Welcome Baby Sister

We are so happy to announce the arrival of our little girl!

Addison Elfrieda Spencer

Born: August 24, 2011 at 7:55 am

9 lbs 3 oz

20.5" long

She is our little sweetheart.

Look how much she already adores her daddy!

Ever since we started having children the name "Addison" has topped our list.  Once we had our Clark we really wanted an Addison.  Clark is my maiden name but as Chicago Cubs fans we couldn't resist the tie in between Clark and Addison (the streets Wrigley Field sits on).  And to add to the Chicago reference the popular Grant Park suits our middle child.

Addison's middle name Elfrieda was my grandmother's name.  Sometimes I think grandma and I were cut from the same cloth.  Giving a little girl her name as a middle name was an easy choice and one I hope she someday finds unique and beautiful.  September 1st was grandma's birthday - so happy birthday grandma - I know you would have been proud of your newest great-granddaughter (just as you were proud of all your grand and great-grand children).

Crazy Days

I think today I hit the bottom of the crazy barrel.  Hopefully this means that things should be looking up - right?  I don't know with baby girl on the way in just under two weeks things could potentially get crazier around here.  So what prompted this blog post regarding my life hitting an all time craziness?

1.  Could it be the fact that the only internet option we have in this out of the way area is satellite internet.  Which little did I know comes with download restrictions - we'll see if that interferes with my working remotely from home or not.  For now it does mean no watching on-line TV shows or using Netflix on-line :(  The worst was having one company lined up and then they canceled on us because they didn't have enough technicians for our area on the day of install (of course I waited the whole 4 hour time limit before they bothered to tell me this).  Than the earliest they could have someone out was the first part of SEPTEMBER!  I. work. from. home!  So called a local dealer and they set us up right away on a different satellite network.  Still have download restrictions but at least I'm connected to the world.

Crappy but not the reason for the post.

2.  Remember "The Shining" version of the Simpson's?  Where Homer writes "No Beer, No TV - make Homer go crazy" all over.  Well no caffeine and no TV is making Andrea want to pull her hair out!  OK - I willingly gave up the caffeine way back in September to keep baby safe from such things.  But who knew not watching the news in the morning really messes with my head.  Yes, there is an antennae but in this area of the state forget trying to get anything that way - at least not with the switch to digital TV.  I called Directv movers long ago and was so very excited because today our receiver was to be hooked back up in our new home.  NOooooooooooooo.  Was all I could say when the technician did not show up between 8 am and 12 pm today.  When I called in I was told that they said no one was home.  What???  I purposely worked on the bottom floor of the house so I would see a truck pull in.  Then she told me the address - they sent the tech to our OLD ADDRESS.  Seriously - we've been with them at that address for 8 years this didn't ring a bell?  Next available date - September 1st.  Really??  Again (this time near tears), I called our local communications company.  They don't usually do moves since Directv doesn't pay them for it but if we paid the fees they could set it up on Monday.  Yes, please!!! At this point I don't care about the $100.  My husband feeling he needed to ride in on a white horse for his overly pregnant wife called in and made Directv (who we have been a customer of for 12 years) refund our money for the service call.  What a sweet man - defending our honor and all that.

So - no Project Runway viewing tonight.  Still not the bottom of the crazy barrel.

3.  Being completely swollen with only 12 days left before baby arrives.  (yes mom, I check my blood pressure each day and all is well there).  Seriously, I no longer have ankles and my hands lose all feeling after too much work.  If I put my feet up though the swelling does go down and again my awesome husband doesn't complain about the now daily foot rubs.  Well, he should have to go through some discomfort for this child too- right?

Yeah - still dealing with this is what I expected with a late August baby and a move half way across the state.

4.  The move - sucks!  Sorry, not a fan of moving.  In fact, we considered not taking this job simply because we didn't want to move.  However, this is for the good of our family and things will get better.  This isn't the first time I've had a newborn and no kitchen.  When our oldest was born the kitchen and living room were being remodeled and things were everywhere!  So much thanks to our parents, my brother and friends who helped with the move.  The great thing is we have a wonderful landlord and lots of great neighbors down here (back in my husband's childhood location) who have helped us out tremendously.  It is nice to be back in a small community where neighbors help each other.

