Pumpkin carving

 Last week, Rebecca invited us over to eat dinner & to carve our pumpkins for Halloween. We had gotten the pumpkins early the week before when the kids had an early release day at school...

Eli especially wanted to carve his this year. I have always had him paint vs carve but he was insistent! So I took the tops off of their pumpkins & had them get to work scooping out the "guts!"

 Actually, Uncle Todd cut the top off Jackson's because he chose a small pie pumpkin & whoa, that thing was HARD as a brick.

Eli wanted a "scary" face & after multiple sketches, he decided on this face:

Jackson settled for a pumpkin that he could cram some fake teeth into. He thought this was pretty funny. Because it was so hard to carve, we convinced him that a super hero mask would look perfect. I can't imagine how we would've gotten eye holes cut out!

For my pumpkin, I stuck with my trusted ol' motto that glitter makes everything better:

And here are the cousins, all sitting with the pumpkins! So adorable!  Thanks for having us over guys!!

A very busy Mom.

 May was one busy month! I am trying to get caught up on the blog, so bear with me! 

We had mother's day which meant there was a Mother's Day Tea at Eli's preschool.

When I arrived, I found my seat & there was a beautiful portrait of me, drawn by one talented 5 year old! (Why has no one ever mentioned how large my hands are?)

On the back of the frame was the following notation:  "My mommy's name is Rachel. She plays games with me. She likes going to the park. She does the laundry. She cooks supper for us. I like when she cooks pizza."  I'd say, he nailed it!

 On the wall was pictures that each child drew of them with their mom. And true to the above story, he draws a picture & labels it, "Mommy & I are playing Pictureka." The child LOVES this game. Can you tell!?

 He also painted me a card with this sweet little note inside...

 Pretty soon, the kids were filing in class by class & up on stage they went to sing sweet little songs about their mothers. Nothing much cuter than preschoolers singing, if you ask me.

Then it was time to come & have a "tea" together. (And maybe a ham &cheese croissant and some strawberries too!)

 Two of Eli's friends were seated at our table as well. We tried to capture a picture of him with Alex on the left & Jaylen on the right. It's pretty hard to get 3 boys still & focused for a picture.

 In fact, they were all pretty silly! Goofball shot!

Of course, Eli wanted a goofball shot with mom, too. I really didn't want to do that, but then decided that it was such a small way to make my kids' day!

Or it may have been the only way I was able to coerce him into a serious one with mom! :)

I hope everyone had a great mother's day. I am personally blessed with 3 moms! My mother is the best on earth, and if there was ever a better step-mama, I don't know where she is. And I have been blessed to have married a man with one spectacular mom, who has treated me with love & kindness since day one. Mama's rock!

Happy Easter!!

I think I will mainly just let the pictures speak for themselves on our Easter post. I will just say that Eli isn't pictured in the dressed up church pictures because he was at home with a fever. No one said the Easter Bunny was allowed to bring fevers! (And then Sunday afternoon, Jackson came down with fever too! Ugh!!) Anyway.... here are some pictures from our day!

Fever or not... When I said the Easter Bunny had come... They hopped right up & ran downstairs!

Wow! I got THREE chocolate bunnies!!!

I think the snake was one of the biggest hits in Jackson's basket. Maybe more so than the chocolate & jelly beans!
Off to church! So cute!
Easter bunny brought Jackson some sunglasses. He thinks he is THE MAN.
He would NOT take off the sunglasses for the pictures...
Mr. Cool Man...
Rebecca & her girls...

Seesters!!
Leah insisted I needed to get a picture of her hanging from the big magnolia tree!

Silly is this child's middle name....

Emma looked very grown to me!
Oh, she loves to run free in the church yard!!


Hope your Easter was fantastic!

The COOLEST egg dye project!

I found the coolest ideas this year via pinterest for dyeing easter eggs! I had to decide on just one to try which was tough! In the end though, I settled on this technique from a blog called Sandy Toes & Popsicles, that was super easy & I had all the supplies on hand (food coloring - we used Neon colors, vinegar, & oil). It was supossed to be marbled, but ours didn't marble. Instead, they were more splotchy which we ended up LOVING because we had a mixture of brown & white eggs (thanks, Peto!). This meant that our eggs resembled "dinosaur eggs!" Pretty fantastic, huh!?
I will definitely be doing these again next year! The boys had a blast & it was more of a process which made every egg look different. Much more fun than simply dunking them in a color & plopping them back in the egg crate.







Now, what shall we make with a dozen boiled eggs? Egg Salad, anyone!?

The holidays! A recap!

Well, Christmas 2011 has past & the New Year has come! Happy 2012! I hope this year has a lot of fun things in store for us all!

I know I am behind on the good ole blog, but it always gets a little crazy during the holidays & then afterwards I am just plum wiped out! So, I am just now getting around to it!

