45 years to celebrate

I could say a lot about the fact that today, my parents have been married 45 years.  But I'll let this photo stand on its own.  Happy Anniversary Dad and Mom!

birthdays birthdays birthdays

I am getting a little nervous. Blizzard warnings where we are supposed to be traveling? Eeek. My husband is the best though and is trying to find a way to get us to my family. I owe him the world. And it will all work out. I just keep telling that to myself.  We'd rather be safe than not.  Oh, but it is so hard when you want to get somewhere and there are obstacles.  To make matters worse, I can't hold my mail online or over the phone.  What is the point of technological advances if they do not work? 

But, BUT, it is Noah's birthday today.  And he is happy.  So there is that.  And we are all healthy (knock on wood...I totally did, did you?) so there is that too.  And we will get to our destination somehow and sometime.  Breathe...

Here are my favorite fellows...

Here is Noah's cookie cake.  He wanted a green angry bird, so I put one on his cake.  It turned out pretty well (although his beak is much bigger in the game...He is a toucan.  Oh well)

Rhett wanted an ice cream sandwich cake.  It was fairly easy to make.  :)  It is too cold for me though.  Rhett loved it though!

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and if you are traveling, be safe. 

celebrating an eleventh birthday

Rhett turns 11 tomorrow. Without me getting all weepy, I will attempt to explain how lucky I am to be his mom.

Rhett is curious.  He wants to know everything about everything.  He also thinks he is right about most things and never thinks his mom knows what she is talking about, especially in subjects such as Math and Science.  Or English...excuse me, I meant Language Arts.  Or anything else.  He always questions me.  "Are you sure about that?"  He doesn't do it so much with his dad yet. 

Rhett likes to talk.  Especially when he is happy.  And that is what I remind his dad, when Seth is getting frustrated because Rhett has not stopped talking.  I just say, "That means he is happy," and Seth smiles and can't be frustrated anymore.  Funny enough, he wanted to look up what the meaning of his name was the other day.  It means, "speaker."  We were right on the nose with that one!

Here Rhett is, with his Dad and Pop, at the Philbrook Museum.  I am sure Rhett is wondering if the fish get cold or why they are the color they are, or maybe he is asking the meaning of life.  No telling with that child. Though I get exasperated, I secretly love it.  He will never just do something without questioning the why of it.  And that is a good thing.   

Rhett loves to help.  He also loves to please.  In this picture, still at the museum, he climbed onto the tree branch quickly, but then turned and helped his brother.  Without being asked, he just grabbed Noah's arm and pulled.  

Rhett is such a sweet big brother. Too sweet, sometimes. The other day, the boys were fighting and I went to them to see what the big fuss was. Fighting over legos and Noah got his way. Again. Rhett just didn't know what to do. I told him that he needs to be assertive. If Noah is being mean, I said, then Rhett had every right to kick him out of his room, even if the legos belonged to both. Later that night, after the boys were in bed, Seth and I heard a loud bang upstairs. Seth ran up to see what it was.  A few minutes later, Seth came down and asked me, "What did you tell Rhett?" I repeated that he needed to be assertive and asked why.  Seth answered, "Because Rhett said Noah would not stop talking, so Rhett just pushed Noah out of bed."  So he is trying, even if it is not in his nature to do so.

Rhett still gets scared, still gets sad enough to cry sometimes and can be silly and goofy and, well, a boy.  But he is growing up.  I can see glimpses of what kind of man he'll be and it makes me proud.  But it also makes me happy to see this:

He is as excited as Noah is to open a card from our elf each day.  He still wants to believe in magic even when his logical mind is screaming it cannot happen.  He still believes in the wonder of childhood and I, for one, am so happy that he does. 

Happy Birthday Rhett. 

elvis likes owls too. whoo wouldn't?

Yesterday, our little elf left stickers to decorate the boys' dad's presents:

 A Chick-Fil-A sticker.  That is the answer to your question, "What is on Rhett's head?"  I don't know.  That is the answer to your question, "Why?"

Today, we found this:

You see, Elvis used my craft supplies to make his cards.  And he must have found my owl stamp and just loved it so much that he couldn't think of anything for the boys to do today.  They were so excited to get to go play the Wii though and thought it was quite hilarious. 

I have to say that Elvis has made this December the most fun for the boys.  I'm glad he came around this year. 

