Sky Watch Friday

My entry for Skywatch Friday entry for this week. If you are one my loyal readers and haven't clicked on the link to see the other entries please do. It is so fun. People enter sky photos from all over the world.

Have a fabulous weekend!!

The Chase

Here is one of my favorite things about this house. It goes in a circle. Here is why I love it.

It's fun.

Busy Day

We are having a crazy busy day today. So I am just posting a a couple of pictures to get you through they day.
My, oh so cool, little man.

Anna is so proud of herself. She is a walker. She is such a stinker though. Everytime I come near her with the video camera, she won't do it.

Just to prove I take picture of things other than kids. This hummingbird and her buddies visit me daily. I love to watch them buzz around and argue over the food. They are great fun to watch. If you don't have a feeder I would highly recommend one.

Picture Day

As I was writing that title I thought back to picture day in school. It was a much anticipated event for me. It meant I was going to get to wear something extra special to school and my mom would do my hair up really pretty. The best part of all was the photographer always brought black combs for everyone. And we got to keep them. I don't know why but that was a huge treat for me. I usually kept it in my backpack for the rest of the year. I might even still have one somewhere. Pretty weird, I know.
There are certain memories of my childhood that really stick out for me. Not huge life altering events just everyday things that have really stuck with me. For instance, I went to a private school, in a church, through eighth grade. This school didn't have a cafeteria. So everyday we brown bagged it. Every day that is except Friday. On Fridays we had pizza from Pizza Hut. We put in our order at lunch time on Thursday. We had a choice of pepperoni or cheese. Then when Friday's lunch came around we went down to the church basement. The table was set up at the bottom of the stairs. We waited in a line on the stairs for our turn. For some reason that memory always stuck with me. Go figure.
Here is another one. I will never forget the day my cousin Valerie got married. She is about 7 years older than I am. I played with her and her siblings when I was small. She was always one of the big kids to me. The day she got married, my mom went to the hairdresser and had her hair put in a french braid. I wanted to go too but she wouldn't let me. It cost $10 to have done and that was a lot of money then. As we sat in the church, I thought to myself, wow she is all grown up.
Isn't it interesting the moments in time your mind picks out to remember. I don't remember my first day of school or the only time I moved when I was a kid. But I will never forget standing on the stairs waiting for my pizza.
Do you have any interesting things remembered from your childhood? I would love to hear about it.
I rambled a bit today. Anyway, here are some pictures of the little people in my life. Enjoy!!








I love taking pictures in dappled sunshine. It makes such a pretty back drop.

Over the River and Through the Woods

Before I start, my dear mom over at dlyn took most of these pictures.(I took the van ones and the ones at Melissa and Brian's. She took the rest.) She said I could use them so long as I plug her blog. Go look at it so she will let me use them again. She is an exceptional budding photographer. Very up and coming. Seriously go look. Her gardens are lovely too.

As most of you know we went to Mom and Dad's house last week for a few days. I thought you would like to see a few pictures of our adventures.
Here we are in the van on our merry way.
Jason thought it would be a good idea to drive with his eyes closed. It wasn't.
I am a little surprised Jason doesn't make me pack my camera in the back of the van somewhere. He is a really good sport, mostly.

Mark is all about safety. He puts these on just about every time we get in the van. I think he is worried about flying debris because Jason is driving with his eyes closed.

Anna was completely unconcerned. She slept through it all.

First, we went to Brian and Melissa's house to see the new baby. He is beautiful; all new and pink. He smells wonderful. I have a thing for the way babies smell. It is heaven on a head to me. I love it. Anyway, we had a great time spending a couple of hours with some very weary parents. I hope they remember we came over. Otherwise these pictures are going to come as a great surprise.


All of the big kids together. I can't believe I am counting Anna in with the big kids. Where does time go?

Then we went to Mom and Dads. Grandpa came home from work. Always a thrill. His grand kids love him so much.
BTW, they are not kidding about their gardens. It is a jungle at their house this year. When we pulled past the edge of the woods and saw everything it was unbelievable. Dad was working in the garden and we could hardly see him until he waded out. Unfortunately I took no pictures. Dumb, I know.
Anyway, back to our trip. Mark thought about crying. Not sure why, but Mom had to take a picture. Don't you just love how he sticks out his bottom lip when he is upset. He has done it since the day he was born.

Anna is so pretty isn't she.

Jason and I picked mountains of blueberries. My Grandmother has had blueberry bushes for over thirty years. They are enormous. Every summer she screams to every family member in the land to come pick blueberries. There are about three weeks in August she swims in a sea of blueberries. And let me tell you, they are the best, sweetest, juiciest, yummiest blueberries you ever lapped a lip over. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

Mark made some really funny faces up and the sky. Mom was trying to go for gazing off in the distance and this is what she got.



