OBX

Some of you may know of the family in PA, the Bruders, that I used to babysit for since their oldest, Lilly, was about 2 months old. She just turned 3 in April! Their second, Kate, just turned one at the beginning of this month. They were nice enough to invite us down to their home in the Outer Banks, NC for a couple of days before Memorial Day. Matt and I drove down Thursday night and arrived at about 10pm. We spend all of Friday and Saturday on the beach and we had GREAT weather. A little rain on Saturday morning quickly cleared up to blue skies! It was so fun to be with Paul and Kathy and to see how Lilly has grown up and and how different Kate is from Lilly! Here are a few pics of our weekend. Most of them are of Lilly and Kate, but there are a few of the other events of the weekend.

Kate is always eating! - even the sand!

Feeding the turtles - there were like 20 of them. Creepy.

Creepy turtles

The girls....pouncing on dad

Eating a cheesesteak - my name sake really takes after me!

Eating yummy seafood at Steamers

Kathy, Kate, Katie, Lilly

Kate eating....chicken

Kate eating...her blanket

Sweet girl!

Kate eating...something brown?

Lilly wants to feed the turtles...Kate wants to eat the turtles

The Bruders! Thanks for having us!

And thanks for the sunburn!

cheesecake pops

So as I was browsing through some of my favorite blogs (see list on right) I stumbled across this great and tasty idea for a sweet treat. With Memorial Day coming up - and 3 events to attend - I though they'd be perfect to try!

I found a mini scooper (similar to an ice cream scoop) and I bought a cheesecake, some milk chocolate chips, and a wide variety of sprinkles.

The result - personal delights with just enough sweet to top off your picnic plate.

Here's how they turned out!

spring showers

I caught a break in the rain yesterday to get a few pics of the latest blooms in my garden. We have two huge Rhododendrons that have just started to bloom in the last week or so. Everyday there are more and more. My seedlings are getting bigger and bigger and I was able to transplant the last of my petunias into the ground this weekend. The latest plants, donated by my friend Kristy, who keeps a beautiful perennial garden are starting to bloom as well. I don't remember the names of everything she planted, but she impressed me with her gardening knowledge. All in all, I left her house with about 9 different plants!

Babies, bubbles and boxer-briefs...

Sleeping baby Maddie

My absolute favorite photos of Braden

After his bath, Mommy put Braden in his new big-boy undies! Braden strutted around the house in his boxer-briefs...proudly flexing his muscles for everyone who wanted to take a picture. As Shawna pulled them out to put them on him he said, "Mommy, those are daddies underwears!"

Precious

This weekend, Matt and I are traveling to Northern VA to visit the newest member of the family, Madelyn Jeanne Wivell. Madelyn's cousin, Chamberlin Brooke was born just a 12 days earlier. Congrats Ashleigh & Brandon and to Kelly & MJ! Can't wait to see you!

I'm sure I'll have a couple gigs of photos on my camera to post when I get home!

Father from Korea

For the last few weeks, my neighbor's father has been visiting from Korea. I don't know our neighbors very well except that they don't particularly like yard work (he's usually out with his mower until the wee hours of morning because he's let it grow a foot high) and he only speaks a little english. I've enjoyed seeing his father make appearances here and there on nice days - usually doing yard work for his son's poor lawn. A couple weeks ago, I heard a strange noise as I was working near my sliding glass door just to find his "edging" a "garden" with small hedge clippers for a shovel. I tried offering our gardening equipment before and he adamantly denied. So, I watched him as he finally finished cultivating a 2 foot by 5 foot garden. I'm pretty sure he planted something, because a few days later I heard a splashing sound and discovered he was scooping water with a large spoon out of a large tupperware container onto the garden.

Today, Father from Korea is cleaning out the shed...in his blue long underwear.

The boys visit

Tuesday, we enjoyed a visit from the Yoder family from Elkhart. Kelly and Scott have 5 boys! The oldest is in 5th grade and the youngest is 2. The boys particularly enjoyed their time with Matt in the backyard where he taught them how to play lacrosse! There is no lacrosse in Elkhart so the boys were excited to learn the new sport. After dinner, we took them to Chesapeake City, MD, a little town off the C&D Canal where huge boats ride through a lot. We didn't see any huge boats this time but the boys enjoyed playing in the water and watching some of the smaller boats. I knew they had a good time when Reis, the oldest boy said to Scott, "Dad, can we stay here longer?" We were glad to have you, Scott, Kelly, Reis, Hudson, Chapman, Owen and Davis! Come back anytime!






After our visit to Chesapeake City, we went back to the house where I introduced the boys to Photobooth (mac program). Enjoy!

Happy Cinco de Mayo

Monday, my sister, Amy, and I went to Chilis for a little Cinco De Mayo Celebration! We originally went to Border Cafe, an awesome authentic restaurant, for some good cookin, but when we got there, the line of cars and packed white tent outside the restaurant steered us right into the Chilis parking lot right next door. Apparently we weren't the only ones with that idea. Here's a shot of the (big) margarita I enjoyed with dinner.

all in a week...

So I thought I'd do one big post summing up the events of this past week. It was jammed with big events so this post will be picture heavy with short and sweet descriptions. I actually didn't even catch everything on camera so you'll just have to use our imagination. Here goes.

Saturday (technically last week, but play along) Matt and I built a new shed for our yard - a step closer to organization and actually getting things out of our basement. I didn't get a picture but I'm sure you'll see it at some point. Then, Matt left to go practice with the Philadelphia Barrage, a professional lacrosse team he was invited to practice with. If he impresses the coach, he could be drafted next year!

Sunday I drove up to Philly with Matt for his first professional lacrosse debut! Well, ok, it was only a scrimmage, but he was so excited. It was super cold and I had to sit on wet bleachers, but it was totally worth it!


Monday-Wednesday: Most of the beginning of the week was spent planning Matt's surprise birthday party (we'll discuss later on in the post) and our church's Celebration Service for our new building. I've been working with another friend of ours on the new church logo and other collateral for the service and this weeks project was to construct an oversized styro-foam logo to be hung on the stage. Needless to say my living room was covered in styro-foam and scraps.

Wednesday night, I met my friend from college, Kelsey, in Philadelphia for the Phillies baseball game. We took the train into the city which was quite an experience. We had great seats, thanks to Kelsey's boss - 9th row on the 3rd base line. We talked and talked and talked throughout the whole game, and the whole train ride home (which we almost missed). It was good to connect with an old friend.


Thursday was a big day - May 1st, Matt's birthday. All week I had been conspiring with Matt's friends for a surprise birthday party. Matt came home from lacrosse practice to find his friends trickling in, one by one to see him. All in all, we had about 25 people (and 3 kids) here. We settled in by 9:00 with everyone to catch this week's episode of The Office.

Matt's friend Meech who insisted on ruining our picture.

Alexis eating her cake

And of course, no party is complete without some horse lips

Friday, I spent some time in the afternoon at our church preparing for the service. We worked on our styro-foam sign a bit more. I went with my friend Emily to IKEA to find some things for the church and while I was there I found the deal of a lifetime. We strolled through the As-Is section and I spotted a beautiful white headboard - FOR $10! I snatched it up, along with it's matching foodboard for our guest bedroom. (sorry, no pic yet)

Friday night I went with Amy to our friend Jen's house (seen in the horselips pic above) for a little girls night out. We sat around and talked and laughed until well after midnight!

Saturday, today, I spent the first half of the day at the church again finishing and hanging the sign. We were proud of the finished product! It will look fantastic at the service tomorrow!


Phew, I'm exhausted.