Mother's Day Flowers

Abby and Nora decided to give Kristin flowers for Mother's Day. We went shopping Saturday, but since secret keeping is not a great strength of theirs we decided to give them to Mom when we got home. They had a great time planting them, and Abby's been diligently watering every time we go outside to play.

Nora has apparently learned from Abby's fake picture smile.

Eventually, Nora got a little bored so we went to the swing.

And, just because it cracked me up when I was uploading pictures, here's a bonus one of Abby in a more dramatic moment. I think it was too cold to play outside that day.

Living Room Ceiling

Several months ago we finally finished our living ceiling project. Since this blog ends up being a bit of family history for us I've kept intending to put up some pictures of the project.

It a nice upgrade, but we realized when we finished that we never really took pictures of the old ceiling. It had some serious problems so I'm not surprised we never took a close up on it, but I should have thought to before we got started. The original plaster had cracked virtually everywhere and in one place the lathe had detached from the joints enough that there was a 3in dip in a large section. To top it off the ceiling had been 'popcorn-ed' just before we bought the house, all in all it made for a quite the effect.

It's not great but here's the closest I have to before and after shots.

Before:

When we moved in


First Christmas

During:

Still working here, just as a reference

After:

Finally, we took some of the scrap trim pieces and made a table top. It's not a fancy as it looks but better than I expected.

Spring Celebrations

Easter and Mother's Day were pretty close together this year, so we've been having fun celebrating lately. Abby really got into all of the Easter activities this year. She thought that dying eggs was pretty magical - especially when Grandma showed her that we could use crayons to write a message on the eggs that shows up after it's been colored - and had a great time making eggs for everyone in the family. Poor Nora didn't have quite as much fun with it, but eventually we got her distracted with some Frosted Cheerios.











We got all dressed up to go to church Easter morning.



And the girls liked posing with Aunt Jenn.



While we were at church, the Easter bunny came and hid some eggs for the girls to find. Abby had a fabulous time hunting for eggs (which is more impressive knowing that immediately before the egg hunt she fell a few feet off the porch and we thought the day may have been ruined).



Poor little Nora. First we took away her graham cracker so that we could start the egg hunt. Then when she got her hands on a chocolate bunny from one of the eggs, Mom took it out of her mouth so that she wouldn't eat the foil. (I gave it back after I had taken it out of the foil, but by then she was too upset to really care.) She's really just a little too young to search for eggs this year, so she didn't get much enjoyment out of the hunt.



The girls both enjoyed looking in their Easter baskets, though. Who doesn't love presents?



The highlight of the day for Nora was Easter dessert. Mom made Cherry Delight (delish! I hadn't had it in years!) and Nora decided that the best way to eat it would probably be to put her face right into it. Of course, being a little stinker, she wouldn't do it again once I got the camera out, but we did get a picture of the aftermath. She's so pleased with herself!



We had a nice Mother's Day, too. I had told Adam that all I wanted for Mother's Day was a day without fits, but he didn't think he could deliver that, so I decided that a day without cooking would be an acceptable substitute. Adam always comes up with fun meals, and Mother's Day was no different. He decided to make us Steak 'N' Shake at home, so we had frisco melts and strawberry milkshakes - we all loved that!

As a present, on Saturday Adam and the girls picked out some flowers for me. Adam took a few pictures of us planting them on his phone, so you'll have to convince him to upload them if you want to see them. Abby was mostly excited that they also got her a new watering can to water her flowers this summer. She's such a fan of watering!



Making silly faces!



We tried to get a few pictures out by the Bridal-wreath bushes - believe it or not this is the best one!