In the car

You may have seen this commercial.

Even if you haven't seen it, you probably have memories of getting slammed in the shoulder by your brother as he spied a "red one!"

Mr. Blue-Eyes and Boo-Boo find the commercial hysterical and have now taken to playing this game in the car. We've made up our own rules, and since Boo-Boo still isn't too quick on the draw, it's mostly Mom and Mr. Blue-Eyes with an eye out for Vee-dubs.

But we now have a new player.  Just yesterday Cupcake joined in yelling, "White one! Points!!"

Looks like she wants in on the competition, too!

S'more, please!

She got her first taste of s'mores last night.

Here's a glimpse:

Trying to figure out what's sticky.

Not sure about this yet.

Wetting her whistle!

"Is that mine, too, Mom?"

Licking it works best if you just want the chocolate. And she does.

"Hey, don't tell all of my secrets, Mom!"

"I'll get it somehow!"

Getting desperate, I think.

I'm still envious of those lashes. 

"Really, Mom. Get over it."

"Wait, you mean my brothers get some too?"

"It's all right.  But they're not gettin' mine!"

(Yes, she knows that word pretty well now.)



And just a word of warning -

You too may turn into a wild woman overnight if you eat too many s'mores!

Ten and a Half Years Later...

My husband has always enjoyed chicken pot pie.  Not the Pennsylvania Dutch kind, which is what I grew up on.  He likes the kind that is baked in a pie pan.

MCCPP (Marie Callendar Chicken Pot Pie) was a standard on our shopping list for many years, and it was so easy to pull one out of the freezer for a quick meal on a night that I wasn't up for cooking.

Well, we've been working at eating better over the years, and I've been trying my hand at cooking from scratch a lot more.

So I finally gave it a go and made my very own, all-scratch-including-the-crust chicken pot pie.

It only took me ten and a half years

to get up the gumption to try it.

I don't make any claims about raising the chicken or growing the veggies or churning the butter myself, but, for this pastry-challenged girl, it was quite a feat.

The verdict was a thumbs-up (although, everyone agreed that it could've used a little more seasoning than the recipe called for).

I would like to point out, though, after all of the wrestling I did with the pastry dough, it came out quite well.  If you look closely at the picture, you can even see the flaky layers in the crust!!  That was enough to satisfy me.

Time Together

Time with Dad is hard to come by as of late.  His work load has made more hours in the office a necessity, even on Saturdays.

As desperate times call for desperate measures, we resorted to sending Mr. Blue-Eyes to the office with Dad today in order to allow them to spend some one-on-one time together.

Looks like it's working out pretty well for Mr. Blue-Eyes.

Maybe he'll even have a job waiting for him when we graduate him.



A Glimpse of the Glasses

I finally had to resort to glasses in recent months.  My vision isn't terrible, but it's slowly getting worse.  It has been an adjustment for me - like for anyone.  But I'm finally getting used to wearing them...and to seeing myself in the mirror with something on my face.

So far this is the best picture of me with them on.  And it sure doesn't hurt to have a cute little girlie in the picture with me!

Mount Vernon

Today we visited the home of our first President, George Washington.  We had been there once before, nearly four years ago... 

 

Mr. Blue-Eyes was a little guy, and Boo-Boo had just celebrated his first birthday.





Needless to say, they didn't really remember anything that we had seen last time, so it was all new. Going with friends on a special Homeschoolers' Day made it extra fun.

 

It was nearly impossible to get a shot of them all looking at the camera due to the sun shining in their eyes.

 




Cupcake got down and dirty just like the big kids!





I'm utterly convinced that it's impossible for boys

(and girls?) to refrain from throwing rocks into any

available body of water.

A First

Chuck E. Cheese

Those words are enough to put fear into the heart of any mom, but on Halloween when much of the rest of our community is out trick-or-treating the place is practically empty. 

Some friends - who also don't celebrate Halloween - have a fun family tradition of spending the evening at Chuck E. Cheese.  So at their invitation, our kids had their first Chuck E. Cheese experience.  They had never been there, and it has probably been 20 years since Stephen or I had been there either (remember GBS Fine Arts days, anyone?). 

Strangely enough, not much has changed in all those years.

Here is Cupcake donning her shades on the ride over to see the big gray mouse. Or is it a rat?

She loved the carousel...

 

...as well as the horse and cart.

 Here's Stephen showing the boys how to play air hockey.

Mr. Blue-Eyes was really getting into it. 

 And I just love seeing the pure joy on Boo-Boo's face in this shot...although, it's the only one I have of him in which he didn't have his tongue sticking out of his mouth as he concentrated on his game.

And, of course, there was way too much candy handed out at the end.  It will last a long time!

DIY Saturday

For a while I have wanted a new kitchen sink and faucet.

Here's the old one:

It was the standard sink and faucet installed when the house was built.  And it was too shallow, especially when it was full of dishes and I needed to fill a large pot with water.

So I used my birthday money to purchase a new faucet, and we decided to splurge a little for a new sink too.

Saturday was the day that Stephen played plumber.  He did a fantastic job, even if his expertise lies in other areas like assembling aircraft and prosecuting trademarks.

He does not, however, appreciate being the subject of my photography, so I apologize for the glare of the flashlight in the photo below.

You may notice that it grew dark in the time elapsed from the photo above to the photo below.  But I will point out that in the middle of the sink project, my handy husband also replaced the broken spring on the garage door (with a little help from a neighbor).

Having never done a project like this one before, I was very thankful that it was done in just one day...even if it did mean shoving frozen pizza at crying children an hour past dinnertime so that we could keep working.

But it works! 

And it's lovely.

 Happy birthday to me!