Hair & Craziness

I have an appointment in about 2 weeks to get my hair colored. I usually do it myself, but I wanted to treat myself. My graduation gift to me, I guess. So I know this isn't the best picture because it's a photo (taken with my phone) of a picture in a magazine. But this is what I want to do. My hair is shorter than hers, but I want to do the bangs and the same color.














PS: This is the sort of craziness that is my life:

Short video clip of Miss Abby...

Anytime you're sad...

This song will cheer ya right up.

Windy Day

Took this video today in DeKalb. And yes, I'm listening to Miley Cyrus...don't hate.

Check your neck!

January is thyroid awareness month so check your neck and talk to your doctor if you have any concerns that your thyroid is out of whack. Remember, friends don't let friends have a high TSH so pass this info along. It annoys me to hear that thyroid cancer is the "good cancer to get", but it is highly curable as long as you get help in time.

I <3 Malinowski too.

I saw this in an anthropology forum that I read. For my fellow anthro classmates, you'll probably chuckle. For the rest of you, you might finally *get* what the heck anthropology is. (C'mon you know you've said "huh, what's that?" when I've told you my major/career plans).

Darling, do the dishes!

Skeeball is serious business...

We took the kids to Chuck E Cheese last week to celebrate the end of Abby's days of dealing with her broken leg. No more orthopedic doctor and no more physical therapy. I love the way she plays skeeball. She needs a running start. Look at this short video clip. Very silly.

Rollin' with the girlies

Saw this video on Mom-O-Matic and thought of my girlfriends. So what do you say girls, should we break out the gold lame jumpsuits and pimp out Amy's minivan for a night on the town?

The Egg Hunt

Saturday we took Abby to the Easter egg hunt in Sycamore. It's usually a lot of fun and the kids wind up with a lot of candy. Since Abby has a very hard time walking on the grass and is not even allowed to run yet, she didn't get as much as candy as usual. But she still had fun which is the important part anyway. The video clip is of her actually walking!







I hope that everyone had a nice Easter. We had a great day. I will post pictures tomorrow of our Easter celebration.

A peak into my life

This is the craziness that is my daily life...kids goofing off (usually until one or both gets hurt), dog barking and trying to "herd" them. LOL

The first lost tooth

Abby lost her 1st tooth yesterday. She was really nervous about it once she knew that one was loose, so it was a pleasant surprise for her when it came out easily.



Here she is with her tooth pillow all excited about the tooth fairy coming:







Here she is telling how it happened. You can tell she'd already told the story about 10 times and was a little annoyed that Mommy was making her do it yet again and on camera. But if you watch the video you can see her missing tooth better.

Ducks and Fish

We have had a fabulous weekend spending a lot of time outside. Saturday we spent the day hanging out with Matt and his brother Mike. First we went to the park and played frisbee. That was followed by a trip to the Sycamore pool. It was our first time at the local pool this summer and it was a lot of fun. Can't wait to go again!



Today we continued our outdoor fun. This morning Josh, Abby and I headed over to the Farmer's Market in Sycamore where we got to taste some local wine (not Abby of course!) and buy some local veggies and baked goods. They hold the market every Sunday and I'm sure we'll be visiting again.





After lunch we went over to the lagoon at NIU to feed the ducks. We were lucky and got to feed some babies.





Baby ducks in action







When the bread ran out, we decided to try our luck fishing in the lagoon. It was Abby's first time trying to fish and she was very excited. We found a good spot and were lucky to have 2 catches which we suspect may have been the same fish both times. The fish was a little stinker and pretty smart because it kept stealing the hot dog pieces we used as bait right off the hook.








The big catch:




And while all this fishing was going on, I was:




...reading of course!


There's nothing as relaxing to me as sitting outside on a warm sunny day with a good book and my family nearby.




Some more photos from today:

The creativity continues

This week has been really busy and kind of stressful actually. Suffice it to say that being a stay at home mom wears me out more sometimes than working full time did.

Today Abby wanted to make a bead necklace. When Josh's parents were visiting for his graduation, his mom gave Abby a necklace kit. Of course being Abby, she had to add her one flair to it and she found this large purple heart to add. We actually had a lot of fun making it and I'm hoping she's in a necklace making mood again soon because we still have more beads and string.

Pretty beads







Modeling the finished product:


What you can't see in the photo above is that she was doing a curtsy. Oh my goodness, that was cute!


