Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Ella's 1st Tooth!!!

well...ella's been working on cutting her 1st tooth for awhile and this morning when i went to feel her gums, i felt something hard sticking out! it's on the bottom, front right and she's already working on cutting the 2nd one next to it. if she only knew the world of food that is awaiting her she would be cutting them much faster for how much she loves to eat :)

i'm going to take advantage of all the gummy smiles i can get until her teeth really start to show.






Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Happy Birthday to ME!

this year my birthday landed smack-dab in the middle of the week on hump day. i was pretty bummed that it was on a wednesday, but then realized that we could celebrate it on both weekends and i was much more excited :) who really wants their birthday in the middle of the week??

the weekend before my birthday tim and i decided to go down to dallas for dinner and called brian to see if they had any suggestions. they didn't have any plans so mollye and brian joined us at this really yummy restaurant, the common table. we'd been with them before but i wanted to go back because their food is so delicious!

then, on sunday, kristen and kevin hosted a really great birthday party for me. they did it last year and wanted to do it again...thanks so much!! it was such a wonderful evening surrounded by my family with

1) good food - spinach and artichoke dip to start, 2 types of salmon, branzino - one of the best fish i've ever had grilled to perfection by kevin, homemade bread, salad, and 2 desserts! ice cream pie with kitty's homemade fudge (i could just eat this out of the jar!!) and chocolate molten cupcakes. please roll me out!

2) good drinks - tim and i brought white sangria which we searched awhile for a really good recipe. here's the one we chose if you want to make it. it was Delicious!!
http://allrecipes.com//Recipe-Tools/Print/Recipe.aspx?RecipeID=23734&origin=detail&Servings=12, we substituted peach schnapps for the vodka, added sparkling water to dilute it some ;) and put in berries at the end.

3) of course, great company.

i couldn't have asked for a better way to celebrate with my family!

avery's excited that my birthday is here because it means that hers is just around the corner :)



ella really wanting me to open up this jar of carrots...such a little piggy!


look at all the candles on that cake :) good thing the kids were there to help me blow them out!


on my actual birthday, my parents came over for dinner. we brought in covino's, one of my favorites and enjoyed ourselves.

here's one of my gifts tim gave me...a flowering cactus! i have no green thumb whatsoever, that's why i leave all the "gardening" to him and avery. he knows this obviously and i've had this little pot avery made me sitting on my windowsill with just dirt because i guess i've been too lazy to get rid of the dirt and plant something else that will just die soon after. so, he thought that since it's a cactus i should be good to go and i can look at it every day. bummer is that the flowers will eventually fall off, but at least i know that when they do it's supposed to happen. i've probably just jinxed myself, but i thought it was such a sweet gift!




3 generations!


someone has big eyes for the 3 different desserts we are about to devour


she is such a cutie


helping me blow out my candles


and, belle and sleeping beauty made an appearance as well.


the weekend following my birthday we went out for dinner with the lairsen's at probably my favorite restaurant in town, patrizio's. i just love their food and patio.

and, my favorite drink that tim and i discovered at hibiscus several years ago: a manhattan martini, up, with a twist - delicious! just know, it wasn't as giant as it seems in the pic!


heather and i...the only downside i've found with my new phone is that the camera doesn't have a flash! boo!


the crazy boys!


couple snapshots of me and aves and tim!




thanks so much everyone for helping me have such a wonderful birthday week!!!

Monday, April 25, 2011

Easter

We spent a wonderfully, relaxing afternoon celebrating Easter at Molly's house this year. The food was so yummy and the company was the BEST!!

One of the highlights of the day was Rich, Caiden, Cissy & Avery chasing each other around the pool playing water shooters. Or, I should say the kiddos chasing Rich! All of them were soaking wet by the time it was over. It was sooo fun to watch :)

papa is ready for them!


these girls are in trouble now!


tim and kevin caught in the crossfire:


















here the 3 of them are after their easter egg hunt. i think i have enough candy to last until halloween :)





Friday, April 22, 2011

Avery's Music Class

Monday, Tim and I got to go to Avery's music class to watch the kids sing and they got to show us all they have been learning. It was so fun to watch them...they are so cute at this age. They all had to sit on a red crayon and they all listened so well!!

Avery was acting so shy and would just give us these little half smiles and kind of keep her eyes down. It was funny to Tim and I because at home she can't stop talking and singing!

Here they are getting ready to do their Waltz of the Flowers


See the blond boy standing next to her...that's Her Brody!!





Doing the Popcorn Parachute. I think the kids were more interested in who got to pick up the most "popcorn" after they were out of the chute!


Avery's job that day was Door Holder...very exciting job in the world of a 3 year-old. We talk about what her job will be at school every day. Maybe we should make some jobs for her around here. I'm sure I could come up with a few :)

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt

This morning Avery and I went to the Easter egg hunt put on by our neighborhood across the street near this old farmhouse. There were a bunch of families from the neighborhood and it was fun to see so many kiddos. We're going to try and get more involved in community activities but it can be so hard being so busy! They had a coloring station with all sort of goodies to take home, cookies, the egg hunt of course and the weather was so nice!

One of the souvenirs was this bunny teeth whistle. It's been freaking Ella out...


Here she is running around gathering her eggs:




Showing off her stash:


After, we went to Market Street to get the ingredients for the yummy Sangria we are making for tomorrow's party. She wanted to push her own cart so I loaded her up!


Staring longingly at all the popsicles she wants :)

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Bluebonnets

I am going to warn you from the beginning...there are a lot of pics here. We couldn't decide on which ones we liked the best and since eventually this will be my photo album for the family, I decided to include all of them.

We took the girls across the street into our median to take pics of them in the bluebonnets. We only got one of them together because Ella was extremely intent on wanting to eat the flowers. It was really hard to get her to look up at the camera. Aves worked with us for most of the time and then got cranky ;0 There were so many flowers this year, more than last year. I hope they eventually cover the whole median...it's beautiful. And then, one of my top favorite shots is the last one that Tim and I took together...I just Love that man!

Remember, you've been warned: