the back door

most of you all know i have a love affair with chocolate, so it shouldn't surprise you that i took the kids for some spring break fun at the local chocolate factory. seriously, this was a pretty good tour. okay, so the tour itself was just so-so, but for $6 for all 3 of us we got 3 bags of chocolates, made our own chocolate spoon, and steal on some christmas goodies! the above mr. cocoa might have been a bit too much however - so glad they saved him for the end! my wonderful nieces joined us on this grand trip. i think they had fun, they were quite excited about the hair nets we had to wear. i think i heard them talk about wanting to make a new fashion statement with them. mapboy making his spoon....they were supposed to freeze while we were in the movie with mr. cocoa, but they didn't seem quite solid yet. mapboy was very concerned that his was melting. after a day of cheerios he desperately wanted to eat the spoon! princess making her spoon. she was much more patien

so, i love my son. i really do, but lately his constant complaining about EVERYTHING has gotten on my nerves. one of the biggest battles of late is food - all things food. from how he asks to his ungrateful heart to his incessant complaining. he does have some sensory issues that revolve around food and since i gag on even the sight of bananas i can appreciate those issues. BUT there is no acceptance for constant complainig. this morning, by 9 am i had heard him complain about what his father fixed for supper last night, that i needed to go to the store because i had nothing to eat (i had just shopped!), and that he was NOT going to eat the lunch i would probably fix of peanut butter and jelly! after fixing cinnamon rolls for breakfast he threw away the outside of the roll and then asked for something else! umm..no, i don' t think so bud! i head to the shower completely frustrated. i think best in the shower and while in there i decided that maybe he should have cheerio

one amazingly patient, hardworking hunk of a hubby finised our family room... one amazingly talented princess proudly poses by her gallery art work downtown. a couple of nice days drew the kiddos outside for the first picnic at sycamore hill... the lady bugs continue to drive me absolutely insane...no, that is not beautiful buds on that tree...it is a atrocious amount of BUGS!!!!!

i typically love sunday afternoons. i'm always kinda tired and lazy and just enjoy them. this one was no different. exhausted after a retreat i enjoyed watching a bball game and then the bracket draw with mapboy. i also was enjoying doing my laundry. i actually do like that task - especially with my new washer and dryer. so last night i had put the last load into the dryer and sat down to check my email, facebook, and blogs. the kids were playing computer games in hubby's office. i got up to get them their vitamins and tell them to get ready for bed. now, the office shares a wall with our dryer. i happened to notice something amiss with the brand new dryer. it appeared to not be spinning, yet bleeping that it was drying. and you know, it smelled a little, let's just say, HOT! i hit pause but it kept making this strange sound. so i called to hubby. we turned it off and opened it up. by now, it really SMELLED and things seemed a bit hazy around it. as we star

dear friend, daisy path , came to town for a visit. of course, this called for a party! so today we gathered here at sycamore hill for a cake ball party. can i just say, we had a lot of fun with that:) at the end of the afternoon we had about 200 cake balls!! we had strawberry,funfetti, cherry chip, lemon, brownie bites, and dark chocolate. they are all amazing!!! we each brought a different cake and frosting combo. then we did a big cake ball swap. here we are dipping in the chocolate. it tooke us awhile to figure out the best melting method, then the best dipping method, but it did NOT take us long to figure out the eating method! don't they look delicious?? we also had 8 kids with us. we did feed them lunch, but well, i'm pretty sure us big kids enjoyed a lot more cake balls then they did!

in the midst of this crazy talk my kids normally have about caillou, cinderelmo, martha, and various other childhood favorites mapboy stops, looks at me, and says, "mom, did you get 2 black eyes today?" me: "no..." him: "but your eyes are all blue when you close them." me: "oh...i let your sister put make up on me!" her: lots of giggles and squeals him: "oh" him to her: "so caillou is playing with...." i'm one of those moms. the ones that doesn't wear make-up or dress up or really do my hair. but way back when hubby was off at meetings atleast one night a week the kids quickly learned that i put them to bed extra early. they also caught on that if they brushed my hair and rubbed my feet they could stay up later. hubby has never approved but i sure do! so the other day, princess was procrastinating something and offered to rub my feet and do my hair.....she added some blue eye shadow. i was looking love