Sneak Peek

last evening we went to the girls' weekly dance practice.....their recital is coming up on june 1st & the ballet instructor let us parents come in at the end of class last night for a sneak peek of their routines (gabby's tap instructor did not - boooo!)

the theme this year is Mary Poppins - pretty funny, cause we found this out shortly after i introduced this wonderful movie to the kids......gabby's ballet class is doing Spoon Full of Sugar and Corinn's ballet class is dancing to Feed the Birds. Gabby's tap class is doing a dance to the Penguin Dance (this should be sooooo cute - i can't wait to see it.....i hear the music drafting down from upstairs every week, and i'm so tempted to sneak up and see it each time!)

we get costumes next week - the girls are super excited for this! here are some pics from last night.....gabby's class is practicing with wooden spoons, but i'm told they'll use smaller/more glittery ones for the actual performance :0)

gabrielle in pre-ballet II...ages 5-7...she's in the pink tye-dye leotard & black skirt (i showed gabby these pics and she said, "i need to work on my smile".....she's so darn cute!)

the finale

corinn in pre-ballet I...ages 3-5...corinn's is in the shimmery blue leotard & black skirt...check out those toes - go girl!

the instructor feeding her birds (mary poppins will do this in the recital)

if u're local & want info about coming to the recital.....let me know! :0)

Make-up for as low as $1!!!

Ladies!! My friend, BC made a post about this incredible deal...

The make-up line E.L.F. ( Eyes, Lips, and Face) has been bought out by Nordstrom and will be re-packaged with the Nordstrom name on it. They are getting rid of all the make-up in ELF packaging. They are selling everything for $1 !!! You do have to pay shipping, However, even with that charge it's cheaper than buying make-up anywhere else and it is fun to try things when you don't have to worry about the cost! They have powder, mascara, brushes, nail polish, you name it...

Also, if you use the coupon code: CAROLINA you will get $7.50 off your first $15 of your purchase.

Go here to shop!

Thanks BC!!! :0)

update on gabby's allergies

thx for all your advice!!! gabby's teacher emailed me yesterday afternoon - another bad day for the lil one's eyes! so as of this morning, gabby's taking zyrtec (at about $1/pill - isn't that insane?!)....i called the doc and she said it actually works better than claritin for most people (uh, y didn't u tell me that to begin with?!).....and since the doc said the allergy eye drops are safe for kids too, i picked up some naphcon-a drops that we started last night (thx shanna)....i'm hoping today goes much better for my baby girl!

$100 to fill up my tank?!

i know that everyone is dealing with this & that unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be an end in sight....but OMG, how it sucks!

i ran by Southern States last evening after work, cause my mini-van was on E....their gas is usually about 1 or 2 cents cheaper than all the local gas stations & it's right down the street from my job....well, i was in a hurry, so just pumped $25 even to last me until today or tomorrow when i'd have time to fill up.....well, i get in and pull away & look down at my gas gauge - i had a whole QUARTER OF A TANK!!! so, if i had filled up, i would have paid $100 in gas?! it couldn't have been that long ago that i was filling my tank for $50-60?! this is getting insane - scary, in fact

because not only are we forking out almost $4/gallon for gas, but can u believe the grocery prices lately? anyone else leave the grocery store feeling robbed? i made a trip to food lion on my lunch break yesterday and managed to spend $106 in about 40 minutes! and i swear - it was all staples/necessities! we aren't too proud for generics or MVP shopping (for real, i usually shop at walmart & save a little more, but food lion is a lot closer to my job)....not to mention my cake ingredients - powdered sugar alone (main ingredient in my butter cream icing) has jumped 40% in cost since last year!

i pray that somehow, the economy starts getting better.....i pray that our country elects the right person into the white house this fall and that they're able to fix this unbelievable mess that Bush (ugh) has created.....and i pray that my family (and families like our's) are able to make it through these difficult times! Lord, grant me the serenity...

i need your help!

