Grandparents, bubbles, and bottles

Wow, it's been a while!  I'm on Facebook now, and my friend Carrie Reynolds encouraged me to do a new post :)  This post is very picture heavy since I've got a lot to share.  These events are from the last couple of weeks.  Griffin had hidden the compact flash card reader *and* stuck something in the slot where the reader goes in my computer, so uploading pics to the computer was an adventure tonight.  I also wanted to include a picture of him and his bedtime friend, a stuffed dog named Wylie, but the kids informed us Wylie is "at the neighbors" after we couldn't find him.  I think Phoenix shared him with our next door neighbors by throwing him over the fence.  We'll have to look tomorrow, since we didn't want them to think there was a burglar if we used a flashlight to look in their yard.

Two weekends ago, we spent a day with my parents, my kids call them Granny and Granddad.  Griffin loves to play with Granddad.  Phoenix wanted to try on Granny's reading glasses.

   

Mom and Dad bought them a bubble making machine.  All the fun of bubbles without all the work (is it really that much work to blow bubbles?!). The real fun, though, is that it makes many, many more bubbles than you could blow yourself before they pop.

   

This next picture is something that makes Phoenix and Griffin happy but not Mama.  They like to swing on the rope we use as a drying line (Griffin isn't happy in this picture because he doesn't like to wait for his turn).  I don't like my strawberries squished when they jump down (in the flowerbed behind them).  I've given up on the strawberries this year, however, since Griffin picks and eats them as soon as they have the slightest tinge of red.  Plus, there's this bunny that keeps coming in our yard... (That makes the kids happy, too!)

   

For Mother's Day, we went to a nearby restaurant and ate bagels.  Phoenix loves to eat out, she's very much a foodie.  Then, we headed to the park. I picked some magnolia blossoms along the way for the kids to play with and smell.  The stuff on their foreheads is marker (drawing on themselves is also in the category of "makes Phoenix and Griffin happy, but not Mama" lol).

   

On Mother's Day, we also drew on bottles we store our filtered water in.  We drew happy things and wrote happy words.  Here's why: http://www.godsdirectcontact.org/eng/news/131/ss2.htm .  A man did an experiment and water made beautiful crystalline structures when it was exposed to prayer or nice words were written on paper and taped to the bottle it was stored in.  The water apparently turned beautiful from the beauty it was exposed to.  Since this falls into the category of it might help your health, and definitely won't hurt it, we decided to make our bottles happy bottles.  After these pictures were taken, we bought some glass gallon jugs and decorated them, too. We're replacing the plastic jugs with glass ones.

   

This is a random cute picture of Griffin I took while we were outside drawing on bottles.

We made brownies this week. Everyone enjoys cooking and eating them.

Phoenix and Griffin posed with Newton, the stuffed animal Phoenix sleeps with every night, since Newton makes Phoenix happy.  Newton is named after the turtle on the show Peep and the Big Wide World, which is one of Phoenix's favorites.  She watches it online from Chris's office after her nap.

This is a picture of Newton that Phoenix took by herself.

Remember to enjoy the small moments :)

Playgrounds, Playgrounds, and Balloons

We had a happy week, of course!

The weather continued to be beautiful, so Phoenix and Griffin took advantage of it by riding the tricycle on Tuesday.  Usually Phoenix rides while Griffin pushes.

On Wednesday, we took an early evening walk to the neighborhood playground.  Griffin had to take his new best friend with him.

Phoenix stopped to pick some juniper berries.  They are edible, but a bit bitter before they ripen in the winter.

Proving once again that it's usually the little things that create happiness, the kids (and Dad) had a great time jumping on a metal drainage lid and making a lot of noise.  Phoenix likes to do this whenever she encounters any random metal lid (manhole, etc).

Then, our little monkeys got to show their acrobatic side on the playground equipment.

Friday night, we saw the movie Ratatouille at our nearby city park.  The city brought a huge blowup screen to project it on.