You already know that we do a lot of traveling but I really didn't take an overabundance of photos this year (decent ones, anyway!). I am still learning on the DSLR & haven't had a lot of time to work with it, so what little bit I had learned, I had to re-learn. Ugh! But I refuse to be an "auto" shooter. I WILL master this camera! So, I have been a little overwhelmed in that department (& to add confusion to the mix, I also got Photoshop Elements Software for Christmas & WHOA, that will be a huge learning curve.) My biggest deficit is in the area of shooting indoors without the use of my flash. I borrowed a fixed 50mm lens from my brother in law which is helping some but it was an adjustment since the aperture goes all the way down to 1.8! Sweet!

So now that I have given all my caveats, here is a Christmas holiday recap in photos! First Christmas outing was to Disney on Ice: Dare to Dream. Nanny came up for the day in early December to take the grandkids (& their mama's!) to this show. It was fantastic! I think Rebecca & I loved it even more than the kids!
A scene from Tiana's Place in the Princess & the Frog...
The gorgeous horse & carriage from Cinderella... this was beautiful!
The lanterns lifting in the Tangled scene! Seriously, I teared up! It was great!

Second stop for the holidays was to Mikes Farm for the holiday hayride/lights show (& did I mention YUMMY dinner?) I only had my cell with me, so i didn't get but a few pictures, but my favorite one was this one with me & my Grandaddy! Is he handsome or what?Third stop? Over to Jen & Brian's for Christmas with my mama, aunt, & cousins! We draw names here & it's always a hoot trying to figure out who had who.... Rebecca got some fabulous running gear (something to keep her ears warm!)
Sitting in Daddy's lap! This kid never tires of a lap!
Jackson opening his gift.... he got a beyblade stadium he had been wanting forever & was thrilled!
And Sara Beth took to "little" Ed this year! I think she is missing her Daddy!

Fourth Stop... Christmas with Grandaddy & Grandma Tee... We at least spend the night for this trip, so we get a little more bang for our gas buck! ;) We exchanged gifts with our cousins here as well as with the Grandparents. Jackson was THRILLED (& very surprised) with his new Wii Game (Lego Harry Potter!)
This kid couldn't be ANY cuter if you ask me!
The boys cousin, Jonathon... lookin' all cool in his flat bill hat. Tell me again why this is a trend??
Zack came along for the trip too & wasn't so sure he appreciated being out in the cold! He whimpered every time I would go out on the porch & desperately wanted some attention. But, he survived!
Kayla brought along her violin & yes, Randy picked it up & was able to bust out a song in a just a few short minutes! Some people just have more talent than I can even imagine!
And speaking of Kayla, Oh, my... She is officially 15 since Nov 2, & that means that she gets to drive. SCARY! I snapped a couple shots of her pulling up driving my brother's truck!
I really don't like that she is already 15. Just sayin'.
The hit of the visit at Grandaddy's though ended up being the walkie talkies that they got each set of kids. Seriously, these things were no joke. They had a 2 mile radius in the country! (5 mile in the city!) And come to find out, the kids were able to all get on the same channel & use them all together. How cool!?
The next day we came home & had our own little Christmas at home. We have never had a chance to do this but because some of Randy's extended family wasn't coming in for Christmas this year, we combined both of Randy's family get togethers into one & so we had a free evening on Christmas Eve! The kids were shocked, but excited when we said we were going to open presents after dinner!


Ready, Set...... GO!


Christmas morning & Santa has been here! The big guy in red left Jackson a Lego kit to build a HUGE Hogwarts Castle (from Harry Potter). He left Eli the Leap Pad that he was certain that Santa wouldn't be able to find. But Santa pulled through, no doubt without the help of some elves!
Zack didn't get left out, either. He got a new frog to toss around & some new tennis balls.
Eli wasted no time getting to work on the Leap Pad !
And Daddy even got in on some LeapPad learning fun!
Christmas night, we headed over to Randy's Grandma Evan's house for Christmas with his whole family. As is tradition... the guys jammed out.
This guy looks good with a guitar... if you ask me, anyway! ;)
After a yummy dinner by this fantastic cook....

We got to open even MORE presents! Aunt Debbie is so sweet because even though she wasn't going to be there this year, she sent money for us to pick out a gift for each of the boys. So Debbie (I know you are reading this!), Jackson got a great watch that he has worn EVERYDAY since!
And Eli got 2 books! He loves books (especially the Llama Llama series) and the other title, I thought we could all benefit from! (Don't Squeal Unless it's a Big Deal). THANK YOU!
Trying to get a few decent pictures.... here's one of Jeremy & Marie...
And one of Mema & a lap full of trouble!
Whew! If you made it to the end of that marathon post, then kudos to you! We had a Very Merry & busy Christmas & hope you all had a safe holiday with family & friends.