Sunday, March 28, 2010

Spring Flings!

We got to go to our first block party last night. It was great! We got to know a lot of our neighbors, and learn a lot about our neighborhood. Julia insisted on pulling the wagon. The girls are still clean in these pictures. Cleanliness is fun while it lasts.
Julia and Lydia got their first popsicles of the year. It got up to 80 here on Saturday. It was definitely time to break out these icy treats.


And the girls LOVED the go-kart thingy. Julia tried to drive it, but she had much more fun with an experienced driver. Obviously, she is a little messier here. I believe she has cheese puff residue, ketchup and orange frosting on her face in this picture.




Lydia also got a turn in the go-kart. I think she has the same mixture of goodness smeared all over her face. Remember how I had a picture of her squinting a few posts back? She squints everytime I take a picture. Basically, I have to be ready to take two pics. The second one is usually squint-free. What sweet little raggamuffins!


Well, here is Lydia pre-bath. Talk about good clean fun! I think we cleaned her face after eating, and somehow, she accumulated this dirt all over her face to make up for it.






Let's switch gears. After the girls got baths, and a good night's sleep, we got ready for church this morning. Julia got to wear one of her "princess" dresses that she has been dieing to wear.


Lydia got to wear a princess dress too. I'm not sure why her hair looks messed up here. It was actually pretty cute.





Aren't I lucky? Look at those cuties!!!


And, here's a picture of me and the girls. I didn't put any close-ups of myself on here because my eyebrows are horrible!!! I am so afraid to pluck or tweaze. I guess it's high time I get over it though because...it's getting pretty ridiculous!!! Any suggestions on overcoming this phobia?



After church, we went to Spring Loaded. It is an Easter Egg Hunt plus more put on by the church. Here is Julia with her collected eggs. I didn't get any of her actually collecting the eggs because she got lost during the hunt. I was looking for her, and she was looking for me. Luckily a sweet little Spring Loaded worker brought her back to us.






Here is Lydia enjoying the hunt. She did such a good job collecting eggs.




Tonight, our neigbors invited us over to eat with them. It was so nice of them, and we really enjoyed ourselves. It was good for us to get to brush up on our Spanish a little too, because they are still working on their English. The wife knows less English than her husband, so when she was asking us to come, I thought she was saying that she wanted her son to come home and eat. He was playing in our backyard with our girls, and she just came over and said "To eat? Eat?" So, I said okay, and came and told her son that his mom said it was time for dinner. It wasn't until they brought food outside to me that I realized she meant to invite us all over. We had cactus for the first time. It tastes a little like a mild cooked pepper. It was pretty good.
So, that was our weekend. I hope you enjoyed the recap. Adios! -Amber












Saturday, March 27, 2010

Back Talk

Julia has started testing her back-talking boundaries.
Dave: "Julia, don't talk to me that way."
Julia with a sassy look: "No, Dad. You don't talk to ME that way."
Uh oh....out of bounds.

Lydia's eye is looking great now. It's back to normal. Yeah!!

We plan on planting flowers today, and going to a block party. Dave and I volunteered this morning at Feed the Children. Too bad it wasn't because we are just plain kind and generous people. It was to get two free Disney tickets. (Thanks Amber for babysitting!!!!!!) Happy Palm Sunday, everybody!!! Peace out.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Chocolate Chip Cookies

I've never written a blog about cooking or baking before, but I do like to cook, and have enjoyed reading other blogs with recipes and what not. (I didn't really have everything I needed to cook much at our apartment. I'm enjoying having all of my utensils and cookie sheets back.) So, if you enjoy reading blogs about this type of stuff you'll have to let me know. If you do, I'll post more.
Anyway, without further ado....

