Photo Hunters "Sweet"

 

Consumerasaurus

I'm typically a label reader. When I grocery shop I try to compare calories, sodium, sugar, etc., as often as possible. Most days though, I have to admit, I'm rushing in, grabbing my goods and getting out as fast as possible. Lastnight I discovered that I've been in a rush when I've thrown Veggie Chips in my basket. After reading the label for the first time, I have to admit, I'm slightly irritated. The only reason they can call these colored potato chips "Veggie Chips" is because they contain tomato powder and spinich powder, which happen to be two of the last three ingredients. And keep reading the bag and you'll soon find that "We add spinach and tomato powder to some (did ya read that...some) of the chips for a delightful variety of genuine vegetable color and taste."

Ok, so lets move on to the nutrition facts. For giggles, lets compare them to Lays Original Potato Chips.

Serving Size is 1 oz for both products.
Lets hit the negatives for Lays first. Lays has 20 more calories per serving and 3 grams more fat. Veggie Chips have 1g more Protein and 1g more fiber. Move on to Sodium and Veggie Chips have a whopping 280mg of sodium vs. Lays' 180mg. That was a bit surprising to me. Even more surprising is the lack of vitamins and minerals in my "Veggie Chips". (Remember Potatos are considered veggies) The Vitamin section of Veggie Chips reads 0% all the way through, while Lays has at least some Vitamin C and E. We're also getting a little Iron, Thiamin, Niacin, B6, Phosphorus, and Magnesium by going with Lays.

Ok, so this isn't that big of a deal, because typically we aren't big chip eaters but dang it if I'm buying chips, from now on, I'm going straight for the good stuff.

After the rain

Down came the rain

I guess this is what happens when an entire state prays for rain for 2 years. We have had more rain than I can ever remember having in the Austin area.
In 2006, there was 27.2 inches of rain at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. That's the ENTIRE year. This year we are already up to 30 inches and there's plenty more rain on the way. It's almost July and most people have YET to water their yard for the first time. I could not have picked a better year to plant trees!

And THIS is why I blog

After posting this weeks Photo Hunters picture I was reminded of an entry posted back in 2003. An entry that I had forgotten about...a memory that had I not blogged would not be with me today. Here's a little piece of the past I'd like to share once again...

Thursday, October 02, 2003
Please Remember
I can document Ashley and Alex's childhood in so many ways, but no matter what I do, there is no way I can capture it all. This is something that plagues my mind often. There are so many moments that I remember from Ashley's toddler years, yet so many that I know are just gone. They remain a part of me though, despite my inability to remember. The memories live on in the love I have for her, with each passing memory, my love has grown fonder, my heart bigger, and my life richers. If only I could document each moment.

Lastnight, on the way to horseback riding lessons I turned around in my seat to look back at the kiddos, I don't remember why, maybe to hand them a snack, or to look at one of Ashley's Magna Doodle masterpieces, or to calm Alex, it doesn't matter. I looked back and caught a glimpse of my sweet daughter, I wish I had a camera at that very moment. The sun was beginning to set, she was excited about seeing Patches (the horse), and was leaning forward in her seat with such an innocent way about her, as if there was nothing else in the world but that moment, staring down the dirt road at the barn. The sun was setting behind us, and the way it hit her face was breathtaking. The deep orange wrapped around her face like a blanket covering an infant, so sweet, so precious. I had the windows down to let in the new fall breeze, it was so beautiful outside, her hair blew in the wind with such precision, as if each gust was meant for her, and only her. Ah, what a sight! I couldn't look long though, I was driving down a dirt road with many potholes and turns. The irony hit me like a ton of bricks...here she is in this wonderful stage of life, she's still momma's little girl and is still very proud of that fact, so beautiful, and even a little innocent..still, yet there are so many potholes, there's no way I can watch her like this forever. This seven year old is just a passing glimpse, I need to look at her and take it all in more often, even if that means pulling over and every once in a while.

2003


2007

Leavin' on a jet plane

Yesterday, we finalized plans for the kiddos to stay an extra week at Granny Frannies after Mark and I head home. My babies will fly home by themselves afterwards, which is a little scary for me, but I know they'll be fine and Miss Ashley will probably morph in to her "mom mode" and take good care of her little brother.

This is such a big deal to me. I never had a close relationship with any of my grandparents, and the thought of them growing up being so loved and wanted by ALL of their grandparents makes me so happy. They will spend plenty of time with them while Mark and I are around, but without us there, they will be able to experience each other on a different level, a closer level. The kids can hardly contain themselves. And Mark and I feel so fortunate that our kiddos are growing up knowing these special people.

