Cookout

Last night, we had a fun cookout and a very cold swim with our family, friends, and our students from Russia. (We are hosting 2 Russian girls while they attend an English Language school).

 Greta and Lizzydog

 

 Brrr! After a couple of cool days and rain, the water was 73*.

 A rare shot of Greta relaxing.

 Playing a yard game.

 The butterfly tree. There are dozens of butterflies and wasps on this tree this week. They must love the sap.

 Smores! Yum! The two girls on the right are staying with us and the two girls on the left are staying with some friends.

Even the mythical bucket head monster made an appearance.

Easter

Easter Sunday 

More Lizzyisms

Last week, Theo was late getting home so I said I was going to call him and see where he was. Lizzy quickly responded "I hope he's not in jail".

The other day, we were driving along when out of the blue,
 Lizzy says "I hope Daddy doesn't eat my friend".
Me:  "What?!? Why would Daddy eat your friend?"
Lizzy: Because she's Phillipino. (she said as if that explained it)
Me: Ok, so? Why would he eat her?
Lizzy: Because he likes to eat Phillipinos.
Me: Huh?... Wait, do you mean jalapenos?

I don't know how she comes up with these things, but now I know why she would think he was in jail.

Service project

Today, we went to the nursing home with MOPS where we distributed socks we had been collecting. They loved the kids and socks were great because they all said they are always missing socks. 

Opening Day

Monday, we let the kids swim for the first time this year. They had some friends over and had a great time.

Katie's Dolly

I finished Katie's knit dolly. I think she turned out pretty cute. Now, I've started one for a friend, but it's been forgotten for now as I concentrate on homework. 

Girl Scout Camp

The next day after returning from Kansas, Katie and I left for girl scout camp.We went to Whispering Cedars in South Dallas. Our troop leader is realy great at outdoorsy stuff and made us a campfire for roasting smores, but also even made us biscuits and gravy and pineapple upside down cake over the fire.

She also knows a lot about archery so they had an archery lesson there which Katie really enjoyed.

Then they put on some skits for us.

 

Click here for more pictures 

Opossum

After we returned from Kansas, the dog started going crazy digging under the shed. We pulled her away to find a dead opossum. Theo bravely pulled it out with a stick, while the girls and I helped immensely by screaming and running. After he pulled it out, babies started crawling out of it's pouch. Theo threw it across the street into the field. We weren't sure if it was really dead or just playing dead, but the next day it was still there so it was either dead or a really good faker. We felt bad about the babies, but there wasn't much we could do for them. Besides, we were just letting nature take it's course -- just not under the shed. 

Lizzy learns to ride her bike!

For spring break, we went to visit Grandma and Grandpa in Kansas

Lizzy and Grandma practiced their exercising.

 Katie and Grandpa went for a bike ride.

Lizzy got left behind and finally decided to try riding her bike.

 Grandma was able to get her to do it! She wouldn't do it for me as she kept jumping off the bike the minute I let go.

Yay for Lizzy!!!

Naked Eggs and Osmosis

A couple of weeks ago, the girls and I tried an egg experiment. First, we soaked an egg over night in vinegar and dissolved the shell. Then we scrubbed it down to get the remaining shell off. Then we did it four more times, because we kept breaking the egg. The egg was really full of water from soaking in the vinegar.



Next we soaked the egg in corn syrup to remove all the water. What we wound up with was a yolk with a membrane around it.

 

Now, to see if we can make it soak up water again. We dyed the water so we could see that it was the water inside, but we won't do that next time since after that we couldn't see inside.



Now we had a full egg again. We had a couple of more experiments to do with it, but we dropped it on the floor. But the water inside was blue!

 

Silliness

Tonight,  I was waiting for the girls to get their jammies on, and being silly. The the girls were in stitches laughing at themselves. Katie asked me to do it again, so she could video tape it and being the kind of mom who does all kinds of stupid things my kids ask me to do, here's what we got. I was teasing the girls about how they sound when they look at the new American girl catalog. Katie tells me how she needs everything, and Lizzy just whines that she doesn't have the A.G. pets to go with her doll.

Large wall hanging from rug stencil

I found this pretty wall hanging on Pinterest and decided to copy it. It turned out pretty good. I tried it with stain first, but it is hard to touch up stain, so I painted it all over and did it again. If you do use stain, I would definitely recommend using a spray paint primer before spray painting since it took nearly a whole can of paint to do the first one (which I re-did). The total cost was about $50 which includes the $20 rug. I plan to paint the rug and hang it elsewhere or use it at the front door so that helps. Not too bad for art that is 4' x 3'. If I did it again, I could use MDF since I didn't wind up staining it and it would be a bit cheaper. I think the wall needs something else, so maybe I'll put some kind of ironwork sconce beside it.

Daddy Daughter Dance

Theo took the girls to the Daddy daughter girl scout dance tonight. They looked so pretty. I even let them borrow my sparkley earrings and wear a bit of lipstick! Although it would appear that Lizzy swiped some extra lipstick after my back was turned. Even Theo looked handsome in his tie.

Salmon and Corn recipe

I am posting this here because it is the only way I know how to post my stuff onto pinterest. We had this yummy meal today for dinner. It was supposed to be a salad, but I heated it up and made a delicious main dish. The picture doesn't do it justice.

2 cups frozen corn

5-6 pieces salmon, baked or poached, or you could use canned

1/2 green bell pepper

1/2 red onion

1 TBS dried or more fresh mint

1/2 cup chopped cilantro leaves

juice of one lime (opt)

salt and pepper

2 tomatos cut into wedges

Bake fish til done. Fry onion, then bell pepper in oil. Add cilantro, mint, salt and pepper. Add corn and crumble in fish. Add lime juice. Fry til hot through.

Valentine's Cards

Worked on the girls' valentines today. I feel bad that I do most of it, but I console myself with the fact that they turned out really cute. I didn't come up with the idea, and I'm not sure where I saw it but someone is a genius. We made them a couple years back too.

Dallas Zoo

A couple of Sundays ago we skipped church and headed for the zoo. The weather couldn't have been more perfect. We had lots of fun. Hopefully we'll make it one more time before our membership expires.