Backyard Adventures

Some days I have to wonder who is really into being a little kid - Lawyer or myself. Since Lawyer's been out of school all this week, I really wanted to have lots of fun with him at home but, alas, Granny and Papaw's house is WAY cooler than hanging out with your mom.

Yesterday, I got this brilliant idea to make a tee pee out of garden stakes and a half-finished quilt so that Lawyer could have a change of scenery. It really was quite cute - Lawyer ate popsicles and watched a movie in it.

Lawyer, by the way, isn't this pale, pasty white in person...it's just how I did the post-processing. I happen to love it when he's really white since it looks so beautiful on him.

We've had lots of questionable visitors around the yard, what with the Texas rat snake and this little fellow. I researched him and found out it's a wolf spider. I like to investigate what things are since I find no need to kill off every creature - if it's harmless, it stays. He will stay...if he bites, it's like a mosquito bite.

I made this random concoction for lunch the other day. I was feeling adventurous not wanting to read a cookbook and all. It was some cut-up veggies I had in the fridge that I threw onto some lettuce leaves and then made ramen noodles (without the seasoning packet) that I tossed with a peanut sauce I made. It was alright, definitely not what I'm used to eating when I eat Ina Garten, Ruth Reichl or Martha Stewart recipes.

My dad bought this 28-135mm lens that is really awesome (by the way, Dad, I think I forgot to tell you what I thought about it!). I was about 12 inches from the center of this sago palm and the detail truly is amazing. In fact, all the above pictures were taken with it...it may be a new go-to lens for me.

Anyhow, it's FRIDAY!!! We've just got a few plans: last t-ball game, a birthday party to go to and go see the movie UP. The rest of the time? We'll be hanging out by the pool! Enjoy your weekend!

This Child of Mine...

He will be 5 in a few short months. Sigh. Where has the time gone? I actually relish each and every day with Lawyer in all of his growth...I don't think about yesterday and I really don't see past today. I just breathe in this boy's spirit and all is okay to just enjoy today.

I love his energy, leadership, strong-willed attitude, his dance moves, how he loves on me early in the morning and late at night (I'm chopped liver at all hours in between, usually!), his amazing works of art, his imagination, his thoughtfulness for others and every inch of his 4 foot tall frame.

And even during the topsy-turvy, spinning-wildly-out-of-control days of parenting, I wouldn't trade this child or our days together for anything in this world...

because I know one day it will be his time to leave this house and make new adventures with his own family. Thank you my sweet boy for each and every day.

Officially Summer

I love how Memorial weekend jump starts the beginning of summer. Lawyer's official last day of school for the school year was last Thursday so we have stayed busy doing absolutely whatever we want! What better way to depict summer than to be a naken 4 year old boy, eating a popsicle with your feet dangling in the pool at the end of a long, summer day. Ah!

Lawyer woke up unusually early on his first day of summer, slipped on his pirate pants and swabbed the deck...seriously, that's what he told me when I saw him outside with the broom.

And of course, you've got have T-Ball for your summer-time adventures.

I may go light on posts this summer...I'm so incredibly busy with work and something has to give so that I can still maintain my time with my family. I'm thinking of doing just a picture each day to share what we are up to. We'll see...staying away from my blog is like taking a huge part of my creativity away.

Until next time!

The Well-Needed Break

I'm back! I had a very enjoyable weekend and got a chance to decompress. It was well-deserved and well-needed, trust me.

My brother-in-law and his family made an impromptu weekend visit and it was a lot of fun. The baby has gotten so big and he was full of smiles.

Of course, that meant PICTURES! I've been in a rut with my photography lately...Lawyer has been a less-than-willing subject and you can only take so many backyard plant pictures. This baby made my photography cup runneth over! Here are a few of my favorites:

Can I just say that the "W" picture rocks my world? Ah! And here were two of my favorite Lawyer/baby pictures...that boy LOVES his cousin and it's funny since it's in a very brotherly way too:

Yeah for getting out of the doldrums!!

This Little Guy

He made an appearance this weekend! I can't wait to post more pics, especially since he is mesmerized every time I get my camera out. Thanks Ryan and Margaret for letting us get our baby fill in this weekend!

Quick! Change the subject!