Pass The Torch Tuesday

Alex woke up on Father's Day, and without any prompting or proding by me, he created a sweet little hand made card for his "fother". Daddy had to run a quick errand, so Alex worked as fast as he could so that he could surprise his daddy as soon as he got home. This is just the most adorable stage. It really brings back so many memories of when Ashley was this age and how much fun it was to see the inventive spelling words that they come up with. It's just so raw and unscathed by all the silly rules of the English language. It's virtually impossible to read a 5 year olds handwriting without a smile...followed by a swooping bear hug and a gooshey smothering of kisses upon that last little leftover bit of toddler cheek chub.

Another site for the linkaroonies

I forgot to mention my new Photo Blog. This is where I will post my fun pictures that I've taken while pursuing my photography hobby. Not to be confused with my Web Album, which is where I will continue to post pictures of family events to share.

Vacation Album

Week at Nana and Big Daddy's

Photo Hunt - "Shiny"

I took this one of Ashley on our vacation at Dads last week. Ash came along for the ride while I was on a little bit of a personal photo hunt. I spied a fountain that I wanted to shoot at sunset, but as it turns out, the fountain was shaded a bit too much by the time I got out there. I found several other photo ops instead. Funny how that works sometimes. I was driving down the road when I saw how beautiful the sun was as it almost melted in to her her olive skin. We stopped right there in the middle of the road while I shot.

It's ALIIIVE

So yeah, according to my bff, Mollie, I've been a ve-wwy, ve-wwy bad girl. I'm not the best at keeping up with everyone, and seemed to have left town, quit blogging and disappeared off the face of the playgroup/internet/Instant Messenger earth just long enough to get the one, maybe two people that have noticed a little out of sorts. I sorry. I'm alive. Trips to Nana and Big Daddy's tend to make the whole world just sort of disappear.

Mark's birthday was last week so we decided to celebrate by taking a week to relax and lounge by the lake with family. Cara and Keller, along with Cara's sister Erin, and 4 year old nephew Ethan came to spend the week as well. The week was just about as lazy and relaxing as we hoped it would be. Monday morning (as well as Wednesday and Thursday) I joined Dad for water areobics. This was my first experience with water areobics, and more importantly, my first time excercising with dad. I REALLY enjoyed myself! Everyone in the class is retired, and I'm pretty sure that aside from me, dad is the youngest one in the class. There's one lady that's 94 years old and gets around like you wouldn't believe. I'm just so amazed that dad gets up everyday and goes to this class....this is the same dad that, a year ago would have laughed at the thought of doing any sort of excercise. We are all so, so proud of him and even more so, we're thankful that he's doing this for his health and having fun at the same time.

Nana fed us like Nana tends to do. We're all about 5 pounds heavier and loving every minute of it! She made a Mississippi Mud Cake per Mark's request, that knocked our socks off, a triple chocolate cake...which I dubbed the "Dr. Suess cake" because it was so crooked that I seriously thought it was made that way intentionally. Personally, I think Dr. Suess cakes are MUCH tastier than plain ol' chocolate cake. Teehee. I could go on and on about all the incredible food we ate this week, but I'll probably gain 5 more pounds just rehashing it all, so I'll skip the details and just say that we ate way too often and way too much.

On Thursday we went to ZDT's and spent 5 hours running a muck with the kiddos. This place was incredible. I could have spent hours just looking at the painting on the walls. There is not an empty wall in the building, each one covered with detailed paintings that go with the jungle/amusement park theme. I took some pictures that I'll have to post later.

So we're home, and already going 90 MPH getting things back in order. Mark has been in the garage all day fixing up his work bench area and organizing shelves (yes, we have shelves!!!), while I'm trying to get caught up on yard work and laundry. Holy crap, laundry! I just can't believe that we actually wear this many clothes!!!!

Camp Urben

In lieu of spending bookoos on a day camp for miss Ash, I went half crazy and decided to do our own camp here at home with three of her friends.

Day 1 - A lesson in over-doing it

We started the day off with a trip to the Library, where they had an organized craft for kids 8 and up. The girls got to decorate and put together their own parachutes while Alex and I went downstairs to the childrens room to check out books. When the girls finished their craft, I sent them off with a list of books to find. They gathered books about camping and butterfly classification for activities that we'll be doing throughout the week, and each of them picked out a couple books of their choice. After the library we stopped at Sonic, picked up lunch, and headed to San Gabriel Park to have a picnic. They took their shoes off and played in the spring water for a while and eventually we made our way down to the waterfall. The water was higher than normal and the girls really enjoyed watching the gushing water in full force.

