Unexpected Purchase

For a while now my car has been making some rather interesting noises, and every now and then it'll do something new and fun to make me wonder if it's actually going to go after the light turns green at a stop light. There have been a few times lately where I haven't felt all that safe in it. One example, pulled over on the shoulder of I-195 in Richmond last Friday following the school buses to Maymont Park in Richmond for a field trip. The bus drivers (all 3!) decided when they got in to Richmond that they think (they did!!) might have missed their exit and had no idea where to go. For some odd reason, they didn't want to follow the chick with the GPS (me!) to the park. Perhaps they thought I was some kind of bandit or serial something or another...who knows. So would should have taken an hour to get there, took almost 3. Ultimately, they did end up following the chick with the GPS which is what they should have done to start out with. Wait...no....they actually should have taken themselves a map and studied it before they even left, so 3 bus loads of 1st graders weren't sitting on the shoulder of a busy interstate for an hour. Anyway, all the while my car was making it pretty clear to me that it wasn't happy about making that trip. Ordinarily, this wouldn't be such a big deal, except that Mike was in Chicago on a business trip. It was due for it's yearly inspection so I took it on Tuesday. I didn't think it would pass based on the things I've observed lately. I was right. They stuck a big, fat, embarrassing REJECTED sticker on the front and peeled off my old inspection sticker. They also gave me a print out of what it needed to pass inspection as well as a list of what it would need to fix it's issues and the cost. There's no kind of way I was willing to spend well over $3,000.00 to fix it. There gets to be a point where when something like that will cost you that much money to fix it, it only makes sense to give it up and get something new. Later that day, we bought this-


I love it, I do! We traded the 2003 Santa Fe in for a 2009. We looked at other SUV's, but I love the Santa Fe's so much more than the others. Plus, we got a big fat owner loyalty rebate. This one is larger and much roomier than our old one. Lots more bells and whistles that thrill everyone to no end. As for me...love the cd and radio controls on the steering wheel. Very safety minded they are. I'm sure you can see the very light colored upholstery in the pic. I did not pick that...Mike did. That's like the last color I'd ever pick with kids...ever. So I bought the 7 year "you can bleed on me, puke on me, spill red juice or coffee one me, rip a hole in me, do whatever the heck ya want to me" fabric protection and replacement. I don't usually buy things like that but thought it was needed. I actually felt a little uneasy about buying it with that light upholstery until I found out they offered that. We travel a lot with the animals.

Speaking of Chicago, Mike and I are going for a few days in July. I'm SO excited about that! His mom is flying in to watch the kids. I love Mike's job. I do.

Mike's business travels = Jennifer cashing in his Hilton Honors points and frequent flyer miles.

We're staying at the Hilton Palmer House in Chicago and we're using all of his points to pay for it. Mike's job rocks....and so does that hotel...lol. You know, I didn't pick out the hotel...he did. I'm impressed.

I'm off to have a lunch with a friend!

A Day at the Museums

My parents visited this weekend. It was nice. We went to D.C. on Sunday. My mom had never been, I had already taken my dad twice. We managed to squeeze 3 of the Smithsonian Museums in to our day. We started out at the National Air & Space Museum. I've seen all the exhibits before but wanted to see everything again before I skip over to see Night at the Museum Battle at the Smithsonian. I so wanna go back to the Air & space Museum to see that in IMAX! I mean, how awesome would that be to watch the movie right where it was filmed?! The world premier of the movie was last Thursday evening at the museum. Had I have had a little more notice than 20 minutes before, I so would have driven up to watch the stars walk down the red carpet. I sulked for a few hours over that. I REALLY wanted to watch Owen Wilson and Ben Stiller take their stroll. I'm such a star watcher. I'm pretty sure they were still in town when we were there the other day. I was secretly hunting for movie stars while I was giving my mom a tour of the city. So, Amy Adams plays Amelia Earhart in the movie. When I was in 7th grade I did this huge performance thing for the history fair in the city. I was Amelia Earhart. I won the school thing, the city thing, went to the state thing, performed for the Heritage Society in my town and others, was given savings bonds, was sent some things from an anonymous person in the mail who requested I never try to contact them, had a plane built for me like one that she flew for my performance (no I didn't get to keep it) and was loaned the jacket, goggles, boots, ect...to wear. It was a very cool thing. I didn't realize then how big of a deal it was back then. I got a whole page in the newspaper and was on TV even. Very cool. So I know a pretty good amount about her. I had been wanting to see her plane on exhibit since the first time I went to that museum. It never was on exhibit though..until now. Because it's in the movie! How cool is that! I'm so excited I got to see it in person. I REALLY wanted to touch it. Bad bad, me. I really can't wait to see that movie!