Um, yeah. So anyway. (avoiding the subject of my blog absence)

I've found myself in a wonderful place of busy-ness. The kind of busy that at the end of the day, you too, want to just curl up next to your 4 year old at 8:30 to go to bed and blissfully dream. I thrive on being busy....I have my work busy-ness and my downtime business. In my downtime, I sew, knit, read, learn (always learning), watch documentaries, cook, play, take pics of the randomness around me, try something new (I've been embroidering!) and live in the moment with my boys.

"The busy" has required my absence here on my little blog but I hope to be back at it after the weekend.

But something to share....hmmm. Oh yes, I have another half-a** project that still needs completion after a year. I love it and have yet to wear it due to incompletion. I so would have gotten an "I" on my report card for this.

It's a cute, mod-looking dress that I sewed last year. The ONLY thing that I lack is sewing the hem. You can see the random strings and the lining showing but once I hem it up (and iron, blech), it will be ready for a night on the town. Isn't the blue so lovely? It reminds me of peacocks and I have an infatuation with peacocks. And the shoes! Aren't they ridiculous? I love them so!

A Necessary Haiku

Sun's rays reach out
Radiating
Shining brightly on my golden hair

------------------------------------

Sigh. The sun will finally grace us with her presence all week. How I've missed the warmth and light lately. The weekend was grand and I will post pictures of our adventures, no matter how little or small. Embrace the day, love one another and live for today, glorifying Him with each action, thought and word.

Amii

Sneaky Snake

The other night I was getting ready to head to the grocery store and when I turned on the headlights of my car I saw something at the end of my driveway poking out of the grass onto the concrete. It continued to get longer and longer and longer and of course, I knew it was a snake.

He was about 3 feet long and at least an inch thick so he was a pretty stout snake compared to what we usually see...the 12-18 inch long brown snakes in the pool or garden. I went ahead to the grocery store while Jason and Lawyer were inspecting it.

After I got back from the store, I saw a hacked snake in the middle of the street. Lawyer was pretty animated about it (although I think he was secretly scarred about seeing Jason chop off the snake's head), telling me how they killed it. Jason said that he had the flashlight on the snake and then Lawyer went inside to get something and he turned to look. He said after a second he looked back down and the snake was gone...he eventually found it at eye-level on the tree in front of him. He even went as far as to say he heard a rattle. I was skeptical.

So after a little research, I found that this was a Texas Rat Snake. The fact that lead me to this conclusion was that they are often mistaken for rattlesnakes due to the fact that they vibrate their tails when in distress which sounds like a rattle. They eat mice and rats usually but I suspect the snake's goal was the tree to begin with since we have a little robin family living in it. The babies just hatched within the last week or so. The snake wanted dinner.

I found out that they reach up to 6 feet long and they aren't venomous. A bite doesn't require much more than washing the bitten area with antibacterial soap and water. They are pretty aggressive considering they have to be to catch a mouse or rat. Next time, I don't plan on killing one...they eat the rats and mice and I would rather have a sneaky snake than filthy rats and mice any day of the week.

Bad Hair Day

Yeah so I previously mentioned that Lawyer had a good story about his hair. I'll let the pictures do most of the talking.

It was Crazy Hair Day at school on Friday so we spiked his hair and sprayed it green.

Oh dear, this is after school. I was working in my office and in comes Lawyer. At first, I thought he had wet his hair down and that's why it was so funky looking. And then, upon further inspection...

Uh, yeah. Crazy Hair Day turned into Bad Hair Day. I seriously could not stop laughing. The longer I looked at it, the harder I laughed. Lawyer just stood there with a smile on his face which quickly turned to nervous laughter on his part. I made him antsy to say the least with my boisterous laugh.

So, a shaved head it was.

It wasn't so bad though...we had to go to Granny's to get the shears so he got to go swimming afterwards.

The BEST Mother's Day...EVER

Wow, what a great weekend! My boys showered me with love and presents to honor me for Mother's Day. They got me a beautiful bouquet of flowers in the most wonderful colors and I got a grill tools set (now, I know that there are so many mother's that dread the whole "kitchen gifts" thing but seeing as I love to cook and I'm the grill master in our house, I was overjoyed!). They took me to my favorite restaurant where I stuffed myself silly with fried green tomatoes, grilled halibut, margaritas and the best apple crisp.