We continued roaming around the park, until we walked so far that we were just a few minutes walk to the animal shelter. We decided to keep going and pay the animals a little visit under the condition that there would be NO begging for animals. They played with the cats for a while, poking little fuzzy tails on sticks through the cages and watching the younger cats bat at the little toys. We made it out of the cat room with only a few...."don't you want to take him home!" 's. The dogs were all just as sweet as can be, and the girls spent lot of time squatted down eye to eye with them. They talked to them, and pet them and at one point I looked over to see Ashley squatted down, arms both fully extended in to a cage and wrapped around a sweet doggie. A kennel hug. And Alex spent almost the entire time at one kennel that had a sweet little brown puppy. Everytime I looked over at him he was lauging and cooing the little guy...whom we later dubbed Zander. There's something about a little boy and a puppy that just tugs at those heartstrings.
After much begging and proding, the girls convinced me that we needed to let some of the dogs out for some excercise. We ended up picking 3 dogs and taking them out one by one for about 15 minutes each. The girls (and Alex) spent quite a bit of time giving each one the perfect name, which was voted on before becoming "official". We had such a good time, it was so hard to leave without a new friend.

On the way home we stopped at Michaels and we picked out some craft activities for the week. Ash picked out foam notebooks for them to decorate and journal their week, and I will print out some picutres for them to include. We also picked up some coozies and little foamies and stickers to decorate them with. After our hour trip to Michaels I realized that allowing the girls to pick out and decided on their own crafts was a mistake. I could have cut my time in half by doing the shopping solo. By the time we were finally on the way home, the kids were so exhausted that I don't think any of them spoke the entire way home....and that is UNHEARD of.

The girls spent the next few hours laying around the house reading their library picks, watching TV and recooping from the day. By the time dinner rolled around, they'd recovered for the most part and decided they'd like to come with me to the track to excercise with some of my friends. Fast forward to 10:30, and we were finally home, and they were MORE than ready to hit the sack. They got ready and made their beds downstairs in record time and were out earlier than they had been all summer, Alex included.

Here we are Tuesday morning, at 11:00 and I have yet to hear a peep out of anyone downstairs. I guess my plans for today will need a little altering.

Day 2

The kiddos didn't show their faces until after 11, I suppose I did my job and wore them out pretty good. They woke up hungry and stuffed down 10 waffles, 8 scrambled eggs, 2 pieces of raisin bread, a few apples and plenty of OJ. After breakfast the girls decorated their foam journals, while I ran to the grocery store. After rushing home to make the 3:00 "kids in the kitchen" event for Alex I learned that it didn't actually start until 3:30, so instead of being 20 minutes late, we were actually 10 minutes early! That's definitely a first! We had a late breakfast so I packed up fixins for samiches, some fruit and some cookies. While we waited for Alex's friends to arrive, the girls (and Alex) made their samiches. The timing somehow worked out perfect despite my fear of being extremely late.

After the cooking event, we went straight to the pool in our old neighborhood where I let the kids swim for about 30 minutes, and I only took half a zillion pictures. We had to book it home so I could finish putting away the pantry goods, start dinner and get ready for my girls night out. After I left, Mark took the girls down to the river where they fished and swam and explored. Mark ended up catching 6 fish and the girls had plenty of stories to tell. They made it home with some "treasures", as Alex called them. They found a nice blow up tube float, two backpacks and a camera case. I'm thinking we need to spend more time at the river, good grief!

When I got home around midnight I heard a couple of girlish whispers down in the basement, so there's no telling what time they actually crashed out. All in all it was a great day, much more low key can the previous day, but welcome none the less.

