The first of many trips to Fritz's

Today we ended our lovely 3-day weekend with a trip to Fritz's with the Ewings. So much fun. And lots of messy ice cream all over our cute little kids. We'll be making at least bi-monthly trips with the Ewings the rest of the 2009 Custard Season. Here are some pics to enjoy - Ellen, I'll send you more tomorrow!

The Story of Amy

Don't worry, I'm not going to tell my life story in a blog post.

The other day I found a book that was given to me by my good friend, Eva. I was a counselor at Kanakuk and Eva was a kamp nurse. The book is The Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde. I don't really associate him with children's books, especially ones with a Christian theme, but this is one of my favorites. So when I opened it up after many, many years, what should fall out but a sweet story that my BFF Sarah wrote for me during a particularly rough period of my life while I was in college. I was again a counselor at kamp and Sarah sent me a big care package for my barn (that's what they're called at K-Kountry) filled with hair bows, bubbles, play-doh, crayons, and other fun stuff. Basically a little cheer-me-up package for me to share with my girls. It made me so happy to get it (mail is golden at kamp) and it was a nice reminder of how great it was when I read it again the other day. I'm going to post it so you can read it too. Sarah, can you believe I still have it?! Thanks again for being there for me and helping me deal with some tough stuff. You are so dear to me.

Chocolate Chip Expert

At Trader Joe's with Daddy today:

J: Are you going to help me shop?

M: Yes. I'll get the chocolate chips because I'm an expert when it comes to chocolate chips.


True, very true.

I don't have any recent chocolate chip cookie making pictures except for this one from when I was 8 months pregnant and trying to get in as much M & Mommy time as possible. Please ignore my messy kitchen - I was REALLY pregnant but not yet in the last-minute nesting phase where I cleaned a lot.

Goodnight!

*But before I go, I need to give a big shout out and thank you to the crazy woman driving the red Corolla today on Adams in Kirkwood. I know you probably thought that you were being the safe one by driving 10 miles below the speed limit because it's a road with lots of curves. But you're dangerous because the line of 15 cars behind me will get rear-ended when someone expecting a 30 mph speed limit comes around the corner and finds all of us going 15 mph behind a CRAZY PERSON! And thanks for going even slower when you realized my frustration with your slowness. Purposely coming down to 10 mph while approaching the green light so that it turned yellow and I had to sit behind you and glare and shake my head in disapproval. I know you probably were thinking "people are in too much of a hurry these days - what's her deal?". Well, my deal was that my 2 year old fell and scraped her knee in the parking lot of the 4 year old's school and I wanted to get to her school to clean her up. But I wasn't even speeding. I just wanted to go 30 mph! And yes, I was also already late for work. Though even if I hadn't been, I would still have been driven completely batty by your inconsiderate behavior. Thanks for playing that game with me during what might be my most stressful time of day. You really made your point. That you're NUTS!

Thanks, dear readers. Now I can rest peacefully tonight. :)

May 21st

I'm already looking forward to this date - the new season of So You Think You Can Dance. I CANNOT dance, but I love this show. Anyone who watches Dancing with the Stars should know that Lacey and Chelsea were once on SYTYCD. I don't watch DWTS - it just doesn't interest me in the slightest. But SYTYCD is awesome. So I am counting down the days. :)

So, I told you that I wouldn't be posting every day and I haven't let you down. I need to keep notes though, because over the past few days I've thought about stuff I could blog about and I've already forgotten. But something totally cute I can blog about is the Cherry Dress. Miss M wore it two years ago and JJ found it in the closet the other day. I love that she wanted to wear her rain boots with it.

Miss M....

And JJ.....

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With Miss M in the background...

And of course we took the picture before we had flowers in the flower pot and the new planters that J made where the pointy trees used to be. So I had to include a picture so you can see that Spring has arrived at our house.

J did such a great job on these! They replaced the swirly trees that were a pain to keep up.

Hope everyone's week is off to a good start!

LOL

I haven't laughed uncontrollably in a long time. Thankfully J provided an opportunity last night when he played a Tivo'd Divorce Court for me. While he was flipping from one news show to the next, something about this episode caught his eye and I'm so glad it did. I have never watched Divorce Court before and I probably won't ever again. But the case of Mr. and Mrs. McClain will stay on our DVR for a bit just in case I need a good laugh. I won't try to describe the whole thing, because it will ruin it if you ever see a rerun (or come over to our house in the near future). My stomach hurt from laughing. And just to see J laughing that hard too was good for my soul. An evening well spent.

Anniversary (sung by Tone, Tone, Tone)

It's our anniversary and we celebrated by going out to dinner on the Hill. Since we went to Italy for our honeymoon, every year we go out for Italian on the big day. This year it was Cunetto's on the Hill. So yummy. We had great food, great conversation, and great wine. There was a couple at the table next to us celebrating their 6th anniversary - with their baby also in attendance. This reminded us of our first anniversary after Miss M was born. She was about 5 weeks old and with no family in town, we didn't want to leave her with a sitter that soon so we took her with us. Lots of screaming ensued and as soon as our food arrived, we got it to go. I was miserable. J was frustrated. But we look back now and smile about it. I need to keep reminding myself of that on the days where I feel like I'll never look at the moment positively - ever. J pointed out that we have now been married with children just as long as we were married without children. 8 years total, Miss M is now 4, just in case you were too tired to do the math. Wow. I can't imagine going back to pre-kids. I love our little family. And I love my husband even more now that he's a Dad. And a great one at that. I am blessed. I would be more mushy and gush about my immense love for my man, but I'm still a little unsure of myself here in the world of blog and I don't know yet who might be reading this stuff. I hope I loosen up. I was hoping that by blogging I would hone my writing skills that have been pretty lax since I graduated with that BA in English. And J doesn't want me to expose all of our personal info on here so I'm trying to be careful. So I'll just tell all of my friends those secrets in person. Just kidding, J!

Two

I told my friend Katie that I would start my blog this past weekend. It's Monday, but I guess it's what you can come to expect if you're going to follow along. I'm not sure if I'll be able to post every day - well, I know I won't be able to because I can't even keep up with Facebook. But I have to start somewhere so here it goes....

JJ turned 2 on Friday. I can't believe that it's already been that long. I thought I would never get through the first few months and it's been two years! She is such a joy to us. What a sense of humor. What a great laugh. What a personality. JJ - we went through some hard stuff in the beginning, but we are so bonded because of it. You are my little punkin' munkin'. Happy Birthday, big girl!

And I can't quite figure out how to add pictures and make my blog all cute, so it would be nice if all of my blog-savvy friends would give me a shout to help me out. Thanks again, Katie, for the push to join the insanity. I added a picture of you all from Saturday, but can't figure out how to post pictures on different places on the blog other than the top. This blog is definitely going to expose my computer inadequacies.