Paint'n Party

Yesterday, Alicia and I took the girls to Paint'n Party in Plano. We're running out of ideas here guys...I am so tired of the weather and you can only go to so many mall playgrounds. We were a little hesitant because we didn't know how long they would last, but they really enjoyed it and painted for well over an hour!! Woohoo!!

Here they are with their smocks on and after much deliberation and touching and picking up of every piece available, they settled on painting some ballet slippers.


It is so amazing to watch children and see how their differences come out especially in a setting like this. Shea would pick a color and then Avery would want to use it so she would wait for Shea to finish, but Shea really enjoys using her whole surface whereas Avery wants a quick dab in the paint and moves on to the next color. The women who worked there were kind enough to give us another set of paints so that each girl could have their own and no one had to worry about sharing :)

Case-in-point...Shea really enjoyed painting her whole canvas and did a beautiful job!!

Meanwhile, Avery used every color as well but with only a dab on each shoe and then on to the next color - beautiful as well!

Alicia joined in on the fun and made a super-cute Valentine's mug!


Ta-

da!

After painting we took the girls to Mama's Pizza for lunch. OMG, I haven't been there in so long and it is so GOOD!!! We got the buffet and for those of you with kids, children under 12 can eat at the buffet for 40 cents per their age so Avery & Shea got to eat for 80 cents each. Now, I'm sure they think a 2-Year old will only eat 1 piece maybe 2. Well we sure did get our money's worth out of these 2 girls - Avery ate 5 pieces and Shea ate 4 and some of my cinnamon roll. We showed them :)

Yummy Heart Cupcakes

Avery and I were at the store last week and she was helping me shop and put everything in the cart. We got to the baking aisle and of course ran into the cupcakes so we just HAD to get a box to make at home. And, we HAD to make them before lunch. What was I thinking :) We did make them before lunch but at least ate a little lunch (and I stress little) while they were cooking. Avery was such a good helper and we had so much fun!!

Checking out all the ingredients


Will I ever get a real smile out of her again???


Pouring in the water


Watching it all mix up

Our finished products before the icing and sprinkles - thanks Nana for our super-cute Heart cupcake mold

Here's Avery's cupcake - do you think she has enough sprinkles??

DELICIOUS!! Notice that her lunch has barely been touched. Oh well, she'll eat again later!

Playing Football with the Boys!

Playing, playing with the boys!! When I look at these photos that's the song that comes to mind. We were watching the Cowboys play a couple weeks ago and the boys went outside at half-time to play football. Well of course the girls had to go out and play too!! Avery and Keaton had a ball!! And, I had a ball watching them all play.

Snuggie Fun!

We got Snuggies for Chanukah and Avery always gets them out for us from our cabinet in the kitchen. Tonight she made us wear them and so we set up the tripod and took some family fun pics:

Ta-Ta GRE!

It's over...it's FINALLY over...I conquered the GRE today! Hallelujah!! Conquered as in not getting a perfect score, but getting well over the average scores they are looking for at school. Now, all I have to do is wait to see if I'm accepted once they receive my scores and one recommendation letter I'm waiting on. I think it will all work out and I'm really looking forward to moving ahead with school and my life!!

I've been telling Tim that studying for this test has been great for our wallet because the only thing I've spent $$$ on in the past 2 weeks was gas and groceries because of all the studying I was doing. So much for that!! It's over and I've got new projects to work on - at least we saved for 2 weeks and I've got to make up for that now :) Sorry Tim!!

I hope everyone has a FABULOUS Week!! I plan on making the most of it!

PS: Unless anyone has any use for 2 GRE books and 250 flashcards - I'm thinking of having myself a little bonfire if anyone would like to join me :)

Until Today!

Last night I was up at Starbucks studying for this dreaded GRE - I mean, seriously, who makes this stuff up??? Do they not have anything else to do with their time and lives?? Does it really matter if I know how to calculate the 3rd side of a triangle, the slope of the tangent that goes through the center of a circle, how about the following definitions of these words intransigence, lassitude, obduracy, peccadillo, I mean I could go on and on but I digress! I'm sure I could dedicate a whole post to how I feel about the GRE but that's not the point of this post or at least not the whole point.