On Saturday, we planned to see the hot-air balloons from the Plano Balloon Festival at a park we'd never visited before.  The wind didn't cooperate, but the kids had a blast checking out the novel playground equipment.  Griffin slid, Phoenix bounced, and then they had a motorcycle race Tigger would be proud of.  We also had a great meal from Kentucky Fried Chicken, thanks Granny and Granddad!

 

Sunday, we decided the wind wasn't going to get the best of us and set up to watch the balloons at the nearest free parking lot from where they were launching.  Everyone, including Granny and Grandad had a great time.

The kids are always willing to help Daddy take some video of the event.

Granny, pic taken by the talented Phoenix:

Griffin and Granddad take a final look at the straggler balloon, which was worth waiting for!  It was a huge dragon.

Little photographers, singing, and taking a walk

Phoenix tried her hand at photography today with the DSLR camera. This type of camera requires her to look through the viewfinder, it doesn't have an LCD preview screen. She was good at looking in it and aiming at what she wanted a picture of. Here are her favorite shots from her session.

A ladybug balloon given to her by Grandma and Mimi:

Our coffee pot:

Griffin, true to his role as little brother, had to try, too. Here is his single shot:

We had fun singing and dancing to this video late in the afternoon.  Griffin especially liked the song since he could sing the first part of it, haha.  Just listen to a few seconds of it and you'll get the idea.  A website I keep up with had it posted today.  We have some cute video of Griffin singing to it, but we'll have to edit it before posting it, the file is too huge right now to upload.

After Chris got finished working, we walked 1/2 a mile to a nearby playground.  Griffin was in the stroller, Phoenix was on foot.

  

On the way, we saw a bunny and picked some flowers.

One of the kids' favorite parts of walking are the tunnels that are part of many of the walking paths around here.  They go under the streets so you don't have to endanger yourself crossing.  They make *great* echo chambers, so the kids yell the entire time we're walking through them.  Very loud fun for them.

At the playground, Phoenix played in the sand pit.  It's hard to tear her away from any place that has sand to dig in.  It's such a change from the first time she encountered a large amount of sand when she was 1 1/2 at the beach.  She hated it then, refused to walk on it.  Now, she's like a little beach bunny.

Griffin had fun destroying sand castles and sculptures for a while, then decided to  head for the playground equipment, where he drove somewhere known only to his imagination and flashed a quick smile for the camera.

   

When we got home, we had some baking to do since the big mound of peaches we'd bought were about to go bad.  We'd originally planned to have 2 entries to last weekend's pie competition, thus all the peaches.  Chris and the kids baked 2 peach cobblers while I worked on the blog.

Busy day!  Time for bed now.  The weather is so perfect we've been sleeping with the windows open, smelling the fresh air and hearing the crickets.

Weekend Edition, 9/14/08

This was a big weekend for the kids. For about a week and half, the whole family had worked on perfecting a pie recipe for the pie contest that was a part of the Ole' Allen Saturday Social. We ended up going with a German Chocolate pie recipe, a custard pie with a creamy topping. The secret to the recipe? *Lots* of butter. We won first prize, the blue ribbon! We mostly took video of the event, so here's a video and a picture:





The kids also had a ton of fun playing hopscotch, jacks, and checkers at the event, as well as getting to try their hands at embroidery and handkerchief doll making

Sunday was a great day for them as well. They got to see Granny and Granddad, which was the most special part. They also enjoyed playing in their sandbox there and swimming in the pool. The best part of the pool always seems to be playing pretend bartender which involves pouring and more pouring.





After finishing at the grandparents' house, the plan was to grocery shop and go home. The weather was just gorgeous and perfect, though, so we couldn't resist a stop at a park on the way home. The parking lot was full at the park, so we had to park at the neighborhood across the road from it. We chose to take the path under a bridge and by a creek to make our way to the park. Griffin had fun playing in the puddles.



Then, it was on to the playground, which is always lots of fun for all!

      



On the way out of the park, a man and his daughters were having van trouble. The kids got a lesson in helping others when we helped him troubleshoot the problem, push his van out of the parking spot, and charge his battery using our jumper cables and car.

Our outings ended when we shopped at Kroger. The cookies there are always a hit.