More Pictures

Now this is snow!

After the snow finally stopped in the wee hours of the morning.... Just some of the pictures that we have taken of the snow so far today.... Quite a lot of snow...
Unfortunately it is to powdery for a snowman just yet, but I am sure in a couple of days like before, it will harden a bit then the kids will be able to make snowmen, snowforts, so much snow.... LOL
Hopefully we can make our way to the park and get more pictures to post.


Our neighborhood church.

Behind

That about sums it for me.... between, school, dance classes, getting my wisdom teeth pulled the week before Thanksgiving that had me bed ridden for about four days, (I'll leave out the not so pleasant details of that experience)... working on Christmas gifts for family and friends, other than getting my wisdom teeth out.. it has been great. I love keeping busy. I just haven't had the time to post any new pictures.. though I have them.

The girls participated in a Christmas dance program through the studio to raise money for Operation Happy Smile, a charity that the studio has been helping to raise money for the last 12 years. Elizabeth is also doing Odyssey of the Mind again at school this year, which is cutting into her ballet time at the studio, but she doesn't seem to mind it. She is also on the honor roll again, and has been put into a lottery for a magnet school for next year for the arts, cross your fingers...

A few pics of what we have been up to, decorating a tree, making Christmas cookies, and me making scarfs for my nieces and nephews and friends.

We have had our first snow of the season... not a lot... but apparently enough to call off school for two days, (I didn't think so, but then again, I am a Kansas girl....)Snow, is just not something Virginia is used to, so I have been told..

School Pictures

Well it's that time of year again, school pictures.... They sure have come a long way since I was kid. Now there are several different background choices and sitting positions for the parents to choose from. Elizabeth has been begging to buy pictures. "Buy some pictures, please, can we buy some pictures?" Why? When now I have a professional camera and can go out and take my own. AND, do the different and interesting background and psp tricks. So Saturday we took the kids to a dock and took there pictures with the Chesapeake Bay and the setting sun as our background. I think they turned out really good except for a little hair malfunction, it was a bit windy on the docks.
I might have to do Anthony's again, his hair has gotten pretty thick lately and is a mess. LOL But hey! At least I got some of him. It's not easy to do.








Next weekend I think we will go to Newport News Park and take some fall pictures.

Alexandria's Birthday

It is really easy to make a nice cake, when you aren't a cake decorator by trade, but you really want to be, when you have the help of premade sugar flowers from Wal-Mart......Since it seems cakes are so expensive now adays, at least in my opinion, I thought why not take that money and try something myself....... Once I found the flowers and leaves, I knew I had it made!
LOL

Other then the cake everything was kept low key. This year I did let her invite a couple of friends over. Being the selfish person I am, and wanting to celebrate the children I gave birth to, we as a family usually just go to Chuck E Cheese and then come home to presents and cake and ice cream, spending time together.
This year, I let Lexie have a couple of friends over to play games and have some cake and ice cream since her big birthday present will be Toy Story on Ice later this month... can't wait for that....

I can't believe she is six already... I told her I didn't want her turning six yet, and she said, "I have to!" Have to? ugh....LOL

1st day of School (Sept. 7, 2010)

I am a little behind on posting, it has been a busy September so far..... I think this year Alexandria was the only one, well other than me, that was excited to see school starting up again. She even seems disappointed when the weekend rolls around. I am glad it is here again, it is my only me time. I finally get to work on house work in the morning and it actually stays clean a little longer now without kids following right behind me to mess it up again, and I can start work on projects again that I have been waiting all summer to do that I don't have time for when kids are home.

Of course that also means another start to the new dance year...yikes, We are starting at a new studio this year that I think will give the girls better ballet training then they have had in the past. This studio also offers gymnastics that Lexie has been bugging me about, and Elizabeth wants to step up her dancing to something more update along with ballet so she is in a jazz hip hop class and seems to really enjoy it.... So five classes four days a week! EEEEKK!! LOL

Refurbished

One of my projects I had this year was to fix up the kitchen set that my dad had made for Jennifer and I when we were young. It has been in need of a new make over. So I spent the months scraping and sanding off old paint were needed.
Here are my results of months of working on the three pieces. I painted the insides of all three sets as well which was not easy to do...Everything has been sprayed to protect the paint and plus I love how it gives it a glossy shine. Now she has a completed kitchen set to play with her dolls again, other than she will need a few shelves that have come up missing over the years, but that won't be hard to replace... especially now that daddy is home to do it...lol

Most of it was painted with stencil and rub ons and a few wall stickers. Very little of it was drawn by me. All of it still using the original fixtures as my dad had used when he built it so many years ago.

I do need work on my creativity... but it's enough for Lexie to love and enjoy!!!
The refrigerator. . . .

The sink. . . .

The stove
(I forgot to put the knobs and hooks back on before taking the picture.)
Painting the burners on was the hardest part, I made a pattern by using actual burners from my stove and traced and colored it in with chalk to use as a rub on, on the stove and then painted it in.... LOL I couldn't think of another way to do it, I couldn't just draw it on....!

Water Country 2010

This year we decided to go to Water Country. Everyone had a lot of fun. We are already talking about getting season passes for next year if we are still here. Here are just a few pictures of the fun in the sun.....


What I really liked was all of the beautiful flowers and plants they had around the park, of course I took lots of pictures of those as well. I am going to post them when I am done messing with them.

Campout 2010

Here is our campout this year, I took tons of pictures, over 400 that I last saw when sorting through all the pictures to put on the blog. There are many here...so be ready.....lol






Though it was suppose to be a relaxing week at the campgrounds, sometimes it was a battle of the wills between us and the spiders or the raccoons at night, and one time with a snake in the girls bathroom. . . . not the way you want to wake up in the morning! ..but overall it was nice being in the middle of nature, waking up with the birds and the deer sauntering by. I am just amazed at how close the deer will let you get to them before they take off. They are not even scared of vehicles driving by, they only tend to get nervous when you stop the vehicle and try to take pictures. LOL

I know, not the most attractive background, the bathroom... but for me it was a rare glimpse at a buck. Most of the time we only saw female deer, rarely did we see any males.

This one decided I was too close.

The first three days it was extremely hot and we did retreat to our air conditioned home a couple of times to escape the 90 degree plus temperatures, with heat indexes in the hundreds.

We passed the time playing football, badminton, playing cards and board games.

The kids and John enjoyed a little two on two football, once they could get Lexie to run in the right direction with the ball. . .
I don't do football...

The kids enjoyed a paddle boat ride, though Lexie decided she could have done without. I worked on my picture taking skills while they were out.

Tuesday we escaped the heat by going to the beach and enjoying a couple of hours in the ocean.









Wednesday, John took the kids bowling for a couple of hours, which gave me a chance to enjoy the camp without the complaints of the kids,(game withdrawals), and doing what I wanted to do... just sit and marvel at nature's beauty.

By Thursday the temperature started to improve and we could start enjoying our campout without feeling we were dying of heat exhaustion.

We did at least go on a nature walk through one of the many trails here at the park. The kids, of course, aren't into it much, but John and I really enjoy it.

I just loved taking pictures of the trees around us everywhere, it even rained on Thursday and we barely felt any of it, the trees make great umbrellas!

It's also fun to find all the interesting things that nature has in it...These are just some of the things I found.








AND of course every evening was spent after supper roasting marshmallows and making s'mores.