A Saturday in the kitchen

This was my first project in the kitchen on Saturday.  A loaf of chocolate chip banana nut bread.  We had it for breakfast today and it was great.  Mike said it was too much chocolate for breakfast.  I said there is no such thing.

I also made strawberry freezer jam.  I am very excited for it because the stuff from the store is truly nasty.  This was the longest project and I made about twice what I thought I would.  Need to get another freezer!

I also made 48 cupcakes for a birthday celebration in young womens on Sunday.  

In non-kitchen news, they are estimating it will cost about $2000 to fix the van.  Thank goodness I only have to pay the $500 deductible.  

Also, on Saturday we took the kids to the park and Haley started learning to ride a bike without training wheels.  She did a pretty good job, but spent most of the afternoon crying and claiming she couldn't do it and yelling at her bike.  She is pretty old to be starting to ride a bike without training wheels, but better late than never.  I think I must have been older when I learned to ride without training wheels too, because I have strong memories of it.  For my parents sake, I hope I spent less time crying and carrying on.  

It was pretty windy, so we also flew a kite.  It was a great day.

Tornado!

Mike took this picture from our back patio yesterday.  The girls and I were still at church.  Mike had taken Caleb home early because he was sick and super crabby.  During class, we were interrupted and told to go to the gym because the tornado sirens were going off.  Now, growing up in Missouri, the tornado sirens went off all the time and we never saw any action near our house.  But, sitting in the church, you could hear the golf ball size hail just slamming into the roof.  Mike called from home and said he saw a funnel cloud (picture).  Poor Maya was freaked out and spend most of the time bawling.  We only sat in the gym for about 10 minutes and then we were told the tornado warning had expired and we could leave or wait out the hail.  I ran out in the hail to get the van and took the girls home.  Maya screamed like I was running back into a burning building.  Man, that hail hurt!  I got the girls home and the storm calmed down after that.  I thought the van was okay, but upon further inspection, I have quite a bit of hail damage.  I am taking the van in on Thursday, we'll see how much this costs to fix.  A tornado did touch down in a mall a mile or so from the church and caused quite a bit of damage.  Mike and I agreed we would much rather call the car insurance company about hail damage than the home insurance company about roof or window damage!  

A first of many

A couple weeks ago, Haley had her end of school year music concert.  All the first graders sang songs about people who work in the school.  Secretaries, principals, nurses, and lunch ladies, hence the food tray.  Caleb made it quite difficult to sit through the whole concert and we ended up leaving during the 5th grade songs.  I didn't feel too bad because I know this will be our first of many music concerts. 

Garden Time!

My sweet husband created this little garden for our family.  He has planted green beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, sugar snap peas, watermelon, and peppers.  They were all planted from seed, so it will be awhile before we have any fruit/vegetables.  So, this will be our before picture and hopefully we will have a great after picture come late summer/early fall.  I'm so glad he has taken this project on.  I like to think all things outside the house are his domain.  That is probably why we have no flowers in our pots yet.  He doesn't care about flowers.  

More Maya

Today was Maya's end of the school year preschool picnic.  She was nice enough to pose for a picture with her teacher, who she will have again next year.  I am going to have to find some things for Maya to do this summer, especially since Haley will continue on with year round school.
This was her last field trip, to a fire station.  She wasn't nearly as interested as I was.  I guess it is probably more of a "boy" field trip.  I loved that her school had a field trip every month. 

Here comes summer!    

P.S.  This morning during breakfast, Maya declared, "Mom, you are ruining my life!"  I didn't think I would hear that from her at age 4.   

Maya turns 4!

Maya's birthday was Monday, May 11th.  She is now a big 4 year old and I can't believe it.  I guess that is a typical parent thing to say.  No one ever mentions how slowly they think their children are growing!  She had a party with her friends on Saturday, her first friends party.  It went surprisingly smoothly.  No one cried!  And then Monday we had another little party with just our family.  She got lots of great presents that she had really been wanting and was happy to be the center of attention!  Here are a few of my favorite pictures of her younger self.

Maya as a newborn.  Super chunky cheeks and insane amounts of spiky blonde hair.

At about 5 months old.

About 18 months old.  She used to suck those 2 middle fingers, rub her nose with another finger and rub her ear with her other hand.  Thumb sucking was way too simplistic.

2 1/2 years old.  During the dress up phase.

And now a HUGE 4 year old.  I can't believe how much older her face looks.

The candles spell out Maya.

A table full of friends.

Who is this giant child?  I'm pretty sure he was a baby yesterday!

3 signs you are back from your trip to Grandma's

Haley was off track the last 2 weeks of April, so we headed to St. Louis, MO to visit my family.  We had a great time.  I forgot my camera, so I don't have any great pictures of all the fun stuff we did, but we did have an awesome time.  We got to spend time with my whole family.  Grandma stocked the kids up with new summer clothes and shoes.  We went the the zoo, the arch, the botanical gardens, the magic house, the movies, a state park called Elephant Rock, a fun trampoline place, and I'm probably forgetting half the stuff we did too.  The 12 hour drive to and from was long, but the kids weren't too bad.  Maya did get carsick and puke on the way back, but amazingly it was a small mess (and not too stinky).  

It has been quite a reality check being back home.  I've had to do awful things like weed our yard for 2 hours.  I filled these 2 bags and got quite the sunburn.  And, even 2 hours and 2 full bags didn't quite finish the job.  Maybe I'll finish today.  Maybe I'll pass it on to Mike to finish.

Our sink is filled with dishes.  What is this?  It was so nice being at grandma's.  I think every home needs 2 women to get all the work done.  

My hands are super dry.  You really can't tell from this picture, because we don't have an awesome camera and I am the worst photographer ever.  But, my hand looks kinda red, right?  Well let me tell you, in person, my hands are scaly and rough and red.  Man, humidity does wonders for your skin.  But, I hated what it did to my hair.  In St. Louis, my hair was limp and flippy.  So, I guess I'll have to deal with the dry skin here in CO so I can have my hair back.