the winner is....

comment #5:  betsy!

thanks for playing, everyone.

happy tuesday!

ice cream date

thing 1 went to a birthday party with daddy, so thing 2 and i went to find some fun of our own.

a little shopping, and then we stopped to check out this new russell stover store.

a nearby billboard advertised $1 single scoop ice cream.

it was worth every penny, and good to the last drop.

and, it's a wrap!

the last few pics of our trip to illinois/ohio.  we're so glad to be all back home together, even if it is ridiculously HOT!!  now, we're hoping for someone to come visit us  :)

hugs for papaw

even tho he was a miserable lil guy and tired of waiting to be seen by the doc,  he still had a sense of humor.  love this cheesy face!

happy car faces!  notice that this is mamaw's vehicle as ours has probably never been this clean or empty of debris.

on the way HOME!  with DADDY!

lil miss loves to help daddy get mama a coke whenever we stop for gas - and then have the first drink, of course!

cowboy caviar

mamas are sweet.  they'll make your favorite foods (without the onions!), and then they will eat with you so you don't have to feel bad about being a pig alone.  :)

thank you, mama. it was delish!

2 avocados, diced

2 roma tomatoes, diced

1 can shoepeg corn, drained

1 can black eyed peas, drained

1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped

3-4 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 c olive oil

1/4 c red wine vinegar

1 t cumin

s & p

stir it up and enjoy!

driving

now you know the real reason why it's so fun to go to papaw's house.  the toys are completely oversized and lots different than what we have at home.  :)

the best kiddo ballgame

that i've ever been to.  actually, it is probably the only one.  and, it was way more fun than i expected.  cheap hotdogs and popcorn didn't have anything to do with it, i promise.

fun to watch cousin c., and hard to believe he's this grown up!  the other kids had a grand slam time playing in the dirt outside the fence.  no pictures, because i don't want to remember how dirty they got.

love a kid who can slide into every base, every time.  :)

queen stinkerbean

after lunch with papaw, i had gone to the bathroom while mamaw and thing 2 shopped a little.  i found mamaw talking to a saleslady, while thing 2 demonstrated her distaste for such conversation.  she didn't know i was watching, and just continued to lay on the floor until she saw me approach.  then, there was the cheesiest of all sly grins.

a little giveaway!

a year ago today, the first post went up on this blog! 

it seems like a good reason for a little freebie, 'eh?  starting today, you can enter to win a personalized stamp from stampin up - and me!  (click the zoom button on the catalog page, bc it's realllllly small if you don't.)

they've got no idea i'm doing this, so of course they're not sponsoring it.  i just wanna share my love of all-things-paper and give you a little something for reading along with me. 

here's whatcha gotta do.

leave a comment telling me:

• what your favorite thing to read in blogland is - houses, recipes, fashion, travel, or maybe it's something else.  (my fave switches from time to time, but right now it's food.)
• your email address

the winner will be chosen via random.org on july 31, and will be notified via email.

sweet things

the sweetest lil rock-a-bye-baby song i've ever heard. 

both of them pointed out to me that he was using her lovey to get rocked to sleep.

the sweetest "is my belly as big as yours?" face.

the sweetest lil baby BOY we've seen in a while.

we love all these lil girls, but it's fun to see a new baby boy for a change too!

can't wait to hear what our sisters have cooking...  :)

did you know that our kiddos will be doubling their cousin count by the end of the year?!?  right now, they've got 2 cousins on each side of the family... but, with 3 sis's expecting, there'll be 4 babies coming soon.  check out one sis's adventures.