Still - moving is what it is.

5.  Cleaning disgusting who knows what from everything in this house!  I decided a while back that there was no way I had the energy to clean our house we were selling after moving out.  So, I went online and hired Molly Maids.  Best. decision. EVER!  They cleaned the cupboards, appliances - everything on the main level.  Sweet!  Plus, my wonderful mom cleaned the basement floors and went on search and destroy mission to rid the basement of spiders.  Thanks MOM!  The floors in the basement haven't looked that good since before last year's major August floods.

In hindsight I should have hired a cleaning service for the new house!  I really didn't expect the sheer awfulness that awaited.  And yes, usually in a rental situation the landlord would have taken care of the cleaning but the renters were late in moving out and then landlord and family went on their summer vacation and we at that time needed into the house.  The landlord will be replacing the carpet (which has an odd smell even after he had it shampooed).  The past couple days I have been working on organizing the kitchen and the cupboards are just yucky!  I have gone through lots of GooGone and Clorox wipes.  Today though between the swelling and the lack of TV I gave up on trying to bend down to do the bottom cupboards.  My poor husband will have to crawl around to get those clean.

A "throw my hands up" moment but still not rock bottom.

6.  Ah - here it is:  washing my maternity underwear in the kitchen sink!  Yep, that for me was when crazy laughter hit.  My two week supply of unmentionables was up.  Husband went to hook the washer up last night but realized we forgot the hoses at the old house so there was no way to hook it up.  By this afternoon I wasn't sure what I should do.  Going commando to my doctor's appointment tomorrow didn't sound like a good plan - plus I could never do that anyway.  I couldn't just go out and buy new maternity undies - those just aren't found at stores in this general area.  So, I filled a clean bucket with hot water and soap and scrubbed and rinsed and scrubbed some more.  Even this wasn't too bad - since honestly some people do wash all their delicates by hand anyway.  It was when I realized I had no idea where the clothespins were that I went a bit nuts.

How did I hang my laundry out to dry you must be wondering.  With paperclips and binder clips, of course.  I love my office supplies!  Well, at least I have some wonderfully outdoor line dried fresh laundry ready for the weekend!  It didn't help that while my clean undies were hanging in the breeze the former renters came by to check on their truck that was supposed to be gone 3 weeks ago but is still sitting here waiting for the tow truck they tell us will be coming (I'll believe it when I see it).  Hey - I guess if you can't get your act together you'll have to bear seeing a pregnant woman's large underpants blowing in the breeze!

Nothing like a little crazy to make us realize and appreciate how special the "normal" times are!

Heat Wave

Here is how we helped handle the heat wave that has settled over our area of the country this week.

On Sunday, we ran to town and picked up an inexpensive wading pool for the boys.

The boys couldn't wait to play in the water so it was very COLD!  You know, from the depth of the well cold.  But the expression on Grant's face when he poured water over his head was priceless!  They both soaked themselves over and over again.

The boys had wanted the pool at the store with the slide built in but I convinced them we could come up with something better (and save some money).  So we took the little slide (that the goats like to play on) from the sandbox and moved it to the pool area.

The boys have had great fun enjoying the pool on these hot days.  They especially love that the rules that apply to bath time DO NOT apply to pool time!

Don't let Fred fool you - he merely looks curious in this picture.  Yesterday while Clark was in the pool  I found Fred playing with Clark completely submersed in the water - Fred was loving every minute of it.  He was even laying down in the "shallow" end (little bit of a slope to the yard).  Yes, we have a water loving dog.  Who can blame him in this heat!

Our "New" Home

On Saturday, we drove down to Red Oak to do a walk through of our rental home.  The people were supposed to have moved out on Friday but they were still working on some things so I didn't take as many photos as I had wanted to.  However, we did measure all the rooms so I could lay out some plans this week.

