project 365, week 30

keeping it short and sweet this week. allen returned from mission trip last weekend and got sick the next day (so did almost the entire mission team!!). he's finally feeling better and i thought i had managed to avoid it, but started feeling icky last night. i'm posting my pictures and going to bed!!

SUNDAY, july 19th

every baseball season we have 'central day at the dell diamond'. we sell tickets to our church members and it includes a tailgate before the game. its always a fun night.

MONDAY, july 20th

slept on the couch a couple nights. i didnt want to share a bed with my sick husband.

TUESDAY, july 21st

we went to a friends house to see a magic show! another friend of ours has an 8 year old little boy who has recently become interested in illusions. he was very very good. colby was quite impressed with it.

WEDNESDAY, july 22nd

last week when haley and i went shopping in austin, i bought this cool feather clip at a funky shop on campus (university of texas). i wore it to church wednesday night.

THURSDAY, july 23rd

went to the american idol concert in dallas. sooo good!!

FRIDAY, july 24th

myself and a close friend of allens planned a surprise b-day poker party for him. i had to get him there, which i did without a hitch (he's very hard to surprise). but the real surprise came when he was dealt this card during their hold 'em game. we have enough air miles to get him to vegas and back for a couple of nights of real texas hold em with his buddies. hes never been and is super excited. they're going in september. i love surprising him!!

SATURDAY, july 25th

dinner at mighty fine burgers. yummy!

project 365 ,week 29

allens been gone all week on mission trip.

we've passed the time pretty well, i think. colby got sick sunday night/monday with allergy junk, but other than that, it was a great week.

SUNDAY, july 12th

my house was grossing me out. i spent the better part of the day cleaning. exhibit a: spotless floors.

MONDAY, july 13th

molly found these shoes in a bag of hand-me-downs while i was cleaning out her closet saturday morning, and colby found these lovelies at the resale shop saturday afternoon. they havent taken them off since other than to bathe and sleep.

TUESDAY, july 14th

pei wei for lunch. each of the kids polished off an entire order of edamame!

WEDNESDAY, july 15th

we went to some friends' house to swim and eat dinner. we 'bathed' the kids in the pool at the end of the evening, and the all ended up swimming naked. traci and i decided its ok till their 5.

THURSDAY, july 16th

haley and i went to dinner and down to south congress to shop and get a cupcake. theres a line of retro trailers that all sell fabulous food. people wait in ridiculous lines to get this stuff! it was a very fun experience.

FRIDAY, july 17th

our a.c. went out for the 3rd time this summer late thursday night. i got up and got out of the house friday late morning to go pick up the kids from my moms house and wait there till the repair man could come fix it. i took this picture before i left. on the right is what the temp should be. on the left is what it actually is. i'm guessing thats at least 90 something, but its hard to tell since it stops at 80. crazy!

SATURDAY, july 18th

a birthday surprise for daddy. read about our ugly cake in the post below. :)

have a great week!!

the ugliest cake

allen will be coming home this evening from a week long mission trip in alabama.

while he was away, his 40th birthday came and went.

i was raised being an 'on the day' person, meaning we celebrate the event on the day; not the day before or the day after, but the day of. the big party with friends could be on the weekend or whatever, but we always did something on the day. my birthday is on the 16th of may. i dont want to celebrate on the 14th or 18th or the 20th. i was born on the 16th. get it?

allen is completely the opposite. he doesnt really mind if celebrate at all, let alone on the day. having been married for almost 8 years now, and to a youth pastor no less (i.e. busy!), i've learned to get over it...for the most part. :)

all that being said, he's usually gone on his birthday with summer being his busiest season, and this year is no different.

however, this year is the big 4-0, and i was a bit sad actually to not be able to celebrate this one on the day.

to make up for the 'miss out' colby decided we should have a cake ready for daddy when he gets home tonight. we've been talking about it for weeks; what kind of cake we should make for daddy. colby finally settled on a baseball cake (like the actual field with players and everything, not a cake that looks like a baseball. that would have just been too easy, wouldnt it?) because its allens favorite sport, and because colby plays t-ball (thats somehow related). he got pretty extravagant in his plans for the cake, and i had to dumb it down a little for my sake. i'm a cook, yes, but not in any way a baker. but i thought, 'how hard can it be?'

