Not just for girls!

I've been in contact with my cousin Eneida a lot lately, via email and text. I know..too informal but when we both have two kids at our heels. We do what we can to say our "Heys".

Well she sent me a sweet picture of her little Miss Bella playing with her Kitchen that she got for Christmas.
This inspired me to sew Bella up some felt foods.
I started with cookies, I love sewing felt food. Since I sew them by hand I sit in the recliner and just relax and sew, relax and sew.

While sewing I told Nick that it's sad we never had a daughter. I would of created so many lovely goodies for her.

With that Little E walks in, sees the cookies and gasps.
"Oooohhh cookies are they for me?"

I smiled and told him of course they were!
I handed him a few of the cookies I finished and off he went to play in his kitchen.

Nick leaned over and said "Who said you need to have a girl to make felt food for?"
"He looks perfectly happy with the cookies you just made."

You know what? Nick's right.

Felt Cookies

Boy's Kitchen and Farmers Market. Every time we decide it's time for them to go, E plays away on it! It's like he knows.

A little chalky.

Our weekend included walks around the neighborhood, riding bikes, life size side walk drawings of ourselves, birthday parties and rest.

I think we especially loved the "rest" part.

And my heart swells.....

When I was about 21 a classmate of mine described what her idea of a perfect scene in life would be.

She would be in the kitchen making dinner and her husband would be on the ground playing with their children. She would feel so over whelmed with love and how her heart would just pitter patter at the thought.

I was thinking.....Uhhhh good luck with that my day dreaming friend.

I was cooking up some grub and there it was right before me.
Nick obviously exhausted from a day of work, yet he was there wrestling and rolling around with his boys.

Thing is, I live her ideal evening almost every day. I never realized how I took this for granted until I stood there with my camera in hand trying to get some shots of these howling monkeys.
I'm a lucky gal, yeah very lucky.

Little E trying to trap dad and Z under the laundry hamper. I "think" he was trying to rescue Z.



Boys tearing up my living room...oh and do they tear it up.



To many more ideal evenings.

A new appreciation.

Growing up I was horribly shy, loved to read and feared being in the public eye. But one thing I can say most is I was extremely critical of myself.

One thing I couldn't stand the most were my hands and nose. I eventually got over my nose when I started noticing I had my dad's nose. I always liked his nose.

I also have his hands! It seriously looks like someone shrunk his hands and put them on me.
They look great on dad...but too man-ish for me.

My hands are short and stumpy. I always joke about how I have man hand's, Nick tells me they are far from man's hands but I tended to disagree.

Then a few weeks ago while waiting in the van for the boys to be let out of school I caught a glimpse of my hands and felt a gush of emotion.

There in front of me were my grandmothers hands. I saw them patting my cousin Libby's bottom while trying to put her to sleep. I saw them brushing my hair and putting them in pig tails so tight that it squinted my eyes beyond belief (those pig tails were torture!).

I saw myself as a teenager holding her hands telling her I wanted to manicure her nails and watching her get a kick out of me polishing them bright red or vamp maroon.

I no longer long for my sisters slender, beautiful fingers and dainty hands.
I love my short hands, I have grandma's hands.

Now if only these hands could make rice like grandma did,then all would be perfect!

Zombies, Human jungle-gym and no turkey neck for me please!

We spent all day Sunday after church with Mamaw and PaPaw. The boys hadn't seen them in almost 3 weeks. I think both sides were going through major with drawl.

While watching the show 24, Papaw would become a zombie during commercials. He'd hide in the dark and suddenly pop out and chase the boys.
They would huddle and walk toward the darkness holding on to one another. It was pretty cute to watch.



After commercials were over Papaw went back to his show but instantly became a jungle-gym.
Poor PaPaw, but such a great Papaw.



Ethan found Mamaw's contraption and gave himself quite a work out.
I guess he's already self conscious about turkey neck!




Due to MLK day our weekend was long and peaceful. Boys stayed the night with Mamaw and Papaw giving me a Monday to wash tons of laundry. For dinner the boys were dropped off and Mamaw and Papaw joined us for a family dinner. It was nice....very, very nice.

Out and about

I've been out and about and every which way it seems. I've had last minute guests whom I was happy to have. We had a water pipe break in our garage...thank goodness it was in the garage! We've had birthday parties every Saturday this month, I'm still on the job hunt and we had a field trip with Z.
Now you know the reason for this crazy absence.