I also wanted to post another one of my favorite things that resides at the National Museum of American History. I love the Abraham Lincoln exhibit. Here's the hat he was wearing the night he was shot at Ford's Theatre.

I hate to cut this short, but I've got to run. Mike's in Chicago on business and I have an insanely busy week. I'm watching a friend's 7 month for a few days so am getting to see what it's like to have 3 kids. I won't be doing that, by the way. Have another one, I mean...lol.

Happy Mother's Day!

2 posts from me in 2 days. Shocking I know! Since it's Mother's Day and everyone has been insisting I do whatever I want, so I've done just that. While I'm downstairs, I couldn't resist popping in. This is the only day of the year that I really do whatever I want and don't feel the least bit guilty about it. Everyone's been so nice and pleasant today! They gave me some new Paula Dean baking dishes that I just adore! I love the large cake dish. I was anxious to use it so I baked them a cake in it. I love the scalloped edges on these dishes. Very pretty. It was time for some new ones. I've been baking in the same dishes for 15.5 years. Alot of what I have were wedding gifts. I won't part with them for that reason.


Mike took the kids for a hiker earlier which was SOOOOO nice. I'm rarely ever home alone anymore. Ever. Mike works from home at least 3 days a week...sometimes 4. I took full advantage of the quiet time. I hauled my sewing machine & ironing board upstairs and got cracking on those curtains. It took a lot longer than it should have because I was watching movies on Lifetime while I was making them. I measured, got distracted, measured again, got distracted again....I used the same dark red fabric with the tiny white daisies on it that I used in the guest room. I LOVE the print. The flowers are so small you can't really see them in the pic. They turned out very well and I'm looking forward to not seeing the sun peeping in my window at 6 in the morning anymore. The sheers were pretty, but they just don't cut it in the spring & summer.

I'm off to stitch on my New World Sampler and watch another movie. I hope your day was as nice as mine was! :).

I'm big, yellow, and round. What am I?

The sun! It's only out for a bit, I'm sure but it's making an appearance, nonetheless! 11 days of rain and more to come later, but for now we have a little break! Joshua has a ball game this afternoon so hopefully it'll stay dry for that.His other ball events for the week were cancelled so the make up days are starting to stack up. I'm a wee bit sleepy today. Cassie had 2 friends stay the night last night. Her bedroom is directly above mine. I'm a very light sleeper, so I didn't sleep as much as I wanted too, nor did I sleep in. Tomorrow's Mother's Day so I know I'll be sleeping in then. Heck, I might just leave my jammies on all day and do some crafty things. We'll see. Since the sun shines in our bedroom window at like...I dunno...5:30 in the morning, I decided the sheers I have up, just aren't cutting it. I went to Joanne's yesterday and bought some fabric to make some curtains that will keep more of the light out so I might do that tomorrow. I've also started stitching on a new piece. It's The Prairie Schooler's New World Sampler. I've had this chart for the longest time and have been meaning to start it. It's been out of print for quite some time. I don't have much stitched yet, but at least it's started. I might do a little stitching on it tomorrow, too. I really love this piece. I try to avoid restaurants on Mother's Day because they're crazy insane, so we're going out to dinner tonight. I haven't decided where yet.

I've really been missing some people lately. That usually gets me wanting to bake things. There's something about baking that's always been comforting to me. I've been thinking about Mike's Grandma a lot. She used to make these little sugar pies for him that he loves. The last batch she made was shortly before we moved. When she died in February, they thought the sugar pie recipe went with her. I guess I forgot to mention to them that I acquired the recipe a few years back. The recipe was a wee bit vague, so I still have to do a bit of tweaking. It's nearly exact now, so long live Grandma's sugar pies!

I've also been missing my mom. She's coming for a visit next weekend! I'm so excited! The last time she came, we were snowed in the entire time she was here so didn't get to do anything. When I was growing up she used to make these no bake oatmeal cookies all the time. They're not very pretty, but they're VERY yummy. Mike and Cassie love them. I made a batch of them up too. They turned out really well, and they're nearly gone. I add peanut butter to mine, like this recipe here. She doesn't put peanut butter in hers. I like them either way. I have peanut butter monsters here so I go ahead and toss it in.

I do miss my parent's but am so glad they're only a 5 hour drive away instead of living in TX. I love my life so much up here :). I have a much larger circle of friends than I've ever had before and am really thankful for the friendships that I've made. I've been really grateful for that lately.

Happy Mother's Day!!!