we went to the grocery store yesterday to stock up on all our cake decorating supplies. we had quite a time deciding on white cake or yellow cake, should we do the field with colored icing or sprinkles? we decided icing is more pleasant to consume in large quantities than sprinkles are, and made our selections accordingly. we also found some candles that look like baseballs to arrange in the center, or maybe around the outside "like a fence", colby said.

this morning after colbys tball game we came home and got the cakes in the oven.

then we decorated the entryway so when daddy comes home "he'll see that we're celebrating and we can jump out and yell surprise in the dark!" (colbys interpretation)

happy birthday sign: check

balloons: check

streamer curtain: check

and just in time to take the cakes out of the oven. everything is going so well!

once again i know absolutely nothing about cake decorating except what i've seen on food network Challenge and Ace of Cakes, and lets face it, i'm no chef duff.

when the cakes came out of the oven, i put them in the refrigerator to get them nice and firm in order to spread the icing.

i was able to put the bottom cake on the plate and ice it with only minor issues.

then came the top layer (insert scary music, dun dun dun).

i dont know what i was thinking...actually i knew exactly what i was thinking. it was all poofed up, like cakes do when you bake them; they rise in the center, so i took a large knife and expertly shaved off the top layer of cake to make it level. i've seen them do it on t.v., so i'm feeling pretty good about myself.

then i go to spread on the frosting.

first of all i have no plan as to how to get the two different colors on the cake and make it all look fabulously like a baseball diamond, but, little to my knowledge, that was the least of my issues.

i just dove right in the with chocolate frosting and immediately i knew i was doomed. the cake and frosting all started rolling up onto each other, and before i realized what was happening, the top of the cake was mutilated and i had this crumby frosting mass on the end of my spreader.

the kids are standing there to 'help', and my first thought was, 'i can blame this on them! i can tell allen they decorated it and thats why it looks, well, like preschoolers got ahold of it . then its a cute ugly cake rather than a poor attempt at a legit bday cake.'

but no.

i can admit defeat.

i fought the cake and the cake won.

colby had a small meltdown when he realized his mommy is a cake loser and would not be able to produce the masterpiece he had envisioned in his head.

i told him he could put the men on the cake and all was well in the world again.

so we moved forward with the decorating as if nothing were wrong. i squirted some green icing on and mutilated the other half of the cake to match the chocolate half, colby placed the little figures on (in totally the wrong places), and molly stuck the baseball candles in.

and when daddy gets home we will have a wonderful birthday celebration with our ugly cake...made with love and way too high expectations.

yeah, a big chunk fell off, so i just kind of shoved it back on next to the poorly placed pitcher.

molly and her red ruby slippers

it all started when i got hooked on 'Wicked', the musical thats based on the wicked witch of the west and glenda the good witch. i listen to the soundtrack in my car, so my kids learned a few of the songs as well.

i mentioned to them one day that theres a movie with those people in it, but its kind of a different story. we have it on dvd, so i put it in one afternoon a couple of weeks ago and let them watch it. its been pretty much oz mania around here ever since. my friend casey and i were talking about halloween the other day and how she wants to throw a party (her birthday is on the 31st) so she and i can dress as galinda (later glenda the good witch) and elphaba (later the wicked witch), colby overheard and chimed in that he wants to be the tinman and molly can dress as dorothy.

fast forward to saturday morning...

i'm cleaning out closets and taking stock of what the kids have as far as winter clothes before i go stock up at the big sale at the resale shop that afternoon. molly found a pair of well loved, hand-me-down, red glittery ballet flats (i suppose they're supposed to be red ruby slippers), and put them on immediately. they rubbed blisters on her feet fairly quickly, as they are at least a size too big, but she would not take them off; she was just wakling around crying about her feet hurting. i finally talked her into wearing socks, because after all, dorothy wears socks, and its a good thing, too. good for mollys feet anyway.

she wore them all day saturday, took a bath saturday night and put them back on after the bath, and put them on as soon as she woke up sunday. i had to pick an outfit with red in it so she wouldnt look completely ridiculous at church.

on a side note, colby found a pair of rain boots at the resale shop that he just had to have, and has been wearing them with the same fervor that molly has for her 'dorothy shoes'.

