Wednesday, April 27, 2011

22 (months) going on 80 (years)

While dressing Sims for school yesterday, he was very adamant about which shoes he wanted to wear.  I had planned for him to wear his sneakers, but he had other plans.


He was styling in his plaid shorts, athletic socks and sandals.  I'm surprised he didn't ask for me to take him to play bingo.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Easter Weekend

I hope everyone had a happy Easter!  We sure did.  My parents came to town, and we had a wonderful time celebrating with them.  I took Good Friday off to be with Sims, and it was so nice to have a 3 day weekend.  I wish every weekend was a 3 day weekend. (Sigh.)

On Saturday, Sims got his first experience with egg dyeing.  He didn't quite get into the whole decorating the egg before dyeing, but he really liked the dyeing part.


We tried to do most of the prep work for our Easter dinner on Saturday afternoon.  Sims even got to help his Grand make deviled eggs.


On Easter, we all went to church.  Sims went to church in this adorable outfit.


Unfortunately, he came home wearing no shorts due to a diaper incident.  But for an hour or so, he looked like the cutest little German boy.  While we were at church, the Easter Bunny visited our house and left Sims a ton of stuff.  I think he went a little overboard this year.


He received some books, stickers, a stuffed Peter Rabbit, a puzzle, some cookware and a basketball goal.  That doesn't include edible stuff like the bunny shaped crackers, animal cookies and mashed/drinkable tropical fruit.  The fruit was gone within minutes.  I'll have to find out from the Easter Bunny where to get more of that!


Yes, I'm the lady who wears hats to church on Easter.  I love hats!  Any excuse is a good excuse to me!

Sims liked the egg hunt that we did for him in our backyard.  He had done one at his school on Thursday, so he knew what to do.  He was pretty good at finding the eggs with only a little bit of direction from us.


We had a wonderful meal of ham, roasted asparagus, sweet potato casserole, 3-cheese pasta, deviled eggs, pineapple casserole, yeast rolls and my Nanny's lemon pie.  Jason and I had a repeat of it last night.  I wish there was more! 

It was a great afternoon spent with family.  Next year Isla will be able to join in the fun of the egg hunt, and I know Sims will love that.


And just like that, everyone was gone, and our house was quiet.  We were all pretty exhausted from such a fun weekend.  Actually, I'm still a little worn out.  I'm getting old!

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Baseball, Neil and Tornadoes

Jason and I had a great date night on Friday.  We went to dinner at Tobacco Road Sports Cafe, since it is next door to the Durham Performing Arts Center (DPAC).  I had never been to that part of Durham before, and I was really impressed.  The restaurant overlooks the Durham Bulls Park, so you can watch the game on their outdoor balcony.  The season opening game started at 7:00, and the concert started at 8:00.  It was really awesome to be able to watch a little bit of the game before we headed over to DPAC.  It made me think that I may actually want to go to a Durham Bulls game sometime.  Come on, they have hot dogs and beer.  You know they had me at hot dogs.


The concert was fantastic.  It was a one man show not counting his opening act, Bert Jansch, who played the acoustic guitar.  (I need to get some of his stuff.  He was great!)  Neil played 4 different guitars, 2 pianos, an organ and a harmonica.  Obviously not at the same time.  He played mainly his new stuff, which is really good.  I've been listening to his new album a lot lately, and I really like it.  And let me tell you, he can still rock!

DPAC is a fantastic venue!  Durham should be really proud of it.  I was impressed with everything.  Even the women's bathrooms were extremely efficient during intermission with the staff showing women where the open stalls were and handing out paper towels.  I will definitely go back there for another event!

Saturday was a very eventful weather day for our area.  North Carolina had 26 tornadoes.  The one that came through our area was an EF3.  (The scale goes from EF0 - EF5 for all those who aren't weather nerds.)  It was like living in the Midwest.  We were very lucky that we didn't see any action at our house.  Even though we did find insulation and some shingles in our yard afterward.  These didn't blow in with the wind.  These literally fell from the sky when it was raining and not windy at all.  Who knows where they came from?  The Lowe's that was destroyed in Sanford?  I'm glad that the visit from Jason's parents didn't involve hunkering down in a bathroom! 

Sunday evening we went to a potluck dinner with people from church and had a great time.  Sims loved watching the other kids play and playing with someone else's toys.  They had a lot of yard maintenance toys that he really liked.  I hope he's this excited about lawn mowers and leaf blowers when he is old enough to use the real things!

We had a nice, relaxing weekend, and we were very thankful that Jason's parents were able to babysit Sims (and visit with us, too.)

Friday, April 15, 2011

Neil Young Concert

I am so excited that Jason and I are going to the Neil Young concert tonight.  He has been on my must-see-in-concert list for some time now.  It will also be a nice date night for Jason and me.  We don't do that nearly enough.

Jason's parents are coming to visit for the weekend, and they are so sweet to take care of Sims for us tonight.  I know that Sims will enjoy spending some quality time with them.

