Happy Earth Day

Maggie came home today with a pine tree and packet of sage seeds to plant. You can imagine my joy...we already have 10 in our front yard! I had to suck it up and smile. Maggie was thrilled. Nice gesture...trees were donated to every 4th grader at Mark Twain from the neighborhood Whole Foods. I'm not positive that our planet will be greener and cleaner for our kids' kids...we can only hope!

signs of life

After the crazy rain...I see signs of life in the garden!

Found!!!

Rosie found the last Easter egg! Maggie was pleased.

Hoedown Throwdown

You know the drill...pause my music Playlist on the left hand column to hear the video!

After Girl Scouts, Ian and I treated Maggie to seeing The Hannah Montana Movie. It wasn't that bad...actually had a positive message.

The rain stopped!

The sun came out and this happened! The rain finally stopped...and turned into a beautiful day! We skipped church and had breakfast with my dad. There wasn't a cloud in the sky...a fabulous day for the bikers riding for the MS 150 to Austin (the 1st half was cancelled). Rosie got a bath and enjoyed multiple walks!

Rain, Rain Go Away!

We've had A LOT of rain today...the bayou is pretty full. Ian and I are supposed to go to a crayfish boil tonight...rain or shine. What a mess!

birthday fun

Today we accompanied a friend for moral support to fulfill her birthday wish...to get her ears pierced! Maggie was both mortified and curious at the same time...I wonder if she will want the same wish for her birthday next month! Afterwards, we celebrated with cupcakes at Sugarbaby's Cupcake Boutique!

something to do

It was a rainy morning so we decided to check out the Health Fair at the YMCA...it ended up being a fun indoor extravaganza! One year we won a drawing and got $100 off our camp bill...no such luck this year but a great time was had by all!

When it Rains...

Our OUTDOOR dinner party got rained out so we moved it inside and Maggie had a sleepover at our house. We had a fabulous time and Maggie loved having a friend over. Rosie acted berserk until everyone left...maybe it was the rain.

Love Thursday

The Easter Bunny brought 38 eggs this year...one still missing!

student-led conferences

Despite my CRAZY day of meetings and conferences in my own classroom, I was able to attend Maggie's student-led conference. For those of you that have grown children, younger than school-age or no children at all, conferences have changed over the years! Children now have agendas and lead the conferences themselves...with no teacher intervention! By 4th grade, the kids are very confident in their abilities to conduct a conference. Maggie always proud to share her work. I love that.

Good-bye

We had to say good-bye to our 2 very prolific tomato plants. They just stopped growing. I'm not sure if we will replant for the summer...we may wait until fall.

New Bench

We got a new bench for our patio over the weekend. Yet another thing for Ian to put together... his Lego building days have paid off!

So Sweet

Maggie thanks me every night for cooking her dinner. Sweet. Sadly, my "cooking" isn't too fabulous or exciting...but she is thankful nonetheless!

Happy Easter!

I hate to admit it...it was nice not to go to church this morning...a first for the Phillips family! Maggie got us up at 8:30AM to look for eggs and her Easter basket. Last night she had the idea to leave the Easter Bunny a piece of chicken...that's my girl! The weather is a bit sketchy today...so the eggs were hidden inside. It's killing her that she cannot find the last egg!

The Hunt is On!

Easter Egg Hunt 2009 from Brené Brown on Vimeo. Be sure to pause my playlist on the left sid column so you don't have 2 sets of music playing. Enjoy!

We started our day with a wonderful tradition that started back when Maggie was a toddler...Easter Egg Hunt with her neighborhood friends. The weather held up and the kids had a great time.

Afterwards, we celebrated Eric's birthday at a friend's house. It was nice to see everyone. We've been so busy...

Tonight Maggie sang in the choir for the Easter Vigil at Church. Shamelessly, Ian and I had a pre-vigil cocktail at Volcanoes while Maggie rehearsed at church! We made it back in plenty of time. The candlelit service was lovely...nice way to end the evening.

Finally!

Mommy's new computer arrived today! Yippee!

Girl's Day Out

Today Maggie and I had no school due to Good Friday. We took advantage of our time and had a lot of fun! First we attended an origami class at Joan Son's studio in Montrose...where she focused only on making elephants today!!! What could be more perfect? We learned how to make 3 different kinds of elephants...Maggie couldn't thank me enough for taking her. She really was in her element. Then we ate at 59 Diner...her request. And last, we visited Texas Junk Company. The name implies exactly what we saw...a lot of junk! It was fun, though. We saw a lot of old stuff and had a great time. We will have to go back and take Ian with us!