poor gabby is struggling with these allergies! since this is the very first time that any of my kids have had any kind of allergy issues…..and since curtis & i don't really have any allergies ourselves (occasionally, i get a sinus/head cold when the seasons change)….we're not sure how to deal with this.....the doctor told us to give her a daily dose of children's claritin or zyrtec for about a month – until the tree blooms start falling off.....regardless of whether we think she'll have issues that day or not......so every morning, she gets her dose.....but then sometimes (like last friday – see pic below), if she's playing outside a lot during the day, it just doesn't seem like that dose was enough......and what am I supposed to do? tell the kid she can’t play outside? It’s bad enough I’ve already told her she has to stop putting flowers in her hair & rolling in the grass (2 things she LOVES to do)!…..i’ve heard that eating like 2 tsps of locally harvested honey will sometimes help – that makes sense…..but other than a cold towel to put on her eyes, I have no idea how to help her! it’s so frustrating! i HATE the idea of her having to take meds every day, each spring, until the pollen count goes down, or the blooms fall off the trees, or whatever it is that’s bothering her – stops! and we REALLY HATE the allergy testing idea....aren’t those more for determining food allergies anyway?

any ideas? seriously – i'm open to ALL suggestions!

just look at this miserable face!

rain, rain, go away...

it's rainy here.....it has been since friday, off & on....including some thunderstorms on saturday....it's supposed to keep it up until wednesday......then we'll have a 2 day break in the rain until the thunderstorms return on friday, and run again for several more days! wow - that REALLY sucks!

friday eve, the kids got in some moon sand time on the front porch (since it was rainy - grrrr).....i would have NEVER bought this stuff - but all the kids have received some sort of moon sand activity as birthday presents.....and i'm actually glad.....it's messy & i HIGHLY suggest you make this an outside activity, like we do.....but it's pretty neat & the kids could sit and play with it for hours!

curtis was punching his heavy bag while the kids played
"don't ya wish your husband was hot like mine?! don't ya?!" ~lol~

saturday, the kids went along with me on a cake delivery, 1 1/2 hours away (not by choice, daddy was working).....and of course it was raining! we actually drove through a thunderstorm & had fun seeing who could spot the lightning.....

my cuties, being awfully sweet! sorry for the tilted pic - obviously, i had to point the camera & click without actually looking at what i was snapping

as you can tell, the drive was right in the middle of nap time - corinn had to use my bag as her pillow!

a pic of my sweets before church on sunday - a break in the rain.....ps - those darling dresses with matching turtle necks were $5 specials at walmart - whoo hoo for clearance racks!


the rain held off yesterday, until right after our very first backyard camp fire.....gabby & corinn attended a friend's birthday party yesterday afternoon.....meanwhile, jaden & i went rock hunting....and let me tell you, it was a HUNT! because of all the recent rain, the rivers were up so high that the water was covering up all the river rock.....so we literally would spot big rocks on the side of the road & would pull over to snatch them up.....after daddy got home last night, we built our spot & had our first fire.....looks like it'll be at least a week before we can try out the fire pit again!

weekend cakes...

the only thing not edible on these 2 cakes is the silo - it has a cardboard tube running up through the middle

anniversary date night

Last night, was our anniversary date night - we went to see Jim Breuer at JMU and it was surprisingly great (the show, not the date - i knew the date would be great!).....you might remember Jim as Goat Boy on SNL - hilarious!

or in the movie Half Baked - stupid funny!

I sort of expected the show to be half lame - Jim hasn't been on tour for 5 years, he's a good bit older than his SNL days, and let's face it - this is a college comedy tour. But I swear, he was HILARIOUS!!!

It's weird, cause although I know Curtis & I weren't the only older people there, it felt like Jim's stand-up was more geared towards us, than all the party kids there. His act was some what of a lesson to these kids - he was telling them what they'd have to deal with as they get older and move on through life (where we are now, duh). Jim's married & has 3 daughters & he doesn't get high or drink any more - he explained how important it is to do what you love, even though as you grow up, you're told over & over how important your younger years are, and how you to need to study hard to get a good job, so you can make lots of money, blah, blah, blah...how schools today are cutting out the creativity of kids & focusing on good test scores. He talked about having good morals, being a good person, not worrying about what material possessions you have, resisting temptation - and all of this was done with jokes - it was so freaking cool!

There were still quite a few drunk frat boys in the audience that tried to be heard throughout the show....but honestly, Jim's best stuff was when he was improving off of the audience - he had no problem keeping them in check & it was soooo funny! the outside corners of my eyes hurt by the end of the show, from me wiping my tears away so much....it was cool to leave with that "wow, that was great" feeling!

Curtis & I saw Dave Chappelle in DC (Dave's home town) when we lived up there - my birthday gift to him one year. And he says he'd really like to see Harland Williams too - that he saw some of his stand-up on TV, and it was pretty funny....and I guess that just leaves Guillermo Díaz.


