A Resurrection Story

As part of our Kindergarten celebration of Easter, our class made Resurrection Buns.

You can see the whole process in the School gallery at Smugmug, but the long and short of it is that we wrapped white marshmallows (representing Jesus' purity and sinless life) in biscuit dough and sealed it tight like the tomb. We brushed them in butter and cinnamon and sugar, then baked them.

When they came out of the oven and cooled enough to take a bite, we found that the marshmallow we had so carefully sealed inside the tomb had disappeared! The buns were empty!!








"Jesus isn't in the grave, He's ALIVE!"

A scap-a-licious weekend

This past weekend, Doug kept the kids for me and I packed up bag after bag of scrapbooking/stamping materials and headed to Ft Worth for a weekend getaway. I planned to work only on Robert's baby book. At this point, he is the only one with a baby book, but it is fresh in my mind and I was inspired to record his babyhood. I listed the pages I wanted to include, printed the photos, printed journaling, and chose colors, then trekked across the metroplex to get to work. I finished all but 8 of my layouts and am so proud of the work I've done. I plan to take pictures of my pages and include them in the Hobbies gallery on Smumug.

I can't wait for you all (ok, those who care) to come look at his precious baby album. Partly because his adorable face deserves to be admired and also because I worked so hard to bring it together craftily.

Thank you, Doug for giving me the time off to enjoy my hobby and record a little bit of family history.

Spring is coming! - Our trip to the "Arburrito"

Every year we take a trip to the Dallas Arboretum to experience the arrival of spring. This year, our trip was scheduled after a week of snow, so we weren't sure how the flowers would have faired. As it turns out, there were still many flowers, but it was it was clear that a good number of bulbs had been pulled and replaced by pansies, which withstand the winter weather more.

This year was special because we went during Kindergarten hours and with our homeschool buddies, the Héberts. The kids were sent on a scavenger hunt to find the signs of spring. A chirping bird, various colored flowers, a long leaf, a bug, a bird, a butterfly, a baby in a stroller, a bud on a tree or bush, and a bride.

By the end of the day we were hot and tired, but it was a beautiful display of spring colors and a perfect experience for our little Kindergartners.

Here are a couple of our cute pictures, but there are lots more in the Seasons gallery on Smugmug.

A doggone good party.

We always enjoy celebrating birthdays at parties, so we especially enjoyed celebrating Thomas Hebert's 1st birthday. He's a sweet little boy with a charming smile. He celebrated with a dog party, complete with trick-performing dogs and everything! We had such a blast (even Robert!) and despite Mary and WIlliam's fear of dogs, they really enjoyed the dogs in the back yard.

We played "Hot Dog," like Hot Potato, then Pin the Nose on the Dog


Robert pointed out every dog in the house...multiple times.


Then, we watched 2 dogs perform tricks in the back yard. They ran through tunnels, jumped hurdles and squiggled through uprights. When they were done performing, Mary and William got to give the commands. They loved it!


We came inside to enjoy doggie snacks: Bone-shaped quesedillas, party mix, Scooby Snack crackers, and dog-shaped cookies.


The party couldn't be complete without cake, and boy was it good! The kids had doggie cupcakes and the adults enjoyed a delicious chocolate cake with sweet sweet icing. Yummy!

We certainly enjoyed all the hard work the Hebert's put into this party and we were even more excited to celebrate the first year of Thomas' life. Happy Birthday, sweet boy! We look forward to many more!

Snow in Texas

Any time it snows in Texas, it's a big deal, but to kids it's like Christmas all over again.

This week, we got nice thick snow twice (separated by a day in the 70s). It came down in huge flakes, stuck nicely on the ground and packed firmly for angel making, snowball throwing (at the trees, not each other), and snowman building.

The first snow occurred overnight, so we only briefly got to experience it before taking the kids to Mother's Day out, but the second snow fell during nap time so there was a whole evening of snowy play ahead. By the time the children woke up, our neighbors had built a large snowman in the front yard across the street. It was about 5 feet tall. After much scarf, glove and hat gathering and wiggling, we crossed the street carefully to take a look. William asked me, "Can that snowman talk?" I assured him that he couldn't because he was only pretend, not a real man. But, as we got closer to the frosty pillar, his raisin eyes must have really given William a look, or the blowing scarf tricked him into seeing the whole man move. William panicked and said he didn't want to see the snow man. Afterall, it was taller than WIlliam.



After a little convincing that the snowman would not approach us, but we had to approach it, William got the nerve up to scamper around in front of it and scoop some snow. We made our way to our backyard where Mary made snow angels, built a small snowman, flung a few balls at the tree and tasted a little snow. By then, the wet gloves were not protecting us from the cold any longer, so we headed inside for some Hot Cider.





The next morning, we still had a nice coating of snow in the front yard to play in - a blank canvas. We frolicked some more until the rosy cheeks and blue fingers brought us inside again with Robert, who'd waited and watched patiently from the front window while we played.



More pictures on Smugmug in the Seasons gallery.

Gross all over again...

In the past week, Mary has really expressed how she feels about certain happenings. Sometimes these things are "berry pretty," some are "a hard time" (meaning they are difficult), but my favorite of all is when things are "resgusting."