Just Christie

Paulus Orchards 2011

christie — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 04:05:15 +0000

We have been going to Paulus Orchards every year since we moved to the area. Before that, we took Megan to Eckert’s in St. Louis every fall. It is one of my favorite fall family traditions – I hope the girls don’t grow out of it any time soon. This year, we took one of the girls’ friends along, and they all had a great time. The photos don’t really require much of an explanation.

Happy Birthday to me!

christie — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 02:58:02 +0000

Today was my birthday. The big 3-5. Thank goodness it was on a weekend – I enjoyed relaxing with Scott and the girls. We slept in a bit, then Scott went to get pastries from Panera for breakfast. I opened my gifts – they got me lots of good stuff. I think my favorite gift is going to be the “One Line a Day” journal that Scott gave me. A few years from now, it will be neat to look back and see what we did on the same day each year. Later in the day, we went to Macaroni Grill for a late lunch/early dinner. Had my favorite, Mushroom Ravioli, and a glass of yummy chianti. Followed by birthday cake at home.

They were kind enough to let me do what I wanted for the rest of the day, so I spent most the day sewing sewing myself a new purse. I’ve been carrying one I made over a year ago, and have been in the mood for something new for quite a while. I used the “Phoebe” bag tutorial I found online. I added extra pockets and used fusible fleece interfacing on the outer layers. I love how it came out. I loaded all my stuff into it and it seems to fit ok (without much room to spare, which is a good thing). Click the photo to see additional views. I can’t wait to start using it!

All in all, a wonderful birthday.

Almost fall

christie — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 01:23:14 +0000

We went to my parents’ house for an overnight, and they had a fire in the fire pit that evening. The next morning, the boys stirred up the coals, and started it back up. We spent the entire day outside, with the kids swinging, cooking on the fire, and just enjoying the perfect almost-fall weather.

Beauty Spa

christie — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 00:45:39 +0000

The other day, the girls decided to turn their room into a beauty spa. They set out nail polish (complete with naming the colors) and raided my makeup for old things I don’t use (read purple and pink). We filled up a container of warm water and dissolved some epsom salts in it. First they soaked their feet then we did their toenails and fingernails. Then we moved on to makeup and Megan did Molly’s hair. After that they got dressed up and we walked to Panera for an afternoon treat…days like this make me happy to be a girl mommy

All set up:

And in action:

What a fun day – I think they enjoyed being pampered!

Riding Lesson

christie — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 13:26:40 +0000

We registered Megan for a mini horsemanship lesson through one of the local recreation councils to see how she liked it. Surprise, surprise, she didn’t want to EVER leave. She was a little disappointed that she had to have someone hold onto the horse the entire time, but she eventually realized that she didn’t quite know how to control the horses on her own yet. I think she will be going back for more lessons soon.

Happy National S’mores Day!

christie — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 01:47:59 +0000

I learned this morning that today is National S’mores Day. August 10, every year. How could I have missed that? Since we had all the main ingredients in the kitchen, I could hardly resist. I have seen several recipes for s’mores bars around the internet and thought that would be a fun way to mix it up since we can’t exactly build a fire in our back yard. We didn’t have all the ingredients for any one recipe, so we kind of made it up as we went along – the girls did most of the hard work while I took photos

Molly crunched up some graham crackers.

Megan sliced up the big marshmallows we had into smaller pieces.

Then they mixed the crushed up graham crackers into some melted butter. I also added a little salt and some sugar, but after tasting them, I think we could have done without the sugar.

Molly buttered the pan.

Then we pressed the graham cracker crumbly mess into the bottom of the pan. Molly had the bright idea of using Nutella. Since we only had a little bit left, I thought “Why not?” On top of the Nutella they scattered about half a bag of chocolate chunks. Then they arranged the marshmallows on top.

We had set aside a little of the graham cracker crumb mixture to sprinkle over the top. Here they are jockeying to see who can do sprinkle more of it.

We baked them for about 20 minutes till they got nice and toasty brown on top.

I let them cool for a bit, and then we cut into them. They were hard to cut because they were so sticky – I think refrigerating them would have helped a lot, but there wasn’t time for that before bedtime. Two happy girls:

Naked Ladies!

christie — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 00:59:03 +0000

I’m talking about flowers…pink ones. With no leaves on the stem. They are officially called amaryllis belladonna, which I suppose is fancy enough in its own right. But naked ladies is a much more fun name, don’t you think?

This is what they looked like early in the spring…I thought they were going to be daffodils.

And now, in the heat of summer, this is what we have.

Love them. So much.

Pine Creek

christie — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 01:29:46 +0000

We spent a long weekend at Pine Creek last weekend and I wanted to share some photos. We arrived on Friday and it was hot and sticky. The creek was low and warm, the flies were kind of pesky and it was almost too hot for a fire & s’mores, but we still had a blast and made lots of wonderful memories. It was awesome seeing all of the kids (all 5 of my parents’ grandkids) together – Kassidy, Aaron and Megan do the big-kid stuff while Molly and Trevor have a blast playing together in their own little world. Enjoy the slideshow. If you want to see any of the images larger, here is a link to the entire set.

Toothless Megan

christie — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 03:27:34 +0000

About six months ago, the dentist had pulled Megan’s two front teeth because the baby teeth got wiggly but never came out. The big teeth grew in and wedged the baby teeth into place, so we had to get them pulled by the dentist. Shortly after that, her incisors started to wiggle, and we kept encouraging her to work at them to get them out before it happened again. They were still there (probably 4 months later) when she had a dentist appointment on Tuesday of this week and the dentist found two small cavities – I think she got Scott’s teeth. The dentist also said they would pull out these loose teeth next month when she goes back to get the cavities filled if they were still hanging around.

I guess that was all the motivation she needed. The next morning, she woke us up to tell us that she had lost one of them. This morning, the other one came out. Since her two adult teeth were already in when the dentist had to pull the last two baby teeth, she has never really had a toothless grin as a big kid. I think this is as close as we’re going to get.

This evening’s entertainment

christie — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 02:59:16 +0000

The girls put on a show with their hula hoops this evening, first demonstrating their technique. Megan’s turn first.

Then Molly.

Then they moved on to “horse” tricks, jumping through the hoops.

After the grand finale…

we walked to the playground. When we got back home, we sat out for a while longer, while the girls caught lightning bugs…

And made funny faces.

Summer fun at its best.