Our Garden

Now that we are renting a home and not living in housing we decided to start up a garden again. It was kind of hard to do that in housing since our backyard was the size of jail cell. We had a nice garden when we bought our home in Florida when chad was on recruiting duty and we missed having one. Ill never forget that we had sunflowers in it that were taller than chad, all 6'2 of him!

Chad measured out how big we should have one and we both decided on what to put in it. I wish I had in progress pics of us ripping out the grass and him tilling it but I didn't.  Unfortunately I have had a time with tomatoes. I bought 3 plants a little too early and all 3 ended up dying. I bought 1 just in case we end up having some more cold spells and so far (knock on wood) it's surviving.

We have put in broccoli, head lettuce, green and red peppers, and the tomatoes. In containers we have jalapeños, carrots, and spinach. We also built a strawberry pyramid, thanks to the wonderful website Pinterest!  And we couldn't go without 2 blueberry bushes which were covered in blooms and now tons of little blueberries.

Now we just need to somehow keep the birds out of our hard work so we can enjoy the fruits of our labor!

Hair cuts and Lolipops

Chase or Squishy as we like to refer to him, is the baby of the family. We've attempted to get his hair cut several times. Finally on our 3rd trip we were able to get a pretty decent hair cut but it was still long as he wouldn't sit still long enough to get it short. So I left it go. I would trim his bangs when they would get in his eyes and have even contemplated putting his hair in a ponytail when we are outside and its hot. (Chad would kill me if he saw this). We occasionally would get the "oh she is so cute" or "how old is she" type of comments. Even if he was dressed in camo shorts and blue shirts.  It didn't bother me. I just brushed it off. This past weekend, Chad and I were at IHOP with the boys and the waitress was taking the drink order when she asked if "she" had anything to drink. That was it..... as far as daddy was concerned. The next day he took him off to the salon to get it cut into a cute big boy hair cut. And boy did they whack it off. It completely changed how he looks. Its not bad per say but just different. The funny thing is, because Chad took him, he of course was a perfect angel while in the chair. No fits, no crying, no whining. He was handed the iphone and away with the scissors the girl went. Afterwards of course he was rewarded with a lollipop as are all good (or bad) children are when they get their hair whacked off. No longer do I have a long haired surfer boy..... I now have a grown up little man. :)

                                                                         BEFORE

                                                                            AFTER

                                                                           Side by Side

                                                                             The boys
 

16

So the teenager has turned 16. I still can't believe it! Boy has time flown. I still remember being pregnant with her and her delivery. It was my longest and toughest of the 3.... almost 3 days of contractions, walking, pacing, swaying and 2 hospital visits before they would admit me. And then finally 2 hours of pushing when the doctor threatened me with a C-section and with in 15 mins she was born. All 5 lbs, 8 oz of her!!  

This teenager and I have been through a lot together. A seperation, divorce, moving (several times), meeting her future stepdad, a wedding, and 2 baby brothers to name a few. Being that I was a "teen mom", I was 18 when I had her, I feel like we are more like sisters than mom and daughter which I am sure Super Nanny would have a fit over. But just in the last year or two I think I have turned more into the mom role as I often hear "OH MOM.... thats embarrassing".  LOL!

In just 2 years she will be 18 and close to graduation and off to college. I know these next 2-3 years are going to fly by like the blink of an eye. So I am trying to take it all in and cherish these times we have with her. She truly has blossomed into a beautiful young lady. I love this teenager!

                                                           Cupcakes made by ME

                                                   This is what 16 looks like

                                                          The gang at Mac Daddy's


 

                                                                   Crazy teenagers

                                                                       Troy bowling

                                                                   Between the legs

                                                                       Perfect form

                                                                          Having fun

                                                            The teenager and the boy

6

Troy turned 6 back on March 25 and we decided to do a Super Mario themed party. Thank God for Pinterest because that is where I got a lot of my ideas. I did learn a few things with planning for this party, one of which is to never rely on a child to give their parent the invite themselves. Second, follow up sooner than the day before. That aside, we had a blast!  We rented a bouncy house, which I prayed that the weather would cooperate and it did for the most part. It was chilly but thank goodness no rain. We had 2 games: Pin the mustache on Mario and Mario Bingo. Both turned out successful and the kids loved it. We had pizza from a local pizza place called Mario's. I put together a candy bar with goodies themed around Super Mario Bros. All in all it was a wonderful birthday for Troy. 


                                                                     The Mario Party

                                                 This is the night of his actual birthday.

Its a Circus...

Recently the Circus came to town, The Cole Bros Circus to be exact. I remember as a child my parents taking me to Ringling Bros Circus and boy do I remember it being a big deal, at least  back in the 80's it was a big deal. I remember riding the big elephant, clowns(and not in a good way) and cotton candy. I remember being terrified of the clowns. 