they're a lovely pair. and yes, he wore his rain boots to church on sunday with his dress clothes.

this is the icing on the cake:

sunday afternoon we met some friends at the pool. colby and molly wore their new shoes with their swimsuits. molly looked especially fabulous in her swimsuit, socks, and red ruby slippers.

some battles just arent worth fighting. colbys were a little more justified in that they're 'water friendly.'

but i digress...

so we get in the pool, and my kids are making friends right away with the other kids that are there, because thats what they do, and i hear the little girl ask molly what her name is.

molly: "dorothy."

colby: "no its not. you're molly jo."

molly: "no! i'm dorothy, colby. i'm dorothy!"

i just laughed and walked away. i never heard what the little girls were actually calling molly. they may have avoided calling her anything all together out of confusion.

at any rate, they had a good time...

... and the shoes are back on today.

project 365, week 28

lots and lots of swimming this week. i think we swam 4 of the 7 days.

thats typical for us in the summer, though, but this was kind of our first official week of summer after all the youth camps and traveling and illness.

here we go...

SUNDAY, july 5th

my new phone! the phone i had was fried. i dropped it at least once a day and it started turning itsself off at random a couple of weeks ago, which was causing allen much frusteration when trying to call me. isnt it cute?

MONDAY, july 6th

i pulled all my scrapbooking stuff out again. i had put it away awhile back because we actually needed to eat off the dining room table. i'm very slowly catching up. i think i'm in october of '08.



TUESDAY, july 7th

my parents got an above groun pool over the weekend, so we went over to break it in. its about three feet deep and 10 feet across. its perfect for the kids. the water hits colby at his chest and mollys head sticks out right under her chin. they love it.

WEDNESDAY, july 8th

we went to the sprinkler park with our friends the ogradys. our kids are best buds and its been weeks since we've seen them outside of church. we had a great time!

THURSDAY, july 9th

our grass is in desperate need of water; not surprising after a few weeks of triple digit heat.

i guess this is when the water bill starts climbing.

FRIDAY, july 10th

i was selected to be in a market research focus group about furniture with an organizational feature. i sat for 2 hours with 7 other women and gave my opinion about what i like, dislike, need, would use if it were available, etc. the best part? i walked out with a $100 bill!! i'm not sure it gets much easier than that.

SATURDAY, july 11th

too hot to go outside, and they're done with swimming for the week. coloring is the activity of choice for today.



have a great week! stay cool...literally!

alabama, you're no friend of mine.

i am currently sitting at my moms house because our a.c. is out for the 2nd time this summer.
i did just get word that they're at the house fixing it now, so the kids and i will be able to head home soon.

allen left today for birmingham, alabama with a group of 40 for world changers mission trip.
thats not why the blog title is such, though. i have nothing personal against alabama.
molly, however, is not a fan....

you see, molly has a pallet on the floor next to our bed to sleep on if/when she comes into our room at night.
the pallet is made of none other that the blanket allen takes with him on mission trip, camp, etc.' when molly noticed it was gone this morning she said,
molly: "mommy! wheres my map?" (thats what she calls it, i think she means mat.)
me: "daddy needed to take it to alabama."
molly: "and when alabama is done with it, she will give it back and sleep in her bed?"
me: (laughing) "yes, love, alabama will give it back when shes done."
i didnt want to try and explain that alabama is a state. i like her perspective.
then when we got to church to pray over the group and see them off, one of the girls going on the trip had a flip flop malfunction and was completely unable to get to her suitcase. my mom gave her the crocs off her feet, and literally left with no shoes.
molly noticed that grammies shoes were gone and said,
molly: "grammie, where are your shoes?"
grammie: "ms jennifer is taking them to alabama."
molly: "alabama took your shoes?!?"
when shes 20 shes probably going to have this deep seeded dislike of alabama, and she wont know why.

