breath of fresh air :)

i'm finding that this song is one of my favorites.... 
incredibly uplifting and fabulous.......

:)
i hope you will be blessed by it, as well :)

meals for the week 5.6.12 through 5.13.12

time to get back into posting the meal plan...  it helps keep me more organized... :) 
here's what we'll be eating this week... :)

• Sunday:  beef and potato boats, green beans, broccoli corn bread
• Monday: baked ziti
• Tuesday: pigs in a blanket, mac n cheese, veggie
• Wednesday: leftovers
• Thursday:  pancakes
• Friday: leftovers
• Saturday:  out to eat or scrounge at home :)
• Sunday:  chicken parmiginana and spaghetti

hope you all have a great week... :)  don't forget that Mother's Day is on Sunday :)

it's been awhile...

nothing like a long, long break from blogging.... :)  life has been a little busy...  :)

we enjoyed some time over spring break NOT traveling... :)  instead, we had my parents here for Easter...  the visits with our grandmas and bebots are always too, too short....  we had lots of fun, though....we did some shopping, went to church, had yummy meals and enjoyed each other's company...  :) 

katherine snapping beans with grandma daisy

(katherine calls both grandmas "grandma," but she specifies each one by one thing that she realized while she was very young...my parents have a dog, Daisy, so my mom became "grandma daisy."  Ry's mom is "grandma boot" because K calls her Aunt Brittany "Boot"... :))

the girls were so cute in their Easter dresses....yep, i did what i never thought i'd do and dressed my girls in the same dresses :)  they were really cute :)

(i won't even tell you how long it took us to get this picture of the two of them together...  katherine was being especially cheesy and was bouncing like tigger, hannah was crying and falling down because her sister insisted on holding her hand while bouncing like tigger...and they needed naps :))

then, Ry's mom, dad, and sister came into town and we all hung out and enjoyed each other some more. :)  we had yummy food and cooked at home, too... :)  of course, we did a little shopping, and we made chocolate covered strawberries and cupcakes...yummy! :) 

one of our strawberries :)

we've been busy playing outside (when it wasn't raining)...katherine loves being outside, but i think that hannah may love it even more...  she cries to go outside and cries even harder when we come inside...  :)

we have done a little gardening...we planted some bulbs and also planted a little garden! :)  all we have in our garden are strawberries right now, but i'm going to add a few more things...  katherine LOVES to go out and check out our plants...it's been really fun to see how well our things are growing :)

our first strawberry, picked as soon as it was red, and eaten on the spot by this little green thumb :)

since october, i've been working as a teacher for an after school program in the county where i used to teach... it's been a great experience, and i've really enjoyed helping kids...  i'm not ready to get back in the classroom, but i hope that i can do their after school program again next year...  the hours are perfect (i drop the girls off after ry finishes his day and head up the road a few minutes to school) and it's good to help! :)  unfortunately, it ends this coming week, but i'm sure i will find SOMETHING to do with my extra time :)

now, because my teaching license has to be renewed every 5 years, i'm in the first week of taking a 3 credit course for recertification...  i had taken another course in the fall of 2010 for half of my points, and i thought i had enough professional development from 2008 and 2009, while teaching, but i kept shoddy records and can't even find them in my files of packed school items :(  so, i'm taking a literacy class on teaching phonemic awareness and phonics....it's really interesting...  :)  i'm especially excited to start using my new-found knowledge on a little guinea pig i know... :)  (i really wanted to take this class so i could learn what i should be doing for K... :))

in the midst of all of this, we've had vet appointments, trips to the store, time with our friends, dentist appointments, and just plain attempts to stay afloat in this trip called life :) 

but........summer is knocking...Ry only has 21 days left with students...  i always love summer because we can do so many fun things together as a family and life is a little more relaxed.... :) 

 don't you just love the strangle hold of love here? :)

totally staged, but it looks real, doesn't it? :)

i promise i will be back sooner than i was this time... :)  there's always a ton to report, but time is fleeting and i never get to share all the happenings.... :) 

hope this catches you up on a bit.... :)