So when I saw the flier come home from Troy's school I knew that we had to take the kids. I actually forgot that Chad had school that night so it ended up just being me wrangling all 3 but we went. Even though we live in a small town, I did not expect the turn out that it brought and I should have splurged for VIP tickets as that would have gotten us Center Ring. But I went economical and we had ok seats. It actually worked out in the end because we had the back row to which the boys could stand on their seats. Before we made it in for the show, I did just as my parents did with me and had the kids ride the big elephant out front. Chase was excited at first because he had no idea what was about to happen. Once faced with the gentle giant, he panicked like he always does and wanted me. But I sandwiched him behind Troy (who got to sit right up front) and in front of Emily. He had no choice. LOL!! He finally stopped crying after lap 1 of 2. We ate popcorn and drank soda and enjoyed the show.

Redo

I love our new house! As soon as I saw it I knew it would be perfect. There was of course a few slight issues with it.....the paint. I am not sure if the previous renters were color blind or if the original owners were, but the paint colors in some of the rooms were awful to say the least. One of the rooms even had its border attached with staples!

First on the list before we even moved in was Chase's room. Our property manager said the previous renters had a frog theme going on in there which explained the neon green color. I wanted to puke! Too crazy for my taste so I hit Walmart for paint color ideas and decided on a neutral color with Better Homes and Garden (BHG) called Creamy Pebbles.

So in the couple of weeks that Chad was here without us, he wood swing by and do a few to-do list things for me.

He also completed the kitchen/breakfast nook prior to us moving. It originally was a blue color. Not that anything is wrong with the color blue, it just wasn't what I wanted in there. I once again hit Walmart in search of colors and decided on another BHG color called Partridge Gray.

Unfortunately through out this process we have noticed that these walls do not like to accept the paint. We aren't sure if its the previous paint, current paint, dirt or what it is, but it is taking two some times three coats to get them covered. So in some of the rooms we are noticing slight mistakes were we were a little lite with coverage. Eventually we will get to fixing those.

Here are some before and afters.

Thing One and Thing Two

Continuing with our Dr. Seuss theme week at Troys school, Tuesday was Cat in the Hat day. The plan was to make red velvet cupcakes with vanilla frosting and blue cotton candy on top for the hair.
So off to gather supplies..... All ingredients had been located except for the cotton candy. Who knew that would be such a hot commodity in good ole Havelock. Walmart and Food Lion didn't even have any. CVS had pink and yellow. Finally the blue stuff was located at Rite Aid. So to error on the safe side I snatched up 4 buckets. I am sure the lady at the register was probably thinking I was some kind of cotton candy junkie trying to fulfill my fix so I felt the need to explain why I had 4 buckets. She had a look of yeah right lady when I finished.

Back at the house, I got busy working on the cupcakes. This time I was changing up the normal recipe for cupcakes and I added an extra egg (4 in all), milk instead of water, a stick of melted butter and a box of chocolate pudding mix. Boy, did they turn out decedent!

Frosting came next after cooling. But I had an eager guinne pig just waiting to get his hands on one to try. Luckily I had made one extra. :) The verdict from the judge came back with a big thumbs up.


Later after dinner I decided to put the cotton candy hair on. This is where things took a turn for the worse. When cotton candy gets wet or moist..... What happens to it????? Yep. (Smack self in forehead).

Wake up Tuesday morning to the cotton candy hair a melted sticky mess on top of the cupcakes. I mean it didn't look too bad. But my OCD / perfectionist self was ok with sending that in. Thank god my cotton candy junkie self bought 4 buckets. :)

So cracking into the 2nd bucket.... I wait till we are about to head out to the school and add some more hair. Would u believe by the time we arrived at the school ( all of 5 mins away) the hair had melted again?!?!!! Ugh! Whatever! They are just Kindergarteners anyways right? They won't care.

Well when Troy returned from school, the cupcakes were a big hit amongst his classmates. :)

Thursday is the next snack day for me. The book that day is again another book, I had never heard of.... Horton Hatches an Egg. My plan is rice crispy treat nests with some chocolate eggs in the center. We will see how those turn out.

Fox in Socks

It's Dr. Seuss week at Troys school and today's book is Fox in Socks. I volunteered to bring in snacks on several days this week all themed around each book.

I love Dr. Seuss! He is one of my favorite authors. But I have to admit that I have never read Fox in Socks. So I started my search on the Internet to see if there were any videos of someone reading it. I came across this very unique version and found out that this book is nothing more than a bunch of tongue twisters. So that lead my search to snack that would work and I drew a blank! Thanks to my very imaginative husband who was secretly listening to the reading as well, threw out the words Trix, sour and goo. Trix cereal, Sour patch kids and Blue Jello Goo is what we decided on. Below is the results of my OCD combined with my perfectionist personality and my deep yearning to relive my childhood. :)