Weekend in Review

This past weekend, we had the kids at our house for the first time in what felt like months.  They have been so busy this summer that we haven't seen them much.  Between camps and beach trips and a week at their grandparents', their travel schedule has rivaled that of a business man who travels for work every week.  Oh wait, that would be my husband.  Basically, what I'm saying is that everyone keeps leaving except me. With the new school year just around the corner (just a week and a half of summer left for them!), the kids have been gathering new school supplies and getting back in routine of a regular schedule.  They are attending a new school this year so new uniforms have been ordered.  Wyatt will wear khakis and a golf shirt during warm weather and a white shirt with a tie in the winter.  Anna has a new pair of saddle shoes that she'll wear with her jumpers and skirts.  They'll both be so snazzy!

Besides new backpacks and a stack full of books, the kids also got laptops that they'll use in school everyday.  !!  They'll be in 5th and 6th grade and they'll be using a laptop everyday!  I just can't believe it.  I mean, I know this is the direction the world is going, but I don't like it.  What's wrong with pencil and paper?

They will both continue with their music lessons at the new school - piano for him, guitar for her.  And this year, Wyatt has decided to give football a try.  Saturday morning was his first practice in full pads.

Doc stuck around and watched for a while.  He's definitely one of the smallest on the team, but Doc thinks he's doing pretty well.  Maybe he'll be all heart like Rudy.

After the boys got home from practice, we had some lunch and then headed to the pool.  With it as hot as it is, you either have to stay inside or stay in a pool.  I'm glad we had a pool to go to!

I didn't have my camera out at the pool for very long, so I just got a few pictures.

Wyatt showed off his muscles that he's getting from football practice.  Big, aren't they?

Anna took a break to get a drink, but she only lasted out of the water about 1 minute!

Jett and Bren joined us at the pool.  Jett had some mardi gras beads from somewhere, so that's what we dove for.

Bren likes to jump in over and over again.  She's fearless with her floatie on.

The kids spent a lot of time in the 12-foot end, which means they spent a lot of time hanging on to Doc so that he could tread water for all of them.  At least he got a workout in!

We had a low-key evening at home that night.  I just love how an afternoon swimming can wear everyone out.  I think the lights were out by 9:30...my kind of night!

Sunday morning we went to church.  It was the first time for the kids to get to hear our new preacher and I think they liked him (as much as 5th and 6th graders can like someone they have to sit and listen to for an hour...).  Like most Sundays, we went to my parents for lunch.

Aaaaand we might have melted some crayons.  Again.  I can't help it.  I just think its so cool and there were still more crayons and foamboard left from last time so...

Or maybe I just thought it was something the kids would really enjoy.  Yea, let's go with that.

I was right - they did enjoy it and they thought it was pretty awesome too.  They were limited in their color choices since I had already taken out most of the primary colors.  Anna chose hers first so she got all the pretty colors that were left.  Poor Wyatt was left with all the browns, blacks, greys, and golds.  But those are boy colors anyway, right?

After they had their color order figured out, I helped them glue them down.  Don't worry, I manned the hot glue gun while they placed the crayon down under close supervision.  No burned fingers here!

They got to decide how they laid them down.  Wyatt placed the Crayola logo on top like I did, and Anna alternated hers between the logo and the name of the color.

With the oven set to 250 degrees, we popped them in and waited.  We all placed bets on which color we thought would drip first.  The leading crayon was gold, which no one chose, but my hot pink was second.  Woo hoo!  Would you believe me if I told you that black was the very last color to drip?  I know, crazy, right?  At one point while we were watching them drip, Anna turned and said, "This would be a really cool science project."  I practically shreaked when I said, "I know!  That's what I've been saying this whole time!!"

Just waiting...

Starting to drip!  (And yes, my mom needs to clean her oven glass...)

Even my mom can't resist watching the crayons melt again.

When they got to this point, we decided they had melted enough.  You can also see that some of the crayons melted from the top and dripped down on top of the paper.  That didn't happen with mine, probably because mine flipped over backwards halfway through.

Since we were pleased with the amount of drippage, I turned the oven off and closed the door.  I figured since it wasn't too hot to begin with, it'd cool down pretty quickly, and I really didn't want to handle the foam boards while the wax was still liquid for fear of messing it up.