Elvis makes us bake cookies

Our elf is a bit bossy. So far, he has ordered us to put up our tree (I was thinking of skipping that one this year but Elvis insisted), watch the movie Elf, and today we had to bake cookies. Because we were working on a short time limit (Rhett has baseball practice this evening), I went to the store and bought Pillsbury Simply... chocolate chip and peanut butter cookie dough and some Hersey kisses.  Easy and I didn't mind giving up control for this one. :)

The boys rolled the dough in the sugar:

Then after baking for about 10 minutes, they placed the kiss in the middle:

Now for the fun part.  While I drizzled chocolate onto the already sweet enough cookies, they followed with sprinkles.  They didn't hold back:

I wonder what Elvis has in store for us this week? (I kind of wish he had told me so I could have written it down ahead of time but I guess surprises can be fun.)



it's all over but the sharing...

Please, Aimee, can you show us pictures from your birthday? Why, yes...yes, I can.

The cupcakes:

They had Cinnamon-Caramel Cream in the middle, iced with Chocolate Ganache, topped with Sugar Pearls to make them snazzy.  Pink candles because I try to add a little girly in my family's fun every once in awhile.  :)

My Beautiful Boys:

I forgot to mention that Rhett told me "Happy Birthday" at least a dozen times yesterday and, AND, Noah got up all by himself yesterday morning.  This is huge. It meant I didn't spend 10 minutes trying to drag him out of bed. 

My Sweet, Handsome Husband:

Seth got contacts a few weeks ago and is lovin' them.  What do you think? Do we look 17 years older from when we first started dating?  Maybe I really don't want an answer.  Hee. Hee.

The end:

inspriration to creation: Butterflies from Maps

I'm a big fan of butterflies, and also love to keep mementos from vacations, so when I saw this, I knew I must do something like it:

My Inspiration

image from Image Surgery.  This beautiful creation is made by Joseph Warren.



I had many maps and such to choose from, but I decided to make butterflies out of my vacation memorablia from New York, Washington D.C. and chose two things from Oklahoma that were special to me.

My Creation

1. Map of New York: It shows the Brooklyn Bridge Subway Station where my mom, sisters and I got off to go walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. It was pouring rain, however, so after Jana bought a $5 umbrella, we got back on the subway and went shopping intead.

2. The Star-Spangled Banner Flag from the National Museum of American History in Washington D.C.  This was one of my favorite places that my family went to during our trip.  This flag was huge and protected and couldn't be photographed.  I had a flyer for the museum though and a small picture of the flag so I thought it would make an awesome butterfly.

3. The White House.  We took a tour on the day that Noah had an awful toothache.  We had planned on finding a dentist after the tour.  He was a trooper and didn't complain too badly.  It was around the green room, however, that my other son began to complain.  He needed to find a bathroom, NOW.  Umm, are there public restrooms in the White House? No.  Our tour went a little faster from that point on, much to Seth's dismay.

4. Ocktoberfest, October 2010, Tulsa, Ok.  We had just recently moved to Tulsa and missed our friends terribly.  We heard about this German festival and thought we'd invite our friends from Edmond to come and stay the night.  They did and we all had a pretty great time.  It was tiring, but all the kids got their faces painted and got to ride roller coasters and we got to see our friends.  Win for all!

5. Map of OKC area.  We lived in Edmond, OK for four years, longer than we had lived anywhere else since getting married.  We met some pretty awesome friends there and even though some have moved away, and we have moved, we have stayed close.  Edmond will always have a very special place in our hearts.

6. The Lion King, New York, Girls Trip.  This was my first Broadway show.  It was an amazing performance.  Afterward, we walked down to a diner to get something to eat and ended up walking past Lehmen Brothers.  There was a lot of commotion there-media, cameras, and such.  It was September 14, 2008 the evening before news broke that they had filed for bankruptsy. You know the rest of the story.

I used an 8x10 canvas that I already had and painted it red. This canvas had black and white patterned scrapbook paper glued onto it from another past project, but I decided I liked how it came through.  I mod-podged the canvas for texture, then antiqued it with black glaze.  For the butterflies, I just cut out a pattern and used it for all of the butterflies. Some turned out better than others.  I mod-podged the butterflies to make them less fragile, then folded them in half and glued the "body" onto the canvas.  I mod-podged the wings, front and back yet again to make them stiff.  Then I glued the top of the wings onto the canvas, with part of the wing still puffed out (I used the end of a paint brush between the butterfly and canvas to get the same amount of puff for each one). I glued the edges of the bottom wing and the "foot" too. 