And this is what I've been waiting for all these Mother's Days...Lawyer's first handwritten messages to me.

Ah, be still my heart.

And the gift he made at school was precious...a framed picture that he created. (There's a story on the shaved head...it deserves its own post so I'll wait)

I think Lawyer took the "kick back, relax, it's your day" personally for himself.

And for my mom? I gave her this:

I got her a One Year Bible (wrapped in the green leaf napkins), a delicious gardenia scented soy candle, a yummy chunky green verbena soap bar (wrapped in tissue paper), a tub of aloe vera sugar scrub, two knitted wash clothes (that I gave a sneak peak of last week) and the knitted gift bag everything is sitting on? It became a pillow.

I got the idea for the wash clothes from the Purl Bee. I didn't even bother to look at their instructions...I just knit a seed stitch border around one with just knitting in the center and the other one is 2 strands of yarn knit in only seed stitch. It's my favorite one. It's all lumpy bumpy and has a massaging quality to it. I've got plans to knit myself a whole set for us to have.

The bag was kind of a last minute project that I adapted from Joelle Hoverson's (owner of Purl) Last Minute Knitted Gifts. I used two different strands and knit it all in the round. It was supposed to be this dainty gift bag and before I knew it, I had knit a 11"x20" bag that an 11.5"x21 pillow form just happened to fit perfectly in. So once I gave my mom this "bag" full of the goodies, I slipped the pillow form in and sewed it shut. I love 2-for-1 gifts. I'll get a pic of the finished pillow so I can share!

It was truly a wonderful weekend! I hope your's was too!

How to create your own sunshine...

When the clouds won't go away and you are in some serious need of sunshine,

what should one do?

Brighten up some body's day!

Lawyer and I made some cookies and picked some flowers to take as a special delivery to Granny. It brightened up all of our days for sure!

---------------------------------------------------------

Okay, I've still made dinner every night, I've just been absent from this little blog of mine. Oh and to set the record straight (not that anybody has asked) the reason I've been posting pics of my dinners is not because I feel the need to document every mundane detail of my life. It's because I feel accountable when I can post a pic of our dinner...it forces (well, force may be a tad too harsh) me to make dinner every night and so far it's worked!

Here's what you've missed (I can hear the tears, people...or is that crickets?):

Monday-

Tortilla Soup
Cheese Quesadillas
(the pic above were of the accompaniments to the soup...the soup wasn't all that beautiful to picture, but it was very delicious)

Tuesday-

Thai-Style Steak Salad

Wednesday-

Turkey Cobb Salad (minus the turkey...I went for store-bought rotisserie chicken instead)
Also, I find the blue cheese to be a tad too overwhelming for me. I mean I like blue cheese and all but sheesh!

----------------------------------------------------------

And a secret knitting mission is under way...I'll share at a later date!

And it's Alright...

Amazing is the power of the sun. Yesterday when the sun shone through little breaks in the clouds, I felt like Wall-E getting a serious power-up...I could feel the energy boil within.

Seeing the sun was such an exciting thing that taking a picture of the sunlight pouring through the window was highly worthy. Please pretend that you don't see the crumbs and dust bunnies on my floor, okay?

The sunlight seemed even more beautiful after a hearty rain yesterday morning and I have to say that my plants were feeling particularly photogenic. We decided to have a little photo session.

The feather grass was feeling foxy.

This little cherry tomato was quite the show-off compared to his friends.

The red bell pepper is still too young to know how beautiful it will become.

The canna in the far back, well, she was a showstopper. But then again, she told me to get her good side.

The whirling butterfly didn't even notice me as they swayed to and fro in the light morning breeze.

This canna near the pool was trying her hardest to be an enigma. I think she was just being saucy. I like multi-faceted canna.

Oh, and the purple elephant ear...isn't her dewy complexion to die for?

The coral bells were sunbathing and pretending I wasn't there.

All was quiet on the red yucca home front except one little beauty that woke up just in time for me to take her picture.

Oh and how could I ever forget Miss Agapanthus...words have not even been created to describe her unveiling beauty.

So, I know, I need to get a life but I'm such a solar-powered individual that this made the depressing weather seem but a far distant memory. You ought to try it sometime yourself.