July 27, 2011

Final Test Kitchen

Tonight was our final Test Kitchen of the summer. It was a really great play group and I got to know a lot of people a lot better and of course got to eat some really awesome food! Check out little Laynerina Ballerina on her tip top toes in order to get water!!
Close-up of the cutie!
Yesterday we made our own little "stain glass" window. The girls just loved it!
This little nut walked about for about half the day yesterday with this sheet wrapped around her. No idea what she was thinking!

July 25, 2011

Home Grown Tomatoes!

Jan gave us three tomato plants from Matt and Jamie's garden. Those three tiny plants have grown into monster tomato plants. We get at least 20 tomatoes every other day! There are still blooms on the things too! So, what to do with all of these tomatoes?! We've given them away, made homemade tomato sauce, given more away, used them in recipes, and last night I made tomato bread.
Had to mix a whole bunch of stuff together and let it rise then divide it into 2 loaves.
Fresh Tomato Bread!
Thankfully, the secret ingredient for Test Kitchen is TOMATOES this week!!!
Anyone have any great recipes for homemade tomatoes?!

July 22, 2011

Cinderella Kids

Tonight we went to see a kids play at one of the local high schools. It was pretty cool because we actually knew about 5 kids that were in the play and 3 of them were from Discover Point! All of the kids did such an amazing job. The girls just loved it.....especially Cinderella herself! When we saw her out in the lobby the girls just couldn't keep their eyes off of her. They were just stuck in this state of admiration and awe. I knew we just had to get a picture with her. She was so sweet when I asked her and it just made their day!
Look What We Picked Up!!!

We were on our way home from the grocery store this morning when we spotted this little guy trying to crawl across our neighborhood street!! I picked him up and showed the girls. We decided that it would be better to bring him with us and let him go in our garden-he'd be much safer there!
The girls got to check him out before he was on his way!
Science Experiment

What happens when you put Ivory Soap into the microwave? My mom's co-worker sent her a site about it and my mom forwarded it to me. She knows that when she sends these cool things to me....I just HAVE to try them out. So, we bought some Ivory soap this morning and got to work......
This is what it looked like after just 2 30 SECOND intervals!!! It just grew and grew and was so awesome!!
Now the girls have a fun time breaking off little pieces of their "soap mountain" when they wash their hands!!

We also tried to make popsicles today, but the recipe used sorbet and they never really hardened up. The sticks came right now, so it was a layered sorbet treat instead!!

July 21, 2011

Our Anniversary Adventure!

Jeremy and I just celebrated 8 years of marriage on July 19th!! We decided to go on an adventure in the city since we NEVER go there. It all started at Smoothie Blender-our friend Henry's shop. He made us surprise smoothies that weren't even on the menu! Jeremy got Dreamcicle and I got Love Potion Number 9. They were delicious. It was a great start to our adventure! Thanks Henry!

