have known each other since 3rd grade.  I could barely get her to take this picture and then she wouldn't take any other pictures with her friends.  The embarrassment begins.

Here's the video of our favorite song they did called Zombie Stomp.  (the screaming baby at the beginning is not in fact an instrument gone wild.)

1st Band Concert from Emma Montandon on Vimeo.

Mrs. Budget Beauty

This was my month to host our Bunco group and I picked the theme "Drug Store Beauty Queen."  Everyone brings a small gift that goes with the theme and I get all the gifts!!  I told them I wanted anything related to beauty, that you could get at a drugstore like CVS, Walgreens and the grocery store.  I also brought out a lot of my costumes and had them laid out all over my front room so that when they walked in the door, they essentially walked into a dress up room and picked out something fun to wear.  We had so much fun...I think the costumes loosened everyone up a little extra (which we really don't need because we're already kind of rowdy!)  Anyway, it was a great success!

I went as Mrs. Budget Beauty and I have to say I'm kind of proud of myself....this is the first time I've really tried to do my makeup and I didn't look like a drag queen!  But I'm still not high maintenance enough to do this stuff daily...and the fact that I looked like a raccoon by the end of the night.

Here's the whole fun gang!

And here's my loot!  I got all kinds of fun things and I can't wait to try them all!