9 year-olds

I'm overjoyed that my 9 year-old seeks younger friends, dolls and her Littlest Pet Shop collection to play with! How long can I hope this will last?

20 minutes?

Maggie emerged from her room with this creation while I had been tutoring. I don't know where she learns these things...

Love Thursday

I noticed this in the scrap basket this morning after making our community buildings in class!

Skater Girl

Maggie bought a skateboard with her own money earlier in the year after playing on Ben's during our long stay at home during Hurricane Ike with no electricity. She thought it was cool but didn't really know what to do with it! Today we went to our school to practice riding it while holding on to the iron gate to get a feel for how to maneuver the board. It worked. She wants a Ripstick for her birthday and I wanted to see if she really had the balance for it...

Rosie's New Tub

The weather has been so nice...it was time to give Rosie her 1st bath outside. As you can see by her expression, she wasn't as thrilled as we were...pretty sad, actually!

SFG phase 2

Last weekend I cleared out an overgrown part of last year's garden and Ian constructed 3 more small SFG beds to fit into our existing garden area. Today I planted watermelon, cantaloupe, green beans, okra, pinto beans, garlic and peppers. Last year we had such wonderful success growing cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce and peppers in our EarthBoxes that I decided to try something new and planted black-eyed peas. Thank you Eric for sharing your seeds!

Block Party

Our street had an Easter Egg Hunt/block party this evening. It didn't start well...we were 5 minutes late and missed the entire hunt. There are like 30 toddlers/babies on our block and they were chomping at the bit to get the hunt going. I guess they had no idea how important it was to a certain 9 year-old we know. Maggie was crushed. Oh, well...

50's bowling

Maggie had a 50's sock hop themed bowling party today with her Girl Scout troop. The girls had a great time!

Garden Update

Just a few weeks ago this garden was bare! The peppers are budding, the edamame is a foot tall and the onions are thriving. I'm ready to start phase 2!

Sweet Girl

Maggie made a little pot recently at Art Night this year at school. I promptly stuck it in the window in the kitchen to dry behind the blinds and recently rediscovered it. It is a beautiful sugar bowl for my coffee sweetener!

Love Thursday

The carrot had a long split in it. I peeled in anyway and sliced it.

I wasn't expecting the slices to be shaped like this...but pleased that they were!

Great Weekend

Good weather and a ton of laundry transformed our backyard into a peek into another generation or a bit of white trash...the choice is yours! Maggie had a sleepover Friday night and we hung out at their house unexpectedly until 10:00 drinking beer when we dropped her off. We got to bring Rosie with us, nice people and Ian actually ate fish...fun evening! The next morning Maggie went to a birthday party at a Chinese buffet for 3 hours. Long story...I got trapped into staying instead of the gardening I was planning on doing. Had a nice time in the end and was glad I gave in. Afterwards, a friend came over to play with Maggie and I finally got some gardening done. I cleared out another "garden gone wild" in the side yard and made room for 3 more SF gardens! Our original SFG has made huge progress! Maggie went to Girl Scouts and we were thrilled to finally turn in over $700 in cookie money! We've started watching a new series on DVD with Maggie...called Christy. It's in the same genre as all the Little House on the Prairie and Love Comes Softly series we've watched. We're weird that way. Great weekend.

enoROSIEmous

It was a struggle to get Rosie lifted by Maggie. Her comment was, "She is too heavy for a little girl like me." I hate to say this out loud...Rosie is still growing!

Love Thursday

found embedded in limestone underground at Longhorn Caverns

Science Fair

It's that time of year...science fair! We enjoyed doing the actual project...didn't enjoy the 20 page logbook that accompanied it! Maggie also learned a very important lesson...don't put off the non-fun part. All in all, it was a positive experience and she will be better prepared to do it next year. We've done science fair projects every year voluntarily but this year it was required and will be much of her science grade.

ZZ Top

I know it's a bit excessive...but we went to the rodeo AGAIN! Some years it's just like that. Tonight we went to see ZZ Top with friends for the last rodeo performance. They sounded exactly like I remembered...looked the same, too! We had to use up our last few carnival tickets from earlier in the week so we spent some time at the carnival. The lines were crazy long and Maggie had no interest riding them again so instead, she enjoyed playing the carnival games (which we never allow!). This year the ride tickets could also be used for games...she felt she had won the lottery! Long day...but a great way to end our fun Spring Break!

