A little update...

Here are the girls on a recent trip to the zoo.

I just finished my second round of cake decorating classes. Here is my cake for the final.

Here is Brittney singing I Believe in church yesterday.

Both girls are loving school and have great teachers. Brie started first grade and has Mrs. Jones and Brit started a new school for third grade and has Ms. Young (yes, Will's mom).

Sorry it has been a while. I'm not lovin Blogger right now!!

What We've Been Up To...

The girls have been playing ball. Brie plays t-ball and Brit started coach pitch this year.











Brie doesn't have much of an attention span and can often be found playing in the dirt, doing jumping jacks on the bases, and doing various dance kicks and turns while she waits for some action. She is such a funny girl!

Brittney seems to really enjoy the coach pitch league over t-ball. The nearly 8 going on 28 year old would not be caught dead acting so silly at her games! Brit is really catching on to the game this year - boy to a couple of years make a difference!

We always have quite a cheering section! Cousins Bella and Lucas are getting in on the action!

I have been taking a cake decorating class as Michael's - very fun! This is something I have always wanted to do - Brian and Katie got me a gift certificate to take the classes for my birthday. I still need to practice, but in my class I learned how to make roses, sweet peas, bows, 4 different edges, leaves, vines, filling in with stars, and how to copy a design to my cakes. Here is the cake I made for my final tonight...

I appologize the post looks crazy tonight - blogger is acting weird and seperating my pictures from the text - even though it looks fine on my edit? Grrr!

Memorial Day Rain

This years Memorial Day brought rain, rain, and more rain followed up by a few good storms. So much rain it flooded the street behind out house at least four times. The drains on the street just couldn't take the water quick enough. Here is one of our neighbors checking to see if the drains are blocked. Notice the water is more than knee high on him.

This was the view from the back porch. A couple of our neighbors let their kids go swim in it. My girls were begging, but another storm was beginning to roll in, and it just didn't seem safe to me. Thankfully our basement has finally dried out!

Our First Cook-Off

Bill is master of the BBQ, and some of our friends encouraged him to enter a competition. With one in town, we figured why not. We both dream of having a restaurant some day...Bill making beer and BBQ and me great appetizers and dessert of course!

Anyway, we packed up our smoker and about half of our kitchen and headed into downtown E-ville for a fun day.

Beth, Jason, and Bella joined us on our team. The cook off was basically like a giant tailgate party minus the tailgate. 20 teams competed against us. Some own restaurants or tour the circuit, and some were just back yard grillers out to have a good time like us.

Here is our little grill compared to our neighbors who has been touring the BBQ circuit in the area for about four months.

The prep is a family affair. Bill trims some of the unnecessary fat, I remove the skirt or thin membrane coating the rib - this makes them extra tender, and Brit gives the ribs a good rub with Bill's "Magic Dust."

Then Bill got the fire started and waited for it to get the perfect temperature.

Shortly after we put the ribs on the grill and sat back to relax. Lots of friends and family stopped by for a visit. This was our home for the day. TheBANK sponsored our team, which is why we are all wearing match BOE shirts, and lucky for us we were able to borrow the tent, which gave us a nice shady place to relax for the day. It was darn hot out there!

Our home for the day:

Brit got so comfortable she fell asleep.

Auntie did a good job and brought lots of good activities for the kids to do. Here's Brie and Bella coloring:

The ribs:

The 10 bones we turned in:

Me turning in our ribs:

The results, we weren't winners, but we sure had a wonderful time. We'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Missing Tooth

My baby lost her first tooth last weekend. My how time flies!!

The poor tooth had been ready to be pulled for a couple of weeks, but Brie wouldn't have it, she was convinced it would come out while she was eating and no one would have to pull it. Last Saturday morning she fell and hit her mouth, and out came the tooth!

The Soloist at School

Brittney has a solo in the drama club performance they are preparing at her school right now. Her principal was having a stressful day on Tuesday, so after rehearsal one of her teachers (Ms. Schmidt) took her by the principals office to sing for her. Mrs. Patton enjoyed it so much she asked Brit to sing it at their morning assembly the next day. Brit was bouncing off the walls excited. As if I normally dress her in rags, she reminded me when she woke up that she would be performing for everyone in the school so she needed a "really cute outfit to wear"...um hello fashionista of second grade...your closet is full of really cute outfits to wear thanks to your wonderful Nana!

Here is my little star, singing a bit of the Titanic inspired "My Heart Will Go On" by Celine Dion. The show they are doing is a review of the best music from all of the decades.

She was very nervous yesterday, but you sure can't tell! She was expecting some background music, but she got acapella instead. It amazes that it doesn't bother her to sing in front of all of these kids. She informed me that she sang it again at the end of the day for her own class, they asked for an encore!

Sorry for the big bump in the middle, a kid was walking in to the gym and not paying attention and bumped into me.

Hooray for Spring!

I'm so glad that Spring has arrived! I love watching everything turn green, and watching all of the lovely spring flowers bloom.

My favorite off all spring flowers are lilacs. My lilac bush bloomed a couple of weeks ago, and I got a couple of good pictures and a couple of vases of flowers to scent the house with. I only with the lilacs lasted longer, they are only pretty for a week or so until we good a good rain and then they start to turn colors and fall off.

Last weekend we had gorgeous weather, which usually doesn't happen for the March of Dimes March for Babies that I have chaired for the last four years. Luckily this year we had great weather, a great turnout, and raised more funds that last year! (I didn't get pics of this event...too busy working, but you can check out some on my sisters blog.)

After the walk, Beth and I headed back to my house to give the girls naps. Our husbands were golfing in a golf scramble together, so we had a lovely day together with our girlies!

After naps we headed to the lovely LeClaire Lake to feed the geese(no ducks yet), enjoy the pretty weather, and let the kiddos run off some steam.

Brittney wanted to help Bella, but Bella wasn't so excited for the help. She loved the slide and swing..."WEEEE!"

All three of the girls enjoyed some climbing.

They had so much fun feeding the Geese....

Thank you Sissy and Bella for the fun day!!