in other news, colby has come up with a list of pool rules that i think i need to share with you , so that you may practice pool safety in these hot months of summer.
on the way to moms house, we pass a city pool. colby pointed it out and we talked about swimming for a second, then he turns on his most official voice and says, (excuse the weird punctuation. i'm trying to convey it exactly as he said it. and he was very serious):
colby: "pool rule number one! no diving! you do not dive into the pool. unless you brought diving sticks. then its ok.
pool rule number two! do not drive your cars or bicycles into the pool. they need to stay in the parking lot.
pool rule number three! do not pick up the bugs! if you see an ant-do. not. pick. it up. if you see a wasp- do. not. pick. it up. if you see a hornet- do. not. pick. it up. if you see a lemur (what?)- do. not. pick. it up. if you see a hissing cockroach, you can pick it up. it will hiss at you.
pool rule number four! if you bring a cow, do not milk it! unless you caught it while you were on a horse. then you can milk it in that case.
me: "so, if you didnt catch it on a horse....?"
colby: "if you didnt catch it on a horse...if you were just walking, and caught it with a rope or your hands, then you cant milk it, but if you were on a horse and caught it, then you can milk it."
me: "wow, those are all very important. anything else you can think of?"
colby: "no, i think thats all the important stuff."

so there you have it. i'm heading home to cool off in my hopefully very much air conditioned house. next up, project 365.

things i've learned

either through conversation or experience, these are things i've learned from colby and molly over the last few days. in no particular order...

1) watermelon is made of water, a little bit of sugar, and apple juice.

2) peeing on a tree is just as good for it as watering would be.

3) jellyfish are the bumblebees of the ocean (because they sting).

4) throwing a still smoldering sparkler on dry grass will start a small fire.

5) eating gum off the bottom of a movie theatre seat will, in most cases, not hurt you.

6) in the wizard of oz, when the trees throw their apples at dorothy, its because they think shes a wood scorpion and they're afraid shes going to eat their bark.

7) colby knows the pledge of allegiance. i had no idea.

8) crayon is almost impossible to get off a stainless steel refrigerator (even with magic eraser).

9) excessive amounts of watermelon will turn a two year olds poop pink.

10) colby: "sharks are the kings of the ocean, because they're boys."

me: "are all sharks boys?"

colby: "yes."

me: "then where do baby sharks come from?"

colby: "there aren't any baby sharks. just big, mean, king sharks."

project 365, week 27

i honestly wanted to blog just about every day this week, but the days flew by and i absolutely did not have the time!

SUNDAY, june 28th

round rock is the home of the express, the triple a team for the houston astros. every year we have whats called 'faith night' where a christian band comes and does a concert and express players give testimony. my husband is the chaplain for the team, so he's pretty much in charge of it. we went for the concert and to hear allen interview the players then we headed home and out of the triple digit heat.

MONDAY, june 29th

i brought home some avocados from the store (as usual) and made guacamole. colby wanted to plant the pit and grow an avocado tree since "i eat so much gucamole." i was hesitant at first. how many other seeds have we planted with no fruit? pun intended.

but i thought, 'why not,' and looked up insructions on the internet for starting an avocado tree. this is what we get to nurture for the next 4 to 6 weeks. hopefully something will grow out of the top and we can transfer it to a pot.

TUESDAY, june 30th

praise the Lord for rain!! it wasnt much, but we'll take whatever He offers!

WEDNESDAY, july 1st

mom and i took the kids to the natural bridge wildlife ranch. not my first rodeo, so to speak, but mom had never been. we had a great time feeing the animals from the car, but there were so many other people there, that the animals weren't as interested in us as they have been in the past. oh, and i definitely did not panic when this ostrich stuck his head in my car. and i absolutely did not throw almost an entire bag of food out the window just to get him away from me.

THURSDAY, july 2nd just call me crafty! i made these shirts for the kids to wear on the 4th. the instructions came from family fun magazine, so i cant take credit for the idea. i cut a piece of bandana out, pinned it to the inside of the shirt, and stitched it from the outside (in the star shape you see), then cut the tshirt away from the bandana underneath so it could show through. cute, yes?

FRIDAY, july 3rd we loaded up at a fireworks stand friday afternoon. we've never done them before with the kids, so we bought a bunch of little stuff to do in the backyard before bedtime. i tried and tried to flip the picture the right way, but finally gave up. just tilt your head to the right.

SATURDAY, july 4th happy 4th of july!! we went to the parade in downtown round rock, like we do every year. some friends of ours live right on the parade route so we go sit in their front yard under their big shade trees and let the kids run around and collect candy from the passing floats and cars.

i hope you had a great week!! link up to sara to share your pictures!