Divas

Alex getting all diva with Marissa in their sunglasses.  Ack! I am already having visions of her as a teen..."and then he was like what, and I was all no way and he was like whatever."

Happy belated father's day...

...to a wonderful husband and father. Having been out of town leading up to the day, I didn't manage a timely post, but found these pictures from the spring of the kids cheering John on in an open water race.

Go Dad!

a spring day

No, we didn't have weather anything like spring today. But I stumbled upon these photos of our annual strawberry picking trip and wanted to post. As usual Sweet Berry Farms was awesome. Picked three flats of strawberries and topped off the trip with homemade ice cream and strawberry lemonade.

Six

I was downloading some pictures today from my camra and came across these.  They are self-portraits taken by Jack one day when he hijacked my camera and went exploring around the house.

And then it occurred to me how long it has been since I last posted on here (about 6 weeks) and that during that 6 weeks, my Jackelope has turned 6 years old without a post about it.

So here it is.  Happy birthday my little man.  Watching you grow and grow is one of the most amazing experiences I could have.  Through the laughter and the tantrums, you have taught me how to be a better person and a better mom.  I love that you love to snuggle with me.  I love that we have the same eyes. 






And I love that you read a book for about 5 minutes before falling asleep with it in the perfect reading position.  Or in this case, not just a book but an entire book collection. 

Happy birthday, Jack. Love, Mommy

Achieving cupcake zen...

Frosty the Texan

A rare snow in Austin a few weeks back left just enough of a blanket of snow for us to bundle everyone up and go out for a good snowman-roll!  We decorated with a carrot, evergreen hair and stick arms and eyes. 

The cold weather didn't last long, but our Frosty did his best to hang on...
















The weather warmed and all the other snow disappeared, but Frosty stood his ground, looking a bit like a fish out of water.









Going...

going....

gone!

Memories of a cold night by the fire

Welcome to Hollywood!

 As we approach Jack's birthday, we have been discussing how things work now in kindergarten.  Many families no longer invite the whole class to a party, just mail the invitations to people's homes.  Save money?  Not have to deal with lots of kids?  Don't know.  Seems strange.  

At the same time, we have (hiding face in shame) watching our first ever season of American Idol.  The kids just thought the auditions episodes were so funny, as did we, and we just kept watching.  Tonight, as wthey cut down to the final 24, there was a particularly brutal cut that happened where the owoman was crying.  Jack turned to me, grabbed my arm and started howling.  I asked him if he was upset because the woman on the TV show was crying.  "No, I just need you." he said, burying his face in my arm and howling more.  He pepped up after the next contestant made it through.  Awww, my sensitive boy. 

Anyway, while going to bed tonight, I asked Jack if we should invite everyone in his class to his birthday.  "No Mom, we should make a list and number it one through twenty and write down everyone's name.  Then we can go through and write yes or no on whether they should be invited or not.  Just like on American Idol."

 

My little Simon!

Yowza!

We may need to have the talk about "less is more" regarding accessories sooner rather than later

My Garden Helper

Here she is, harvesting radishes. I'm sure gardening catalogs everywhere will be featuring this pantless-with-boots ensemble for next year

Contemplation of Radish

Alex picked a radish in our garden yesterday and gave it a try for the first time. I would venture to say it was not in her top 5 favorites.

Ebelskivers!!!!!

My co-chef and I making ebelskivers in our new pan. Fillings of the
day- strawberry jam, bananas w peanut butter, chocolate.

Experienced traveler

She knows what luggage allows her to travel light.

I may never use my oven again!

Today we broke out the easy bake oven.  For those of you who don't know, the EBO uses a 100 watt light bulb to cook.  That little aluminum ashtray you see in front of the oven?  That's the baking pan.

Yeah, so we're not talking about feeding a crowd here.  In fact the recipe reads as follows:  "Empty envelope of cake mix into bowl.  Add 1.5 teaspoons of water"."

1.5 teaspoons of water???????  What is that, like a gob of spit?

But all worked according to plan and soon we were dividing or culinary masterpiece.  After we all got our allotted forkful of cake (and the cake was gone), we agreed it was a modern marvel./  John and I agreed the 2010 Thanksgiving will be completely prepared using the Easy Bake Oven.

We're going to start cooking our turkey tomorrow.

Show and tell

Jack took his book My Brain to school for show and tell. I asked him
how it went and he said "great, I showed them the nervous page."