Neverending Water Photos... and introducing THE TUX!

It's hot in Austin. No, I mean HOT. It's going to be a terrible Summer, so expect lots of water pictures this year! This is from this past weekend... I keep waiting for them to be bored with it... so far, not happening...

Apparently the 1 foot of water requires special equipment...


This is called "The Tux" (named after the penguin - Linux geeks will get this)... my kids are dorks :)

Green Stuff In Window Sill Update

Just an update on the window sill growing stuff... These are the strawberries in the little bitty craft kit. I think we need to transplant them into the big pot with the tomato/strawberries mixture (anyone know, should we separate out those plants or something? HELP! We don't know what we are doing!!!!)


Here's the avocado... if you look behind the water drop, you will see a green thing. I think that will eventually grow out the top. I think. I do wonder about that root turning brown... Hmmm...


And here's the rosemary Jamie gave me for Mother's Day... we now have 4 little shoots instead of just one! We are scared to try to move them to the center of the cup... LOL


Yes, we are afraid of our plants.

Green Stuff In Dirt Update

I am an idiot. I've never grown anything from seed. I honestly didn't expect any of this stuff to actually grow. So, when we did them, I told Tom to just kind of throw them in there and whatever. Well, we mixed the strawberries and tomatoes in one pot because we were running out of pots and really, it's not gonna grow... right?

Then I thought the squirrels dug up the tomatoes/strawberries, but now I think it was probably the sunflowers, cuz Denise confirmed what I was suspecting - these are TOMATO PLANTS. LOL! Yeah, so, we are growing tomatoes. And strawberries. Mixed. This is should be... weird.


These are the flowers we transplanted from the pot we got them at the nursery. Now we are scared to move/touch them cuz they keep growing!


We think these are straw flowers.


Oh who knows... dude, I'm clueless. The kids picked out some wildflower seeds to plant in the dirt-only one. Hey, we might be growing stuff and stuff! Maybe some neighbor is taking pity on us and going behind our back and fixing what we are screwing up? ;)

Memorial Day Party

We had a bit of a memorial day party over here with several families and lots of kids... and LOTS of fun! We grilled out and set up the pools and water slide. The kids had a blast. I did too, but I was EXHAUSTED afterwards. I'm so lucky to have great friends though. I love having the mom friends over... they help clean up before they leave!

Just a few pics... most I took of other people's kids and gave to them.







AND my dear dear friend, Crystal, brought me flowers!

Sunshine Photos of the Kids... (LOVE this one of Cassie)

I took these over the weekend at a birthday party. Cassie LOVES being out in the sunshine. Jamie? Not so much. Jamie spent most of the party grumping that he wanted go to inside in the air conditioning. I feel ya, son. It was 97 out there!

This is another of those rare pictures that I just LOVE... it's funny, one of my friends on Flickr said it reminded her of that song "I'm walking on sunshine" and it really does, doesn't it? She didn't know I was photographing her, I was pretty far away, so her face is just pure joy.

Anderson Mill Museum - Just 'Cuz

So, our neighborhood was named after this Thomas Anderson (yes like Neo from The Matrix - OMG, I'm SUCH a freaking geek), who back a long long time ago moved up here and built a mill to grind corn or something. Then the civil war happened and it become a gunpowder mill. And then, well, whatever... and now the old site sits at the bottom of Lake Travis (which is man-made obviously). BUT I recently found out that there is a replica.

Not only is there a replica, but it's a MUSEUM. How cool is that? The catch? The place is only open to the general public once per month for 3 hours. No, I'm not making this up. It's open the 4th Sunday of the month from 2pm-5pm March through October. So, gosh darn it, we went on Sunday with our friends D and J. I wasn't expecting much. I mean, seriously... I spent HOURS researching this info and there was so little information out there... but it was only 5 miles away, so off we went.

But it was really cool. And the ladies there (it's operated and maintained by the Volente Garden Club ladies) are SO very nice. They were having a little flower thing and gave my kids lemonade and let them vote on the flower arrangements. It was so very very sweet.

My biggest gripe is that they don't allow photography inside because of insurance reasons. Fair enough, but there were NO SIGNS. If you aren't going to let people take pictures, you need to tell them. I'm not posting any of the interior except for one of bottles that I think is cool - and that you could easily see from the outside. Anyway, it was really neat!