Z's first grade class attended the play "Frog and Toad". Super cute play and the actors were wonderful, so full of passion and creativity.
But one thing.........
I seriously kept having "The Nutcracker" flash backs.
As a child our school took us every year around the Christmas holiday to the Nutcracker.
It was MAGICAL!
2 headed mice, tall lady with a giant dress...oooohh I loved it!
Then after the third year I wanted to set out a giant mousetrap and set up a cot to sleep while the show ran.

Z enjoyed the play then like any 6 year old he started to get antsy....so did half the auditorium.
All in all I would recommend these plays for little ones.

Z giving me his fake smile while waiting for the show, before this pick I was looking at a pimple/blackhead type bump he has on his nose that he's had for a while...it bothers the heck out of me!

This day he politlely said "Mom don't worry about my nose anymore."
Hey when did you get so grown up and start talking so well???
Not knocking it that's for sure....only the grown up part.



After we headed to the park for lunch.
They had a blast and the weather warmed up making it rather nice.

Z being a little gentle man and helping the girls. There was another little boy helping but quickly dumped the girls when he saw a game of football start up. Z came to their rescue...what a doll.
Now if it was E....he'd be running to join the ball game!







Kid's had a blast, I chatted and got some adult time in with the mom's...nice perk when you chaperon, one can only talk so much about super heroes, underpants, bugs and sponge bob!

Dose of Reality.

I was cleaning my house and doing laundry yesterday (what else is new) and I was going up and down the hall because I was really giving the guest room a good cleaning.

Well in the process of my several "to and from" trips I caught a glimpse of something in the boys' bathroom that stopped me in my tracks.

I slowly reversed and stood at the doorway for a while....just staring.
Almost in disbelief like I was in a cloud.
There staring back at me where the boys shirts that I had hung to dry.

Now why? Tell me why do these tops look so big?

The it hit me, could I not see that my boys are already this big?

I brought this scene to Nick's attention when he got home.

I told him how could two babies fit into tops like these........






When their room still looks like this.......





Impossible!
He put his arm around me and told me that, our boys just weren't babies anymore.
Yeah well I don't need the laundry rubbing it in!!

Tamales!

I experimented and jumped in to try and keep tradition alive.
I made tamales this past weekend.
Now as a kid I hated this process. Sitting around the table with mom and my sisters or if visiting grandma with mom, my sisters and all my aunts just spreading, spreading and spreading some more.
To be honest I loathed this process.
Mom used to say "Oh One day you'll look back on these memories if not thank me."
My thoughts???
Pppfffft yeah right!!!

Well as they say mom is always right because I've done all of the above.
So here I went making tamales, to be honest I think they came out a tad too salty, but edible.

I still had a lot of masa and meat so I decided to finish up the job and freeze the tamales like mom taught me.

While spreading masa Z comes in being nosey. He looks at the masa and says "Grooooosssss...do I have to eat that??...... "Can I do that?"
Why of course son!

Of course whatever Z does little E can't be left behind!

They did great but I think one was enough. They probably could of done more but it was late in the evening and there was home work to get done.

Don't worry boy's you'll get older which means you have PLENTY of time to get in the kitchen and help mom make tamales.
That's right! My boys will marry a girl and say "Honey this year we're making Tamales...like my mom taught me!" Then again if she's like me she'll give him the stink eye and tell him "Go right ahead!"

Oh I hope I don't get a daughter in law like me!

Hello 2010 your my new begining.

I won't drone on 2009 because I leave all that behind...2010 will be great I can feel it!!!!

Our New Years Eve started with cookie making play date.
The kids did awesome and had a blast!






That evening we spent with some of our cousins.
We toasted with Sparkling apple juice, blow horns.......



and Rock Band. This game is super fun!
And I am no fan of games but this I like.



Now that my boys are back in school I will clean up this mess of a house and I will give myself a day(when???SOON!)! I will have a day where I will send the kids to school and no laundry, no vacuuming, just me a recliner, cook books and the remote control and ahhhhhhh...that is until I have to pick the kids up from school. I will also make sure Nick has a Saturday....a do nothing day, yeah that sounds like a plan.