Our next stop was Fox Brothers for some amazing bbq. It was not a fancy restaurant at all, but that's not what we were looking for. We both love bbq and it was a very laid back comfortable atmosphere.
Whitney recommended that I get the Fox Brothers Burger and I am so glad that I listened to her. It was perfection. The fried okra was wonderful too. Some anonymous caller took care of our bill!! Pretty sure that it was Whit. She is such a thoughtful and caring friend. Thanks Whit!!
Next we spotted a Snoballs place!! We just had to stop there and try it out. We even got to meet the owner! Their flavors were limited, but good. The ice was different too, not as soft as Beach Snoballs. It made me excited for August when we get to go to our shop in Florida and enjoy perfect snoballs!
Then we spent the night at Embassy Suites thanks to David! I have never been in that hotel before but it was beautiful. When we got to our room we found champagne and chocolate covered strawberries in the fridge!
In the morning we headed to a glass blowing studio which was a recommendation of our friend Kim. We learned how to make two different kinds of glass pieces in 2 hours! Our teachers was Lee and he was wonderful. This is Jerm making his flower.
Here he is making the inside colorful part of his paperweight.
Here he is rounding and smoothing his finished paperweight.
My paperweight in progress.
Trying hard to look cute even though my face feels like it's about to melt off....that joker was HOT!
Smoothing my paperweight.
These are NOT our finished projects-just examples of what we made. All in all we made 3 flowers and 2 paperweights. We will pick our finished pieces up sometime next week....I can't wait!! This was such a great experience. I would highly recommend it. The place is called Siyah Glass Studio.
On the way home Jeremy decided to take on the gas light/gas tank. Gas station after gas station we passed even though the "I need gas" light was on. Not sure what exactly Jerm was looking for in the way of a gas station but apparently the 20 that we passed did not have the "it factor". So, we drove on and on. I even asked a few times, "Are you going to get gas?" and he would tell me "yes" but continue to drive and drive, I guess continuing to look for that perfect gas station. We got what I thought was VERY close to running out and I asked again and he even said that we'd get off at the next exit.....BUT....HE PASSED THE NEXT EXIT when it came! Right in between that passed exit and the next one is when.....Jeremy lost the battle and the truck just turned off! Woman's intuition......maybe??!!
This is his defeated look. We ran out of gas!!!
What could we do but laugh?!
As we waited for the HERO unit in the sweltering heat we tried to enjoy the time. We got some jellybeans out and Jeremy suggested tossing them at passing cars.....ummmmmm....NO! But we needed to do something to distract us from the speeding cars and trucks that would fly by so fast that the truck would shake!! So, we tossed them on my side of the truck. We tried to hit trees and stuff. We sat there for about 30 minutes, but our HERO finally came :)

Bubble Bath Fun


Layne got this for her birthday from her friend Cooper. It is SO COOL!

July 20, 2011

More From The Party!

These are some of the wonderful pictures that Pop took while he was at the party on Saturday.
Trying to get the very active ladybugs into bug jars before they started flying around the entire house!!




July 16, 2011

The Big Day!!

Here's sweet Layne's special birthday outfit....complete with the ladybug boots that sister got her!!
How could you not love this face!?!?
This year we did not do a meal, instead we did lots and lots of sweets!
Flower sugar cookies with little ladybugs....
Chocolate ladybug pretzels....
Ladybug cake pops (of course chocolate chocolate chip cake!)......
The absolute highlight to the party for Layne was the ladybug release. I purchased 2500 ladybugs from Ebay of all places! They arrived on Thursday and I was instructed to put them in the fridge until I needed them. When it was time, I got them out and we put bunches on ladybugs in individual bug jars for each child. They then walked through the garden to find "the perfect home" for their ladybugs.
Here's Connor making sure that he gets all of his little bugs out of the jar.
I am very surprised that Layne said this was her favorite part of the party. She was fine with the ladybugs in the jar until they started peeking their heads through the air holes trying to get out. She was just plain terrified about it. She wouldn't even hold her bug jar! I had to release her ladybugs....yet that was her favorite part!? So basically she was terrified of the entire theme of her 3rd birthday....awesome!
Abby and Hayden just loved letting the ladybugs crawl all over them.
The girls hanging with Pappy.
Pappy and Melody bought the girls grow frogs!! There are two in the container. Hayden named hers Froggy and Layne wanted to name her Hayden, but we talked her into naming it Ladybug instead!!
The sand and water table that Pappy bought the girls a few years ago was a huge hit! Carlee loved mixing the sand and water together!!
At the after party Hayden got a special gift of her own. Pappy and Melody bought Hayden some sand art stuff. They sat there for at least and hour and poured colored sand in little plastic bottles. Abby and Hayden were very precise about their layers and designs. Layne on the other hand would just get a few colors in, put the cap on and shake away!! Lots of fun.
Once EVERYONE left Pappy took his shirt off because he was hot. Of course the girls just had to do the same thing. I thought it was just the cutest thing.
What a great day. I just adore our two precious girls and I love love love celebrating them!! Happy Birthday Sweet Layne-y Bug!!