This is also hanging in my bedroom.  I love this inspiration to creation project the most so far because it has so many stories attached to it.  I like the butterfly-migrate-travel connection too. 

Have a great day!!

nothing is sweeter than with you*

Good Monday to you! I'm happy today. 13 years! Yea us!  I made Seth a picture cd using a song that is my very favorite ever.  It is called Home by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros and describes perfectly what I feel for my sweet husband.  The chorus goes:

Ahh. Home. Let me come home.

Home is wherever I'm with you.

Ahh. Home. Let me come home.

Home is where I'm alone with you.

I'm a lucky girl.  ♥

In other news....

This picture will tell you how our weekend was:

It was busy and went too fast as usual.  However, I will say that those 2 and a half hours we were outside on Saturday afternoon was pretty awful.  The boys did great at their flag football game and I think had a pretty good time.  But it was so so so hot and humid.  I drank down 2 bottles of water and a half a gatorade and I was just sitting!! We were so sweaty and wet and I hope to never relive that experience.  When I got in my car after that games, the thermometer said 116 degrees.  I know it wasn't that hot but it did feel like it at times.  Whew. 

I will say I did enjoy using my camera! It does great for capturing the action.  I was a little afraid for it cause it got so hot, but I would put it in a cooler bag for awhile and luckily it survived.

Here is Noah:

Don't you love his green mouthguard? :)

Rhett got to play quarterback some and was cool and collected.  (Well, maybe just collected):

He also caught a pass perfectly and scored a touchdown!

Sunday came and Rhett came down with a fever, so he is home with me today.  (Feeling better but you have to be fever free 24 hours before going back to school.  I think it would be fine, but I don't want someone else breaking that rule, so I won't either).  I hate that he is already missing a day of school though.  Seriously. I guess you can't help it.

The bus situtation was a little better on Friday but you know, everything has its positives.  I have met so many neighbors and have become friends with a few of them over this bus thing so you just never know.  :) Plus Noah actually rode his scooter to the bus stop this morning with a friend and her parents and that is big in itself! haha.

I hope everyone has a great day!

*I love you Seth! Thanks for everything you do.  Happy Anniversary.

13 years and he still surprises

My anniversary is Monday.  I'll have been married 13 years.  Woo!  Seth surprised me with a gift though a few weeks ago. 

Any guesses?

my rockin' pair of boots

I start horseback riding lessons today!!  Every Friday, I am going to learn how to ride and take care of a horse.  It may sound silly to some of you, but I am most excited.  I love horses, think they are beautiful animals and am looking forward to learning all there is to know.  I have a helmet and everything.  I'll let you know how it goes.  If it goes even a little better than the bus situation, then it will be a success. ha!

Speaking of busses, Rhett was on his for almost 2 hours yesterday afternoon.  Didn't get home til 5 pm.  Crazy!! 

Have a great weekend!!

PS- Happy Birthday Pop!!!

if I could, I really would

Or wishing, hoping, thinking and praying part 2


This past week, Tulsa has seen rain! And not just a little sprinkle either. Real thunderstorms, pouring rain. Of course, one of my little pine trees looks worse than ever, because that sweet rain knocked off all the dead needles.  Anyone know if that will grow back?

I placed water bottles with small holes in the bottom to help water the trees throughout the day.  Like a dripline, I guess. It's a good way for me to justify drinking from plastic water bottles still.  I can't break the habit!! :)

Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining! But one can see the effects of the droughts.  Winds have brought down trees limbs (I'm sure they are not as strong as they used to be), fences and small plants just look beat down.  However, that is a very small price to pay for the rain. 

I actually collected the rain that was dripping off our roof and one thought popped into my head when I saw the full buckets:

I really wish I could send it down to Texas.  

my closets are really clean, y'all

Noah is very talented but not at balancing balls on his head.  Someone was behind him, holding it. 

This week's most exciting thing for me so far was cleaning out all of my closets (except one).  Yay, clean closets!!  Yeah, not that exciting.  But, but!, I did have a fun weekend and so did the boys.

I went to Dallas with some of my friends from Edmond and we had fun shopping at Sam Moon and Ikea (Krista, I bought the pillow! and the whole set of dishes!!).  And I know now that every trip to Dallas will include a trip to Sam Moon.  It has accessories and handbags galore!  I bought two purses and could have bought more but reigned myself in. 