So where are all the photos of Evan from this week you ask? Well he's 13 so he suddenly wants to spend all of his time in his room because hanging out with your mom and little sister is so uncool. Oh and top of that he's grounded for less-than-stellar grades from his last report card. So hopefully he'll emerge from grounding and teenage angst soon and have some fun with us!

Abby wanted to take some pictures too, so she took one of me playing SIMS 2.

Cookies!

The baking streak continues and today we made cookies! Abby wanted to make them while in her jammies...don't know why but that's what she wanted. She also had to have blue frosting for them. Bear with me on the video, it's sideways.

Baking Bread

I was feeling creative today so Abby and I decided to bake some bread. Don't get too impressed, it's an easy recipe. Abby actually did most of the mixing of the ingredients.





Rising:





And Voila, the finished product which is oh-so-yummy!





Abby really got into the mixing. She was giving me lessons.





And the recipe:

Beer Bread



3 cups self-rising flour*

3 tablespoons granulated sugar

1 (12-ounce) can of beer



1. Preheat oven to 375*F (190*C). Lightly grease or spray a 9 x 5 x 3-inch loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray.

2. Combine all ingredients, mixing well.

3. Pour into prepared loaf pan and bake for 1 hour.



Makes 1 loaf.



*Or you may substitute with 3 cups all purpose flour, 3 teaspoons baking powder and 1 1/2 teaspoons salt.



I added some crushed red pepper, garlic and shredded cheddar because I found some very yummy suggestions online to modify the recipe. One person suggested brushing the loaf with garlic butter 1/2 way through and I did that as well.

2 short video clips from vacation

Father's Day BBQ and more vacation photos

Saturday we had a BBQ at my parents' house to celebrate Father's Day with my Dad. Josh and I, the kids, my sister, brother-in-law and my Aunt Joan were all there. Josh cooked up some fabulous chicken and veggie wraps. My sister made a tasty salad and we had fun hanging outside. Poor Abby had her itchies acting up really bad. But that's par for the course with it being summer and her being outside. Hopefully her doctor will have her prescription called in tomorrow and we can get her healing up.




Evan hanging out with Grandma and Papa:












Playing a bean bag game that Papa made:









Evan and Grandma being silly:




Naturally when it comes to grilling, the guys are in charge:












Aunt Joan making a silly face:





Aunt Joan laughing at me:









Abby making music (her definition, not ours) with Papa's windchimes:




My yellow bell pepper has gone from a little baby nugget to a for real pepper over the past week. My plants are definitely my babies! I really enjoy them.








And some more vacation photos:












Those three figures you see (barely) are Josh, Evan and Abby:







Abby and I went to Build-A-Bear at the outlet mall while the guys went to play golf. She made this new kitty and named it Hearts.

A few random photos and an update

I hope that everyone enjoyed their Memorial Day weekend. It sure was nice to have the 3 days off and have Josh and the kids home. We didn't do a whole lot. Saturday was a busy day for me during which I got my hair done and went to a scrapbooking session with my friends. Monday we bathed Gracie which is always an adventure since Gracie hates baths. We started the bath outside with the hose, but she kept slipping free from her collar and running away from us. I really wish I'd had the video camera rolling then! We finally got her bathed and then brushed. During the brushing, about a grocery bag's worth of her hair came out. I guess that's the winter coat finally shedding. I was surprised at so much hair for such a little furball.

Gracie is finally using her doggie bed. Photographic evidence below:




Some more photos from Friday's campfire:




Here is also a video from that night with Abby telling us a Chuck Norris "joke":


A few small changes we've made around the house. We don't have much time for home improvement projects these days, so I am celebrating even small victories.

New here is the tapestry above the fireplace which came from India (via Ebay) and finally got hung up. I really love it and hope that eventually it will be the inspiration for painting that room.


And finally tonight was Abby's spring sing for school. I am hoping to have video to share soon, but it is currently too large to upload. Josh is working on editing it to be small enough to share online.

It's hard to get good photos in NIU's music hall, but Abby is the one in pink in the middle.

Weekend update

Although it was chilly yesterday, we still enjoyed some time outside. Josh and I took Abby to the park and took some photos while we were out.





Abby making dandelion wishes:













Giving me a look that says "enough with the pictures Mom, I'm trying to play!":













And finally a video of Abby's dandelion wishes. The shaky part is when I tripped (ha, ha) I thought it was adorable that she did this every time she saw a fuzzy dandelion on our walk to the park.