And I will enjoy a glass of wine with dinner with my husband! 

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Enjoying the Springtime

This time of the year is so beautiful with all the azaleas blooming and the new leaves on the trees.  We've been trying to spend a lot of time outside before the mosquitos take over our yard.  I've already been biten by one of those suckers this year!  Can you believe it?  You see, mosquitos and I have a love-hate relationship.  They love me, and I hate them.  All this rain that we keep getting is not helping either.  But in the evening, if it's dry and warm, we are outside.  I thought I would share some pictures from a couple of our recent outside adventures.


Here is the look I got after we had walked along the greenway on Sunday.  You can tell he was thrilled to have his picture taken.


So overdramatic!

Monday, April 11, 2011

Family Time

Mom and Smith came to visit this weekend, and we really enjoyed the family time together.  I felt like I hadn't seen them in ages, and it probably has been longer than normal.  We started off our Saturday with some house shopping.  Mom and Smith had found a house online that they were interested in, so we all had to go see it.  It may seem strange, but all of us (including the guys) love to look at houses.  For many years we have all gone to the Parade of Homes, so of course we couldn't miss a chance to see this house.  We really liked it, and it had such a great feel and flow to it.  I would definitely like to spend more time there.  It's just exciting to think that the house hunt has officially begun for them, considering that Mom and I have been looking unofficially (online) for years now!  Of course, their house in Shelby needs to be sold first.  Details, details...

The rest of Saturday was spent shopping (my family's other favorite past-time.  No visit from Mom and Smith is complete without a trip to TJ Maxx and/or Homegoods.), watching the Masters and driving in a crazy rainstorm to get home.

Yesterday, Jason, Sims and I got to walk on the new greenway that goes right by our neighborhood.  We totally misjudged the temperature and burned up the whole way, but it was a great (hilly) walk that follows a creek most of the way.  It was so nice to hear the water flowing down the creek.  I am so ready for some lake, beach, pool time.  I just love the warm weather!

Friday, April 8, 2011

Cousins

I just had to share a couple of pics of Sims and his cousin Isla.  We met them for dinner at our usual spot, Cracker Barrel, on Sunday evening.  After dinner, Sims just wanted to hold her hand, and it was so cute that I had to take some pictures.  The quality is horrible because they are from my phone, but they still make me smile.


I love how intensely Isla is staring at Sims.  They both seem fascinated with each other.  I'm so glad that we will get more family time with Isla and her parents this weekend!

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Hockey fan

We don't watch much TV in our house.  Actually when Sims is awake, the television is rarely on.  We really only watch one show, and we watch it after Sims goes to bed.  Jason will watch some games now and then, even when Sims is awake.  Sims ignores this for the most part.  Recently he has started to show some interest in basketball, but his real love is hockey.  This boy loves hockey!  He talks about hockey all the time.  He asks to watch hockey on TV (by pointing at the TV and saying, "Hockey?")  He plays hockey with a wooden spoon as his stick.  He has a book with one page about hockey, and he loves that page so much that we rarely go any further.

TV has created a hockey monster out of Sims.

I will admit that it is really cute to see his excitement when he watches it on TV.  Jason (the enabler) even went on a search one night for a hockey games for Sims to watch.  I didn't even realize they played college hockey games on TV, which is pretty cool.  Sims loved it.


He didn't watch for long, but he was so excited he wouldn't even sit down to watch it or move a few feet away, so he could see the whole screen at one time.  Once the season is over, I guess we will have to check out a lot of hockey books from the library!  That way he can still get his hockey fix.

Monday, April 4, 2011

What a difference the weather makes

After a week of cold and rain, we had a beautiful, spring-like weekend.  I'll have to admit that the grey skies and rain made me realize that I could never live in the Pacific Northwest.  My mood is really affected by the weather.  Last weekend, I just didn't want to do anything.  There were so many things that needed to be done around the house, and I was so lazy.  I just wanted to do nothing but nap. 

This weekend was so different.  Even though the weather was great to be outside (despite all the pollen), I was busy, busy, busy inside.  I was in the mood to get things done.  I even polished some of our silver!  I haven't done that in years.  And the master bathroom hasn't been this clean in years, either.  I even cleaned the baseboards, put up a new shower curtain liner and wiped down the cabinets.  It's as close as you can get to luxury in our circa 1985 bathroom.

Speaking of luxury, we bought some new bedding for our guest bedroom on Friday.  (It was the perfect Friday evening for us middle-aged people: dinner at a family-friendly restaurant and shopping at Homegoods.)  Considering that the old comforter didn't quite cover both sides of the mattress, I know our guests will appreciate the new linens.  This also means a whole new decorating scheme for the room, so I'm excited about more shopping!

Even though my weekend may sound humdrum to you, I really saw it as a great weekend.  It actually felt like a weekend, and I came back to work ready for the week ahead.  Unlike last week, when I started off the week wishing it was Friday.  What a difference the weather makes!