So, after an exhausting weekend of shooting 5 homes, studying, dealing with Avery being a little run-down, watching the Cowboys lose their chance at the Super Bowl once again (oh who am I kidding - you guys know I don't care about that kind of thing, but I had to throw it in to keep you on your toes!) Tim was so kind to put Avery to bed and I ran up to our local Starbucks to get some serious studying done. See, I was going to go to the library but come to find out that all the libraries around here close at 5:00 on Sundays, 6:00 on Fri/Sat and 9:00 on the weekdays. And, they don't open until 10:00 everyday except Sunday's at 1:00 - when do the kids get any of their studying done around here?? I thought we lived in a metropolitan city not some podunk everything closes at 8:00 town!! Once again I digress!


After almost 2 hours of some serious studying I drove home bleary-eyed and got to thinking...am I sure this is what I should be doing right now?? Should I put it off again?? Not just because I have to take the GRE, but going back to school to get my Masters is a big endeavor. Am I ready for this leap with everything else that is going on in my life right now?? Poor Tim got bombarded with all these questions when I got home and then I remembered this book that I bought years ago that somehow is still in my nightstand. I don't know what prompted me to buy this book - I'm not the type to buy self-help books (not that I have anything against them, I just normally read something more entertaining).


The book is called Until Today! Daily Devotions for Spiritual Growth and Peace of Mind. Every day of the year is represented in the book so you can use it forever - kind of like one of those daily calendars that gives you a message. I turned to January 17 and this is what it said -


"Life will work for me when I realize...I cannot break through until I have a breakdown!" It went on to talk about how "Each of us must face a moment in our lives called "the breakdown moment". When you stand toe to toe with the thing you have been trying to avoid and will do anything to get away from it. In that moment, when there is nothing standing between you and the thing you fear most, you will be forced to step into greatness, because that is what life is demanding of you. Until today, you may not have realized that you are totally able, perfectly prepared, fully capable of doing the very thing you have convinced yourself you could not do. Just for today, be devoted to doing just one thing that will help to convice you."


Oh my goodness, I just could not believe that out of 365 days of this book, this was today's daily devotion! Isn't it crazy how life works sometimes! Why of all days to even look in this book which I haven't opened for years would it be that this day would mirror exactly what I was feeling and give me the encouragement I needed to continue on with my decision. It could have been the next day, 2 weeks from now but at that moment everything fell into place. I was so excited I made Tim read it and then I looked at him and told him that this was the affirmation I was looking for and obviously it was meant to be.

So, I'm going to keep on studying and I'm looking forward to my 1st day of Graduate school next week. I'll take the GRE the following Monday and then it's back to my "Normal" life but there really is no such thing as a "Normal" life is there - that's what makes Life so Interesting!!

Avery is Listening!!

I have totally been slacking since Christmas and I have a bunch of posts lined up that I'll get to and backdate but in the meantime I'm going to pretend that I'm up to date and continue on.

You think your child isn't listening, but boy are you wrong!! At least we are wrong...Avery picks up on EVERYTHING we say and it amazes me when she spouts off something that I have never talked to her about personally.

Example 1: We are all going to Chicago for a family event next month and have been talking about the airplane flights but have yet to tell her directly that we are going. Yesterday while having lunch with my parents and Brian we were talking about it and in pipes Avery : "We are going on a plane to Cicago". I looked at her and asked her to repeat what she had just said, and again "We are going on a plane to Cicago". Totally blew me away!

Example 2: Avery has a little bit of a runny nose and I had told Tim yesterday that she was getting a little sniffly and it could be because a couple of the boys, twins: Kaden & Kole, at school had a runny nose in class. I didn't tell this to Avery but she must have been around when I told Tim because tonight Tim asked her where did she get her running nose and she said, "From Kaden and Kole in class".

I'm just waiting for her to throw in a curse word in her repetition sometime. I'll try really hard to watch my language but I know it's going to happen sooner than later. I just hope I don't laugh...well at least not in front of her :)