Birthday Bash

I'm exhausted. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from Kate's party today. Hopefully I'll feel up to blogging more tomorrow.

Birthday Gift

The girls and I had a bit of a shopping spree yesterday. We bought this fun sand and water table for Kate's birthday. We will take it outside this weekend and add the sand and water but for now the girls are having fun playing with it inside.

We also signed Kendall up for wee-ball this week and so we picked up a little set so she can practice. She and I played last night, we have some work to do on the hitting but she is a pretty good catch. She isn't afraid of the ball (yet).

I have a lot to do today. I have to run get some last minute things for the "party" and get the house all cleaned up (really, I'm hoping I can get most of that done when Brian is home on Saturday) and I STILL have to write thank-you notes for those birthday gifts Kate has already received. They're coming everyone but I'm just slow....sorry!!!

Here you see Kendall modeling her new Dora pajamas from Aunt Lorie. I actually need to give Lorie a BIG thank you. Those of you that know me know that I am very opposed to "character" clothing. I don't like things that have a big Pooh Bear or Dora on them. Kendall keeps talking about Dora shoes and I REALLY DO NOT want her to have them and Lorie got her these (which she doesn't wear in public so this is great) and she is happy with these instead. Phew, dodged a bullet there. I know that the day is coming when Kendall being confident in what she is wearing will be more important to me then being able to pick out a cute outfit for her. I'm just trying to hold that day off a little longer while she still doesn't care so much.

Scenes from our day

This morning both girls spent a little quiet time reading. Kendall picked out this chapter book with no pictures at the library and loves to look at it which cracks me up. Later I took Kendall to the gym for some fun. Kate went into the nursery and Kendall and I took a bouncy ball and ran around in the gymnasium. While Kendall was taking her nap Kate roamed the house looking for something to do. This is how she decided to entertain herself.



After this she had a crazy diaper explosion and an emergency bath. Later we'll go get groceries for a little one year old's birthday cookout that is happening this weekend.

Walk to Cure

This year, I'll be taking part in JDRF's Walk to Cure Diabetes in support of my cousin and her family who have been touched by juvenile diabetes. To see a video about her son, Logan, please visit here.



I set a personal goal of raising $200. If you can help me reach this goal please go to my donation page (closed). Don't forget to check with your employer since many will match your donation. Thank you so much in advance!

Parmesan Crisps or Bowls

Parmesan Crisps or Bowls

(Southern Living Magazine recipe)

In our salad for Easter I made these little Parmesan crisps, tonight I remade them and took it one step more to make them into little bowls for our salad.

1. Use either parchment paper or a silpat (above) on a baking sheet. Spread between 1/4-1/2 cup (larger portion for the bowls or smaller portion if you just want to make little crisps) shredded Parmesan cheese onto the parchment paper, patting it out into a thin layer.

2. Bake at 375 for 5-7 minutes, remove from oven and let cool 10 seconds.

3. For Parmesan bowls: While the cheese is baking wrap the outside of an inverted wide vase or small terra-cotta pot in aluminum foil and spray with cooking spray.

4.Carefully lift the parchment paper off the baking sheet.

5. Working quickly, invert the circle over the prepared pot (or wide bottom vase). Gently press the cheese over inverted pot into desired bowl shape.

6. Cool completely (about 5 minutes) then remove.

If you don't want the bowls skip step 5 and instead lift the parchment with the crisps off the baking sheet and allow to cool.

What's Cookin'

I received a very nice email from Jeanne, one of Brian's colleagues. She made the Roasted Tomato Soup at Easter and says it was a hit, I'm so glad to hear it! I'll do my best to post more recipes but for those of you that can't wait, check out my sister's food blog What's For Dinner for lots of great recipes with a pinch of humor thrown in too.

Easter Festivities and a bit of a Chick's List

We had a great day yesterday. In the morning we went to church, found our Easter baskets and hunted for eggs. Then Jenn, Justin, Lorie, John and CJ came over for lunch and that night we all went to our church's Easter pageant. It was so nice to spend time with everyone.

Here is a short little Chick's List celebrating our Easter table:

Fun and modern plates can be found here: New Wave, Villeroy & Boch

Hip and happening cutlery can be found here: New Wave, Villeroy & Boch I still need to get the serving set.

To round it all out our napkins can be found here: yep, that's right, this is what we used. It's my little shout out to Proctor and Gamble.