While I was having a good ole' time in Texas, the boys went to Relay for Life with Seth.  His company sponsored a team so they went down there and had a great time for a really great cause.  I think they had ice cream around midnight? Then they watched Cars 2 the next day.  By the time I came home, all three were exhausted!!

So we haven't done much this week which is okay. 

I did watch The Kennedys miniseries on Netflix and wondered what exactly was so controversial about it that it was not shown on The History Channel.  It actually painted them in a very sympathetic light and nothing that everyone doesn't already know was in there. 

This being the last day of June and all, I find myself looking forward to July.  Here's what we've got going on:

• Fourth of July Laser Show in Canyon, TX (the boys are more excited about this than they ever were for fireworks)
• Summer Drama Workshop (I can't fathom that I'll be the one watching the plays this time.  I used to be in those plays!! I just hope the boys have as much fun as I did.)
• Seeing good friends (I was going to say 'old friends' but decided that I don't like using that word to describe people my own age anymore.  Ha!)
• Spending time with the families
• Dry heat (You think I'm crazy, but all of us are having such bad allergies, I welcome no humidity for awhile.)
• Harry Potter!!!
• a slow month.  I really hope it doesn't go too fast.

Happy 4th of July, because I know I won't be blogging before then.

last day of school-year 2011

                       

After a crazy night of tornado threats which ended up being mostly a windy thunderstorm for us (but sadly, not for others), the boys finally went to bed, too hyped up to sleep.  Today is the day they have been looking forward to for a month!

I don't know what this summer holds for us so far, but I do know it will involve plenty of pool time (although it needs to warm up a bit for me to get in), reading books (the boys and I are going to read Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn together), watching movies (Harry Potter!) and hanging out. 

What about you? 

little of this, little of that

All day today I have felt like I am forgetting something important. 

I am paying bills, so that is not it.

I know about Rhett's yearbook signing and pizza party lunch, which parents are not invited too, so that can't be it.

I checked on Facebook to see if it was someone's birthday.  It is, but not a close friend.

I even looked on my blog archive and did find out that yesterday was my grandparents anniversary.  Oops. 
But still, that feeling...

I am sure I will remember it.  Probably when it is too late. 

In other news:

Rhett:  His graduation was a real ceremony:  a speech from the principal, a song (which didn't make me cry, only because I really couldn't hear it), each child's name being called while they walked across the stage to get a diploma.  Many, many parents and grandparents, looking as proud as they can be. 

Noah:  Noah's new fascination is annoying his brother.  He knows exactly which buttons to push too.  Fortunately, Rhett doesn't get mad quickly and thinks most of it is funny.  Unfortunately, if Rhett turns the tables around and does the same thing, Noah turns into Mr. Hyde quickly.  That kid.

Oh and perhaps the most amazing thing that has happened to me, game-wise, in, let's say, ever:  I was playing Words with Friends with my brother and was losing pretty badly.  Then I played the word JOCK, with a triple word score overall and the K on the triple letter score and it totaled 120 points.  120 points!!  I am not saying that this is anything but luck and I have no doubt that this will never happen to me again so that is why I am telling you now.  :)

i'm tired of thinking of titles

It's May! Only 18 more days of school for the boys. They are ready! I haven't posted any pictures in awhile, so here is a few for you:

Boo is 6 months old now.  She is a smart, stubborn dog but a great watch dog.  A couple of weeks ago, it was stormy outside, with hail and thunder being the worst of it.  Boo thought the thunder was trying to get us, so she sat down in our entry way, facing the door, fully alert.  We have never seen her sit that long away from any of us before so it was pretty funny. 

I wanted to show Rhett when he was singing with the 4th grade, but had to blur out the other kids so sorry for the weird picture.  I think they were singing, "When I first came to this land" and it was such a cute song. Here is a snippet of the end:

When I first came to this land

I was not a wealthy man

Then I got myself a son

I did what I could

I called my son "My Work's Done"

I called my wife "Joy of My Life"

I called my horse, "Lame of Course"

I called my cow ,"No Milk Now"

I called my shack "Break My Back"

Still the land was sweet and good

I did what I could.

The musical was all about the pioneers of Oklahoma.  They sang the state song at the end and I have to say that Oklahoma has the best state song ever.  It is so joyful and peppy. 