4th of july camping

it's been an annual event the last few years, and it would've been sad to miss it.  weren't exactly sure how we would swing a trip back to IL over the holiday, but we're glad it worked out in the middle of this work trip for daddy to have a few days off with us.

sleeping in a new spot is always fun - especially when you get to share a bed with your brother, stay up late, wake up early, and giggle a whole bunch after lights out.

naptime on papaw's boat

i feel badly about the pictures we managed to capture on this trip.  both thing 1 and thing 2 were there, and both were having soooo much fun.  i'm going to have to get better at chasing thing 1 to get pictures... he's just big enough now to go do his own thing more, and it's not really right next to mama.  he was pretty comfy out there on the water, and with the help of his life jacket, was swimming all over!

nothing quite like homemade ice cream!

happy sweaty 4th of july from thing 1 and thing 2!

cousin fun!

while the kiddos stayed with papaw and mamaw, they got to spend some time with their cousins.  looks like they found a fun way to keep cool on a hot summer day!

and, yes, this IS how you play with a slip-n-slide.

politics raise my blood pressure

i feel like most politicians have strayed so far from what's actually just a matter of right and wrong.  the whole world has actually.  you can't make something wrong into something right even if you make laws allllllll over the place about it.  for instance, abortion.  it'll never be the right thing to do.

my purpose today isn't to complain, tho!  it was just to say that, when i saw this in the news, i was glad.  someone in a high position in a company is actually doing what's right just because it's right. 

that's the awesome sauce on my chicken nuggets.  (and, another reason why i love chick-fil-a)

the three little pigs

the kids' favorite books change from time to time, and lately thing 1's pick has been the three little pigs.

i'm always wondering what's going on in their little minds, and sometimes i try to find out. So after reading about the pigs, i ask thing 1 what the story means.

"it means if you're in trouble, run to your brother's house."

on the road again

the time came for the dreaded business trip.  that's just part of daddy's job, though, so we try to figure out how to make the best of the situation.  we just feel lucky that this time we get to tag along as far as papaw and mamaw's house!

plans and more plans were made.  mama started to pack the bags.  then, plans changed and we left 3 days earlier than we had originally planned.  packing became a little more intense, and we tried to knock last minute things off the list as quickly as possible.

mama had 2 awesome little helpers gathering this and that for the bags.  a little incentive never hurts, and thing 1 knew that as soon as things were packed and loaded that we'd head east.  they were soooooo excited to spend a couple days with papaw and mamaw - without mom and dad.  actually, thing 1 was VERY excited, and thing 2 thought she'd rather go with mommy. 

i hear that there were trips to the "orange pop store," and mama got to do a lil solo shopping:

 i ended up with the gray ones, and they are soooo comfy!

this mama found that she has learned to shop in high gear with munchkins in tow, so the easton mall was completely covered in just a couple of hours even with no kiddos.  i had a really hard time slowing down and just relaxing, but it was great to just bop into a fitting room and try something on without handing out snacks, picking up trash, finding a toy, settling a squabble... 

the outlying stores were fun too, and it was wierd to be out shopping during naptime.  a good kind of wierd.  :)

because i was such an efficient shopper the previous day, and i had seen an archivers - that became my new plan for my second day.  i had planned to do a little scrapbooking in the hotel room, but archivers is my favorite scrapbook store EVER!  their workroom is free if it's free there's no class in session during the day, so i settled in for a few hours.  ahhhh.

and what a treat to have lunch w/ the hubby!  he picked me up and we had a pretty awesome lunch at the mall.

in the evening, we enjoyed dinner with some special friends at a downtown german restaurant followed by a walk to a nearby book store and thru the park.  that book store was like no other we'd ever seen, and we brought home a new copy of the little engine that could for thing 1.

even though being apart can be rough, it's good for all of us.  well, maybe not daddy.  he's working a bunch and probably not having that much fun.  but right now, i'm just going to be glad i got to spend some time with him and the kids got to have some special grandparent time. 

we'll see how these next few weeks go, and how thankful we all are at the end of it.  :)

playtime on the new playset!

don't know why we bothered to wonder if our kids were big enough for this particular playset.  as soon as they were given the go-ahead, both scampered up-down-and-all-around the entire thing!

and, even though it'll be a bit before these trees provide much shade, we are happy to have them in the ground to work towards that.  hopefully they live thru all the dry weather... our planting timing is impeccable.  the rest of the summer will probably continue to be dry, and we know that there are several business trips in the works.  hmmm.  guess we're just hoping for the best and being happy that the trees were a screamin' good deal.  :)