Anyway that is our trip in a nutshell. We had a great time as we always do

The Winners

It's a tie!! Gina and CM!! Yeah You!! Honestly I didn't do my research before I posed that question. And since you were the two people who guessed; you win. There actually were no questions asked by the troll. He was just mean and wanted to eat them up. I went and looked up the story and found some pretty gruesome tales. This is the tamest of them if you want to read it.
Now, as you may know, I have no kingdom. And no keys to the kingdom either. However, if you want to have something as a consolation prize, I will make you some lovely bread. Here is the catch. You have to come to my house to pick it up. And since you are here, you should probably just stay a while.
Thanks for playing you guys!!

Once upon a time there were Three Billy Goats Gruff who wanted to get to the sweet meadow grass. To get to the sweet grass, they had to cross an arched bridge.

Unfortunately, there lived a mean, old, ugly troll under this bridge.

As the littlest goat “clattered” onto the bridge the mean old troll asked, “Who’s trip trapping across my bridge?”

When the little goat said it was “just me” the troll threatened to eat him up. The littlest troll told him his older brother was much fatter, so the troll let him go, as he wanted a bigger meal.

The second goat started over the bridge and the troll said the same thing and guess what? This second goat told him his older brother was even fatter.

The troll was greedy, so he let this one go, as a bigger goat was about to come along.

Oh, he was bigger, but so were his horns!

As the troll jumped upon the bridge to eat him, the big horned brother gave him a giant “head –butt” and the troll was propelled over the bridge into the river and drowned.

The End and the Three Billy Goats Gruff lived happily ever after.”

I found this story here. I couldn't get the link to work so I elected to just cut and paste. www.op97.org

Pictures Later.

A Few Pictures

First, a couple of pictures of Anna Banana. She is such a funny girl. Everything about her is beautiful except for maybe that scream cry she does. That is pretty awful. She only does it when something isn't going her way though. That is actually a lot of the time lately.



This picture reminds me of the wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz. (That is the one and only reason I posted it. I just wanted to tell you that.)

This one reminds me of the troll under the bridge in that fairy tale. You know the one, "You may pass if you can answer three questions..." I will give the keys to the kingdom to the person who can name that fairy tale. And no, I am not talking about the SUV commercial from a few years ago. Come on, someone has to know the one I am talking about.

And here is that same little boy acting oh so sweet.

Have a great weekend!!

Sky Watch Friday

My Skywatch Friday for this week. Hope you enjoy it.


I will probably post some kid pictures a little later

Welcome to the World

This is my dear friend Melissa. She is not a bloggy friend. She is a real life friend who has been dear to me for as long as I can remember. We went to kindergarten together. I wish I had a picture of our class to show you. We were really cute. You will have to deal with this though. This was taken at her wedding (obviously). She was a beautiful bride don't you think.

Last week while the rest of us were living out our normal lives Melissa's family welcomed this little handsome person to the world. His name is Caleb. He came into the world at a huge 9 lbs and 11 ozs and 21 inches long. I know, poor Melissa. She is really tough though.

Brian is the proud Daddy. Justin and Hannah think he very special too. From what I hear they fight over who gets to hold him first.

And here is the best part. Tomorrow I get to meet him. So look out. I will push aside old ladies and little children to get my hands on him. If you see a van flying down the interstate, just try and stay out of the way. Tomorrow I get to drink in the delicous new baby smell and hold his not so little body in my arms. I can't wait.
Incidentally, I will be out of town for a few days. We are going Mom and Dads. I will post if I find a free minute between playtime and cocktail hour. Have a great week.

Nothing Else Need be Said

You Go Girl!!

Sky Watch Friday

This is my second week with Sky watch. Last week was such fun I just had to play again.
I took these on Wednesday the 16th. We were forecast to have a big thunderstorm and the cloud were rolling in. I love how dark the trees look.

I especially like this one. I like the contrast of light and dark.
Thanks to everyone who came and commented last week. What a wonderful introduction for my first week.

The Noises Upstairs

I have been sitting here for about ten minutes. The kids are in bed for their naps. As I was sitting here I realized I was hearing a noise. A bumping thumping sort of noise. Then I realized it had been going on a little while. As many of you know we recently moved into the land of the big boy bed. I think I know what this noise is. I also know what it is not. It is not Mark fulfilling the task he was sent up there to accomplish. I am going to go have a word with a certain three year old boy.

Just thought you might like to know. I like to keep you up to date with our daily events.