Here is Noah with his class when they were singing a Spanish song about body parts (hands, feet, mouth, nose).  It was cute too.  Again, sorry for the blurs but I always have to show when Noah is smiling like that.  He has blue hair because of his Suessical the Musical.  He wanted to be wild and crazy, like a Who.  :)

We've had  rain (Thank God) and many days of cloudy skies the last two weeks of April.  I love clouds and the promise of rain.  It has rained out a few of Rhett's baseball games, so we are going to have to make those up but sometimes it is nice to be stuck inside doing nothing because of the rain. 

One day, I went out and our sky looked like giant cotton balls.  It was really cool. 

I will leave you with this short quip:

The boys have been busy with school but on Friday, they did get a day off because they went to work with Seth, where they learned about volcanos and earthquakes.  Then I met them for lunch at a great, greasy hamburger joint (seriously, yummy!) and while we were eating Noah was complaining about something that wasn't pleasing him.  Rhett tells his brother, "You know, the sun does not rise and set on you alone."  Before I could tell him I was impressed with that, Rhett's very quick-witted brother fires back, "Rhett, I will rise and sit on you."  We all just burst out laughing.  It was just so funny and just so Noah to say that.  Even Rhett admitted that it was a great comeback.

Have  a great day!

a celebration of learning about Noah

Noah had a mucical today.  It was very cute.  They sang songs from Suessical the Musical (I'm totally guessing here but they were Dr. Suess songs and it was called Suessical the Musical, so I'm pretty sure that is right).  After, we went to his classroom for a Celebration of Learning! He showed me his power point presentation on sharks (One slide said  SHARK!!!!!!!!!!!!RUN!!!!!!!!!! against an orange screen), showed me his poster on FDR (huge blue paper with two smallish pictures on it and one paragraph of Roosevelt)  his caterpillar ("Here are some caterpillars.  Let's go do something else now."), his artwork (half of them were unfinished) and some of his writings in his writer's workshop folder (umm, I won't comment) .  Then he read to me from Calvin and Hobbes for 15 minutes.  I concluded this about my son:

He can ham it up when he wants to.  He totally rocked in the musical.

He is much more interested in reading about sharks than actually doing a project on them.

He is much more interested in reading than doing much of anything else in school.  In fact, his teacher said that sometimes, she catches Noah with a book during math. 

He has a creative side...but he doesn't want to spend time on that side.  He would rather read.

:)

flowers, flowers everywhere; Rhett's a hitter!

I love my camera. I have never taken better pictures of flowers than I have with this camera. I love my photo editor too. It is so fun to play around with my images and find things that make my pictures better.

These flowers are from my front flower bed.  The pansies were buried under a foot or more of snow and are still beautiful.  I don't know how they do it but what an amazing flower. 

Here is a tulip.  My first tulip to bloom.  I'm so proud.  :)

The next two pictures are of the same tulip, but different filters.  I kind of like the bottom picture better but the top is a brighter red.  Which do you like?

I have different filters for the next shot as well.  I liked both so I put them both in.  This is my favorite tulip color. 

Ahh...spring. Finally. 

And this is what I've been working on yesterday and today.  My back flower bed.  I planted some grasses and just love this striped grass.  Boo has been eyeing it so she much love it too.  She also eats this mulch for breakfast so I sprayed some Boundary dog spray (very stinky) around the flower bed in hopes that the dogs stay out.  They love to go behind the bushes and dig.  Actually, they love to dig anywhere in the bed.  So I am hoping that the weed fabric, rocks around the back edge and the spray deters them.  Hope with me, will you?  Do you think it is a lost cause?  I don't want to pen them up but I may have to when we aren't outside.  It may just be too tempting for them. 

I'm not done with the back yard but I ran out of gas.  That wore me out.  And I need to do some other things too.  Maybe tomorrow I will get back to it. 

Rhett update:  Last night he batted an RBI! I didn't see it because I took Noah home so he could go to bed ("It's not fair Mom.  Rhett gets to stay up late and I don't.") but he hit one right to the pitcher and even though he was thrown out at first and tangled with the first baseman and bruised his knee pretty badly (you should have seen him limping proudly), his teammate made it home.  That's pretty cool.

Oh and don't tell his eye doctor that he played.  His eyes were dilated yesterday afternoon and the doctor strongly discouraged him to play.  He was bound and determined though. 

Noah update:  He is bound and determined to not let me forget how much he wants a Pokemon DS game.  That is all.

Hope everyone has a great day!