Day 3
Today Emily's mom came and picked her up at 9:30 for her ortho appointment, so I only had 3 girls all day. I woke the remaining 3 up at 9:45, and gave them exactly 30 minutes to wake up, get dressed, eat breakfast and brush their teeth. They did remarkably well. We made it to the library for the ventriloquist a mere 3 minutes late (I'll take it!). The performance was great, even though it was intended for a younger audience. They did well and appeared to be quite interested and entertained to say the least. After the show we headed over to "THE" playscape. "THE" playscape is one of our favorite places here. It's huge and full of all sorts of bars and stairs and adventures. Unfortunately, it was a wee bit hot and we ended up leaving early and making a stop at Mickey D's for lunch. The girls are such troopers...they're at that in between age where you know they're probably a little bit too old for the play place, yet, they're just not ready to give that up quite yet. I know it won't be long before "playing" on the playscapes will be much to juvenille, so watching them play is an occassion I savor these days. We rushed home from lunch in just enough time for me to meet the contractor that was coming to assess the condition of the bathroom in preparation for giving us a quote. While I dealt with that, the girls read their library books and cleaned up Ashley's room. By the time the contractor left I realized I had lost my cell phone somewhere between here and Mc Donalds, so I high tailed it back up there to search for it. I called it from every possible location in that restaurant, including the dumpster, but it's looking more and more like someone will be enjoying a new pink Katana before long. Wah. On a brighter note, Ash found her cell phone that's been missing for 2 weeks. It was in a pocket. So at least I have the back up cell now and we are not missing TWO phones. Anyway, back to camp Urben...actually that was pretty much the end of camp Urben for the day, in fact, right now it's 11:30PM and there are NO girls in the house. Paula took them to a benefit dinner and is keeping them overnight. They've only called 3 times to find out when I'll be picking them up for Day 4 of camp Urben. More tomorrow.

Day 4

We started the day off by oversleeping and missing out on the Butterfly Farm trip we had planned...which honestly, I wasn't too disappointed about. It has been so hot lately, and the drive is super long that I certainly wasn't going to complain. So, we had a quick change of plans and decided to go to the movies and see Surfs Up in the cool AC. Good choice. The girls really like it and Alex and Matthew were visibly entertained. From the movies we headed to the shoe store where the kiddos picked out some shoes...Alex finally got his "crocs" (generic crocs, but don't tell him that), Ash picked up a few pairs of flip flops and Matthew got some really cool light up Spiderman flip flops. By then, the kids just weren't quite wore out enough, so we made our way to the ice skating rink where Kelly, Matthew and Alex all got to ice skate for the very first time! Kelly was almost instantly a pro, skating around that place like she was tying a shoe, Alex was clumsy as ever, but fearless none the less, and Matthew, well, lets just say he was more interested in the gumball machines than anything. It was a little difficult keeping up with all of them, but we all made it out alive, tired, but alive.
The girls came home, wrote in their journals and spent the rest of the evening playing the Wii and finally got to sleep around midnight.

I'm sleeping all of next week. And to think, I'm this tired, and we haven't done HALF of what I'd planned!

"Wee, Wee"

It's 11:45PM, do you know where your 5 year old son and your 15 year old (oops, I mean 33 year old) husband is? They're in front of the TV playing with their new Wii!
Yes, we finally have a WII!!! Or as Alex is calling it "Wee Wee", yes, as in "Pee Pee". My ever so smart husband won an XBOX 360 Elite and accessories at work last week by playing a dorky Dell version of "Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader". So he is in fact ALMOST as smart as a 5th grader, we are so proud. ;)We already have an XBox that sits in the basement unused, aside from an occasional DDR game here and there. Sooo, we decided we'd get much more use out of a Wii, and for the price of the XBOX Elite, we're able to get a ton of games and accessories as well. Major score! Wanna play?

Keller's 1st Birthday Party

My newphew, Keller, had is first birthday party this weekend! Here are just a few of the 382 pictures I took on Saturday. The rocket cake in the picture was made by yours truly. I was pretty happy with the end result. I have to tell ya though, picking a handful of pictures from all of the adorable shots of sweet baby Keller was difficult, he's just so precious I could eat him up!
Anywho, here's a summary of Mr. Keller's very first birthday celebration.

Keller's 1st Birthday

Wordless Wednesday

Shower, anyone?

Remember the master shower ordeal that I posted about back at the beginning of September of last year...some NINE months ago? Well, as embarassing as it is to admit, that nasty mess has sat untouched this entire time. Which also means, that we have not had a functioning shower of our own either. We've been using the kids bathroom to shower and looking at our way-to-expensive-to-fix mess wondering how long it would be before we hit the lottery so that we could afford to repair all the damage. As it turns out, we hit the lotto much sooner than we expected. In the form of insurance coverage! We discovered that our home owners insurance covers this mess!!!! We had an adjustor come out Friday and he cut us a check to repair the shower, the flooring and the wall covering. Now it's time to shop! Actually, two days later, Mark and I have done a majority of the shopping and planning. We bought a bathroom planning book at 1/2 Price Books, and have so many ideas already! We know we're going to get rid of the silly carpeting and the horrendous wallpaper, paint the cabinets, replace all of the light fixutres and cabinet hardware and paint. Basically, we're getting a brand new bathroom and we're just gidy about it. I'm planning to blog the whole process with plenty of before, during and after pictures. This has been my one regret about all the improvements we've made to the house. I WILL document this project.

