muted monday: the perfect weekend breakfast

muted monday: chess in the front yard

birthday photos

It was a pretty crazy day, weather-wise, and we were limited to standing on our front porch for most of the photos. They turned out pretty well, considering, and at least we have documentation. This is the often the only time of year that I take portraits of my kids, and it is good to be able to compare from year to year.


Hazel put together a fabulous outfit, of course. She had purple and red flowers to match her hair and her stripey clothes. Too bad it was so cold she could barely stand still for photos!


We had blueberry pancakes for breakfast, by request, and we ate it at Hazel's usual breakfast time of 11 am. They went out to a late lunch at Panera Bread (again, Hazel's choice) and then headed downtown to Ciné to see the selection of Oscar nominees for Best Animated Short Film. They finished the evening with hot chocolates at Borders, our favorite late evening dessert spot. Seriously, the hot chocolates are FABulous and they have incredible cookies and brownies too. And they warm them up for you-MMMMmmmmmmmm. We really love it there. :)


Enjoying popcorn and cream sodas at Ciné. 

The festivities will continue on Friday, when Hazel and her friends will be seeing Alice in Wonderland on opening night and then having a sleepover. It's going to be great! 


Here are some more photos from yesterday. Hazel, we are so proud of who you are becoming as you grow older. We are so thankful you are a part of our lives!



 

sick

Well, it's that time of year. The weather was cold and now it is warming up, and the sick germs are everywhere, looking for people to make miserable. I went to bed feeling pretty rough on Friday night, and woke up Saturday morning feeling downright BAD. So I went back to sleep after Jason took Lyle & Stella out of the room (snuggles were still top priority)

Imagine my surprise when I woke up at 10:30 and was brought breakfast in bed! My family takes such good care of me!!


There were sausage and scrambled eggs, a biscuit (one of my own homemade, frozen for later baking) with honey, and the largest assortment of beverages any person could ever need! I had coffee, OJ, milk, water, and even a glass of raspberry Emergen-C, which I've been chugging in order to fight off this cold. What a fabulous breakfast! And I'm here to tell you, food tastes SO much better when it is cooked for you and served on a tray in bed.


YUM. I think I'll get sick more often. ::wink::

sweet sixteen

Today marks sixteen years since I married my best friend. He used to bring me white daisies when we were dating so I thought I would get him some this time. :)

We have spent almost all of our adult lives together- learning and changing and growing. There have been problems and solutions, mistakes and apologies, pain and healing- but always love. Love and acceptance and friendship and support.

Happy anniversary, Jason, and thank you for your love. I am so glad to be here with you right now and for the rest of my days. I love you with all my heart.

flashback.5

Some more random photos, this time they are pre-Lyle. And if you haven't seen them already, go check out the pics on Daisy's blog from the girls' trip with my parents. They are exploring in Florida and having a wonderful time! I am jealous (I've never been to FL) but enjoying the time as a mom of only 2 kids :)


[Daisy jumping]


[Hazel jumping]


[Stella in her star outfit]


[Daisy and Daddy]


[Jason & Hazel at the beach]


[One of my all-time favorites, Jason & Stella snuggling]

road trip

This morning Jason loaded his saddle bags to the brim, had a good breakfast, and headed out for the 4 hour drive to Tallassee, TN- where he is meeting his dad and brothers for a guys getaway.

They have a house rented to stay in for 2 days, but the main attraction is the Tail of the Dragon at Deal's Gap, NC. They will be riding it over and over and over again, as a part of his Dad's last motorcycle riding hurrah. He is having an eye surgery next month which will make riding impossible for him in the future, so the guys planned this trip together to have one last chance to ride together.


Dad and Michael and Lance are driving from TX, pulling their bikes on a trailer. But since we are so much closer, Jason decided to just ride to meet them on his bike. I have a lot of confidence in Jason's driving abilities, but this trip still makes me a tiny bit nervous with him being alone. So I wanted to post these photos right away so our readers could be sending him safe riding vibes today!

I have some photos on our other computer from the trip we made there with Jason's folks a few years ago, so I am going to try and dig those out. In the meantime, watch some of this video that gives you an idea what it is like riding the Tail of the Dragon!

a very happy birthday

I cannot even begin to tell you how loved and honored I felt last night when my family pampered and spoiled me for my birthday! It had already been a wonderful day full of phone calls from dear family and friends wishing me a happy birthday, and even some time alone to do a little shopping (thank you Rachel for taking the kids to the pool!!) and then a nice afternoon visit with my friend and birthday mate, Melissa. I've never had a friend with the same birthday as mine, and now I have one who lives just a block over from me and who is a wonderful person! That is so cool.





