Joshua's Birthday

Yesterday was Joshua's birthday!  I think back to the day he was born and how incredibly tiny he was.  He was then and still is an amazing kid!  Joshua has filled our lives with more joy and laughter than I could have ever imagined!

Joshua got to celebrate his birthday early at his party and then again with a few more presents over Thanksgivng...and then again Sunday evening with my parents...and then finally on his actual birthday.  I think I've had more cupcakes this month than the whole of 2011 combined!

He got to wear a birthday crown at school which automatically boosted him an extra coolness level.

For dinner Joshua wanted to have a hot dog and fried pickles so we went to the place that does great hot dogs and fried pickles...Katz's Deli!

Not only do they have great fried pickles and hot dogs, but they also have all you can eat deli pickles!  Joshua took advantage of this perk!

This is the kids hot dog!

and see the fried pickles...not just fried pickles, fried pickle spears!

A meal fit for a king!...or at least one fit for a birthday boy who loves hot dogs and pickles!  

Once we had all the salt we could handle we headed home where Joshua enjoyed the rest of  his birthday with his new toys!  

Happy Birthday Joshua!!!

You are so loved!

Birthday Celebrations Continued

Its been a while since we did a party at home.  This year we found a great price for a bounce house rental.  It was the best party investment EVER!  We had the bounce house for 24 hours too so we set it up in the morning and the kids played on it from that time until late that evening!

After a few hours letting the kids bounce and scream we re-energized them with cupcakes!

Once everyone had eaten their cupcakes they went back out for a little while to bounce out the sugar and came back in for presents!

My memory of this part of the party, like this picture, is somewhat of a blur caused by hyper children and flying tissue paper!

The day ended happy and exhausted kids and tired parents!  

1st Grade Thanksgiving

First grade celebrated Thanksgiving with a cute presentation for the parents (which you know we are all suckers for) and a big feast!

The class did the alphabet of Thanksgiving.  Joshua was the letter "U".   He was so proud!

The kids all enjoyed a small feast afterwards and then got to go home early to start their vacation!  

The next day was the birthday party!

Riley's Birthday

My baby girl, THE baby, turned 5!  As far as she is concerned though she turned 15!  Riley is quite the little lady who loves to wear her dresses and skirts...with heels (either her Jasmine or Rapunzel heels of course).  Everyone is still unclear as to where she got her girlie-ness but it suits her well.

For her birthday she asked for the Littlest Pet Shop Treehouse...which she wanted to shop for on her birthday...so we did!

and she also picked out a new Barbie scooter complete with light up wheels!  This girl knows what she wants!  When she saw her scooter in the store she picked it up and carried to the check out line.  I caved and got it for her but told her she could not open it until her actual birthday.  Even though she had hand picked her gift...and personally carried it out of the store after its purchase...and brought it into the house...and set it in the closet...

She wanted it gift wrapped.  But not with any gift wrap we had in the house.  Nope, she picked that out too.  

And if you can tell from the motion blur in the picture she couldn't wait to tear into said wrapping paper on her birthday!

She picked Red Robin for dinner, probably because she knew that they give you a birthday sunday and she loooooooves ice cream!

And ice cream she got!  Doesn't she look excited!  Daddy refused to look at the camera because he was watching the TV overhead.  I think I've come to accept that only one out of every 100 pictures I take might have everyone looking at the camera...adults included!

Now she is asking to get her ears pierced and she says she has even found "the perfect earrings!"  Maybe for Christmas!

Riley got celebrate more at her birthday party that weekend!  

That post to follow...

Happy Birthday to my little lady!  We love you Riley!

The Princess, the Kitty, and the Astronaut

Sounds like a great story right?  I'll have to come up with one...could be a best seller!

The kids had their best Halloween ever!   The whole neighborhood was filled with kids and parents everywhere!  The kids had a blast trick or treating with their friends and I have to admit even I had a great time visiting with all of my neighbors!

Once the doors opened up everyone was pretty much out the door and down the street so getting pictures was pretty challenging Halloween night.  Thankfully I managed to get a few pics of the kids the day before!  Next year I know to start getting pictures early, like as soon as they get home from school!

