The Pool is open!

YAY! Life is good... after an entire winter of Evie saying, "When is the pool gonna be open?" "I wanna go swimming today!", it's finally here! Warm, sunny weather and the pool is open!

Evie and Evan had a great time swimming.. Evie hasn't forgotten how to swim underwater.. she's a fish. Evan kicked his feet and splashed his hands right along with her. Both kids look a little pink tonight despite being slathered with sunscreen, but hopefully it will help build a little base tan. Evie did something new today.. after watching Brayden go down one of the slides there, she built up some confidence to go down the other slide with me, riding in a double innertube. She loved it so much that we went down again.. and then it was time to go home.
Kylla was there and snapped a few pictures of the kiddos.

Here's Evie and Brayden




And me and Evan.. Now, I reluctantly add these two pictures because in my bathing suit it shows just how much weight I could stand to lose, but I decided that I should so that in a few months when I post pictures of me in my bathing suit, you can see the drastic change! (Being very optimistic!) Hope and I have been gung ho about the gym and are working out about 4 days a week.

But you can pay attention to Evan more in these pics anyway cause his smile is so darn infectious!



You can't really tell by Evie's picture but my kids and I have matching bathing suits. ;o) They even have the same hats... so cute!


You can find find matching clothes for siblings or family at www.cwdkids.com

Anyway, hope everyone is enjoying this lovely weekend!

Hello Cupcake! part 2

Another creation from my "Hello Cupcake" book...


POPCORN!



Okay... that was the real deal up there! Ha ha ha! REAL popcorn in a bucket..

Here's MY Popcorn cupcakes:




First off.. thank you to Target for having these nifty popcorn buckets in their dollar bin!

I started off with countless mini cupcakes.. (one box of cake mix)



Then I used whipped vanilla frosting...

Then I made individual popcorns by cutting white and yellow marshmallows into thirds and arranging them like a clover.. then with frosting, using a whole one on top of that arrangement to make it look like popcorn.. (I had to make over 200 of them, took a LONG time!)



Then I topped each cupcake with 2-4 popcorns and put paper towels in the popcorn boxes about half way full, then stacked about 10 cupcakes on top of each other to look like popcorn.
They were a hit at my friend, Kylla's outdoor party last night!

And they looked so real! Although Kylla's 4 year old son, Brayden wasn't fooled.. I walk out of the car carrying them and he yells, "Mom! Tina brought cupcakes!"
Lots of others were fooled upon first glance, though..

It was fun making them, they just took a long time.. If I had a helper, it would have gone faster and been more enjoyable.

Stay tuned for more cupcake creations!

awww!

Just a cute little Evan foot....

"Better in One, or better in two?"

Those of you who are familiar with eye exams know those words....
For the past couple of days, Joe and I have been noticing that Evie closes one eye when she tries to look at something up close, like her food or the computer. Then she did it again this afternoon when she was talking directly to me. She was due for her annual eye exam anyway and needed it done for her kindegarten forms, so I called our eye doctor, (Dr. Heckman is by far the best doctor there is!) and even though they were closing early (Memorial Day) and they had just taken their last appointment, Dr. Heckman said that she would stay to see Evie. So anyway, it's official, my baby girl is farsighted. And not just a little.. (and not terrible by any means), but quite a bit. I gave her a "shopping tray" (Lenscrafters' jargon), and let her select 5 styles for us to sit down and choose between. We looked at one tan metal Barbie frame.. Evie loved it because the demo lens said "Barbie" on it, but I assured her that it wouldn't say that when she got them back and to not choose them for that reason... those blended in too much so I swiftly got those eliminated. Then a new Occiolini metal frame that I LOVED... it was a light lavendar (almost silver), kind of rectangle in shape, and with flowers cut out in the temples.. so cute.. but they looked a teensy bit wide on her and with her prescription being a magnification power, I was afraid that the shape wouldn't mesh well with her RX. On to an adorable burgundy colored (plastic) Polo frame, kinda cat eyed.. loved it, so did she and we also found it in tortoise but the burgundy was prettier.. this was our second choice frame (which I will pick up this summer so that she can have a second "look"), and then the one that we finally all agreed on, (Thanks Joy and Patty for helping), a maroon Ray-Ban metal frame. It's so sweet on her!
So far, she is keeping them on her face. She is to wear them full time except outside to play.. then in two weeks she goes back in to have her eyes dialted and rechecked. The doctor feels like she may need more power than what she gave her but she wants her to get used to this first so that it won't be too much on her all at once. You know.. I feel kinda sad, I don't want her to HAVE to wear glasses. Fitting eyeglasses on people is what I do for a living.. it's what I've always done, it seems, and I love to see people change their look and be able to see clearly.. For myself, I love getting new glasses and sunglasses.. but I don't always HAVE to wear them.. so I kinda hoped that neither of my kids would have to.. unless they WANTED to.. and certainly not so young. Hopefully she will outgrow some of this farsightedness as she gets older. We'll see!