I had a very difficult time just sitting and relaxing while dinner was being prepared- I guess I'm so used to being the one doing it all. That is why this was a wonderful gift! Before dinner there was cheddar and blue cheese with crackers as an appetizer, which were so good. Then there were pork chops from our local meat market, grilled with homemade barbecue sauce, and a wonderful cold pasta salad with cucumbers and herbs that was really delicious. And some Georgia muscadine wine to go with them. I was thoroughly enjoying this when Jason got up from the table and came back with a beautiful plate of berries drizzled with a mouthwatering dark chocolate sauce which was also made from scratch, and a glass of sparkling blueberry wine.





And THEN there was yet another dessert (this was MY kind of meal!) called a chocolate raspberry clafoutis, which is sort of like a custard but sort of like a cake too. It was delicious as well and I was beyond stuffed with all this good food, as well as amazed at the cooking SKILZ Jason was dazzling me with! All I said was that I did not want to cook dinner on my birthday, and he did all the research and preparations for this amazing meal. The girls set a beautiful table including a bouquet of roses and lavender picked from our yard, and fancy folded napkins. Daisy helped Jason in the kitchen quite a lot too, and he said (as I do on many occasions) that he could not have done it without her.





And then there were presents! I was very surprised and excited to receive the DVD set of Freaks and Geeks, one of our all time favorite TV shows, as well as a membership to the wine of the month club at Gosford Wine! I get 3 bottles a month of their choice, along with tasting notes in my email box. I am SO excited about that! Now we can try out some new wines and look for some new recipes to try along with them, which I am looking forward to very much.



After presents we got the little kids in bed and I came out to a spotless living room- picked up and vacuumed by Daisy & Hazel- and we settled in to watch our first installment of Freaks and Geeks. We had our second helping of fruit with chocolate sauce somewhere between episodes 2 and 3 I think. What a fantastic night! I feel completely spoiled and loved, and I am hearing from my friends that Jason has raised the bar for birthday celebrations, which I just love. Everyone should feel so well taken care of on their birthday! Thank you Jason for making it a truly special birthday for me. So far I am loving 35!

Thank you also to everyone who commented on my last post- it is wonderful to see everyone checking in. Here's to another great year!

fourteen?!

Somehow I just can't believe my Daisy is fourteen today. It is amazing how quickly that time has passed by us!



Jason took her out today for a lunch date instead of dinner, because there is an evening event at the library she wants to attend (have I said how awesome our teen program is at the Athens library?) and then she is having a few friends over to celebrate tomorrow night.





In these pictures she is sporting my newest creation and birthday gift to her, a skirt made from neckties. She is completely in love with it and I am sure she will wear it often. It looks great on her and twirls out to a full circle- and who doesn't love wearing something that twirly?







I am so proud of the young lady Daisy is becoming- she is trustworthy, helpful, and honest, and is still very much my sweet little girl even as she heads towards becoming a woman. I enjoy very much the time I get to spend with her and love watching her try out her wings as she gains more and more independence. She is an awesome daughter, sister, and friend- a person I am thankful to have in my life. I love you, Daisy girl. Happy birthday!!

a little carpentry

My dad gave Jason a really awesome table saw a while back and we've been wanting to start doing some projects around here to put it to use. We decided that a basic picnic table would be a just the thing to get us started, so we found some plans and went and bought our lumber and other supplies last week.



We started cutting the wood around 11:00 Sunday morning, and before it was dark we had our picnic table all finished! We are really pleased with how it turned out and are excited to start planning our next woodworking project. Here are some photos from our day:





Projects like this are a great way to put our math skills to everyday use: measuring lengths, adding fractions, and figuring angles.



Everyone helped out in some way throughout the day. Stella wasn't very interested in all the loud cutting and drilling, but she liked screwing the nuts and bolts together.





Jason and I always enjoy making things together- we make a good team.



It was almost dark when we got the last support boards in place- just in time!



Lyle loves to help carry heavy things.



And, the finished table! We plan to keep this out in our front yard where we can sit in the shade with friends when they stop by to visit. It is sturdy enough for the kids to climb all over/under and even use as a stage, fort, or whatever it will become. We do plan to paint it and I'll be sure to post photos when we do.



We found the free plans online here and purchased our lumber, bolts, nails, etc. at Home Depot, spending just under $100. We actually saw a kit there for $99 that would have taken us way less time, but this was a great learning project for us and it is super sturdy. It was a lot of fun to build and I know we are much more proud of it than if we had used a kit. Hooray for making things from scratch!