A few great pictures

A few funny moments in the past few days...

The matching PJ's - Ellie has recently begun to "mother" Matthew. Don't get me wrong, we still have plenty of fights about who's foot is on who's car seat, and who's turn it is, or who was playing with it first. But, Ellie has also started taking care of Matthew. We found her pushing him in the swing one day, she follows me into his room to kiss him good night and repeats what I say, and loves when we tell him what a nice sister he has. Last night she insisted on him borrowing her pajamas...

The Boo-boo gloves - Ellie was running, tripped and hit her head on the wall. She was much comforted by the ice, but declared that it was too cold to hold and wanted her gloves...

The Eater Egg Hunt - We put on a little egg hunt for play group today and as it was 80 degrees and beautiful, we had a great time. This was Matthew's first real attempt. Unfortunately he got side tracked by the very first treat from an egg and couldn't care less about the others. He wouldn't even take his basket back as he was afraid that would mean giving up his precious piece of colored sugar...

Gardening with Children

Step 1: Build Frame
Step 2: Add Dirt
Step 3: Plant Seeds
Step 4: Get fence to keep kids out!

Ever since seeing an episode of Curious George where he plants some carrots, Ellie has been obsessed with planting carrots, often play planting them in her sandbox. She kept asking if we could plants some real carrots, so after six years in TX we decided to attempt a garden here. I have been very wary if it since everything I have planted here has just fried to a crisp in the sun. Tony built us a garden frame, and we added lots of dirt, and today we put the finishing touches on with seeds for carrots, cucumbers, basil and green beans. Oh, and don't forget the fence. The first things Matthew does is step right on in to the garden. So off we went to our home away form home, Home Depot. On the way back Ellie asks if we can check to see if the carrots grew yet. It's going to be a long growing process.....

The Great Cookie Experiment

I had read a few times about substituting apple sauce for butter or oil in recipes. I thought it was worth trying. Hey, if you can make cookies with apple sauce and no fat, you could almost call them a serving of fruit! I tried chocolate chip cookies with egg whites and apple sauce. No fat. They were absolutely terrible. The kids wouldn't even eat them. Today we made them the good old fashioned way. Butter! Ellie offered up her opinion immediately, saying, "Mommy, these are so much better than last time. Not, slimy, just perfect!" The fat-free ones really were slimy. Strange texture and they tasted terrible. Hey, it was worth a try, right?

First family road trip!

Last weekend Tony had a conference for work to attend. As it happened to be on the beach, we couldn't help but tag along! We decided to drive, attempting our first long family road trip. It was actually so much better than flying with both of them and we will jump at the chance to do it again. Armed with movies, stickers, Elmo, and snacks, we headed off first thing in the morning for a five hour car ride (that took us 6.5). We arrived at the hotel, in a room that overlooked the beach and the pool. Overwhelmed with excitement, Ellie couldn't decide what to do first, so we did both that afternoon, and topped it off with a great seafood dinner. We had had fresh Maryland Blue Crabs at Gaga and Grandpa's on one of our last trips there, and Ellie remembered and kept asking for "bang, bang, crabs!" She really wanted the hammer and the melted butter. The crab was ok too :) We were finally able to honor her request on our last night there...phew! We spent three days there, all of which consisted of beach, pool, ice cream and seafood. Galveston is still recovering from hurricane Ike and some parts of it are still a little rundown. There are some abandoned hotels still awaiting a new owner and some beach houses in need of help. Ike really seemed to have hit there hard. The beach, however, was in perfect form and there were plenty of things to see, do and eat! We will definitely return. I'm amazed that it took us this long to get down there. A beach only a five hour drive away is fantastic!