The future Mrs. McClain

Although this congratulations is long overdue, I figured better late than never. On Memorial Day, Matt and I joined about a dozen of our friends in a celebratory dinner with our friend's Lauren and Matt who got engaged that day! We're so happy for Matt and Lauren! I'm also flattered to be Lauren's maid of honor for her wedding in December of this year! Congratulations, Lauren and Matt!

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.