Here is the front of the house (faces west).  The landlord has someone coming to replace the front steps as they are becoming quite worn but the boys loved running around on the front porch.  And sitting on the front porch swing!  I'm giddy - we have a front porch swing.  Not only that the porch faces west - great location for watching storms roll in.  I remember sitting on our back porch with my dad watching storms come in.  Granted that porch at home faced North but it was still memorable!

Here was the one interior shot I took.  This was probably the old "parlor" but it will be our living room.  Wood floors throughout - although they need some love and urethane.  The views are lovely from the big old windows.  We are a bit worried about how much cleaning there may be but we'll get it shined up.

A view of the back porch.  It sits right off the kitchen.  There is also a laundry and mud room area to the other side off the kitchen.

A view of the house from the driveway.  See that third story window?  That is a finished usable space up there which is where my sewing area is going to go.  Not to worried about heat in the winter but may need to look into a window air conditioner for the summer months.

Looking to the south of the property.  We have a nice clothes line.  The place is surrounded by Oak and Walnut trees.  Clark was picking up old walnut shells wondering what they were.  There are also a couple of apple trees on the property but they don't have many apples this year.  In addition, it supposedly comes with a large asparagus patch and I found the old rhubarb patch.  Our landlord is very open to us doing anything we want outside.  I think there is a nice sunny area to the east that will make a great garden location next year.

Finally, here is our livestock's lodging.  It needs some work to make it usable and winter ready; however, it should be a nice little area.  My picture doesn't it show it that well but the one side is concrete floor and the other side is dirt floor.  It is an open faced shed - facing south.  However, there's a nice beam that we can use to build an enclosure big enough for everyone.  This is the one downfall of the property - there is no garage and this is the only out building (and there is only one outdoor water hydrant which is up by the house so we'll have to haul water).  But for the price and location it's still a very nice property.  It is secluded and quiet which makes me happy - I like my privacy.

I think the boys like it - I foresee a lot of tree climbing in the future though.  We also know we'll need to build a sandbox since they already mentioned it didn't have one and that is their favorite outdoor activity (well - until we purchased a wading pool on Sunday but I'll post that tomorrow).

Oh, What a Day!

At this point I would much rather be blogging about preparations for the upcoming Iowa State Fair; but as many of you know our lives this summer have made that a bit impossible.  However, I have received numerous e-mails from people who are entering and prepping for the upcoming fair.  All I have to say is HOW AWESOME!  Good Luck to all of you and I hope you have lots of fun!

Now for a word of warning - the next part of the post is more of a story than a blog but I wanted to put it in writing.  So no pictures but I'll try to make it an amusing tale.

For our family Friday through Monday this past weekend was simply a flurry of activity as we finished off all those little (and in our case some large) projects that we expected to get to slowly as we had time and money around the house (we really never expected to move - at least not anytime in the near future).  The house is lovely now.  My poor husband had to put up with "wow - that would have been great to have done 'x number' years ago".  We still have a few little details to work on and some more cleaning both inside and out but we accomplished a lot.  The boys had lots of sandbox and outdoor time but not a lot of mommy and daddy attention the past few days.  Although Clark was a big help moving empty boxes for me and even Grant helped haul and load some little items that were just his size.

On Monday the inspector and buyers were to do their walk through starting at 1 PM.  So, we worked up until we needed to leave.  We thought we would take the boys out for a treat and get some lunch and head to a movie.  If we all fell asleep in the air conditioned theater we decided that wouldn't be all bad.  First we needed to deposit a refund check and take out some cash.  Upon depositing our check we realized our bank account was over drawn.  That seemed very strange to me since I had been carefully watching our ins and outs with all the extra bills and purchases we've had to make with the finishing work on the house.  But I thought - well, I must have miscalculated somewhere very badly.  Normally, I would have headed straight home to check the accounts and see where I went wrong but that wasn't an option.  With two hungry kids in the back of the car we had to come up with some sort of plan.  Luckily, while cleaning out the garage Alan and the boys had loaded up our pop cans to take to recycling.  On our way to the recycling center I went through my purse and found a $5.00 bill and $4.00 in my change purse.

