There's no turning back now

This is the card that we gave Lulu with her graduation gift (a beach related gift that I needed to tie into a graduation theme somehow). This was created in scrapblog. Remember, I created my mom's Mother's Day card in scrapblog. Anyways, take a few minutes on your lunch break to browse their site. You won't be disappointed. At least, I wasn't.

Graduation

Five years ago Lulu graduated from Kindergarten at her local preschool. Her are the pictures to prove it.

Looking at these pictures... something just hit me.

Lulu is graduating tomorrow and I am going to be wearing the exact same dress that I wore for this occasion, four years ago. Admittedly, it's a very stretchy dress.

Anyone else out there celebrating a significant graduation this season?

It's a great day to be a tween

It's been so long since we've talked.

We had a fun, fun, fun birthday celebration for Lulu. All of her most devoted fans were present and accounted for.

Happy Birthday dear Lulu. ♪♪♪

Rainy Day Ramblings

Random Act of Kindness UPDATE

I am still trying to practice one random act of kindness. I have had two valiant efforts though.

1. Luvs2Boat and I helped unload the boxes from the oyster dump. Yes, while all of the rest of the oyster gardeners hopped off the boat and headed for home, we stayed and helped the CBF staff unload the boxes (which were now empty because the oysters were planted/dumped over of the side of the boat) off of the boat. No, it wasn't our j-o-b to help, but there was clearly still more work to be done and so we stayed and helped. Fine. Although, I don't know if that counts as a random act of kindness.

You may wonder what Lulu was doing while Luvs2Boat and Napmom were helping the CBF staff, well, she was getting an on-camera interview of course (which I think was the highlight of her whole oyster gardener career). Hopefully the interview will be up on the web soon and I can share a link with you.

2. I offered to take the pool registration in for our neighbors. You see, neither of us has handed in our pool registration. The community pool opened up a few weeks ago. Our community recently changed management companies. The old management company was local and we could easily drop off our registration there. The new management company, as I learned yesterday, is about an hour away. Very inconvenient. So, Dear Husband offered to hand deliver our pool registration yesterday. I called our neighbors to see if they had their pool registrations ready so that Dear Husband could take it for them. Alas, it wasn't ready to go. I then told my neighbor that this was especially disappointing for me because I was trying to practice a random act of kindness for gosh sakes. He said that he would still give me credit for it, but I don't think that counts.

Still trying to practice a random act of kindness.

Let MD See Your Smile UPDATE

We need to post two pictures that we took this week (with a Beatles album and with an oyster). Plus, we are going to try to get the "with a live chicken" and "with a llama" this weekend as well.

Other Weekend Events

Ivan Koloff (of World Wrestling Federation fame) is going to be the officiant at the wedding that we are going to this weekend. No, I am not kidding. Will let you in on all of the details as soon as we get them. It should be a good time.


Anyone else have a crazy or unique wedding story to share? Can you think of a more unique officiant than a previous WWF star?

It's a birthday!

Today we are celebrating birthday 11 for my little Lulu May.

At the last minute Lulu announced that she wanted to bring cookies to school for her birthday. The Great Cookie Maker (a.k.a. Fairy Grandmother) whipped up a batch of homemade cookies for Napmom to bake and send to school with Lulu. Thanks Fairy Grandmother!

Last night we made a cake and she decorated it herself. (Not to worry, I will make her a special cake for her friend party).

This morning, her breakfast of choice was "sticky buns" of course. I cut up some fresh pineapple because I wanted to attempt to at least offer the crowd something relatively healthy this morning.

Of course, she started out the day with her cell phone in hand, accepting calls and text messages from daddy and her grandparents all of her fans.

She is also excited because her class has a field trip today - a harbor cruise or, as she likes to call it, "my birthday cruise."

Daddy, and the grandparents are coming over for dinner tonight.

Happy Birthday to you. (cha cha cha)
Happy Birthday to you. (cha cha cha)
Happy Birthday Dear Luluuuuuuu.
Happy Birthday to YOU! (cha cha cha)

Busy... no, swamped, I think

I don't know what time of year is busiest. Seems that I think that every season is busier than the last. Nonetheless, this end-of-year stuff is getting the best of me.

I have so many pictures to share... you know, with the new camera and all. My close-up pictures of the kids are my favorite.

In the mean time, I did put some shots on flickr.

Pictures of my tour of the State House: Here are pictures of the State House dome. He we are on top of the State House dome, with great views of historic Annapolis. The State House is so significant because it is the only State House that is still in legislative use. It also served as the nation's capitol at some point in history (I can't remember exactly when). Lots of history and pictures to share. We'll do that at another time.

Moving on...

Lulu finished up another great season of oyster gardening. She (and Luvs2Boat) grew the oysters all winter long and took a CBF sponsored boat trip to plant dump the oysters at the oyster sanctuary. I went to the oyster collection place with my camera in tow. Someone mistook me for a reporter. I had to clarify that I was merely a volunteer with a big, obnoxious camera. You can view the oyster pics here. I'll blog them (along with running commentary) soonish.