Happy Easter

From the Paper Chick family

Perspective

I find it interesting how your perspective can shift. For example. My 'world' generally is my house and about a 4 mile radius surrounding my house. My town is a fairly small one and I often run into people that I know. I'm recognized and known by name (as well as the kid's name) by the employees at the gym, the librarians, the dry cleaner, people at my church and sometimes at the grocery store. It's a nice feeling to be known and to know people. Yesterday I was feeling pretty big in this world of mine. Then, last night as Brian and I lay in bed chatting we started talking about our trip to Europe. We were talking about climate and season changes depending on where on the Earth you are, I was thinking about all the cultural, currency, and language differences and suddenly I felt very very small. I liked it, I liked that change of perspective. I think maybe it was God's way of reminding me that I'm just one little thread that is weaving in and out of the thread's of other people's lives that together make up this large tapestry of the world that He is designing. God is good.

My thoughts shifted (I couldn't fall asleep then) and I was reminded of a quote from my favorite movie, (by the way, can you name the movie?)

"Sometimes I wonder about my life. I lead a small life. Well, valuable but
small. And sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I like it, or because I
haven't been brave? So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a
book, when shouldn't it be the other way around? I don't really want an answer.
I just want to send this cosmic question out into the void. So good night, dear
void."

I'm doing exactly what I want to do so don't read too much into that quote, I just like it. I think I like it because of the context it was written. Like I said, it is my favorite movie. I'll leave you with some completely unrelated photos of our egg dying adventure this morning.
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Hippity Hoppity

We had a really fun day. Kendall ended up EXHAUSTED but it felt like Spring and we took advantage of the weather. We went to the park with some friends, went to CJ's basketball game, then after dinner we spent the evening outside playing in the yard. I introduced Kendall to Hopscotch.

My demonstration:

Kendall hippity hoppiting:

So She Says and Other Randomness

Kendall checking out her shadow on our walk today:



Time for another round of Kendall quotes.

• Instead of 'hand sanitizer' she calls it "Hanitizer"
• Today while cooking breakfast I asked her if she knew where eggs came from and she said with absolute certainty, "the fridge"
• She has gotten VERY curious lately. I think the word "why" comes out of her mouth 800 million times each hour. Sometimes she says, "Why?"... "Because?" It's nice of her to answer her own question.

Kate learned a few new tricks too. She will give kisses upon request. She learned to point and she found a fun orifice to stick her pointer finger in (her left nostril). She thinks it is hilarious. She sticks her finger in for a second, takes it out then cracks up. Oh to be entertained so easily.

Hmmm, I wonder if she is a lefty??
We went and sat on the Easter Bunnies lap today, I'll post that picture in the next couple of days but here is Kendall's reaction when she first saw the E.B. It may not look like it but this is the face of pure excitement. There was squealing and jumping up and down to accompany this expression.


And finally, here is a random question that I'm really curious about. If you were going to be living outside of America and before you left you could go to Target and one other store to stock up an entire suitcase of stuff that you wouldn't be able to get wherever you were going to be living what would you HAVE to get?

Happy Birthday Baby Kate!

One year ago today my heart that was so full grew immeasurably more. At one month old you smiled your first smile and you haven't stopped since. You have brought so much joy to this house. We feel so blessed that God choose us to be your parents. We love you Sissy Lou.

I love me some Justin

Today is one of my favorite people in the whole wide world's birthday. Justin is one of Brian's best friends (he was one of the best men at our wedding for those of you that were there). Justin is transparent and funny and interesting and... His wife is also one of my favorite people in the whole wide world and she has a nice little collection of stories going on her blog in honor of his birthday. Check it out here. Justin has a blog too but he NEVER updates it.

I couldn't narrow it down to one specific "favorite Justin moment" but I think it is funny that Justin was on my and Brian's first date. Our date was all night skiing at a local slope and I really didn't know Brian at all (obviously, it was our first date). So the deal was I was supposed to drive over to his house and ride up to the slope with them. I started to get nervous, remember I'm a Florida girl that has never in my life skied before and I was about to go spend an entire night doing just that with a bunch of people that I didn't know. I called Brian's house and was a little bit backing out but he talked me into coming over to his house right then and just hanging out first. I did. The door opened to Brian and Justin and the smell of cookies throughout the house. For some reason this really cracks me up now because I know that there had to be a huge conversation about the cookie making. Who's idea was this anyway guys? Was this an effort to impress the new girl? Anyway we had an awesome time and I probably spent a little more time with Justin then I did Brian just because he was on the bunny slopes with me learning to snowboard and Brian was a skiing fool. I could go on to include another favorite Justin moment: Justin's skiing accident #562 but we'll save that for another day.