Of course, Grant fell asleep in the back seat during our driving around town.  Once to the recycling center I stayed with sleeping Grant while Clark and Alan took in our cans.  Clark felt like such a big boy hauling in two bags at the same time all on his own.  We could tell this little excursion was fun for Clark because he talked about it non-stop and asked a million questions when we were back in the car.  It has been a long time since Alan and I have taken back cans in order to get a meal but if that's what it took to get some food so be it.  We now had $19.00 to spend.  How ironic - we had plenty of food at home but we couldn't go home.  It was a bizarre feeling.  We headed to HyVee and bought some fruit, meat, cheese, chocolate milk and crackers.  We bought a couple fountain drinks and sat down in a booth in their meal seating area.  The boys thought it was a great picnic.  They were completely happy with their meal.  We decided to just enjoy the time sitting together as a family (in air conditioning).  We laughed and munched and had a good time.

Of course, at this point we still had about 1.5 hours of time to kill before heading home.  The boys decided even though it was hot they wanted to go play at a playground.  Mommy decided on the most shady one she could think of in Bandshell Park and we headed out.  While at the park my husband gets a phone message from Shazaam saying they have noticed unusual activity on our card.  We call in and yes, over the weekend while I wasn't paying close attention some charges had been made on our card - not by us.  We tell our hot and sticky boys that we need to go back to the bank and figure out what happened to our account.  Clark is determined to find the "bad guys" that stole our money.  Which somehow morphed into a lesson on Jesse James - having a history buff for a husband comes in quite handy at times.

Funny enough at the bank I felt worse for the bank manager who told us this was the second case she had handled that day than I did for us.  Yes, we had our entire account wiped out but we signed all the paperwork and the bank will take care of it (in about 7 - 10 days).  The boys even got suckers which made them happy little campers.  The bad thing is the banks have to pay out of their own pockets for these crimes and the perpetrators are rarely caught or held accountable.  Sad.  All I have to say though is stupid on their part for stealing our pin number - since there wasn't all that much to take at the time anyway.

Amazingly enough after the bank we still had a 1/2 hour to kill.  We headed to the library.  The boys found some good books (since most of theirs are currently packed up it was nice to get some new reading material) and had some good play time.  Grant snuggled up with daddy to read some books and do some puzzles and Clark played at the Lego table (no surprise there).  Having someone else along I was even able to look for some books at my leisure and my husband found the comic book section and found some items he has been wanting to look at too. Oh and I found the Brer Rabbit collection of stories that I decided we had to check out.  I remember reading the story of Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby with my grandma before naptime over and over again.  Grandma once told me it was by far my favorite story.  I would beg to have her reread it to me.

Long story day short - we went home and we enjoyed a nice evening meal followed by early bedtimes for all (and mommy enjoyed reading Brer Rabbit to the boys at bedtime).  Oh- and we still have $4.00!  You know - all in all the day made me very grateful that God has so greatly blessed our little family.  Although sometimes the end of the month feels a little tight I know that we won't go without and that is a great blessing.

What Type Am I?

That's a pretty open ended question.  I have taken many quizzes and tests to find out.  Things regarding my personality, my work habits/style, my strengths and weaknesses, etc.  Most of these for work or school.  Today I found something else to help me find direction.  Hah - I need all the help I can get in that regard.  But today's direction is more home decorating style focused.

Today as I was reading through a few blog posts I found this blog post entitled "House Speak" by The Shabby Nest.  Since we are in the process of moving to a new home it made me think about my own decorating style.  I have to admit when we first bought this house I almost cried since it wasn't exactly the charming 2-story farm house I would like.  I actually find ranch homes boring and architecturally ugly.  However, with a lot of time, hard work by hubby and myself we made it feel cozy and homey. Now I am actually sad to leave it and it's open floor plan we created.