Here's my girl after we got home, posing for the camera,




And here she is playing "World of Warcraft" on the computer.. (not paying any mind to me snapping pics of her concentrating)

Standing up

My boy has been standing up on everything lately... I got Evie's old "Ball Blaster" out last night and he pulled right up and played with Evie. It was sweet to see them play together, and when he would drop the ball, he would chase after it and come back to the toy.







And here are three that Evie took tonight with my camera.. she managed to get more smiles out of Evan than I do ;)

Zebras and Cheetahs and monkeys, OH MY!

We went to the Scovill Zoo yesterday.. and they didn't have Lions, Tigers and Bears... but they had lots of other animals! Evie's favorite was the zebra followed by the spider monkeys.

It was a lovely day, and she had a great time with John Michael. Evan and Aaron rode in the stroller together and were good kids!

Here are a few pictures, some from my camera and some from Hope's.

School's Out.. For Summer!

Evie's first year of school (preschool), is done! She had a picnic today, it was supposed to be at the park but it rained all day so they had it in her classroom. Evan had fun playing with her friends while we ate lunch together.
She said that she's going to miss her friends and teachers, but she's glad to be done until kindegarten.

Baby playgroup

We NEVER get to go to Evan's playgroup because I usually work on Fridays. But today I took the day off so that I could go to Evie's school picnic (last day!), so we had the morning to ourselves, which is rare!
Evan had fun playing with his friends Rhylan, Olivia and Sebastien (who are all very close in age)

Hello Cupcake!

So I got this new book a couple of weeks ago titled, "Hello Cupcake".. it's the cutest book that instructs you on how to decorate cupcakes easily!

So I thought I'd try my luck with the sunflower design.

You start out baking 24 vanilla cupcakes, tinting vanilla icing green, orange, yellow and black..

covering them with the green,


then topping them with regular and bite sized oreos next..

And then you frosting around the oreos with orange and yellow to make the petals of the sunflowers... and then use a red m&m for the ladybug with black grosting to make the spots..




I did really well with the first few flowers, the book instructs you to use a ziplock freezer bag and scotch tape on the corners, then cut a V-tip to make the petals.. it said that it was easier and less messy than a frosting bag with tip.. I found this NOT to be true. Even with tape reinforcing the tip, my V shape would be screwed up by the third flower.. making them blobby... I got discouraged.. and well.. don't tell Evie I used this word..) but I "gave up" Evie would say, in her own words "When things go wrong, don't give up" LOL Well.. I had HAD it with that frosting.. I KNOW I could have done it if I had the bag and tip.. next time, I will do just that!

The few that came out were cute, though! Don't know which ones I will make next!!

Fun with friends!

What a lovely day Wednesday was! Nice and warm with a little breeze. We started off the day at playgroup in the park. Then lunch with friends at El Toro, and some more outdoor playtime at Hope's house with our friend, Mandi and her kids hanging out with us. Here's Evan looking a bit sleepy and grumpy... (by the way.. he got his first sunburn despite all of the sunscreen that I slathered on him.. he was so pink last night..)

The Alex and Evie taking turns driving each other around on the tricycle..

Then, after we all went home and put the kids to bed for the night, us girls went out for some drinks and girl talk! (Mandi is demonstrating the difference between a Jumbo and a Monster sized margarita) El Toro for margaritas...
The cupcake Bar downtown...
Thanks for a much needed night out, girls!

Evan's first playtime at the mall

It's a cold, rainy day yet again here in the midwest.. it figures, though, since it was warm and sunny this past weekend.. so I took the kids to the mall to play inside at the play area. I usually hold Evan but since he has been crawling so well I decided to let him down to play. He had so much fun! He smiled at everyone who went by, crawled through tunnels and made a friend. I took a little bit of video of his friend-making and crawling. He even waited up for his friend to crawl through the tunnel with him and he followed her around like a lost puppy. He wanted to get her pacifier, not for himself, but he thought it was fun to take it out of her mouth and put it back in. LOL

Anyway.. here is a short video (just over a minute long)

Saturday Night!

Saturday night, we went to Jupiters 2 with our friends Hope, John and their kiddos.
We had dinner and some drinks and let the kids do some bowling, air hockey and some games. It's Evie's all time favorite place to go but they are on the expensive side, so other than this past weekednd going twice, we don't go there often.

Evie and John Michael NOT eating their dinner LOL


The kids playing air hockey... (Evie is actually pretty good!)



BOWLING!




And my boys..