Girls Weekend

This weekend my little 3 bedroom house was busting at the seams. My group of college girlfriends descended on my house again (5 out of 6, anyway)......plus two new little girlies! Mattie (dark hair, 9 1/2 mo) and Jenna (red hair, 10 mo) joined us --- which made life very, very exciting!

The girls arrived on Friday night and we enjoyed a Tater Tot Casserole, Sauteed Broccoli and fruit salad before the little girls explored their new surroundings:

After the little ones were in bed, we watched the KU basketball game because Sara is a big big fan. Rock Chalk Jayhawk!

Saturday morning we got up with the girls on their timetable. Ate a sausage egg casserole and monkey bread. Mmmmm. I have a little leftover to enjoy for breakfasts this week, but not much!

Then more playtime!

A box is so much fun as a toy!

We did venture out for lunch and a Blockbuster run. We also stopped by a craft fair hosted by the drill team at the high school near my house. Then it was back to the house for naps, more playtime, more pictures and dinner. My Chinese food loving friends found a restaurant to try in the neighborhood, called in our order and ran to pick it up. It was yummy -- and cheap! Now I have a new place for takeout!

Do you know how hard it is to try and pose two wiggly little girls and get them both to look at the camera at the same time?!

Here is Mattie with her mama, Mollie:

And Jenna with her mama, Sara:

The weekend was so much fun girls! Craziness, laughter, temper tantrums, sweet kisses, snotty noses, incoherent babbling, new tricks, smelly diapers and all! Love you.....

Spring = Yard work

Ugh. Spring is here. That means that it is time to work in the yard again. I think that is my absolute least favorite chore. Well, maybe a close second to cleaning the bathroom.

Last week I got a nice letter from our city neighborhood inspection person telling me that I needed to mow my weeds. Apparently we have a city ordinance that grass, weeds etc can't exceed 12 inches in height {guess they want to maintain nice looking yards or something}. Since I didn't have time to tackle really mowing, I just pulled out my weedeater and whacked them enough to hopefully pass inspection. Not exactly sure what would have happened if I didn't comply -- probably another letter and then maybe even a fine.

So tonight, I did the real deal. I raked leaves off the patio into the yard. I pulled weeds. I mowed and mulched leaves. I pulled more weeds. I raked more leaves. I also set some concrete edging around my bird bath that my parents gave me last summer. I need to dig a trench and really set it in place, but I wanted to get the visual and get it lined up right first.

The one really perplexing part of the evening were these crazy weeds that were rather prolific. They looked like big lettuce leaves (sorta) and were very very difficult to pull out. The stem was about 1/2 in diameter and hollow, but they were firmly entrenched in the yard or flowerbed. I had to pull the leaves off and then really dig the thing up. Mostly, I think I just whacked the roots off underground, but at least I pulled the stump out on most of them. Does anyone know what these weeds are and how to really kill them or stop them from growing??

Then I came in, cleaned up in a very nice hot shower and have been doing laundry the rest of the evening. It will probably be an early to bed evening.....I'm pooped!

Spring Reading Thing is Here!

It's here! Katrina is hosting her Spring Reading Thing again.....go check out all the other readers' lists.

I'm more of a read what catches my attention person than a make a list of what I want to read. But, I'll put a small list here and then just keep track of what I read and update as we go!

Anne of Green Gables series -- my grandmother had these books and I borrowed them from her long ago to read and never got around to it. So maybe I will now!

Chronicles of Narnia -- I've read most of the books in the series, but never made it all the way through. I got a gift card for my birthday, so I think I'm going to buy the set and read them all straight through.

That's it for this spring......we'll see how many others I get to!

Another quote

A friend has this quote at the end of his email.....today I saw it in large type and highlighted and it just really spoke to me.

"Be who you are and say what you feel... because those that matter... don't mind... and those that mind... don't matter." - Dr. Seuss

I'm still wondering about the first part of that quote...."be who you are." I'm still wondering who I am. I look in the mirror and I'm not sure that I recognize the girl that is looking back. And I don't really know how to find her....how to figure out who I am now.

I generally don't have a problem with the next part...."say what you feel." Depends on who I am with, but I am quite often able to say what I am thinking, regardless of if it is necessarily the most politically correct thing to say. Of course, I don't know that it is a good thing or not! But the more that I say what I think (or feel) around people that really do matter, the more I realize that they are on my side no matter what. And that really does feel good.

Saturday Project

The storage area of my garage has been a mess for the past several months. Before Christmas, this is what it looked like.

That white shelving on the left has been a variety of things over the past 32 years. It was built by my grandpa and was the changing table for me and my sister. I think it was mostly used in my mom's sewing room in the years after the need for a changing table went away. I brought it with me to Dallas and used it in my apartment as an entertainment center for a while, then it moved to my bedroom to serve as additional storage. When I moved to my house, I didn't have a need for it inside, so it became garage storage. Well, now that there is a baby coming to our family, it is reverting to its original purpose. My parents took it home at Christmas time to get it repaired, repainted, etc. So, since then my garage has looked like this:

So today, I took myself to Lowe's and purchased a shelving unit to get this chaos under control.

First, I cleared out the area and placed the stuff in like groups around the garage.

Then the construction began! The trickiest part of the project was attaching the two side posts together with a single brace. Another set of hands would have been very helpful!

Almost done! I didn't manage to get a photo of the completed unit empty, though.


























All done!



































I was going to give you some closeup pics of several areas, but Blogger is getting on my nerves, so I'm gonna stop before I blow up my computer.

I'm about to fold some towels, take a quick nap, then get all done up for a wedding tonight. It doesn't start until 8:00 so it's gonna be a late night, especially with the time change too! Oh well, that's what Sunday afternoon naps are for!!

Spring Reading Thing

It's coming! Even though it is cold and rainy/sleety/snowy today....spring is just around the corner. Katrina is hosting her Spring Reading Thing again.

Watch for my list to come!

Birthday, family, snow!

Last Friday night some friends from church treated me to a yummy dinner at Manny's.....brisket tacos! Yum!!!
























Then Saturday, on the actual day, my good friends Katie, Sarah and I celebrated together. Sarah's birthday was Feb 25 and Katie's was Feb 27. We have celebrated our special days together for over 10 years! We had a yummy dinner at Bennigan's then saw a cute new movie, Penelope. We played with my camera in the movie theater trying to get a good self-portrait. Many goofs later, here we are!


















On Sunday I had my March dinner (er...lunch) party. My cousin Blake, his wife Lianne and their baby Andrew came and joined me, Heather & Phillip for lunch at my house. We haven't spent much time together in recent years, so it was fun to catch up and enjoy playing with Andrew! We missed Lauren, Robert & Lindsey to complete the Cousin Lunch -- it would have been a little bit of a drive from Abilene just for Sunday lunch!




























Then on Monday night, it snowed! I snapped these couple quick picks on Tuesday morning before I headed out to work.

Texas Independence Day

Happy Texas Independence Day!!

Help!

So, I have a two gift cards from my birthday ...... to Barnes & Noble and iTunes.

Though I love to read, I don't often buy books, so any suggestions out there for what I should spend this on?

I also recently treated myself to some new music, so I'm a bit tapped as to what I want to spend the iTunes money on. I enjoy discovering new bands, but it is so hard to just find them on your own. So again, any suggestions in that regard would be greatly appreciated.

Birthday

Happy Birthday to me!

Hope you all have a fabulous day!