fresh squeezed lemonade

I am a sucker for lemonade.  Growing up where the state arts and crafts festival was held each summer, I attended only for Joe's Jefferson Street Lemonade.  One year, I worked in the booth and learned to make fresh squeezed lemonade.  I recently found a similar recipe on pinterest, but it had way too much sugar.
I modified and I plan to keep tweaking it b/c Ben swears this stuff has crack in it (his own complement).  I want to try honey and vanilla as a sweetener in it.

Mix 1 cup water and 1 cup sugar (I used 3/4 cup but it needed a touch more) in a small pan on stove till boils.
Squeeze 8 lemons into pitcher and add 7 cups of water.  Add the syrup water and stir.
Garnish with fresh mint.

I then put the lemon rinds, 2 T vanilla and a twig of rosemary with 2 quarts water and simmered all day.  My kitchen smelled like cookies.  I was feeling quite domesticated.

big helper

The girls have always been big helpers, but I am not sure they were unloading the dishwasher at fifteen months. And this is not a one-time thing, he does it every time he is around and this dishwasher is open whether they are clean or not.

confirmed

I had my 2nd sonogram this afternoon.  I'm measuring 21 weeks and he is measuring all boy.  Name is still open for discussion.

Wordless Wednesday - too big for his britches

prayer request

We are on the lookout for my Mommy Mobile.  Please be in prayer for us that the Lord would lead us to the car that is for us.  There are tons of them out there and we need a great deal.  We were patient when we were shopping for the accord and God lead us to the exact car we needed and even blessed with us extras.  We would love to have that happen again.   We are praying the price is right.  We have been a one-car family for 15 months and we are a little short to be able to cash for the new car, but I don't want to trade the accord in.  So, once again prayer for the right price that we can get the payment super low that it does not blow our budget.  We aren't in a hurry, but we do need it by August.

tea party for one

All three have been sick at some point this week. I don't know about your crew, but if one goes down, the dynamics of the rest are off.  Daddy and I spent much of the weekend working in the yard, OK, Daddy spent much of the time working, I was his support crew.  I did make homemade pizzas on Friday evening, and we had dinner in our backyard, again.  (Take advantage of this weather people, it will not be around in 6 weeks.) LE took the time away from siblings and had a tea party in the makings of our garden.

book review - The Princess and the Kiss

A friend of mine recently loaned me this book to read to the girls.  It is about saving your first kiss for your husband.  Many impressive suitors came for the princess' hand in marriage, but she knew her kiss was far to valuable to just give away.  The girls seemed to enjoy it and I hope it resonated with them.  I plan to order the book on Amazon and reread it to them over the years.

Noah's rainbows

I found these rainbows on Erica's blog, but she made them with rolos (pot of gold) for St. Patrick's Day.  We added animal crackers instead to make it Noah's rainbows.
The girls have been learning about old testament heroes and this week we are learning about Noah.  I did not realize it took him 120 years to build the ark and he was in it for a whole year.  Amazing faith.
We used rainbow twizzlers and animal crackers.  We made extras in baggies to share with friends.

weekend project #2

When we owned our own house, I had the best herb garden.  I had every herb you could possibly imagine, whether I would use it or not.  Since this is our 3rd summer in this house, I told Ben I really wanted a way to get my fresh herbs back.  I was buying basil (at $2.50 pr pkg) at least every other week, I at least needed basil.  He went through my pinterest boards and found a flowering garden using pallets and we agreed to give it a shot with herbs.  As of now it is still lying on the ground so the dirt can settle, but we are going to stand it up against the fence in the next few days.
I have basil, mint, thyme, oregano, cilantro, parsley, cinnamon basil, among others.  I will post pics as soon as it is hanging along with my new veggie boxes Ben built over the weekend.
I also planted this butterfly bush in hopes to get some free caterpillars this year.

weekend project #1

The girl's closet got a much needed cleaning this weekend while I had no extra hands to help.  I was able to put away winter clothes and bring out size 6 and 5 spring clothes, sigh!  I also made these labels for their cubbie toy boxes.  They are labeled with what is supposed to be inside.  Let's just hope they stay organized.