Chocolate Chip Cookies

3/4 Cup granulated sugar
3/4 Cup packed brown sugar
1 Cup softened butter or margarine
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 large eggs
1 Cup all-purpose flour
1 1/4 Cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt (I like kosher)
1 -2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 Tablespoons wheat germ, optional
2 Tablespoons ground flax seed, optional
1 Cup coarsely chopped nuts, optional
1 to 2 Cups chocolate chips (I prefer mini)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Mix sugars, butter, vanilla and eggs with electric mixer. Seperately mix flour, wheat flour, baking soda, salt, wheat germ, and flax seed. (If you use a whisk to mix dry ingrediants, you sift the ingrediants at the same time that you are mixing them.) Slowly add dry ingrediants to sugar-butter mixture. Mix thoroughly. Add nuts and chocolate chips. Drop by tablespoons onto ungreased cookie sheet, bake 8-10 minutes. (I guess I make mine too big because they cook for about 13 minutes.)

So, there it is. Pretty easy...just some added ingrediants to a very normal Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe. Also, you can make your whole grain flour by taking some whole oats and blending them in your blender. You can substitute that for some of your whole wheat flour if you want to. That also makes a delicious cookie. I just made the above recipe with Julia on Saturday. I'm sorry I don't have any pictures to share...but they were eaten too quickly. So, I hope that if you choose to make this recipe, that they are equally as enjoyed in your neck of the woods. Happy Wednesday to you! -Amber

Friday, March 19, 2010

Poor Thing

So, this was Lydia yesterday morning. You can't tell from this picture how red her eye is...but you can see it in the following pics. Wouldn't this worry you?This is Lydia today. The swelling has gone down considerably, but you can see her little red eye. Luckily, I knew that this could happen to her eye. When I was in highschool, my eye was hit by a softball and turned red just like hers is red here. Thank you God for preparing me! Had I not known, I would have been belligerently freaking out instead of worried and concerned.
I'm so glad this didn't happen one week later because otherwise Easter pictures would have been sad. I hope her eye is beautifully healed by Easter!
Oh, by the way, I'll have house pics soon. Everything is still in a state of chaos though....so once that mellows, I'll get some pics on here. Stay tuned. Thanks for reading, Amber




Thursday, March 18, 2010

Opthamologist Appointment

Hello everyone! We took Lydia to a Pediatric Opthamologist today just to double check that all was well with her eye. He checked her out extensively, and said that there are no scratches on her eye and that there is no trauma to her retina. Praise the Lord!! I was worried this morning because when she woke up, her eye was very swollen and very red. (The other eye had some swelling too. Isn't it interesting how eyes do that? They're so sympathetic.) She looked like she'd been beat up.
So, I spent an hour and 30 minutes on the phone trying to figure out what doctor Lydia should and could see. She has a broken blood vessel in her eye, so, almost the whole white part of her right eye is red now. But, the swelling has gone down. The doctor just prescribed some eye stuff to keep infections from forming. I am so thankful that she will make a full recovery. Thank you for your prayers and concerns. Thank you God for her health!! Love, Amber

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

St. Patrick's Day!

Sorry, but I just couldn't put all of these pictures in one post. I decided to write two posts in one day. So sue me.

So, the girls and I made some cupcakes for Dave since today is an anniversary of sorts for us. (Dave proposed to me 9 years ago today.) The girls both wore their red aprons and stirred the batter and added sprinkles. Julia also got to help frost a little.
Then, after nap, the girls played outside with our neighbor until Dave got home. K's mom has an in-home daycare, so there was also several other little ones playing out there.





Julia was trying to learn how to twirl a jump rope. Also, Dave was sweet enough to get me a little gift in rememberance of our engagement. He got me The Sound of Music. Julia obviously enjoys it as much as I do.