Our new rental home will be that charming 2-story farm house complete with original wood work and pocket doors (and a front porch with a porch swing!).  We've only done a brief walk through so I look forward to getting inside again the middle of the month to take measurements, figure paint schemes and hopefully by August at least have the nursery, kitchen and boys' room put together.

So for a little fun today while I sat for a break to put my feet up (thankfully they aren't swelling up) I took the style quiz over at Sproost.  Actually no surprises - I am a mix of 40% Traditional Country, 40% Classic and 20% Modern Elegance.  That pretty much sums me up.  From the Traditional County I like to surround myself with vintage pieces, rare finds and hand-me downs to help create a homey feeling.  From the classic I like classic lines, solid furniture and an overall sophisticated feel.  And then there is that little modern side of me where I enjoy simplicity and some modern pops mixed in with my vintage items.  Where I fall short on the modern side is actually keeping the place from feeling cluttered.  I'm going to work on that in the next home.

OK - back to working on getting this house to the final stages of the sale!  We have a buyer (only 5 days on the market I can't believe it), now we just need to get through inspections next week (still lots to do).  Once we get past inspections I'll sleep better!

Two and Four

This year we did not have photos taken of the boys at their birthday time.  We decided to save some money and wait until baby girl is born later in August and do a whole family layout by a professional photographer friend of ours.  Last night though we captured some great photos of the boys at the playground.  We played in the park until it was time to watch the fireworks from the hill of the park.

These are some of my favorites and I think I'll order a few to use as their two and four year old photos.

This is Alan's favorite!

Grant thought he was such a big boy learning how to swing.

Bye, bye - see you later!

It is becoming harder all the time to get any good pictures of Clark.  He's become a stinker when it comes to taking photos.  That and he's become very quick.  Still it only takes one good photo, right?

Happy 4th of July!

Hope everyone had a fabulous 4th of July weekend!  We spent most of the weekend packing, moving and working on getting the house ready for inspection.  However, today we celebrated our nation's birthday with what has become a favorite family tradition - blueberry picking!  This is the 3rd year we have picked blueberries on the 4th of July (the 2nd year with grandma).

Clark is a serious little blueberry picker.  He worked hard on trying to fill his bucket (which he then proceeded to sit and eat for snack).  Funny enough he told grandma that this was blueberry picking time when he caught her sampling the goods!

Grant started off the day putting berries in his bucket but it wasn't long before the bucket was empty.  After that point he decided to skip the middle element and just put berries straight in the mouth.

Clark was especially excited when he jumped rows and started picking berries by grandma where they had somehow managed to find the JUMBO berries!

Between the 4 of us we managed to fill two buckets which ended up being just over 10 pounds.  Yummy!  They will have to go in the freezer though for now but there are plans for blueberry syrup making later this fall.

The boys had fun berry picking with grandma!  Grandma picked two buckets also.  Eventually the boys did tire of berry picking so their dad took them over to visit the honey bee hives.  After lunch they decided to take really long naps this afternoon - must have worn them out.  So, hopefully everyone will be ready to watch fireworks later tonight!

Happy Birthday America!  

Thank you to our founding fathers and all who have served our country to grant us such marvelous freedoms!

Baby Sewing

I'm not sure what possessed me the other day (other than my maternal nesting instincts are kicking in for baby number 3 and I have nothing accomplished for her at this point) but I felt like doing a little sewing.  Now the majority of my sewing room and fabrics are packed up and loaded on a trailer but I couldn't part with my sewing machine and a few sewing essentials yet so they are still accessible.  

The other day when the kids and I needed to get out of the house for a showing we ran to Hobby Lobby and the boys helped pick out some adorable owl fabric to make "baby sister" a little swaddler.  I know she's an August baby but even August babies at first need a little soft and warmth.