weekend without kids

This past weekend, all three kids went to see the grandparents.  As the weekend grew closer and closer, my list of to do's grew longer and longer.  Ben and I also decided to put most of our eating out budget to use over the weekend.  We went to Chuy's, Gigi's Cupcakes and Torchy's Tacos.  We always share entrees at Chuy's, so we actually spent more on cupcakes than we did at Chuy's.  Ben had a canolli cupcake and I had a salted chocolate caramel.  They were so rich we could not even finish them.  It was probably a one-timer visit for us.  My fave dessert will always be Cheesecake Factory, and it is cheaper.
On Saturday, we spent the morning making backyard plans and at Home Depot.  We mowed, weeded, weed-eated, planted, drank iced tea, and then headed to Torchy's.  Ben always get the monthly special and I always get my fave, the Trailer Park.  We went early and sat on the patio, then we walked Barton Creek Mall.
On Sunday, we slept late and I went to work organizing next school year and wrapping up plans for this school year.  LE will be finished with first grade in about three weeks!  Bella is still working diligently on kinder and she could probably transition to first, but I want to get one going before I try transitioning both at the same time.  Besides, she loves her math book and readers, so she is building confidence daily.
Weekend To Do List:
clean out winter clothes, replace with spring clothes (all 3 kids)
clean out my office desk 
create state geography notebooks
create workbook/checklists for kids 
plant herb garden in pallet
Mow and weed-eat both front and back
Create labels for kids toy bins
Relax
Sleep late
Create cedar garden boxes - one down, one to go
spring lesson plans - hope to finish after this blog post

art organized

This pile is about 4 months worth of the girl's illustrations.  It is their fave past time and I cannot even guess the amount I spend on paper.  In the past, when they were finished drawing a pic they wanted to save they put it in a blue basket in the pantry.  I would spend hours sorting through their artwork, deciding who had drawn what, punch holes, and file them into their yearly binders.  I finally got smart this past weekend and created a new process for the crafty chaos.  I replaced the basket with this paper sorter (one tray for each girl, one for pics that are for Daddy and I), put the 3 ring hole punch at their level, and finally purchased 2012's binders.  I have a binder for each year since 2009.  I have no idea if I will be able to keep all of the papers/binders, but right now it is so cool to see how their talent improves even month to month.  I can't imagine getting rid of any of their artwork.  It will be their responsibility when they go to college on an art scholarship, not mine.

phases of the oreo

This month's science topic is our solar system.  We have been documenting the moon each night to observe the different phases.  We have been reading all about the planets and stars.  It has been a fun topic to explore with the girls.  But the best part had to be Mommy buying Oreos, something she has no will power over so they are forbidden in the house!  We made the different phases of the moon with our oreo stuffing.  R2 obviously has no will power for oreos either.

another happy Daddy moment

On our date night this past weekend, we somehow ended up at game stop.  Ben has been wanting to get some new wii games for him and the girls to play together.  And much to my surprise, the girls loved his choices, Star Wars Lego Game and Toy Story Mania.  Toy Story Mania was our fave ride at Disney World, it is an arcade-style ride and the game is very similar to the ride.  And here all of this time, I was thinking Ben was going to have to wait till R2 was old enough to play video games for Ben to have a gaming buddy.

"pet" rabbits

Who needs another pet when you have 3 living in your backyard that you don't have to feed, find sitting for or clean up after.  Meet Flopster, Nopster, and Lobster, each child has their own rabbit and I don't have to be responsible.  We do throw leftover veggies to them in the backyard and the dogs have given up on chasing them.  They find shelter under my table and the trampoline.

wordless Wednesday

Movie night

On Friday night, the girls and I had a date night at our church.  The kids church sponsored it with giveaways, free popcorn, juice boxes and candy galore.  I got to chat with mommy friends who I don't think I've seen since R2's baby shower.  At 8:05, both girls were crawled up in my lap (bedtime). 

Reader

I know I have been neglecting the blog lately.  We have been so busy with life, school, gym and having fun that the computer often gets neglected.  Not to mention with the android and ability to check emails on my phone, I am hardly ever on the computer upstairs where I keep all of the photos.  I captured this sweet pic of R2 homsechooling this morning, that I decided to make the effort to share.
Hope you are enjoying this gorgeous weather!

Toast

His favorite - toast
His least favorite - his dinosaur hat