Front/Back Door Meme

My mom over at Dlyn has this thing she does every month. You go and take a picture out of your front and back door. You post a new picture every month and see how much your world changes from month to month. Go check it out. And feel free to participate.
Not much has changed for this month. You will notice that Jason hung a new clothes line for me. It's all part of my master plan to economize and save the planet and give me something else to do (like I didn't have enough already).
Anyway this is the back.

And here is the front. Everything is just a little more green than is was last month.

Today I will probably post a few thing through a day. So check back if you have minute.

Pests

OK, so I take a certain measure of pride in keeping my house tidy. (I hear you snickering Mom...Knock it off.) I like things put away and I try to keep the floors clean. It isn't easy with the worlds hairiest dog and the worlds messiest eater living under the same roof. But I do try. We have invaders into my clean abode. ANTS!!! I can't get rid of the little nasty creepy crawlies. They first found us from a hummingbird feeder hanging on the window in our dining room. I took the feeder down but not before found their way in through the window. And now I can't get rid of them. I have killed dozens of them and still more come. You would think that seeing their fellow six legged buddies smashed bits would deter them but no dice. I think they like living life on the edge. Mark sees them and calls at the top of his little lungs ,"MOMMY, ANTS!!!" Great, now the whole neighborhood knows we are nasty. We have to move.
I will let you know if and how we get rid of them in case you are ever infested with the icky little things.


I am kidding of course about the snickering mother. She would never do such a thing. While you were reading this whole post though you thought she did, didn't you.

A Misfortune

We were at the park last night and Mark informed me he longer has Boy. I asked him what happened. He told me Boy popped.
"Popped!!" I said.

"Yes, popped" was the reply.

"What happened?" I inquired.

"He went up and up and up. Then he popped."

"Oh. Sounds messy." I replied.

Not ones to wallow in self pity. Boy was immediately replaced. We now have Green Boy.

I ask Mark, "Is Green Boy green?"

"No, he is blue."

I should have known.

Here are a couple of pictures of our adventures. Unfortunately I am dumb and don't take my camera every where we go. All we had was Jason's camera phone. I will take better pictures next time.

See how he has his hands folded in front of him. I think he is thinking naughty thoughts.

Anna is too little for most of the playground equipment. She absolutely loved this tunnel though.


I love this picture.

A Lesson To All

Let this be a warning to all who live here. DO NOT take silly pictures of yourself with my camera unless you want to end up here. I don't care if you are all scruffy and your hair is a mile long and you are wearing that ridiculous looking Mr. Potato Head earring. I also don't care that your whole family is going to laugh when they see it or that all the guys at work (who I am sending a link to) are going to pick on you for days and days and days. I will put you on my blog.

End Warning.

Even this close I think he is pretty cute.

A few Pictures

Cupcakes are yummy.

During Anna's morning nap Mark and I usually try to do something educational but fun. The other day we did puzzles. He was so proud of himself he even let me take his picture.

This was taken right before bedtime the other night. Anna had a very busy day. She was so tired.

I love how they look when they are asleep. So peaceful.

Recently Mark likes to play a new game. He will come up to one of us out of the blue and ask, "Wanna be a digger?" Here is Daddy being a digger.
First Mark has to start the digger. For some reason the start button is in the belly button.I think it was poor planning on the part of the engineer but what do I know.

After the digger is running, Mark uses buttons to control the buckets/legs of the digger. The digger is only supposed to do what Mark wants. If the digger/Daddy gets out of hand Mark reprimands the digger. (Unfortunately for the digger/Daddy Mark likes the buckets/legs up in the air for long periods of time. Poor digger/Daddy.)

For about a week I have had my bird feeder up. This is my first visitor. She is the only one who has found it so far.

Pictures of Things Other Than Little People

You may think I only take pictures of small people. That just isn't true. Here are a few of my favorite things that are not little people.
When we live in Virginia, we used our wheel barrow to death. Well, almost. After it outlived its useful lifespan I turned it into a flower box. Here is this years offering.

These are my two favorite herbs, rosemary and thyme. I like basil too but didn't take a picture. It doesn't look as pretty. I use some combination of these in just about every meal we have in the summer. These herbs mean summer to me. Can't you just smell their sweet aroma.

I love this begonia more than a person should like a plant. It makes me happy to look at it.(Looking at this picture, I really should have removed that one flower but I didn't. So, you will just have to imagine it gone. Go ahead...I will wait. See, now isn't that better.)

So there, I told you I take other pictures. Don't be surprised to see pictures of little people later today. I am not sure I can go a whole day without posting just a couple.