That's cool, there will be many, many more date nights to come!

*thx to my brother cj & my sis in law katie for watching the kids - they had a blast with u guys!

"sweet" thursday

i brought in some sweet treats for my co-workers today - i hope you have a "sweet" thursday too!

flash card fun

another alternative to watching tv ;0)

the girls had fun practicing their letters & letter sounds with daddy last night, while i helped jaden with his homework.....gabby only has trouble with the vowel sounds here and there.....and corinn does surprisingly well for only just turning 4 - she won't even start pre-k until this fall! she can recognize almost all of the letters & knows a good many letter sounds too!

gabrielle acing them

must be a tricky one

corinn trying to get a hint from gabrielle ~lol~shouting out the answer

good job girl! ~gimme five!~

no TV this week

this week, the elementary school is asking all the children to take a break from TV - YAY!!! {this is part of their week long study about earth day and what we can do to help}

if u remember, i would LOVE to get rid of our TV's completely.....so, i'm very excited about this assignment! i learned a long time ago, that if the kids are not moving as fast as we'd like when getting ready for school/bed/etc, just turn off the TV & like magic *poof* everyone moves a little faster - imagine that?!

needless to say, the last 3 mornings of getting ready for school/daycare have run very smoothly - i was 20 minutes early to work today!!! and since the kids know this is a school assignment, mommy's not the bad guy this week! ~lol~

i have to admit, we've done really well lately with the nice weather anyway - the kids have headed outside to play in the evenings instead of asking to watch TV.....but even after it gets dark this week, we've been reading books & dancing to music & playing games together....it's been really nice!

cute pic of the girls watching some TV with daddy on monday eve, right before we got busy with homework & found out about this week's assignment - RIP TV (until next week, or maybe longer if i'm lucky!)

9 years together, 2 years married & still going strong!

i mentioned that curtis & i just recently celebrated 9 years as a couple....well, yesterday was our 2 year wedding anniversary! :0)

i woke up to coffee, an omelet with green peppers/onions/mozzarella cheese (my fav!), fried potatoes & biscuits with apple butter....curtis must have gotten up at 5:30am to beat me up and prepare this!


he had also made enough for the kids & himself....i felt bad, because i'm just not used to eating first thing in the morning.....it takes me a little while to get going and get hungry....and even when i did get the appetite to eat, i could only put about half of this down (does he really think i can eat this much? and all those carbs?! ~lol~)....but i felt so loved & it was fun getting to take a minute to sit down with my family for breakfast on a busy weekday morning!

btw- it's just a coincidence that we got married on earth day....but i think it's pretty cool ;0) remember to always think green - not just on earth day!

back to the real world

last evening, we drug 3 very tired kids into the house....stripped them down & threw them in the bath.....like my dad said - this bath would be like washing your car, you'd be able to see your progress! ~lol~ after getting clean, getting pj's on, brushing teeth and saying prayers, i think it took all of 20 seconds for them to pass completely out

we had such a great time! saturday was absolutely beautiful until after bed time (then it poured)! there was some rain here and there on sunday, but nothing more than a sprinkle.....and hey, that just made for more fun in the mud & puddles!

we got started a little late on saturday, after delivering the lego cake, so we missed the hubby callin' and armpit seranade.....but we played for a while and had lunch, then curtis took the kids down to the river to get in some fishing time before we had to head back home briefly that afternoon for bryan's 4th birthday party (my sister's son).....the party was great - and we had water play outside - what kid doesn't love that?!

then we headed back to the campground (it's about a 45 minute drive from home)....in the car, i realized that gabby's mild seasonal allergies that had popped up for the very first time last tuesday, were actually turning into pretty severe allergies - that evidentially were triggered big time by freshly cut grass! this is what she looked like when we got back to the campground and had taken a dose of children's claritin, so the swelling had gone down some....the only thing i can blame it on, is her going down the slip and slide repeatedly at my sister's house.....then having the freshly cut grass clinging to her wet body.....also note the busted chin from riding a skateboard on her belly at my sister's house
then, here she is yesterday - more than 24 hours after the party, and after having continuous doses of the claritin....but of course, after being outside the entire weekend (and before the rain, you could literally see the pollen settling on the cars)
poor thing! she still managed to have a blast and didn't complain much at all - just occasionally complained that her eyes hurt & would ask for a cold, wet cloth to hold over them...what a trooper!