So, pictures are up first and then I'll put some links on here for anyone that's nerdy enough to want to know more about my little neighborhood's namesake.















More Info:
Texas Travel Site
Wikipedia - Anderson Mill
Anderson Mill Garden Club - Info and hours and stuff
Texas Handbook - Little bit of history

So, there you have it :)

Cassie's Drawing - A little disturbing actually

So this is me and Julie (the dog).

Let's ignore the fact that I'm frowning. The round things she tells me (blushing) are shoulders. I am pretty sure she made it anatomically correct. LOL. And WHAT is up with my hair, dudes? And why are my arms (not attached to my shoulders) coming out of my ears? Hmmm... seriously, though, how cute is that?

Heh, I'm 12

So, I always try to put a little note in Jamie's snack and/or lunchbox. I've been putting in a countdown in his snack each day and he usually writes back "Yay!" or something. On Friday, I sent a note that there were 4 more days left and he sent it back with this sticker. I couldn't stop giggling. Yes, I'm 12. BUT so is Tom, he was giggling like a school girl.

Sleepover Time!

I grabbed some quick pictures of the kids last night. Their friend, J, came over for a sleepover (honestly, I think she's just gonna move in for the Summer - you should hear all the grand plans going on in this house!). We are very lucky to have good friends like J and her mom, D, in our lives. They make us laugh and don't mind watching a movie they've already seen :) Here they are hanging out watching Alvin & The Chipmunks and dozing off...


Cassie spent the night there the night before, so I think she was a bit tuckered out:


... and Tom's biggest secret is that he likes for J to come over because it means that they usually behave (or else we separate them and they don't like that!) so he gets some game time in...

Jamie Reading to Cassie

This is from this past week... Jamie is such an AMAZING reader. And I love it for the nights when I just cannot stand to read the alligator story AGAIN and Jamie will do it for me :) *laugh*

Soccer Photos from Last Weekend

No game this weekend, so here's some from last weekend. The team kicked butt! They rocked and did a great job. Goooo... Longhorns!

Just 2 more games before the season ends. A few friends have come out to watch Cassie's game now and then - it's very special for the kids to have people they love come watch. They love it!

Misc Pics of the Kids - LOVE the one of Jamie... Framing it!

I'm my own worst critic... so it is pretty rare that I take a picture I just love. I LOVE this one of Jamie... I love his eyes, I love the slight movement of his hand I caught, I love the odd little look on his face. I just LOVE it.

(yes photo nerds, I know it's a little overexposed - I actually did it on purpose because I like the effect for this photo. I'm weird. I know.)

I like this one of Cassie. She was hiding behind a box and I caught her peeking up. I love how you can tell she's smiling by looking at her eyes.


And another random one of Cassie:

Pic of Jamie being moody (thoughtful maybe? Nah, moody)

I took this over the weekend... then played with it in PhotoFiltre...

Pic of kids and I goofing off

Homework Time.. so studious

Trying to make the Mindstorms car go

Growing Stuff - Outdoors Update

Remember when we planted stuff? HERE is a link to remind you. Let's check in, shall we, and see how everything is doing:

The strawberries and tomatoes are dirt. Something dug them up and ate the seeds we think. Probably one of the squirrels.


The pretty flowers we bought all died, and the plants are getting huge. I'm not sure what to do with them. Some are annuals and some are perennials. I dunno which is which and I don't know if I should break them up or let them keep at it. But they are huge now. I'm so scared to touch them because as we all know, I kill stuff.


And these... we planted from seed! Lookit! I'm not sure which is which, but one is a sunflower mix and another is a straw flower mix. Stuff is like, growing! I think it might too late to see 'em bloom, but look! They are growing! Green stuff in dirt!

Jamies first purchase

cheesecake at Fazolis... He walked up to the counter and got it all himself

Heard From The.... Bedroom

Saturday night we had some extra kids over and everyone stayed up late so we got to bath time late, so we put the extra kid that stayed the night in the shower first, and then started Cassie's bath. I told Jamie to wait about 10 minutes to take his shower to give the water heater time to heat back up the water.

Several minutes later Tom comes into my office laughing. Jamie was standing stark naked in our bedroom (which we keep very cold). Why? Because I told him to wait to get in the shower.

