3.28.2010

Words to come...

For now it is the beloved photo dump, because these need to be seen :)










Remember I said I was trying out a new cupcake recipe for a friend's birthday this weekend?


Taaa-daaaa!











3.25.2010

Family Togetherness

I made these earlier in the month for our pastor's wife's birthday. I'm pretty proud of them! Those petals are marshmallows I sliced and rolled in sprinkles. They are sticky inside, so the sprinkles stick to the inside, but not the outside. It's a neat effect :) I'm going to try my hand at some super bright rainbow ones this weekend for another girl's birthday. I'll put some pics up if they look good. My mom makes the most amazing cakes and has always been so crafty. I'm jealous, for sure! I'm great at art, but not the crafty stuff she does. I'm in awe everytime she sends me a new picture.

Corbin got a tree! It's a peach tree and we put it by the road in line with our Crape Myrtles. It had the prettiest little flowers on it and I hope we might get some little peaches this year, but probably not for a couple more years. This is another phase in our New Years Resolution...a fruit tree in addition to our pecan trees and the little potatoes that are actually growing in my garden box!! I may not get anything else to grow, but those potatoes are sure making my chest swell!

Awww, a happy little Cubs fan!! He's gotten so big! He got to wear that 3-6 mo outfit ONCE and now he's into 6-12. It's crazy...I guess I don't birth babies, I birth toddlers!

My sister and her 2 kids came to visit us for spring break and it was an AWESOME visit!! As much as she warned me about her "bay-bays" they were great and so were mine. Violet tends to wanna be felt instead of seen or heard, but we're working on it. All-in-all, with 5 kids in the house for 5 days we did an amazing job and had a fabulous time. I'm glad to be getting closer to my sister and I was SO glad to see my nephew and my niecey-poo. Kellyse is eating a marshmallow up there.
Zekaeus and GraceAnne are only 6 months apart and I was at his birth. He's a funny little man and SOLID. He's a little taller than she is, but he's a good 25 lbs heavier. I tried to lift him the first day and did not make that mistake again. HAHA


Here's Kelly. We made these little "leprechaun hats" with the kids for St Patrick's Day. By this point we were pretty well done with baking with 5 kids, so we kicked them out, (except Corbin, who chilled in his swing the whole time like a good boy) and finished them up ourselves.

Yeah, I didn't load these in order; it's all good.
They each got to take a turn doing something. Violet thinks baking rocks.
This is what 5 kids in my car looks like. Almost as full as with 200 boxes of cookies! :) We took them to the zoo in Dallas. It was a really good time!
Cute Cousins
We went to the Ft Worth Stockyards, even though we didn't stay long. I thought I was dying and had to go home. Turns out I have mastitis. BUT--Kelly got her animal jerky she was looking for and the kids got to see longhorns and a train, so it was okay.

Here are those adorable cookies. Note to anyone consindering making them...do not make them with acrylic nails on. Yes, those would be Kelly's nail prints all over the hat brims, LOL!
Part of my zoo membership includes umlimited carousel rides. Good thing, because it took us 2 rides to even get Vi up there for a 30-second photo-op.
Auntie Kelly and Corbin on the carousel. She tried to sneak him back to WI with her, but I wasn't having any of that. Not my tiny sweet boy!
Kelly and her big sweet boy.
Kelly and Kellyse.
GraceAnne is so much like me...bet you a dollar she was imagining herself in a princess dress with a flowing train prancing on her white horse through the countryside!
All the cousins together.
TOO SWEET FOR WORDS!
Violet is a year and a half younger than her, but only an inch shorter, so all week Kellyse would get upset because Violet was doing something a baby would do and we'd tell her, "she's just a baby" and she'd yell, "SHE IS NOT A BABY, SHE IS A BIG GIRL!" She finally resigned herself to the idea that Violet was a baby, so she must be too and started to act like it. HAHA, kids are crazy!
Don't even ask me how the 6 of us ate 50 chicken nuggets and 2 super-size fries. You'd think we'd never fed them the way they all ate at meals!!
baking again. We're brave...or stupid.
Aaaaand, this is how we take our down-time when our guests leave. GraceAnne is amazing...since Christmas she has saved almost every penny she's gotten, (She gets commission every week for chores), and had $67 toward a Nintendo DS. Daddy decided he'd give her the extra 20 she needed to buy a used one and a My Little Pony game. It's even PINK! We're so stinkin' proud of her!
Violet passed out cold watching a movie.
Am I going to have 2 thumb suckers?!? Just in the last week he's really been getting down with the thumb. And to think, I swore my kids would never suck on ANYTHING. *sigh* I've certainly calmed down in the last 6 years! Or would that be "worn down." But they're so cute and it makes them so happy ;)
Well, time for me to scoot. Wish I had more time to be witty, I sure miss my peeps. Love you all, hope you're having a great spring!

























3.09.2010

A busy few weeks!

Allan put in a new pond for the duckies, but winter struck once again...
It looks like spring is here for us north Texans, however. And we're mighty grateful for it!
We sold, collected money for and delivered 200 boxes of Girlscout cookies, PLUS GraceAnne has done 4 booth sales. This is what 200 boxes of cookies looks like in your van. VERY exciting stuff!
Shhh...don't reveal his secret identity, but Batman has been keeping himself busy protecting our neighborhood.
And little brother still keeps us all busy just being cute.
Really, is there anyone more Irish than a Doyle? Well...the name anyway. These kids are mostly Swede.
Some more of that magnificent spring popping up. WE LOVE IT!
Allan's replacing my kitchen flooring which was so lovely like this:
And another layer...
Remember that "reorganizing I was telling you about? There was a hole in the linoleum on top and when we pulled it up we found these little bunny grahams. And I thought she ate them...
Yes...he is a sweet child of mine! Officially the 3rd Doyle child to wear this shirt given by Gramma Deb. We were getting dressed up for date night. Corbin, Allan and I went to see Alice in Wonderland 3d. It was AMAZING!!!
Are we fit for Tim Burton or what?
Sorry to be out of touch for so long and then have so little to say, but it never slows down around here. We're all going to be on our toes for the next month again, so I'll keep on picture dumping like this and hopefully by the end of April I'll be able to post things that are interesting to read, again. Love and miss you all!!