It was a super simple pattern by Kwik Sew (Kwik Sew 3734).  I took these photos before putting the hook and loop tape on but that is now finished too!  Which I found a great new product (well new to me at least) - Velcro Brand Fabric Fusion!  It was AWESOME!  I despise sewing on hook and loop and I thought it would make my cute outer portion of the swaddler look not as finished.  On the other hand the adhesive tape doesn't adhere the best to fabrics for long periods.  But the iron on stuff is amazing.  There's no way it's coming off.  The boys have been playing with opening and closing the pieces and the hold is strong as ever.

Alright it's time to get back to my 3 page long To Do List to sell the house and pack it up for moving.  But this was a fun little diversion and it will be put to use soon!  I keep reminding myself that God knew there was no way I could handle this move with a newborn but it's still possible with the baby still snug inside - not always easy but still manageable :)

Month Long Hiatus

My apologies to my friends and family and those that follow this little blog!  I just realized a whole month has passed since my last post.  I didn't even post birthday party photos (for shame).  My dad told me at my nephew's birthday party yesterday that I should at least put a post up telling people I haven't perished.  So, if anyone was worried I'm fine (frazzled but fine).

On the train for the boys' birthday party!

What happened a month ago?  Well, after much prayer we decided my husband should take a new job.  When he applied we never expected a school would offer us the salary we would ask for but we ended up to be very wrong.  So, Alan is leaving his job as Executive Secretary/Treasurer of the Iowa FFA and will be moving back to teaching high school Agricultural Science.  With our young family the schedule will be much better and will allow Alan more time to spend with the family - which makes everyone happy!  We are also moving back to his childhood home.  The boys look forward to spending more time with Grandpa Spencer.  Trust me mom - this is hard for me to move another 2 hours further away from you guys too.

So on top of being now 8 months pregnant I have been in the process of cleaning and packing, and painting and more cleaning.  My poor body is exhausted by days end when I normally blog so therefore the blog kind of got set on the back burner as it were.  This month has gone incredibly fast.  We actually had not expected to move anytime soon and we have slowly been working on remodels to the house.  Now, all those little changes and finish jobs have slammed into us!

We listed the house/acreage on Friday - expecting that we would still have some time to finish a few things.  We were sorely mistaken.  We have had 3 showings this weekend and another scheduled for tomorrow.  If anyone has tips on keeping the house clean with 2 little boys running around the house I'd love to hear them.  The obvious choice would be to ship them outside but it is either super hot or raining around here lately.  I have packed up 90% of the toys leaving them with only a small box of Legos, their Thomas trains and track, some Little People, a small set of crayons and a couple coloring books, some wood blocks and some books.    Quite frankly these may be the only toys going back into another house :)

So all of my sewing stuff is packed (except for my sewing machine because I have this absurd notion that I want to make a christening gown).  All of my plans for the Iowa State Fair for 2011 have at this point been wiped out.  Even the few things I thought I would take won't happen (since we'll probably be in the process of moving into a new home).

Just a reminder for all of you who might be entering this year though 

- most entry deadlines for the ISF are due this week!

However, we aren't letting good produce go to waste.  Although I don't plan to do much canning this summer that doesn't mean we can't pick and freeze it to put into yummy jams and jellies and other good things later after we're more settled.

Obviously the broccoli hasn't made it into any freezer bags.  That' OK - it's much better fresh.

I love the fact that the first day we picked our first head of broccoli Clark just happened to be wearing his broccoli t-shirt.  Honest, this was not staged or planned!  This was my first try at growing broccoli - I can't believe how nice the heads were!

We picked and froze 6 quarts of rhubarb from our little patch!  The boys loved learning how to pick rhubarb and get rid of the big, POISONOUS leaves!

We also went strawberry picking at the Berry Patch Farm in Nevada.  

Clark tried hard to explain the color red to his little brother.  We still ended up with a few white and green berries in Grant's basket.

All in all it was a good hall of strawberries.