So, he gets in the shower... 20 minutes later Tom comes back laughing even harder. Apparently, Jamie decided to sit down in the shower. Yes, he was sleeping. Tom woke him up to finish his shower.

Yes.

This is Tom's son.

110% - all Tom.

Genius

A good picture of Julie...

I took this late last week... I thought it turned out really good...

Anyone know what kind of bird this is?

One of the nice things about our neighborhood is all the birds! We have everything from cardinals to mean bluejays to little brown birds. I even have a bird feeder and watch them from my office. We also have annoying pigeons. This year... we have this new bird. I *think* it's the same one bird, but I'm not sure. So... bird people... what is this bird? It's too big to be some random "little brown bird" LOL.

UPDATE: Some thought it might be a mockingbird (albino), but a friend of mine also said albino grackle, which I think is probably it. Looking at the picture of it against a regular grackle and that's it.

Best Friends in Childhood...

I'm proud of the pic above. Not because it's some wonderful piece of photographic genius - it's good, not fabulous - but because of what it represents to my children. This is them hugging the little girl next door. We love her as much as if she were one of our own.

Tom and I both grew up "in the sticks". I had a neighbor next door, but they were a little weird - we played together a while, but they got weirder and weirder. Other than that, the nearest kids were several miles away. Tom's nearest kids were several miles away. We vowed when Jamie came along that we would make sure we didn't do that to our kids. When we first looked at this house, we saw a beautiful child of about 10 riding her bike outside of the house next to this one. I knew we were in the right place - there were kids here! That and the built-in bookshelves pretty much cinched the deal. When we moved in, we discovered that little girl on the bike had a sister that would be starting school with Jamie. And her parents are amazing people too. I so totally love my neighbors. Our lives are busy so we don't see each other as much I'd like, but our kids spend HOURS together some (most) days - and they have so few fights. It's pretty amazing actually. When they replaced the fence, they had a gate put in so the kids can go back and forth to each other's yards. They love it.

As soon as we had the chance, we bought the place from the landlord. We adore it here. My biggest fear is that my neighbors will decide to move one day. We know how very lucky we are. How many people can say that they love their neighbors and their neighborhood? I can only think of one person in our little few blocks that we don't really like - the party house - and really my biggest complaint is all the cars parked on the street are in my minivan's way. LOL!

Yeah, life is good.

:)

Nighty Night -- the spoiled dog...

Cassie LOVES Julie. Julie worships Cassie. Seriously, this little dog puts up with so much from these kids. I honestly have no idea where she gets the patience. Julie likes to play with Jamie - mainly lick his ears - yeah, we think it's weird too. But Cassie is her BFF. They are inseparable. I'll walk into the living room or Cassie's room and there they will be, Julie usually has finagled herself into getting a belly rub.

Sometimes we let Julie stay out for the night instead of putting her in the kennel. She almost always end up in bed with Cassie.

I'm not sure how she got covered up and snuggled in like this, but it was just too cute not to take a picture of:


Sigh... maybe I won't give her away because she STILL isn't 100% potty trained. Seriously, if it's raining or cold the dog will NOT go outside. We've tried locking her out there and she just sits on the stoop shivering looking pathetic. Then comes in and promptly craps on the rug.

Freaking dog.

Cassie Shows Off Her Secret Stuff

Did I tell you about the day Jamie guessed what was in Cassie's little purse? No... be glad. But, basically Cassie keeps certain items in this little cat purse she carries around. Everything in there is secret and Jamie and Daddy cannot know what it is. It's girl stuff. It's very important.

Fast forward to Tom and I in the van with our 2 kids and an extra. Jamie guesses that the bead necklace is in the purse. He's right. The amount of screaming that ensues shatters the windshield. So, I buy Cassie new secret stuff...

3 days later, she and Jamie make a deal to show each other their secret stuff. (And yeah, I followed Jamie to make sure what secrets he was showing LOL) So, all that screaming was for naught.

And now she wants me to post this so the little girl next door will see it.



Yes, I added the butterflies cuz I wanted to hear her giggle...

:)

Cassie Finally Slides Down...

Another one from Sunday... Cassie finally decides to slide down... and I got nothing but crappy shots because it was shaded by then, so you get a sepia "fix" ;)

Lego Mindstorms Videos - Finally!

Okay, I'm ignoring the fact that the sound didn't come over, but I finally got the video off of my cell phone!

