Meet my beautiful and talented sister-in-law Chelsea. Check out the earrings—she made them!
And I’ve got to say, after a few minutes of simply sitting next to her in her car, I wanted to get a tattoo.
Chelsea has one of the most enthusiastic and fun spirits of anyone I know and hanging out with her is always fun. It’s hard to leave a sister behind, but I suppose that just means we look forward to our visits with her even more.
Howdy, friends! We just returned home from a family vacation to Phoenix, Arizona. We had a wonderful time hanging out family while soaking up some Arizona sunshine. My favorite thing about heading that direction is that the geography is so very different from here. I love landing at the Phoenix airport amidst the vast brown landscape, broken only by enormous outcroppings of rocky hills and mountains. It’s like landing on the moon after being in the green spring of Nebraska.
Our first morning on vacation found us exploring the Boyce Thompson Arboretum with Jeremy’s cousin Jeff and his family. We started early enough in the day—on a cooler day no less—and it was still hot. But the unique beauty of the area was really something to behold and my camera found plenty to capture.
Purple cactus. How cool is that?
I always thought I’d be *that* mom who did cool things for her kid’s class, cool things like go on field trips. Yet I must confess that the idea of going on field trips with preschoolers (much less volunteering in their classroom) sounded pretty awful. I am profoundly grateful for the awesome women who teach my child’s class—God bless ’em—they are some kind of special.
After the first field trip this year, Livia caught on and realized that other mommies drove them to the destinations. And she wanted her mom to do it, too. So, on this last field trip of the year, on Livia’s birthday no less, I joined the kids.
And I had fun. Imagine that.
It was Liv’s birthday and the destination was the Pioneers Park Nature Center. Totally fitting for my nature kid! Despite the fact it was cold and really windy, the class had a great time and I had fun getting to know her classmates a bit better.
Kindergarten field trips, here we come.
I had so much fun shooting the Drozd family’s portraits a few weeks ago! Three boys, THREE, kept this photographer on her toes. But honestly, anyone who believes girls are sweeter than boys are crazy. These guys did such a great job smiling for my camera and I really enjoyed my time with the family.
Happy birthday, Sweet Girl! Your mom and dad love you a million times over.
We had a good, good day, didn’t we?
It’s the night before Livia’s sixth birthday and I just botched an entire batch of M&M cookies for her school treat tomorrow. But before I get too frustrated by the botched batch—say that five times fast!—I have to remember that things could be worse. It could’ve been a botched cake, and that would’ve been bad news.
As it is, a heart-shaped cake awaits icing on the counter. Bags of decorations and unwrapped gifts rest on the living room couch. Our little white Coton snoozes in his kennel after a satisfying dinner of dog food. And my handsome web developer web-develops upstairs; surely he won’t mind eating the rest of the cookie dough for me.
Tucked in her bed, with a stuffed pink octopus nestled in her arms, lies my little girl on her last night of being five years old. Awake she is vibrant, chatty, imaginative and strong. Asleep she is only a breath away from that baby who slept peacefully with her arms behind her head, legs splayed like a little frog.
Praise God for this child who calls me Mama. Each day of Livia Raine is a blessing to me.
I’ve known Ashley since she was a peanut of a kid, so it was extra special to help host a bridal shower for her last week. I like these images of the party and wanted to share them here.
The square candies picture above are Raspberry Truffle Fudge. It’s the simplest candy recipe I’ve ever made (seriously) and it tastes amazing. I’ve posted the recipe on Needs More Butter, but wanted to list it here as well:
3 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
salt to taste
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup raspberry flavored liqueur
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
Spray a 9×9 inch pan with non-stick cooking spray, and line with wax paper.
In a microwave-safe bowl, combine 3 cups chocolate chips and sweetened condensed milk. Heat in microwave until chocolate melts, stirring occasionally. Be careful not to let it scorch. Stir in the vanilla and salt. Spread into pan, and cool to room temperature.
In a microwave-safe bowl, combine cream, liqueur, and 2 cups chocolate chips. Heat in microwave until the chocolate melts; stir until smooth. Cool to lukewarm, then pour over the fudge layer. Refrigerate until both layers are completely set, about 1 hour. Cut into 1 inch pieces.
**Based on others’ reviews, I exchanged seedless raspberry jam for the raspberry-flavored liqueur. I simply melted the jam in the microwave and made the easy substitution. Also, I drizzled more melted jam on top of the fudge. Mmm, mmm good!!
Pansies, without fail, make me think of my grandma Iola. She loved the little faces on each flower.
When I worry about my potted plants, I am reminded of Grandma, too. When it would storm, Grandma would pull every last potted plant off her patio and into her living room. She wasn’t taking any chances with foul weather. As you can imagine, during a Nebraska spring those plants were often taking respite in her apartment. She had a lot of pots. It was quite a chore and you weren’t necessarily pleased when you drove up to see an empty walkout porch. That meant you had to help haul all the precious plants back out! Ha.
God bless my artsy, intensely creative grandmother! You bet she’s oohing and aahing over the colors in glory right now. She loved Jesus.
Today is a banner day.
My child can [drumroll, please] read. Read! R-E-A-D, READ!!!
Though I love words, they are failing me now as I’m having difficulty describing how much it means to me that Livia is starting to read. Really, the whole thing blows my mind.
We’ve been reading to this kiddo since she was placed in our arms and we’ve never stopped. I signed her up for the library’s summer reading program before she even cared about it and I read competitively to her that season. (And the next year, too. Silly competitive book-lovin’ mama.) Only recently has Livia taken to flipping through books on her own; she wasn’t really the kind of baby who simply adored books. She did read her first word at 3.5 years: b-o-o-k. And we were ecstatic over that.
I ordered the Bob books from Scholastic recently and we cracked them open today. Well, guess who is ready to read? My kid. My five-almost-six year old. Sounding out words, stringing letters together, remembering the new words and reading them correctly the second time around.
Sheer awesomeness. It’s a whole new world.
One more thing. Livia and I wrote our own story—and she read it at least five times today. Here it is. And, sheerly for purposes of geographical translation, “pop” means “Coke” to all you Southerners. ; )
There are new things at the zoo this year…
And old things too.
We had fun playing with the fastest two year old on the planet…
And her baby brother, a bonafide member of the Two Finger Suckers Club. Just like Liv.
Happy Earth Day, and happy spring!