now back to the camping....we got back after the party, just in time for the pig roast! my mom made potato salad and there were lots of sides & desserts brought by the campers - one huge pot luck! mmmmm! we missed the tasting/voting for the Bubba-Q cook-off, but made it back in time for them to announce the winners...mom entered her venison recipe that included ramps and won 2nd place! from what I heard, she probably would have won 1st except that a lot of the campers weren't keen on trying deer meat. {why in the world are you here camping on Redneck Weekend and you won't even try deer?! beats me!} i totally forgot to take a picture of the winning campsite in the Most Redneck Decorated Campsite award - let's just say it definitely deserved to win! my favorite part were the beer can wind chimes! ~lol~ we checked out the karaoke that night and got in plenty of fishing & hiking/biking to the waterfall on both days! all the kids caught some fish & grandpa even grilled one of the huge trout that daddy caught - the kids were in awe at the whole cleaning/gutting/cutting it's head off process ~lol~ and they all tried a bite of the grilled trout - the girls & i ate most of it

another highlight of the weekend was gabrielle learning to ride her bike with no training wheels! she nailed it in about 5 minutes & amazed us all! grandpa has managed to teach jaden, deandra (my neice who's 2 months younger than jaden), and now gabby, how to ride their bikes at this campground....next year, it's corinn's turn! ;0) we ended up putting the training wheels back on gabby's bike so she could ride around the campground's gravel roads without help....but as soon as it stops raining this week, we're heading to the grassy field at the park for some more big kid bike practice (after a dose of claritin, of course! ~lol~)

here's a slide of our fun & 2 videos of gabrielle on her bike....i hope you guys enjoyed the weekend where you are! :0)

weekend cakes...

since we had our camping trip this weekend, i didn't have many cake requests to fill.....the lego cake was so much fun to make! and the superhero cupcakes were quickies for my nephew's bday party that we drove back for on saturday (in the middle of our camping trip).....everything you see is edible

Gone CAMPING!!!

yay! it's time for our first camping trip of the year! i can't even begin to tell you how long the kids have been counting down the days for this trip! EVERY year, we go camping here....i mean since before the girls were born (i think i've worn several maternity bathing suits in their pool/river).....and i swear, u'd never know this place is a KOA campground - it's absolutely gorgeous & there's so much to do there! i HIGHLY recommend it for tent or RV camping!

we usually go on the holiday weekends every year (memorial, labor, & sometimes 4th of july)....but my dad took a new job a few months ago and can't get off for the holiday weekends this year.....so, nana & grandpa gave us the choice of 2 weekends to go camping (the weekends he is off from work) - we picked the first available cause we just can't wait....and it turns out that we just so happen to pick...

REDNECK WEEKEND! ~rotflmao~

i know, i know....at first i was like - 'oh no, this can't be!' - the thought made me cringe....believe it or not, curtis was like 'so?!' - he's only concerned with getting in some fishing time (and they have not only a stocked pond, but a river that runs right through the camp ground - complete with waterfall!).....but after checking out the activities planned, i'm thinking this might actually be fun.....my mom is entering the Bub-a-que contest....and i bet i'd do pretty well at the husband callin' contest ~lol~.....oh, and i have to tell jaden about the armpit serenade - he'll win that hands down! ~lol~ mmmmm, and a pig roast - can't wait for that! costume & decorated camp site judging, karaoke, the usual hay rides.....this will be fun!

plus, we're regulars now.....and the same folks always come for the themed & holiday weekends.....it's such a nice crew & the kids have a BLAST every time we go! here's some pics of previous camping trips to keep u until we return.....i'll be back in the blogging world on monday....i hope u all have an AWESOME weekend! i KNOW we will!!! :0)

Memorial Day weekend - May 2006
(by the waterfall - look how tiny they are!)
Jaden & Grandpa riding down the river - this is so relaxing!Curtis & the boys getting ready to do what they do best

Labor Day weekend - September 2006
(look at Corinn's short lil pony tail - you can see how long ago this was!)
by the waterfall again

Memorial Day weekend - May 2007
family shot by the waterfall
daddy fishing - the girls playing with the worms ~lol~by the campfireat the pool - Jaden's fav spot!feeding the ducks - there's also a ton of rabbits that roam around
(they are tame & will come right up to your site looking to be fed)with Nana & Grandpa on a hay ride
Labor Day weekend - September 2007
playing in the river
true love
getting bigger - but still just as darn cute!
on the playgroundriding bikes
and the cutest pic ever