This is this week. They made helicopters. Way cool, dude!


I like last week's the best though... robot dogs! They used the sensors so that if they started coming close to you, it would back up. Really cute. They didn't program it to bark though - LOL


I think they made this one the week before... whatever... anyway, here's a merry-go-round:

Popsicle Cheers At the slide

From Sunday... I gave them all Popsicles (shhh... don't tell their moms!). I thought it was cute how they all hung out on the little outcropping together to eat them...

Jamie's gonna be a fish store owner!

... apparently.

I'm guessing this was some "draw what you want to do when you grow up" type of thing. He came home with this several days ago. There's a shop with a big sign off of the main freeway that is called Pet Supplies Plus. I guess he sees it often enough, he drew it! I thought he did a pretty good job, lotsa detail going on here!



It says "Pets Supplies Plus" and under that I think it says "Fish Free"



I think this says "I sell fish and fish food. They would buy these."
"Fish Surprise"
"Goldfish"
"WooHoo"
"Fish Food"
"For your happy fish"

Okay, that last bit made me seriously LOL

*giggle*

Dakota gets a new BFF

Our friend, J, had the class pet (this stuffed lizard - I dunno, it's weird, but whatever). So I took a picture of him with his new BFF, Dakota, our lizard.

J's mom made me, I'm not THAT corny.

Errr... okay.

Helicopter at Mindstorms

Deep Sea Divers

Last week, the kids were playing in the little pool and asked for their masks and snorkels. They were deep sea divers and needed their equipment, ya know!

Getting Ready For The Pool....

Over the weekend, the kids were getting ready to go swimming Jamie wanted me to take his picture with the whale...

Everyone sing, Laurie Berkner style with me now.. "Jamie's got a whale on his head, Jamie's got a whale on his head, Jamie's got a whale on his head, and it likes to stay all day"



Cassie was being a brat, so I stole this picture... LOL

Jamies Mothers Day Letter 2008

Jamies Mothers Day Letter 2008
Originally uploaded by CandyTX

I found this in Jamie's bookbag this morning. I can only guess that this is something they made for Mother's Day. I feel all gushy that it does look like he spent a good deal of time coloring it in.

BUT... read the first line. Ummm... yeah... I came back in from dropping him at school and proclaimed to Tom that he needed to lick my hand and tell me what I tasted like. He looked at me like I had 2 heads. *laugh*


In case you don't read First Grade, "Moms taste like milk. Oh mommy you are the best. Mom let's go to Sea World. Mom, let's go swimming. You are the very very best. From Jamie."

Other than the random milk thing, I think he's sucking up for a Sea World and/or pool trip, eh? ;)

Heard From The Back... er... yard

Jamie: It was like a piece of a party

Summer's Here, and the time is right... for suckering the parents...

So, a friend gave us a little water slide that we thought would work with our blower for the bouncy house. Well, it doesn't. So the kids mope and Tom and I decide to be super cool parents and get them a new one... we came home with THIS:



... because we are suckers, that's why.

So, guess what they did today? Yup.....

At Birthday Party

Happy Birthday to our fried David

Field Day Lunch With Jamie

gallery nite at school

robot dog

Some misc photos of the kiddos....

I was playing with my camera and these are my faves...

Cassie and her BFF...


A face only a mother could love...


Friend J gets the big hello from Julie...


Jamie looking super cute...

My little networker....

Because of some weird scheduling thing, I had a little networking meeting and had to take Jamie with me. Luckily, it wasn't a big deal to bring my kid because it's SUPER informal. Anyway, Jamie found this tag in my bag and made himself a name tag. I thought it was so cute I, of course, had to get a picture.

I have to say what a little man my kid is. He's so smart and cute and funny. He was SO good during the meeting. I was very proud of him!

Singing Squid - courtesy of Jamie

Jamie asked me post this because he thinks it's super cool. He's played it on his computer at least a million times. It's from a bionicle movie.

Playing in the backyard...

...on the bouncy castle! The kids had a great time this weekend on it... we hadn't taken it out in a while!

Ice Sculptures

We stayed a hotel that is around the campus for Johnson and Wales in Charlotte. It's a culinary arts school. We saw them cooking as we walked around downtown and we saw them doing ice sculptures one day in the area near the parking garage. It was really neat!

Cassie's Game Today