This last picture took about six parents and ten minutes to wrangle these little guys together.  This small herd grew and grew...and grew throughout the evening!

Everyone got a TON of candy!  We made one lap through our small section of our subdivision.  Half way through the lap Jason had to bring the kids new bags as their first bags were too full and heavy to continue!  I think we're set for candy for most if not all of 2012! 

My Favorite Planner

I'm on a blog post roll here!  Actually it has been an exceptionally productive day today and I don't want to waste a minute!  I can honestly say that a part of my productivity today is a result of keeping my daily plans in check!  The absolute best way I've found to do that is with this...

It is exactly what is says it is!  It was my birthday gift to myself...and I love it!

 It was designed by and made for moms (if the cover didn't give that away)!

...moms with lots o' kids (which to be fair is you know at least one)!

I love seeing a week in view with all the info neatly categorized.  

If you are a mom, who maybe has a mild to severe addiction to organization...check them out here!  They have lots of great styles and colors!

Kind of like a blank canvas

With the current heat I am not too interested in winter wear or anything made of anything other than thin cotton!  But I have a collection of yarn with some beautiful colors that have my little fingers itching to knit something.  I don't know what just yet, but I am sure it will be lovely!

Someone likes the new fertilizer!

I've read great reviews about a fertilizer called Neptune's Harvest.  I bought some, started a weekly fertilizer routine and now I'm a believer!  Even in 108 degree weather I've got this...

Look!  Baby Cantaloupe!  

Pre-School at Home

For now Riley is doing pre-school at home.  We have so many workbooks and school materials that I could open a small school!  I have a Kindergarten program mapped out so even though she'll go through it next year I figured it wouldn't be a bad thing to get an early start.   Riley does school work every day and so far has been a good student although she starts to lose focus around 2 pm so we have to start early!  Her biggest motivation is the sticker she gets at the end of the day!

When Riley is not in school she is helping mommy around the house and with the errands...

I love the kid sized carts at Kroger...and so does she!

Back to School - Week 1

Last week was the first week back to school for the kiddos!  August is a full month with several birthdays and anniversaries but the majority of our focus was getting ready for that big day, the first day of school!  So far, so good!  They are even handling the early mornings surprisingly well.  The one thing I was hoping for has not happened yet though.  I thought once school started they would be tired at ten o'clock at night and easier to put to bed.  I thought wrong!  They are still wired late at night even with an early morning and a full day of school, homework, and playtime.  Even half way through week 2, they're wired, mommy is exhausted!

Thankfully Jason has been brewing a strong pot of coffee for me before he leaves for work!  I cling to it even as we walk to school with it being in the upper 80's outside.  Mommy...must...have...coffee!

Out the door and ready for the first day of school!

Joshua getting straight to work in 1st grade!

Daniella and her class had to sort and organize all of their supplies.

Back in June on the last day of school we had dinner at Red Robin.  Jason decided to kick the school year off with dinner there again!  When we got in the car this is what we saw

Yeah, crazy!  Next time we'll park in the non-Hades section!

Aside from the blistering heat the kids had a great first day of school!  What made it even better was how normal it was.  Last year was a little hectic for all of us so this year we all enjoyed the "simpler" start!

Like any mom, I'll be praying for a good and fun year for the kids filled with lots of fun memories!  For all of you with kids in school, I will be praying that they too will have a great year!

Little Fishies

With 100+ temps every day the best place to be is the pool...well actually maybe the beach but I'm not much for traveling these days so while we're keeping it close to home its the pool!  Joshua started the season wearing his life vest or floaties but now we are working the different swimming strokes.  I think both kids will enjoy the swim team next year!  They love the water (really what kid doesn't) so we're letting them enjoy it as much as possible.  We've even looked into diving school!  The Woodlands has an amazing diving academy and we have the kiddos on a wait list to start.  Fingers crossed we can get them in this Fall!  We've got some light weight water loving kiddos so "flight school" should be a blast for them!

No, not a blurry picture...Daniella is coming up from deep end.