Soon we won't have to peer out the bathroom door, checking for neighbor kids before darting up the stairs to the privacy of our bedroom. Yahoo!!!

Total Momsense

Wordless Wednesday

Happy Birthday to meeeee

I suppose I'm supposed to be distraught over this major life event, but I just haven't quite got there yet. 30 just doesn't seem old to me. Now don't get me wrong, it seems much older than I FEEL, but I just can't bring myself to mourn this new era. If anything I should be celebrating. My 20's were about learning to feel comfortable in my own skin, accepting who I am and learning from my mistakes instead of regretting them. I feel like my 30's are going to be just as significant, how can I fear that?

We spent the holiday weekend at Dad and Ruthie's where David, Cara and Keller so graciously joined us. I know their 5 hour trek from Plano with an 11 month old could not have been pleasant, but despite the little obstacle in the backseat, they came, and I am so, so grateful for that. Keller is walking all over the place now, and is just getting bigger and bigger each time I see him. The kid eats more than Alex. He's a TANK! He's such a good little guy and so fun to be with. Ashley is just in love with him and spends time chasing him around and playing baby games with him. Anything to get her hands on him. Alex, on the other hand, is Alex, and tries to pretend he doesn't exist. Seriously. He does a pretty good job of it too. It's nothing against his cousin, but Alex has always had an aversion to "babies". He says they always "bother" him. I know it sounds awful, but really it's quite entertaining to watch Keller try to get Alex's attention. Alex's eyes bug out and he just stares at me as if to say "MOM HELP ME!" You just can't help but laugh. Of course, I required "mandatory" love and bugged him to "give your cousin a hug", "give him a kiss" etc. Translation: "Do something cute so I can at LEAST get a picture." I drove him absolutely crazy and more thank likely this worked against me since remember, this is Alex.


While we were there we got to check out dad's insanely lush garden. This year he used organic turkey (or was it chicken?) compost mixed in with his regular stuff, and he also raised the bed. His garden was so green and full of veggies, it was just gorgeous. Dad saved the kids some cucumbers and zuccini to pick, and as you can see the zuccini was more than ready! I just can't get over how lush it is, and tall, it is just so tall! In a week or so, he's going to have soooo many ripe tomatoes, too bad he doesn't even LIKE tomatoes! Ha! I can't wait to go back next time and see if the corn stalks produce. I guess he has about 5 or so stalks and a couple appear to be growing pretty good. I think this is his first time to attempt corn, so his expectations aren't too high.


























So yeah, I fully expected to wake up on the 30th anniversary of my birth and find my boobs sagging to floor, my back aching, and an undeniable desire to nag at my husband. Fortunately, for me (and Mark), that didn't happen. Instead, I woke up to my three most favorite people in the world singing happy birthday to me with a tray full of yummy breakfast treats in tow. They made fried eggs over hard, just the way I like them, bacon, an everything bagel with cream cheese, a bowl FILLED with fresh strawberries, banannas and apples and a cup of perfectly sweetened and creamed coffee (mind you, this is no easy task). The four of us lounged there in bed together picking at my breakfast and chatting about whatever silly little children chat about. It was the perfect start to a perfect day.

The rest of the day was just as perfect. Ashley and I went shopping, just the two of us. We spent a good two hours trying on clothes and just being girls. We had so much fun shopping together and probably tried on half the clothes in the store. We left with our loot and went home to Nana's where we had an early dinner of homemade fried shrimp and I forget what else...does it matter really though? I'm telling you, Nana's fried shrimp is the best anywhere. I don't even order fried shrimp at restaurants anymore, I'm always disappointed. I just hold out for special occasions at Nana's and make up for lost time by eating and eating and eating. After dinner we had homemade chocolate cake with dark chocolate icing a la mode. DE-LISH! It was so good, that we had a second helping later that night. (shhhh)

You know you're old when you get gifts like these...and you LIKE IT!

Camera used to take above pictures *not pictured. :) Thanks Dad and Ruthie!!!


Thanks to all my sweet family and friends for making my birthday special...and Mollie, for making me smile when I read your text message. :)

My Next 30 Years