My Kitchen, 3:15 in the Afternoon

I decided it was time to make a recipe binder. Right now. What was I thinking?

The Dining Room

When you move into a new house, people tell you to be sure and post lots of pictures. But sometimes the place is too much of a wreck to post pictures. Lately, though, I've gotten the urge to start decorating (not that I've done anything about it yet), so I thought I'd post some pictures to serve as "before" shots.

First up on our tour is the dining room! We have waited a long time to have a formal dining room. When we met with a kitchen designer, he told us that formal dining rooms were old fashioned, so we figured it would be perfect for us!

Our dining room set is from Paula Deen. It was on sale the week we closed, so when we moved in, our furniture consisted of Jack's bed, an entertainment center, a small kitchen table, and a full dining room set. Priorities!


As I've said before, I love being able to get to our nice dishes easily. In the picture above this one, you can see the cheap glasses I found at Target that go so nicely with our wedding china.

This is a set of juice glasses that I got from my grandma. I loved these when I was a little girl. They don't see a lot of action, but they do get more use than our pink champagne glasses you see back there. It turns out that you can register for a lot of frivolous stuff if you wait until you are 23 to get married. That might make an interesting post sometime...

So there you have the dining room. I will do my best to get some more pictures as tidiness allows!

A Room With a View

There are things I miss about our old house. The view from Jack's window isn't on the list.

I think this is a big improvement.

Alice's view isn't too shabby, either.

A Visit to the Doctor

You know the saying about the shoemaker's children going barefoot? Well, the same thing seems to apply to doctor's children, at least in this family. Alice has not had a check-up since she was two months old. Our new insurance didn't kick in until January and then I was just kept forgetting. I realized that I needed to get her in before her one year visit so she would hopefully not have such a traumatic first time, so after asking everyone for recommendations more than once, scouring the internet and stewing over it for a few weeks, I finally picked the first one I called.

A few days before the appointment, I realized that my kids have only been seen by Jay's colleagues, and I started to get a little nervous. What if there was something strange about my children that they just weren't mentioning out of professional courtesy? What if I was a bad mom, but they just weren't telling me? What if this doctor was for cribs only and thought homeschoolers were freaks?

In the end, it all went fine. I seemed to score major points for still nursing Alice, and Jack told the doctor that not only was he homeschooled, but he had read a ten chapter book on the way from our house. Ha! That kid is the best. Alice turned out to be fine, too. 20 pounds, 2 ounces. If I were a better mom, I could tell you how much she has gained since birth, but I am only so-so and can tell you she weighed 8-something. I'll have to look that up. It did make me feel good that we had finally switched her out of her carrier the night before, though.

Her last ride in her old seat.

Riding in style in her new big-girl seat!

Now we've got two more months until both kids have check-ups!

The Children's Zoo

After the Bug Out, we headed over to the zoo for some more time at the Children's Zoo.

Almost all of our time was spent in the water. Jack was really looking forward to this since it was turned off when we were there for our class last week.

Alice tried it out, too, but she didn't seem too sure about it.

The splash area was fun, too.

Alice got a kick out of watching Jack in the sprayers.

After lunch (and a change of clothes for Jack), we visited an old friend.

We had to take some time to feed the ducks, too.

And of course, we had to stop for a sno cone.

Alice was asleep before we left the zoo. It was a long day, but we all had a good time!

Bug Out 2010

Jack's first Bug Out was in 2006.

We've attended every year since then (2007 is above), and this year was no exception, even if the drive was (a lot) longer. Also, the gardens will be closing soon, so it was worth the 6:30 departure time.

Jack was excited to get the bugs. (I'm not sure what's up with this face. It seems to be his new picture pose.)

I keep thinking that as he gets older, he'll be more patient and go farther in before he releases the ladybugs. So not true. We had to stop at one of the first plants.

Alice got to participate, too!

She let them crawl all over her and even waited about two minutes before trying to eat one.

Apparently my kids like bugs.

Eventually Alice realized the ladybugs had all crawled away.

We took some time for a few pictures while we were there.

Could his eyes be any bluer?

Jack wanted to make sure we got a picture of what he calls "The Mazzio's Sculpture"--I'm sure the artist would be thrilled!

More pictures to come soon from the rest of our day!

Magic Tree House

We have a bit of an obsession here lately.

I know some people aren't crazy about the Magic Tree House books and some consider them twaddle. I don't think they're the best writing out there for kids, but I'm embracing them (and maybe buying a few...or twenty...whatever). Jack is a collector by nature, so a series is great for him. He also learns quite a few facts about the time periods Jack and Annie visit. My favorite thing, though, is the way he is catching on to characterization. After listening to three or four, he started making some pretty good observations about Jack and Annie; now he knows them about as well as his real friends, I think.

Last week when we were at the library, Jack found several books he hadn't seen before. He spent so long looking through them that Alice finally laid on the floor and put her head down. (I snapped the picture a second too late.)

Saturday night we went to a zoo class based on the Magic Tree House books.

After getting their riddle (a la Morgan le Fay--or as Jack says, Morgan Cafe), the kids left the tree house via the slide. They all yelled, "I want to go there!" as they came out.

The kids had to go to different stations to get clues to the riddle.

Here they are looking at different kinds of beaks.

This bird skull was tiny!

It was a good chance to get to explore the new Children's Zoo.

Flamingos make their nests from mud.

Alice got to try it out, too.

At the end, we got to visit Sheldon the owl, who we had met before.

While we were in town, we also visited the Half Price Books and picked up a few books we didn't have as well as one of the research guides, so I think this obsession is going to last a while longer!

Stinky Ride

Just my luck. The day I had to take five gas cans to fill was the same day Alice had a stinky diaper and I had one wipe. Thankfully, Jack found a pack of Boogie Wipes in the back seat, or the ride home would have been even worse.

Happy Birthday, Boris!

So, yeah. This didn't turn out like I planned it and we had to be at gymnastics before I had time to fix it. I hesitated to post a picture for fear it would come back to haunt me on one of those bad cake blogs, but I wouldn't want you to think we didn't celebrate. Nine pieces of cheese; one for each year.

Boris doesn't seem too impressed, but his first birthday after Jack was born was pretty lame, too. At least he got to eat some of the cheese. Happy birthday, Bobe! We love you!

The Second Child

Sometimes it's hard being the second child. When you only have one pair of light pajamas and they're dirty, instead of washing them and helping you look girly, your mom sticks you in a pair of your brother's old jammies.

And she insists on taking a bunch of pictures, just because she knows there are similar ones of him.

This was the first time he pulled up--unfortunately, Alice caught on much more quickly.

I came across this one when I was looking for the jammie pictures and it was too cute not to include!