A few minutes later, my mom looked over and said, "Oh my gosh!  They're pouring out!"  And sure enough, the crayons looked like waterfalls.  Every bit of wax poured out of every paper tube.  I guess maybe the oven didn't cool down as quickly as I had hoped.

So this is how they ended up.  Less drippy than planned, but still pretty cool.  I like how the colors blended together.  You can kinda see some lumps on Wyatt's from where the whole crayons poured out.

Unfortunately, the kids had to leave to go home before the wax had firmed back up, so they'll have to wait to see their finished products.  Maybe I can find some frames by then.

Right as the kids were leaving, this little doll showed up with her Mommy and Daddy and I don't know for sure, but I think she was pretty glad to see me.  At least that's what I tell myself.

Look! Teeth!

My mom and I visited with little Alice's parents for a few minutes before they headed home for a day of unpacking.  I'm so glad to have them in town!  Maybe they'll become regulars on this ol' blog.

While Doc took the kids home and ran some errands, my mom and I spent the afternoon working on the super secret birthday project.  It's starting to come together and I love it!  They birthday party's not til next weekend, though, so I have to hold off from posting pictures.

My dad spent a good portion of the afternoon like this:

My parents are in the middle of having a sprinkler system installed in their yard, and so far the cable has already been cut in about 6 different spots.  The only place the cable still works?  Their master bathroom.  So my dad rigged up this lounging area with a bench and a chair so he could still watch tv.  Anything for some Sunday afternoon golf, I guess.

The rest of the fam came over later in the day.  Mom bribed everyone with dinner: pork chops, baked beans, cheesy potatoes, fruit, rolls, and more!  While dinner was cooking I played on the playground with the munchkins.

Yes, I'm the aunt that lets Bren climb to the top of the ladder and just takes pictures instead of holding on to her. I blame the pigtails.  They're just so darn cute.

I also let Jett practice jumping out of the swing.  Safety doesn't always come first when I'm the babysitter.

And then, as I was taking pictures of Jett swinging...

...I remembered the AutoStitch program that my father-in-law introduced me to, and got an idea.  I took a picture of him on each swing, and then after a few minutes of tinkering on the computer, voila!  He's everywhere!

Sure, he's a little blurry, but I don't think it's that bad for my first attempt.  I see a lot more AutoStitching in my future.

So that's our weekend in a nutshell.  Low-key but fun.  Now if I can just make it through 4 more work days so it can be the weekend again!

Paint Night, Again

For Mother's Day, I bought my mom a ticket to a guided paint class.  You may remember that I recently attended one of these classes with some of my friends.  Now, I know Mother's Day was, like, forever ago, but we just attended our class last Thursday.  And Beth and Erin joined us too, making it the perfect girls' night out. Since I had already painted the three trees scene that was being painted that night, I decided to take a stab at freestyle painting.  Here I am with my (almost) blank slate.

Mom and Erin followed along with the three trees scene and got right to work painting their backgrounds.

Beth went with the freestyle option too.

She worked on a "drippy" masterpiece.  Here it is after the first application of drippy paint.

After taking a step back, was she feeling good about her decision?  I think so.

Mom and Erin listened carefully as they were given their next steps.

At this point in the evening, my canvas look like this.  Uh, not so good.

I still didn't really know where I was going with it.  Beth's drips were making a lot of headway.  She went all the way across the top with the yellow, and began adding a little red.

Mom and Erin began layering colors on their background.  Erin, the real artist, had all kinds of fancy techniques up her sleeves.

Mom blended different shades of blue.

Beth's painting started getting real drippy.

Finally, I was starting to make a little headway in a good direction.  The bottom half of my canvas was taking shape, even though I still wasn't sure what to do with the top.

Mom flipped her canvas upside down to work on the ground of her trees scene.

I must've gotten really into my painting because my step-by-step pictures stop here.  When I picked the camera back up, Beth's drippy painting had some new circles.  Pretty cool, huh?

My favorite part is the two red circles down in the corner.

Feeling pretty good about it, Beth decided to take a seat and watch the rest of us.