Thanks!

Thanks Enos Family! We had a relaxing trip...just what the doctor ordered!

Bluebonnets!

I couldn't resist stopping on the way home to take the infamous pictures of children and bluebonnets. My excuse...I needed one of the dog!

Going Home

On the way home we took a small detour to Llano, Texas to eat lunch at the world famous (according to Texas Monthly) restaurant, Cooper's BBQ. The 45 minute wait in the line outside the restaurant was a walk in the park and totally worth it! While waiting, we chatted up the retired judge that was behind us and found a dog-friendly place to take our barbecue to go. A couple of blocks away we went to a delightful park on the river and had a picnic. Afterwards, we took the dogs on a walk to the dam and back...great way to end our fun camping trip!

paddle boating

On our last day at the lake was spent paddle boating. Not surprising, I could not convince Maggie to get IN a canoe. We've got to get over this irrational fear of canoes and kayaks...any suggestions? We had a great time...I almost fell into the lake after retrieving a "lost" boat that had gotten away! Rosie even enjoyed the ride!

wow

It made my heart sing...to see the children on our trip read daily on their own! Priceless.

Devil's Water Hole

Devil's Water Hole was a favorite in our group which warranted two trips. The kids especially loved seeing the teenagers jump off crazy-high cliffs into the water...it was a bit frightening for the mothers in the group and thankfully, Maggie, too! Look for video clips on youtube.com to see for yourself!The water was refreshing, the hike down was fun and the dogs had a blast (Rosie still hated to see the other dog enjoy the water!).

Longhorn Caverns, part 2

After we took the cavern tour we explored the grounds and museum. Dogs were not allowed on the tour (I think Rosie would have HATED it!) so Eric volunteered to take the dogs hiking. Ian especially enjoyed the museum and the kids loved the beautiful buildings/gardens the Civilian Conservation Corps built around the park.

Longhorn Caverns

Today we spent some time at Longhorn Caverns State Park. Luckily, it was only 6 miles from Inks Lake! All of us enjoyed the history and it was helpful to have our very own geologist with us! We learned that the caverns were formed over thousands of years by the dissolving and cutting action of water on the limestone bedrock of the area. Fossil remains show that many Ice Age animals once occupied the cave. Maggie was delighted to find out elephant remains have even been found there! She was also pleased to find out that the Comanche Indians (remember her video she made for a school project?) were the first to use the cavern. They came in about 400 years or so before anyone else did. In more recent history, the cavern was used as a Confederate stronghold where gunpowder was manufactured in secret during the Civil War. Ian loved the history lesson! The cavern is also rumored to have been the hideout of Sam Bass, a legendary Texas outlaw. The tour took about an hour and a half and we enjoyed every minute of it.

Inks Lake

We got in the lake for the first time...and only saw one snake. We found out something interesting about Rosie. She was VERY angry at watching the other dog with us get in the water. It was a bit amusing but eventually got really annoying. The water was cold but refreshing. Thank goodness for water shoes!

Love Thursday

The park was covered with cactus...many shaped like hearts!

setting up camp

Just to let you know...we had a GREAT campsite (site # 321). It was very spacious, private and shady. I think all of us enjoy the aspect of setting up camp and had everything situated fairly quickly. We cooked great meals, enjoyed nightly campfires/stargazing and had a very relaxing time away from our busy lives at home. The kids were pretty good about finding something to do and exploring around the campsite.

We're Off!

We are off to Inks Lake State Park in Burnet, Texas with our friends the Enos Family. The drive was beautiful and the weather was gorgeous. We stopped in Austin at a delightful dog-friendly restaurant, Freddie's Place. Rosie did well on her big car ride...I think she'll want to do it again!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I have a bunch of green edamame sprouts poking through the soil...exciting!

AGventure

We had a lot of fun at AGventure with our friends Caroline and Kari. This portion of the day was indoors. Believe it or not, we actually got sunburned! There were a few new exhibits to enjoy and we especially enjoyed seeing the new piglets and calves that were only a couple of hours old!

Maggie was pleased to be picked from the crowd to "cheer" on pig #3. We were so worn out by that time...I'm not so sure how much cheering was actually done!