They're Finally Here!

Our family pictures are finally here! I am so excited and thought I'd share them with you and shamelessly plug Heart of Me Photography again.  I am a huge fan of all things creative and beautiful, and good photography is most certainly at the top of my list.  Note I said "good."  On the other hand cheap studio portraits make me cringe, no matter how cute the kids are!  I think photography is art and should take my breathe away AND make me look fabulous (thank you photoshop!) Shannon, the photographer (and my cousin), packaged our pictures in a beautiful package with a metal cd case with one of our pictures on the cover!  She also prints her pictures on a stock called linen texture that makes the photos almost look like they are canvas portraits. I had never seen that before and really loved it!  The "brag book" is amazing and she even threw in an extra gift, an iphone cover for me with the girls pictures on it! Can I tell you again how happy I am to have a photographer in the family? And if you live in Ohio, and are looking for a good photographer, look no further than Heart of Me!

Dog Days of Summer

We have been having a great summer so far! The kids are just at the age where they are a bit safer around water.  Meaning, with swimmies on, they won't drowned!  This has meant days and days at the pool already. We are all toasty brown and high on vitamin D! Loving summer!

Conrad has developed an unusual past time over the past few months, scouring Craigs list for pets.  I don't know why, but he spends much free time looking for dogs and tempting the kids into good behavior with promises of new furry friends.  Least you think his promises are in vain, and you aren't on my Facebook page...last week we got a dog!

He found a family nearby who had lost a job and was looking to "rehome" thier beautiful three year old Golden Retriever.  We went to see her with reminders to the girls that we probably wouldn't get her.  But, it was love at first sight.  She's very calm and friendly, and already very well trained.  She was inexpensive and in great health.  But, we love the well trained part best!  Her name is Kensie.  We kept her name, since she's three, but I decided her "real" full name would be Kensington, after Kensington Palace and the Queen's Year of Jubilee.  God Save the Queen!

I'm not sure who loves her more, the kids or Conrad.  Kensie gets up and walks ConradConrad gets up and walks Kensie every morning and night.  It's good excercise for both of them!   Happy to have this little addition to our familly!

Memorial Day Weekend

Last weekend we went up North to my parents for Memorial Day weekend. My sister and her family came along. We celebrated my dad's birthday and Conrad and I's anniversary. We also went to my mom's friend, Doc's ranch for some amazing food and pony rides!  We got some good pictures too.

The highlight of the weekend was my cousin Shannon, who just started her own photography business, taking our family pictures. I don't have them all back, and I'm dying to see them, especially after the first couple of teasers. If you are in the Northern Ohio area and need a good photographer, you have to check out Heart of Me Photography. She's very reasonable and heads above the rest with her eye for art and her skill in photoshop! Check out the below pictures, don't you just love the firefly photo?

Welcoming Summer 2012

I'm having a hard time believing that Isabelle is graduating from kindergarten in less than  a week! What? Where did the time go? I'm not going to lie to you, it was a rough start. What can I say, the girl has my genes, and we don't always do well with change.  Note to future Isabelle, from your mom, who's been there and done that: It get's easier, baby.  We get better with change the older we get.

Now that that's out of the way, we are looking forward to a footloose and fancy free summer. No school, no ballet, no home group.  No real committments. And my children are young so I am raging against the machine that tells me they have to be scheduled into every little activity that comes around. I can see the benefits for some kids at some point.  But we are just not there yet.  I want them to be able to run and play and be care free for a bit longer.  Thier daytimer days will come soon enough!

So, in order to maximize the summer fun, I've put together another list of fun things for us to do this summer. MOST of them are free, and we probably won't hit all of them, but making a list, forces me to look up the info, schedule it in and that way, if we are free and feelin' it, we can make a fun outing out of it. 

• Go to the pool
• Do  sprinkler Drive Thru Bike Wash
• Bonfire/Marshmellow Roast
• Weekend at Lake Erie/Mini Staycation
• Go Fishing
• Go to Outdoor Movie
• Go to Drive In
• Watch Fireworks
• Creekside Paddle Boasts
• Make Sandcastle
• Go to Big Splash
• Go to Farmers Market
• Fountains at Easton
• Go to  Parade
• Ride Carosel at Columbus Commons
• Take kids to eat at Food Truck
• Find an ice cream truck
• Pick strawberries/blackberries/raspberries
• Go to Columbus Metro Parks Activity
• Go to kids activity at Homestead Park
• Paint with Pudding
• Do Library Reading Club
• Go on a family picnic
• Go to Cosi
• Go to Zoo
• Catch fireflies to use at nightlights
• Ohio Craft Museum
• Columbus Latin Festival
• Arts in the Alley
• Star Gazing
• Go caving in Hocking Hills - another staycation
• Go to the Works Children's Museum
• Go o the Wilds
• Easton Lego store free activity morning
• Surla Table children's cooking class
• Free movie morning at local cinema
• Children's Theatre-Sleeping Beauty
• Mini Golf
• Play in fountains at Scioto Mile

Shew...how many weeks do we have in summer? What did I say about being non schedul-y this summer?  Well, I guess I also want to create memories and keep the crazy to a minimum...so the flip side to that coin is just say no to boredom, television watching, and fighting sisters!