Everyone...Really?

I thought I'd take a little break from all of my on goings to write a bit. I've been busy getting ready for Joshua's birthday. I can't believe my baby will be 8 on Saturday! I just don't know where the time goes, I really don't. One minute you're at the hospital in labor, the next minute, they're playing baseball. We can't have his party on Saturday because he has a baseball game and ball pictures. I feel kind of bad that the whole baseball thing is going to suck up most of his birthday. He loves playing ball and never asks to skip practice or a game. He did ask this morning if he could skip the game on his birthday. Since he asked, we just might do that. He decided this year that he wants a dog party. We're having it at our house. It's only now that I think I've completely lost my mind. In our past experiences, I've found that when we send out invitations, typically about 1/2 of the kids come. I've also found in the past (in Texas) that if you have the party at your house rather than some other expensive place...ie: Funland, Chuck E Cheese, or a bowling alley that even less kids come. You can imagine my surprise when I discovered last night that every single mom of every kiddo that was invited has already called to RSVP. Most of them called Monday and Tuesday while I was out and about and Mike was at home teleworking. Every time I left the house and came back, there were notes left for me from people who called. Good thing they've all called because he told me when I got home last night that if anyone else called he was going to tell them he was sorry but we are at maximum capacity LOL!!! Too funny! I think it's hysterical myself, because I can handle all of these kids, but he already seems to be nervous. He should be. He has pinata and pin the nose on the doggie duty. Good luck! LOL!! I'm taking 2 other games. A dog and cat match game and a guess how many doggie bones are in the jar game. Joshua picked out his cake...it's actually 24 cupcakes arranged in the shape of a dog face. Super cute! For fun I bought everyone dog bowls to eat their ice cream out of. Too fun! I'm betting money some of them won't want to use a spoon. I'd bet a lot of money on that...lol. Today, I filled the pinata, made up all of the prize bags for the games, and counted out the dog bones and put them in the jar for the guess how many game. I'll work on some more birthday stuff on Friday. I've got some cleaning that I must get to here in a bit.

Tomorrow, the 5th grade is going on a field trip to Petersburg. I signed up to chaperone but so did everyone elses mom, so they had a drawing. Only two people were chosen per class, because there wasn't much room left on the bus. I didn't get picked, but I'm probably going anyway and taking my car. Sure, I have to pay for gas but honestly, I'd rather take my own car than ride in a bus filled with 5th graders....lol. I think Petersburg is about an hour and half south of here, past Richmond. I'm just waiting to hear from Mike if he can telework tomorrow. If he can, I'm going. If not, then I won't because I won't have anyone to take Joshua to school and pick him up. I hope I can though because Cassie starts middle school next year, and I have a feeling my days of going on field trips with her are numbered :(.

The flowers are blooming and they're so pretty! Here are some pictures of flowers that are in our yard. Not planted by me of course because if they were I can assure you that they wouldn't look like this LOL! I really am trying to turn my brown thumb in to a green one! I planted tons of petunias a few days ago. I planted a few last year and they did very very well. They were in bloom until late November.

Play Ball!

Joshua's first ball game of the season was yesterday morning. This year, he's an Oriole. They didn't win the game, but my little slugger scored the first point for his team!

Spring break was good, and I can't believe it flew by so quick. I'm kinda bummed they're going back to school tomorrow. I haven't been doing a lot of stitching but did finish up stitching on a friend's Quaker round robin. I stitched the bottom left section starting at the heart and going down. We were to add our initials along with the initials of someone who inspired us in our creative endeavors. I added mine along with my mom's. This is not the color of her fabric or her thread. My camera washed the colors out, big time! You can see what I stitched anyway. I'm all caught up on my stitching commitments...now I'm stitching for me!

The New Faces of Krispy Kreme

We started off our day at Krispy Kreme. Mike's dad hadn't been to a Krispy Kreme shop before, so off we went. Great photo opp. Should these faces be in a KK ad, or what?! I love this picture!

Afterwards, we split up and the kids and I went shopping for goodies for Mike's birthday. It's Thursday, but since his dad and his wife are going home on Thursday, we'll be celebrating for the next couple of days. Tomorrow night we're eating dinner at Joe's Crabshack. That's one of his favorite places, and on Tuesday nights, kids eat for $2.00 :). Cassie's not the least bit amused since she's an advocate for crabs.....she thinks they should be loved and not eaten. I was going to make a b-day cake for him on Wednesday, but instead he's requested another one of those scrumptious apple pies like I made the other day (see previous post for a link to the recipe). I'm off...I've not stitched in over a week and my needle's crying for me.