I have zero photos that show the progress of what I did to the top half of my painting.  First, I realized that bright teal color had to go and started covering it with more of a sky blue.  Then I slapped on some white and tried to blend it in.  A dab of yellow and a touch of grey later, and I ended up with this.

Here's the finished product with my camera flash on.

Here I am with my finished masterpiece.  It's a little blurry, but when the flash was on the light reflected off the painting.

Mom's and Erin's trees were really beginning to look good.  Here's Erin layering on the texture medium.

Mom's finished trees.  Her colors look really good with the colors in my painting.  I have a feeling our paintings might end up living at the beach house.

Erin's masterpiece.  Love how she did her shading.

I guess I didn't take a finished photo of Beth's painting.  Beth cracked me up - she "finished" hers about 6 different times during the class.  But then she'd find some glaze or a texture medium or something and pick her brush back up and keep going.  I guess you can't say your painting's done until you're walking out the door with it!

We took a group photo with our paintings before leaving for the night.  I think we're a pretty talented bunch!

Sweet Grass

I asked Doc last night if he wanted to blog about Sweet Grass while I was at bunco and his response was, "Uh, I guess I can write about your sweet ass."  Clearly, he misunderstood me. Sunday night, the last night that Doc's parents were here with us, we decided to go out for a nice dinner.  We had already taken them to several of our favorites, and there are a few that aren't open on Sundays, so we narrowed our choice down to Sweet Grass, a fairly new restaurant in town.  Neither Doc nor I had eaten there yet, but we'd both heard pretty good things about it.  My parents were going to join us too, and they hadn't eaten there either.  It was a new place for all of us!

I like their logo.

Of course, you can't have a restaurant called Sweet Grass without decorating with bundles of - what else? - sweet grass.

I originally took a seat next to Doc's mom, but she must've decided that I smelled weird because she traded seats with Doc's dad.

My parents joined us a few minutes later.

While we chit-chatted and surveyed the menu, I sipped on this delicious cocktail.  I can't remember what all was in it, but it was full of strawberry-basil goodness.

The menu had lots of yummy things to offer, and they were divided into small, medium, and large plate categories.  Of course, the thing that sounded the best to me was a large plate.  Didn't stop me though, I went for it!

7 oz. beef tenderloin, bacon shiitake grits, green beans, and some kind of awesome sauce.

Now, I'm a southern girl through and through even though there are some southern things I don't like (sweet tea and fried okra - bluh!), but grits are not on that list.  Cheese grits make me wanna slap my pappy, and who knew that adding bacon to them could make them so much better! Yumm-o!

My dad gets annoyed with me when I take pictures of my food during dinner, so I put my camera away for the rest of the meal.  It's a shame, though, because we ate some pretty awesome food.  I loved my tenderloin, and Doc said his jambalaya was flavor-filled and excellent.  My favorite part, though, was definitely dessert!  Doc and I shared a piece of chocolate peanut butter pie, his parents had a slice of lemon icebox pie, and my folks had the apple pie a la mode.  We passed our plates so we could taste them all...delicious!

My final rating of the restaurant was excellent.  The service was quick, the drink menu was good, the food menu had lots to choose from, the desserts were tasty, and the price was not bad at all.  We left feeling full and satisfied, but not at all like we were about to pop.  I think we will definitely go back.

The gentlemen of the evening:

And now I finally have a picture of me with both of our moms.  Yay!

While the restaurant was a really good choice, I think we'll all agree that the company and conversation is what made the evening so perfect.

Surprise Party! (Part 3 of 3)

Let's wrap this party up!  This will be the Surprise Party: Photobooth Edition.  Check out the Planning, Details, and Decoration Edition here and the Actual Party Pictures Edition here. Ok, I've hit most of the highlights of the party - invitations, how we got my mom there, decorations and dancing - but there's one last thing I haven't even touched on.  I knew as soon as I started planning this shindig that I'd want to do a photo book for my mom afterwards, and I figured the book would be a lot better if the guests could leave their own messages for my mom.  And what better way to make that even more interesting than to throw in some costumes and props?

To make all of this happen, I set up a corner of the room as a photobooth.  I wrote a message on this chalkboard (made by my dad) so that guests would get the idea.

Then next to the sign, was this big box that I had wrapped up like a present full of costume pieces and props.

