Labor Day Weekend

One of my teacher friends posted on facebook that as a teacher, Labor Day weekend is like the eye of the storm, craziness last week, a great relaxing weekend in between, and followed by a short but crazy packed week!  Its so true.  It was a fabulous 3 day weekend.  While I spent some time up at school on Saturday, Chris took the girls and Daria for a walk and then Saturday night we had another movie night.
Sunday was as usual- cartoons, church and lunch.  We went to the McBrides for a barbecue and it was great to catch up with them.

Monday Chris had to work (grrrrrr) so I did all the fun SAHM activities I could think of. We went to Tom Thumb and got lunchables,

 

went to the pool, read tons of books, and of course we baked.

We used a cake pop mold to get this shape.  (thanks Aunt Col!)

 

And decorated!

 

 

It was a swell, swell weekend!

My Last Day as a SAHM

Today is the day before we leave for a week long camping trip to Colorado.  We are meeting the Rowles and Albas out there to party all week.  11 adults, 4 young kids, and 5 dogs.  Highs right now are looking to be below 70 almost everyday!  Our highs in Dallas this week go all the way up to 107!  Grandma and Grandpa are taking the girls back to CA with them for a week and then when they get back I will be working everyday until school starts!  So today was the last day to do something extra special.
We all got dressed up and in the car, and I told them we were going somewhere special but I didn't say where.  When we pulled up to GiGis Cupcakes, Gianna was so excited!  She wanted to go there for her birthday, but poor Elia got sick so we wanted to get home asap.

It is a cute little cupcake place, and the cupcakes look AMAZING!  I couldn't finish mine because it was so sweet, but Gianna almost finished hers!  Elia ate all the frosting and was done.

Afterwards we went to their cooking class a little early so we could play at the Rec Center first.  They love the air hockey.

G wore her apron and Elia wore the matching chef's hat.

This was the last cooking class too, so Ms. Jill, their teacher had a party with ice cream and games instead of actually cooking.

Their favorite thing to do afterward- play on the rocks.

Love my sweet girls!

St. Louis Trip Photo Dump

My mom stayed in AtL for a few days and then we drove back to StL on Wednesday.  We stopped at Patty's, a restaurant in Kentucky that we always stopped in growing up after family reunions.  I felt like it was a right of passage for my girls to be there and eat!  It is very old time, they serve drinks in mason jars, have the most wonderful fried pickles and strawberry butter, and their bread is baked in flower pots!

We were only in StL for 72 hours, but we packed it in with a visit to the zoo, play time with Baby B, and lots of quality family time!

G said the bread grew out of the flower pot!

The girls helping Grandma make hamburgers.

Tummy time for baby Brendan

Photo-op at the zoo!

New Sea Lion exhibit that Uncle Tom's firm helped build!

This orangutan (sp?) got so close to Elia!  Their faces are so weird looking!

Bobby, the ever patient and fun loving Uncle, teaching G to pump gas. 
She held her nose the while time!

Good Weekend

We spent the better part of Sunday cooking.

Elia and G helped Daddy...

...make thisdog pen!  (the right section is going to be the gate and is not secured here- it is just leaning right now)

And got this off Craigslist.

We are hoping to pick her up from the vet Wednesday evening.  Names in the running are: Daria, ElDara, MoCa, CaMo, and Elia has suggested Chips.

Thanksgiving

My last day of work was right before Thanksgiving break.  We drove to StL the next day and spent the week there for Thanksgiving.  We fit in a lot of cooking, a trip to the Magic House, the library, and plenty of family time.

The whole gang went out for dinner on Thanksgiving Eve

We made tepees(courtesy of pinterest)

Grandma and Grandpa!

More Cooking Fun

Yesterday we made ice cream in a bag. Another idea from pinterest!It was so super yummy and creamy. Gianna had a ton of fun jumping around and shaking the bag. I ended up doing most of the shaking (workout for my forearms!) but they did most of the eating.

Later that afternoon, Gianna insisted on making Daddy dinner and laid out all the ingredients for him. She basically cleared the bottom three shelves of my spice rack. Mmmmm fish sauce, rice wine vinegar, canola and sesame oil dinner. Sounds good to me!

Pinterest

*Pinterest is becoming more and more addictive to me! It is worse than facebook, blogging, and email all put together. It gives me really good ideas, but all I was doing was just pinning the ideas and not doing or trying anything. So this week, we remedied that. We made homemade gold fish (so good they were gone before Chris got home from work) and sweet potato cookies. The girls have loved these cooking projects, and G especially like making the gold fish!

I

The best part of baking- licking the batter!!

In the next few days I'm going to try ice cream in a bag, homemade fruit roll ups and rainbow pudding pops! Watch out, Martha Stewart!

*Don't know what pinterest is? Let me know and I will send you an invitation. You will never be the same afterwards!

Minnie Mouse Cupcakes

I had a really grand vision for the minnie mouse cupcakes, but they didn't turn out quite as I wanted. But thats ok! I baked me some cupcakes, lightly frosted them, and dipped them in crushed oreos.

I had a little helper. :)

Then I baked some cookies in the shape of bows:

Then I sprayed them pink with some food color spray:

Then I assembled them with Famous Chocolate Wafers as the ears and used the pink cookies as bows. The wafers sort of got soft and some of them bent in half etc, but you get the idea:

Easter Part 1

I took too many pictures. They are so cute though, that I have to include all of them, so it will be a 2 post ordeal.

Saturday night we dyed Easter eggs. Really not the best activity for a 2 year old, but we survived with only one broken egg.

Easter Morning

Since Gianna gave up ice cream for lent, the Easter Bunny brought them some. Since he didn't want it to melt, he left a note to the girls telling them to follow the tracks to a special treat.

The Easter Bunny knows just where to hide the baskets. Gianna's was in our radio cabinet (passed down to me from my parents house) which the Easter Bunny used to hide my Easter baskets when I was a little girl. And Elia's basket was in the easel, which I thought was very fitting.

He left presents for everyone, including the adults. I got some wine and the uncles got beer. The Easter Bunny also left a communal bowl for everyone.

Then we made a bunny cake (not pictured) and some bird nests. This was so easy and fun! It was just your basic rice krispie treat recipe but using chow mein noodles and forming them into nests in cupcake holders. Then the girls filled them with "eggs."

More on our Easter egg hunt and some cute family pictures in my next post. Happy Easter!