Homemade Mac n Cheese

Baked Macaroni & Cheese... yum!

Thoughtful Kids

Here are the three charmers I had for playgroup today. Each of them picked a flower in the yard for their moms. (Alex and Rachael have clovers, Clark has a dandelion). Sorry Niki and Jenny - we forgot all about the flowers by the time playgroup was over!

Some fun facts...
-Rachael is 4, Clark just turned 4, and Alex is 2.
-Rachael is the oldest, but Clark is the tallest.
-Although Alex is the shortest, he is a year and a half younger than Clark and nearly two years younger than Rachael.
-Alex has the biggest hands.
-Clark is a middle child, Alex is the oldest, and Rachael is an only.
-Clark has blue eyes, Alex has brown, and Rachael has hazel.
-Every single one of them has bruised shins. Must be summer.
- They are all really fun kids!

The Quilt Barn Project

About a month ago our Relief Society had an activity where we drove around Madison County and looked at quilt barns. (See the link here for information about quilt barns). It was a fun afternoon, and got me interested in filling out the rest of the inventory - 43 in all. They aren't the best pictures (and they were all done with my point and shoot camera), but it was a fun project and a great way to get out of the house in the afternoon once in awhile.

Matching Toes

Because sometimes it's fun when we paint our toenails to match our swimming suit...

Slippin' and Slidin'

Yesterday for playgroup we went to Jenny's house to play with Alex (and Savannah and Alysa). Jenny set up the slip n slide and the kids had a great time! Rachael's favorite way to go was to army crawl down the length of the slide.

Savannah made the very best splashes of all!

Catching Up

Usually when I realize I am behind on posting, I do each one as an individual post. Call it sheer laziness on my part or just an effort to put a bunch of random things together, but here are a few things...

The baby swallows! Well, they aren't much of babies anymore. They have flown the next. I'm thankful the cats didn't get them before they could fly, and now I am thankful that I can wash off the front porch.

Corpuscular rays. I just think they are cool.

What a year for the pool! Last year it was all I could do to get Rachael to get her feet wet. Now she will go in water up to her chest and will happily get wet and splash people. She still won't put her head under the water but it's such a vast improvement from last year I am thrilled.

Other randomness...

-Air conditioning. I have developed a deep appreciation for air conditioning in the house and in the car, that I never had when I lived in a drier climate.

-Pull ups. Because they are so much easier than changing diapers and so much less messy than accidents. And they come in large sizes, so we can wear them all the way through elementary school, if necessary.

-Better spending habits. For the first time since we started dumping debt and seriously sticking to a budget, I had grocery money left at the end of the week. Yay! Small victories.

-Sunscreen. Which I will make sure I use next time I go to the pool.

Father's Day

Happy four years of the best Daddy!

(I love when they match!)

Rachael and Rachel

We made some new friends on our trip to Cumberland Falls - Louan had her daughter-in-law, Ariel and her granddaughter, Rachel for a visit. Rachael and Rachel had a great time comparing names (isn't Rachael a great name?) and spellings (both are good). They really enjoyed playing with each other, too; here they are playing "toadstools" under their purple umbrellas.

Cumberland Falls

I blogged about our trips to Cumberland Falls on the family blog, but here are a couple more of my favorites. I like that one of these images is mostly rock and the other is almost entirely water, and yet they kind of have the same effect.

This is from our trip in May. These rocks are not even visible right now - in fact, you can't stand were I was standing to take this picture. It's under about 3 feet of water now.

Churn up from all the water in the river. June 18.

Surprise Package

The postal carrier brought our mail to the door today, which was a complete surprise because she only does that when there is a package that won't fit in the mailbox, and I haven't ordered anything in awhile.

My mom came across a pie dish (actually, a pi dish!) online that I mentioned I would like awhile ago and she ordered it for me. Have you ever seen a piece of kitchenware that looks more like Ryan and I?

Thanks mom - we love it!!

Budgeting

I didn't want to spend the money for french bread to go with dinner tonight... so I made my own! The crust turned out really well and overall it was not too bad for my first attempt. I would like a little better flavor - time to experiment with some other recipes.

Fun with Markers

This is one of the play maps we have been drawing on for playgroup. Yes - those are Sharpie markers that a 2 year old and a 4 year old are using to color on the map. I can't decide if that makes me a cool mom or totally crazy. Probably both.

But it's tons of fun! (And so far no one has drawn on their clothes.)

Crime and Punishment

Preface: when I talk on the phone (especially with my mom or my sister) I walk around and clean the house. My two favorite tasks while I'm on the phone are dusting and polishing the furniture - they don't take a lot of brain power.

The other day I was on the phone and decided to polish the dining room table. After giving it a good wipe-down, I left the cleaning stuff out, so I could go back in a few minutes and see if it needed to be done again. Then I wandered off to do something else.

Rachael loves to clean things. And she loves to be Mommy's helper. She came across my cleaning rag and the Orange Glo, and took it upon herself to give the table some more shine. A LOT more shine. Like half a bottle more.

Pros: It looks great! And the dining room smells faintly of orange.

Cons: The 4-year-old shouldn't really be cleaning the table all by herself, should she? But what do I do for a punishment? She already cleaned the table...

Playgroup

All of Rachael's activities from the past few months are over for the summer; preschool is out, ballet is over, and Nana doesn't come to visit for another month.

Thank goodness for playgroup! Alex comes over every Monday and Rachael goes over every Wednesday, and it's great to still have something fun to look forward to during the week.

Lately at our house we have been working on "maps" for our cars (Alex calls them vehicles!) - I need to take some pictures because they are pretty cute.

I completely forgot about this until I was looking at pictures today, but last week Rachael's friend Clark turned 4. She happened to have a playdate over at their house on his birthday, and I suggested we buy a small gift for his birthday.

She decided instead that Clark would really like one of her cars, and plowed through her toybox until she found one she thought he would like. (It's a Hot Wheels racecar; it's pretty cool, it glows in the dark. Hard to tell under the wrapping paper, I know!)

I thought she would end up wanting it back, so I tried to convince her we could buy something, but she was having none of that. This was the car for Clark. She helped wrap it up, took it over there, and gave it to him. And was just pleased as punch to have given him something for his birthday.

Good job, sweetie!

Friday Night Fun

Homemade pizza, orange pop, and a movie from Redbox.

Life is good.

Braids

Here are the adorable french braids Rachael wore for church last Sunday. (This is a little later in the day, when some of the hair was escaping.) They were so cute! I think it's the first time the french braids have lasted the entire day.

And here are yesterday's braided pigtails. We have never done this before - and she loved it! I wish I would have had the camera with me when she first looked at herself in the mirror. That smile was priceless! This one is pretty good, too.

Google Reader

I love my feed reader. How else would I be able to effectively stalk so many blogs??


If you have never used a feed reader, you "subscribe" to a blog, news site, or other feed, and when updates are made, they are listed in your reader. So rather than check everyone's blog every day, I can just check the feeder to see who has updated. It's a great time saver - and a great lurking tool!