Thank you to all my friends that supplied me with such great props.  We had a ton of things, especially hats!

Once again, I have to give special thanks to Allison for manning the photobooth and taking pictures all night.  Of course I had to make sure we took a picture together.

Doc joined me for a photo, too.  I'm not really sure exactly what look we were going for.

While the one of both of us is fun, I think the one I took by myself is my favorite.  I might look nice, y'all, but don't mess with me when I have my gun.

Everyone else did a much better job of using the markerboard I had out to write a message.  I think the rest of these can probably speak for themselves.

I am so glad that just about everyone participated.  These pictures will be great for her scrapbook, and will be so fun to look back on!

Surprise Party! (Part 2 of 3)

This will be the Surprise Party:  Actual Party Pictures Edition.  See the Planning, Detail, and Decorations Edition here. Before we begin, let me say this: I took a lot of pictures and so did Erin and Allison.  I probably won't give proper credit under each picture, but if it looks blurry and like the camera was probably on the wrong settings, then I took it.  If it's crystal clear and a good shot, then it belongs to one of them.  Got it?

Thanks to the last super-long post, you know we used a fake invitation to get my mom to the location.  The real invitation told our guests to arrive at 6:30 because the birthday girl would make her appearance at 7:00.  In my head, that seemed like a perfect plan so that she wouldn't see anyone in the parking lot.  And in reality it worked perfectly, but it felt like FOREVER before she finally got there.

Since my parents were "attending a party hosted by a coworker," my dad called "his coworker Heath" as they got close to the venue to ask where it was located.  He was actually calling my phone to give me the signal that they were already there.  As soon as I got the call, we got everyone in position.  To get to the party room, you had to walk down a long hallway.

The hallway was a straight shot into our party space, so to keep her from seeing everyone from the opposite end of the hall, we decided to close the two doors.  They had small windows so we were still able to watch her come in.

And, just like every surprise party in any movie you've ever seen, we had a false alarm.  This couple is NOT my parents.

I quickly snapped the picture above and then jumped in with the crowd, so even I didn't realize it wasn't them until our latecomers opened the door.  Frustrated, we told them to hurry and get in line because my parents were due to arrive any minute.

Sure enough, as soon as I made it back to the window, they had just opened the doors.  Close call!

This is what my mom was about to see when she opened the door.  The crowd was so big and wide that I couldn't get everyone in one shot, so this is just a handful of everyone there.

Here's the look on my mom's face that I was able to capture when she walked in.

Of course my dad, goofball that he is, walked in behind her like the party was for him.  "For me? For her?"

My brothers and I were the first to get to hug my mom.

One of the next people my mom saw was her sister that traveled that afternoon just to surprise her.

It was a good while before she recovered from the shock.  While our guests helped themselves to the food buffet, my dad took his girl out for a spin on the dance floor.

We mingled with all of our guests for a while.

Allison and her hubby came to help with the picture-taking.

And Mary and little Wesley were there too.  (Rumor has it that Parks tried to lay a big kiss on Wesley's cheek, but she promptly wiped it off.)

After it looked like everyone had finished eating, my dad hopped up on stage to give a toast to my mom.

We played the slideshow immediately after Dad's toast, and then, just like at any other birthday party, we brought out the cake and sang to the birthday girl.

Mom got help from Parker blowing out all those candles.  (No, we didn't put 60 candles on the cake.  We're not that mean. Or maybe I just couldn't afford to buy that many...heehee.)

Mom with her kids.

After the (carrot) cake had been cut and passed around, the band cranked up the music and it was time to dance!

Have I ever told you about how my mom's friends like to get down?  Woo, those ladies can boogie!

Please note the amount of sweat on the back of my dad's neck in the picture.  Y'all, we danced and danced and danced, and were hurtin' the next morning.

Before I wrap this up, let me leave you with some pictures of me and Doc.  As hosts of the party, we felt the need to get things started on the dance floor.  I don't think I realized how many awesome pictures of us were being taken at the time.  But they can't ever be used as blackmail if I go ahead and post them myself, right?

Tell me, who do you think has the better moves?  Him or me?

So maybe we like to get a little creative when we dance.  Anything to keep everyone entertained...

I'll be back with the third and final edition soon!