clebrating St. Patty's

One of the things I love about having a child is that you can always find something to celebrate and be excited about. For St. Patrick's Day we played with some green crayola model magic and did a fun hunt for the treasure activity. The bowl is filled with peas and lentils. I hid some gold coins inside and let Rhone scoop, dump, throw, and occasionally taste until his little heart was content. It entertained him for a long time.




That night our friends invited us over for a yummy St. Patrick's day dinner which included a fruit rainbow, a pot of gold (yellow squash) and green drinks and desserts. Thanks for the yummy dinner Amy (and boys). While we were eating some sneaky leprechauns made it upstairs and hid a box of gold for the boys. What a fun green day!

kitchen renovation

That's right we haven't even been in our brand new house a year and we have practically redone our kitchen. The long story short, is that we had mold growing behind our kitchen sink. The good news is that we probably would have made these upgrades before selling so it's nice that we get to live here and enjoy them.

Granite counters, new quartz sink (good bye water spotted stainless!), new facet and new backsplash. I am looking for something to put above my window, any suggestions? I'm thinking something vinyl, but not sure what yet.

The grout was just barely put on when I took this picture, so there is still some on the tiles here, but the close up shows you the pattern and our glass inlay tiles.


New wall color below the chair rail. It brings out the hint of blue in the granite, covers up the scuffed up walls, and keeps my kitchen feeling a little country. Well at least that's what I think it does. I also made the art work above the window found on this blog. Mine needs a better glue job, but it is adding some color and I already had the paper from an earlier project.

We still have a little finishing work to do, but are loving our new kitchen and having it all put back together again.

Happy St. Patty's...

...from our little leprechaun.

little helper

Today I made a hundred cookies (literally) for the USO on base. I did it all while Rhone was napping (for efficiency and sanitary purposes). There were a few cookies left on the sheet, so I let him help me put them on the cooling rack. He did so good, that we reenacted it for Ben. You can watch too since we filmed it. He is such a curious little cook!

We had company- in PA

We took a little road trip to Pennsylvania while Erich and Kara were here. The guys headed off to Blue Mountain Ski resort, while the moms and the boys played at the Crayola Factory.


We meet Erich and Kara in Allentown, PA because we had some errands to get done that morning. We ALL stayed in the same hotel room. For 4 adults and 2 little boys we fared pretty well on sleep. We played in the pool, ate at a local brewery and found a delicious chocolate shop. All the chocolates were hand made at the store called Josh Early Candies.

Ben and Rhone with Erich and Jacob

Family fun time

The Crayola Factory is in Easton, PA. It was a delightfully fun and vibrant place. There was so much stuff to do there and no crowd since it was a weekday morning. Some of it was, of course, a little advanced for Rhone but he still enjoyed himself and the freedom to run around. We even got to watch 1,200 red crayola crayons be made. I sure did feel like such a mom there though.

Trying to figure out how the markers come out of that machine.

Playing with his magic model dough.


Cousins coloring on the indoor sidewalk.

Watching the red crayons get labeled for the box.

This is my favorite thing we made that day. I love Rhone's perfect little hand-print.

Above the Crayola Factory there was also a transportation musem that was included with our admission. It was really interesting, but the boys were pretty tuckered out by then, so we just saw a little bit of it.

Helping our boat go through the canal system. I actually learned a lot through this hands on activity. This picture turned out pretty good considering I was holding Rhone with one hand while taking the picture with the other. Aren't moms great multi-taskers.

We had a great time at the Crayola Factory and I would definitely recommend a visit to anyone- well with kids :). There are no pictures of skiing because I had the camera. Ben also arranged for us to tour a C-5 so hopefully I'll be able to round up a few of those pictures from Erich and Kara to put in my last post about their visit.

We had company - at the beach

Ben's older brother and his family came to visit this last week. We had so much fun catching up with them. We did lots of fun things together. Of course we did beaches. We went to a beach on the bay side and beaches right on the Atlantic ocean. Unfortunately it was a little chilly, but still beautiful.

Rhone's not afraid of being left behind. He explores at his own pace.

Erich waded out through a yucky low-tide mess to get part of a crab shell, then just further down we found this one right on the sand. I couldn't believe how big it was (we should have put something in the picture for scale).

The Cape Henlopen Lighthouse is just off shore from the state park.

We got Capriotti's sandwiches (a Delaware original) to take for a beach pic-nic. Unfortunately it was too cold and windy on the beach so we ate them hunkered down behind an old WWII bunker that still stands in the state park. Rhone helped himself to my sandwich. He just strolled around the grass eating it.

Kara, Erich, and Jake taking in the ocean view.

Little boys taking in a big view.

More of our adventures with family coming soon.