And last week Grant discovered the mulberry tree.  I was impressed that he was hesitant to eat the berries until his daddy showed them they were edible.  Then there was no getting the child away from the tree.  I than proceeded to show his brother how to pull lightly on the branches to get more berries in reach.  This provided at least an hours worth of entertainment for them.

 

And as if this post isn't long enough I do just have to say that I had a happy afternoon at the fabric store today.  Since we were kicked out of the house for the entire afternoon we decided to go to Alan's office where the boys could nap and Alan could catch up on a little work.  Once the boys were down I headed off to the fabric store.  I enjoyed the afternoon flipping through pattern books and wandering through aisles of fabric.  I didn't find the fabric I want for the christening gown but I did find this adorable swaddler pattern that seems pretty quick and easy to make (it was a Kwik Sew pattern so how bad can it be).  Found some cute owl fabric on sale and some matching fleece and may try to whip it up at naptime tomorrow.  I realize I have a million other things to do but I would like to have at least one nice little project made up for the new baby.

So there you have it - I haven't disappeared completely.  I will miss exhibiting at the ISF this year but I plan to be back in full force for 2012!  Meanwhile I'll try to keep you better updated of the goings on around here.

Test Kitchen Thursday - Cake Debacle

Ah - cake!  Have you ever had a love/hate relationship with a particular food?  Cake is mine.  I love to eat cake, I love to mix up cake batter, I love to search for new cake recipes; however, somehow more often than not my cakes end up looking like this:

OK - this may be a bit of an exaggeration!  This was the lump that leaked out of my stand-up train pan.  The upside - at least I get to taste the cake to make sure it's OK ;)

And I somehow overfilled the cupcake liners and ended up with a mess.  I have learned 3/4 full does not equate the same across all cake batters.  Sigh!  I'll have to make a new batch of cupcakes tomorrow morning.  I happen to have a very happy family tonight though when they found out the cupcakes were not off limits.

Unfortunately my stand up cake for the boys is going to end up as just a regular plated and decorated cake rather than a stand-up.  I tied the wire as tight as I could but it still exploded out the smoke stack.  Oh well - the boys still think it looks cool so I'm not going to strive for perfection.

Don't get me wrong - the cakes taste fantastic!  I tried a couple recipes from the February 2011 issue of Better Homes and Gardens.

The first was the Classic Vanilla Cake (my husband is a vanilla cake lover and couldn't stop devouring little cupcakes so it was a very good recipe - I added in red, white and blue sprinkles to appease my 2 year old's love affair with all things sprinkled!).

The second was the Double Chocolate Cake recipe.  As a chocolate lover I can attest to this being a really good chocolate cake.  However, it still doesn't beat my mom's chocolate cake.  Mom - your cake is still the best!

A Day of Insect Fun!

Today we decided to fix a picnic lunch and head for Reiman Gardens.  

We wanted to check out the new insect exhibits.

We started in the butterfly wing.  

Clark and Grant loved pointing out all the different butterflies. 

We headed outside to see the BIG insects!

I think the ants were the favorites of the day.

Although the Children's Garden maze held lots of attraction.

And of course the big Gnome was a hit too.  

Although by this time Clark was no longer into posing for photos.

It was great fun to watch Grant practice his balancing skills throughout the day.  

He has definitely hit that "I do it!" 2 year old stage of life.

After eating a picnic lunch under a nice shade tree the boys found another part of the garden to explore the fountains.  Water fountains have always been some of Clark's favorite things.  Today I spent lots of time explaining how a fountain and it's pumps work.

One last outdoor shot with the giant mosquito. 

Inside once more to go to the conservatory and see the ant invasion!

We all liked the little rock/metal ants throughout the conservatory!  

After all that the boys were ready to head for home.  So, according to plan I wore them out.  Unfortunately this backfired on me when Grant fell asleep on the way home and refused to wake up so nap time (and therefore wake up time) was VERY early today and I did not accomplish quite as much as hoped for this afternoon.  Oh well!  Clark meanwhile has decided he's too old for naps - humph - we'll see about that.  

He did mention tonight that his legs were very sleepy (tired).