My last picture is a prayer request of sorts. When Dave was bringing the girls in for dinner, Lydia fell on to her knees, as she does often does, and her eye landed on a dead plant. When Dave brought her into me, she was crying pretty hard, and Dave and I got the pleasure of picking and flushing plant material out of the poor girl's eye. I tried not to panic...but it was pretty hard not to. We contemplated taking her to the the E.R., but called a family friend who is a doctor instead. He told us a few things to look out for. But, he said it should be fine. I pray it is!! Poor little Lydia!! Thanks to all of you who says a little prayer!! Thanks to all of you who read my blog! -Amber

Two Long, Wonderful Weeks

We've had a jam-packed schedule since we moved. Here are a few highlights:


This is the girls playing with the sweet little neighbor girl. She is so kind to the girls and they love her. This was the first or second day after we had closed on our house. We had no furniture in the house, and weren't sleeping here yet.

I wasn't the only one who was exhausted by everything that was happening. Julia and Lydia both fell asleep in a 15 minute car ride even though it was only 11:00 a.m. and they had peanut butter sandwiches to eat. They don't usually go down for a nap until 1:00.

Lydia still had a piece of bread in her mouth when she fell asleep. While she was going to sleep, I was saying her name loudly, trying to keep her from sleeping...it didn't work.


Part of the reason Julia and Lydia were so tuckered out was because while we were moving in, Mimi and Papa came and entertained and loved on them for 5 days. This picture is of Julia showing my parents the pond behind our house.

Papa and Julia had walked down for a closer look and to throw snail shells into the pond. There are huge ones down there! If you look closely, you can see the one Julia is holding.

There are also horses behind our house. My dad finally lured them close enough to us for the girls to see them up close and pet their noses.




Lydia and Julia had some fun dress-up times while Mimi and Papa were here. This is Lydia in a little duck outfit. She quacked continuously.
Lydia shut her eyes everytime she saw the camera. I guess she thought the flash was too bright. It was so cute.Julia was a princess. You can't see her princess shoes or much of her tutu, but it's there...I assure you. My parents also talked me into taking a break for the day to drive to Galveston and visit the beach. The girls loved it, and I still have sand in my camera case. I am glad we went.


This is an extra bit of love from me to you. Good thing I brought a change of clothes, just in case. Thanks for reading. -Amber









Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Haaa. A sigh of relief.

We now have internet!! Yeah! However, we don't have wireless, so I am sitting in my bedroom closet writing this. Hopefully we can find our router today, so that Dave can hook it up, and I can blog from my couch. :)
Since moving into our new house, my parents have come and gone, I've unpacked tons of boxes, moved furniture, and cleaned nearly every single dish in our kitchen. (The dishes were pretty filthy from being packed away for six months.) We've purchased appliances, a queen size bed for our guest bedroom and gallons of paint. We've started painting one room, but haven't finished that yet. We've enjoyed our neighborhood parks, met a lot of our neighbors, the girls have played with neighborhood kids, and I've been to our community fitness center. We've made countless trips to Lowe's and HEB, tried out the nearest Pei Wei, and shopped at our nearest Kohl's and Super Target. It's been fun.
Like I said in my last post- we LOVE our new house. The girls run from room to room, enjoying all of their long lost toys. And when they are done with that, we color or play outside. The girls are sleeping wonderfully because we get to play outside a lot more, so they are happily worn out at nap and bedtime.
Dave's commute is a lot shorter now. It usually takes him about 45 minutes to or from work. He enjoys the shorter commute. He also enjoys that he still has a little "down time" before returning home in the evenings.
Dave and I are still enjoying our church. I am singing in the choir and Dave is hoping to start filling in or full-time teaching a Sunday School class. I am so looking forward to Easter, and our church Easter celebration!! I just love it! To me, Easter is really the most important holiday! Thank you Christ for your death and resurrection for me!
Tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day, and we are planning to go play at a friends house. I am excited. And, 9 years ago tomorrow, Dave asked me to marry him. He's a smart guy. I'm glad I said yes. :)
Well, that's about it for now. I'll add some pictures of our last few weeks soon. It's good to be back. Love, Amber

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

No Internet

So, we love our house. We are unpacking as quickly as possible, and we are still needing to paint everything!! We don't have internet though. Hopefully we'll get it back soon. :)