He's SO tan!  Our "brown shark"

Joshua coming up from under water.

Baby girl with her sweet smile!

A Green-er Thumb

I've never had a lot of success when it comes to gardening.  I love pretty gardens and like the way they look but never have been able to grow plants that live longer than a few weeks.  We tried a veggie garden a few years ago and did OK but I would be lying if I said I provided the proper attention to it and we got one tiny squash and one tiny green bean. Ultimately those too died off.

If you're a pro gardner and you want to start some seeds so you can have veggies and/or fruit for by summer you know to plant "after the last frost", which in our case would have been February-ish.  So true to amateur form I started in mid April.

Deciding not to actively kill my plants this year I started studying "gardening 101 stuff" regularly and daily, several times a day work on my plants.  I now know why its called a nursery!

I started with several seedlings have only a few survivors.  Just my luck I decided to start to learn to garden properly the year we have a severe drought and months of 100+ degree temps.  Don't get me wrong, I love a challenge, but really?!

My dreams of bountiful fruit and veggie harvest are, well, gone but I am hopeful that I might be getting A tomato this month and even if I don't, if my plants live I will call it a small success!  At this point I'll take what I can get!

I've started a few winter harvest plants in hopes that those will go better.

Since this is something I've spent some serious time on this summer,  I thought I'd share a few things I've learned over the past few months...more like a few FYI's!

To anyone, well, not me I'm sure it is all a big "duh!" but for giggles here ya go...

1. Store bought potting soil usually has small time release capsules called osmocote.  If you use Miracle Grow potting soil, it will most likely be in there.  Osmocote in the soil looks like small round yellowish balls.  I thought (until I finally did a search for it) that these were tiny egg sacks of some pesky bug.  You can "crack" them open and they will have a clear or sometimes milky liquid in them.  Long story short, if you are working with garden soil and come across these tiny round egg looking balls.  Don't fret, it is a fertilizer.  There is no need to dig them out and crush them to ensure that the bugs inside die like someone I know.


2.  A really good fertilizer is Miracle Grow Tomato and Garden Veggie fertilizer.  It is inexpensive and lasts a while for small gardens.  Also good fertilizers are egg shells (calcium bicarbonate), coffee (rich in nitrogen), banana peels (potassium), rabbit poo (a little bit of everything), and fish emulsion/seaweed blends.  Egg shells, coffee, and banana peels are obviously easy to come by.  Rabbit poo can be too if you know someone who has a rabbit or has wild rabbits that like to poo on all of the cut tree stumps around their new country home.  Stump fresh rabbit poo will be my option!  For fish emulsion/seaweed blends I've read that Neptune's Harvest is as good as gold to plants.  I actually have some in route my house right now so if I have some one-pounder's in a few weeks, I'll let ya know!

3.  Pests are a just that.  Pests!  For melons and squash plants beware of spider mites and mildew (usually noted as powdery mildew).  For tomatoes (and I'm seeing on several plants too) beware of leafminers.  Insecticide and fungicide are supposed to be easy solutions for these problems but by far my biggest problem is the leafminers.  It took me a while to figure out what they even were.  They leave these long winding white lines on the leaves, much like slug lines, but there is obvious deterioration of the leaf anywhere near those lines.  I did searches on common pests, "white lines on plants", everything I could think of the figure out what was causing those lines.  Finally I found it.  Insecticide is supposed to work but so far I can't get rid of them.  They are even attacking my baby butternut squash and baby heirloom tomato plants.  I will be continuing my search on a solution but for now I just keep hosing down my plants with spray.  I am trying to grow things "organic" so I am using insecticidal soap.  It might be that it is not strong enough.  Darn bugs!

If I can manage not to kill (or at least keep alive) the plants I have, I'll transition to updating the flower beds in the front of the house.  They need a lot of work!

Red Currant Tomato Blossom

Baby Heirloom Tomatoes.  I planted eight different kinds.  You can see where the leafminers have been chowing down on the leaves.

Leafminer lines.

Baby Butternut Squash.  Eight planted, but I'll be happy if one survives!