Will write more later. We are planning Lulu's birthday party; the grandparents are coming over for cake and ice-cream tomorrow (her "friend" party will take place later in June). Then, we have a wedding to attend (at a baseball stadium - very cool). That will all be followed up with R's birthday party on Sunday. We will top it all of with Lulu's elementary school graduation and a end of year Girl Scout ceremony next week.

Shucks - I just realized that we can't go to R's party on Sunday because we have a Girl Scout commitment that day. Argh!

What is your busiest time of year?

Hurricane Me

Check out the hurricane names for the upcoming hurricane season. Look at "M." Do we ever get the the "M"s during hurricane season? Can't wait to see those headlines!

Also, Yummy Mommy has challenged her followers to do one random act of kindness today and then report back to her. I actually like to practice the random-act-of-kindness/pay-it-forward type philosophy. Just recently our neighbors made us some mojitos and brought them over. We loved the drink so much that we immediately went out and bought the supplies to make more. Then, we made mojitos for our other neighbors. They, in return, sent some homemade meatballs over for us to enjoy. We (the neighbors) do this stuff often actually.

So, now to think of one random act of kindness or hope that an opportunity presents itself.

If You Give Your Husband Some Grapes

Yep - Dear Husband makes his own wine. While I am a big fan now, this took some getting used to. The first batch that he ever made was started in the basement and bottled at his brother's house. I wanted nothing to do with it. I mean, I felt like we were freakin' makin' moonshine out of our house. Then, Dear Husband bottled the wine. Then he brought it to give away as a hostess gift at a New Year's party (mortifying). Low and behold - he was the talk of the party. Everyone was interested in his wine. Who knew?

This time, I agreed that he could start a bigger batch and house it in our kitchen in the 5 gallon drum.

I feel like this whole process is like that book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.

So, here is my version of making wine, written in the story style of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.

If you give Dear Husband some grapes, then he is going to want to make wine out of it.

If you let him make wine then he is going to ask for some wine bottles.

If you give him some wine bottles (thanks neighbors) then he is going to want to rinse them.

If you let him rinse the bottles then he is going to want to super-wash and sterilize them.

If you let him wash and sterilize the bottles then he is going to want to fill them.

If you let him fill the bottles then he is going to want to cork them.

If you let him cork the bottles of wine then he is going to want to store them.

If you let him store the wine then he is going to want Napmom to create some cool labels for them. (I'm working on that part.)

If you let him label them, then he is going to want to... drink it all?????

Funny story = I told complained to Dear Husband that this is the most redneck thing I have ever done. Then we started talking about the corker machine (pictured above). He said that it reminded him of the machine that you use to make bullets. He was kinda saying this in a way the insinuated that I wouldn't know what he was talking about. I assured him that I had, in fact, made bullets before and I knew what the machine was like. He replied, "Oh really? You've made bullets? Then this is far from the MOST redneck thing that you have ever done... I mean... if you have made bullets before." Whatever.

a budding photographer

The farmers who sell tomatoes on the side of the road take credit cards.

The farmers at the farmers market take credit cards.

The people who make a living off of selling strawberries to the public at their farm, only take cash.

While Lulu and I were waiting for Dear Husband to get back with some c-a-s-h, she took some pictures with my new camera. Here are here pictures that she captured herself. My only regret is that I was not able to take pictures of her capturing these photos, because it was priceless.

She took this picture using the preset mode for taking pictures of small items such as flowers.

She crouched down into a field of 3 foot high grass to get this perspective.

Notice these next two pictures.

Barn #1. The grass is in focus but the barn is blurry.

Barn #2. The barn is in focus but the grass is blurry this time. She did this on purpose. She wanted these two different effects for the two different shots. Okay, this is a concept that I didn't grasp till about... 6 months ago.

I want to start a flickr photostream for Lulu's pictures. It seems that you have to set it up with a yahoo e-mail address? Is that correct? Am I missing something? I know that I don't have to actually use the yahoo e-mail address, but it just seems ridiculous to have to use their web address to set up the account. I must be missing something.

Strawberry Fields

Friday night, Dear Husband hinted that he wanted to go pick some strawberries. Knowing that (1) this would be a fun family event and (2) Lulu needed a berry picture for the scavenger hunt, I immediately got on the internet to see what our options were.

I found that a local farm sells U-pick strawberries. They recommend that you call before you come. Their Saturday hours are usually from 8-noon. However, when I called, the recording said that they would probably sell out long before noon. We piled into the car and arrived to the farm at 9:45 a.m. I am glad that we rushed to get to the farm, since they were turning customers away by 10:15. Yikes!

Some of us picked strawberries.

Some of us ate strawberries.

And Napmom (not pictured - cause I won't let anyone use my new toy camera) took pictures, picked strawberries, AND watched the baby... kinda.

In the end, we came home with two large boxes...

of pretty and yummy strawberries...

... and one messy baby. By the way, here is a little plug for Shout stain remover. Thanks to Shout's stain fighting abilities, Bro's shirt is now sparkly white again. When in doubt, Shout it out. It works every time.

We had great fun.

What is your best stain remover secret? Do you Shout it out or do you know of something better, "greener," cooler?