Easter Pintrest

Thank you Pintrest again for great Easter ideas.  We made these treats for Grace and Isabelle's Easter Parties at Daycare.  The girls helped me and they were a huge hit!

I also wanted a spring-y mantel and wah-la.  A little yarn and felt and a quick trip to the thrift store later.  I love it!

Easter Sunday

Does two years in a row a tradition make? Well, if so, we officially have ourselves a tradition! The Michael's have hosted Easter Sunday dinner two years in a row. It's quite a feat considering our family lives two hours plus away from us. We had a great Easter Weekend. Besides all of the new dresses, we had a good visit from the Easter Bunny. She He led the girls through a scavanger hunt to find thier Easter Baskets. I think a good time was had by all!

The girls woke up to jelly beans leading to thier first clue (and new umbrellas!)

Thier second clue led them to the fruit basket in the kitchen and some Grow your own strawberry kits.

The third clue was in the dryer and had new purses!

Finally! hidden in the utility closet!

Palm Sunday

In my typical fashion I am a couple of weeks behind on what's happening in our lives. But I have been lovelingly reminded that there are family members in India who are waiting to see new pictures! That is a great reminder for me to keep up my little blogging experiment! So I wanted to share with you some pictures of Palm Sunday. Our church has a kid-centric service on palm sunday complete with 100,000 easter egg hunt and a great service that is mostly for children. Our kids love it and it's a huge community outreach. Have I mentioned we love our church? Well, we do!!


You can see the football field dotted with eggs for the hunt. I guess "hunt" is a strong word for what occured. Egg "Pick Up" is probably more appropriate!


They had several bunnies on stage before the service you could go and get your pictures taken with!



Isabelle loved the bunnies...Grace, on the other hand, still has a fear of people dressed up as characters!


Face painted bunny whiskers and nose!


One of our little neighbors, Riley, came with us! The girls had a great time with her!

Pizza Basics

We love pizza at our house. Imagine that. An American family that loves pizza? Well, it's true. But we also like to try to eat at home as much as possible. Maybe it goes without saying, but it's cheaper and healthier than eating out. So over the past few years I've perfected our pizza recipe and I would like to share it with you. First off, I use THIS pizza recipe from the Pioneer Woman. She's awesome and using one of her recipes is pretty much a fail safe!

Other things I've picked up over the years that make an outstanding pizza are the following:
Make your dough the night before, and put it the fridge. Take it out and let it warm up before you roll it out or it will be too cold and elastic to roll properly.
Use a baking stone. Put it in the oven and heat your oven on as high as it will go. For us that's 550 degrees.
After rolling out the pizza crust, I place the crust on parchment paper, so I can slide it and the parchment paper onto the hot stone for a super crusty crust.
I put the toppings on, pepperoni last so it curls up nice and crisp.
If you want something really decadent, use whole mozerella and slice it and place it on your pizza. A little more conservative in the calorie area, shred it on.
We also use turkey pepperoni to cut calories.
I also sprinkle on a few dried spices (fresh if I have them) basil, garlic powder, and oregono
Lower the heat to about 475 degrees when you put the pizza in the oven and bake pizza 8-10 minutes until bubbly and brown.
Enjoy!

A New Additon

Before anyone gets excited, when I say New Addition, I mean that literally. We are remodeling our garage attic to have a completed space in our house. I know, I apologize if my title was bit misleading! But it got your here, didn't it?

We have a lovely, albeit small, space above our garage with a full staircase. We have gone back and forth about whether or not to finish this space. In the end, we decided to turn our attic into a "mother-in-law suite". We have a family friend who does great work and has a good eye for finishing detail and he has worked his tail off on our new attic efficiency. It was also fun choosing all of the elements that go with it.

I am really into gray currently and want to paint all of my house in shades of grey. But for now, I will settle for my attic space. We bought a few items to complement the space and even put in a nice sized full bathroom. I also spent a weekend brown paper bagging the staircase using this tutorial and I must say, it turned out rather nice!

This was my inspiration:


This was the "before" picture


Just a regular ole garage from the outside

But now....ta da!

A Pittsburgh Stay-cation

We decided to do a mini "stay-cation" with the girls over Presidents Day weekend. I had read that Pittsburgh, a mere three hours from home, was a great place for kids, so we made some plans and off we went! The kids were excited to get out of the routine and so were we!

Conrad and I pricelined a hotel and ended up at the beautiful Embassy Suites (and apparently we were only one of a thousand other families with the same thoughts and a wifi access to Priceline!) It was perfect for our family, with a suite of rooms, an indoor pool, a made to order free breakfast, and an awesome atrium complete with waterfall and large colorful fish to wow the kids!

Our first day we visited the Pittsburgh Children's Museum and had the best time watching the kids enjoy the great exhibits and hands on play. Our highlights here was the wierd gravity room and the art studio, where the girls got to make thier own paper!


Our second day we went to the Carnige Science Center and that was cool too! The highlight for Conrad was the real life retired submarine that we got to tour. The highlight for Isabelle was getting to jump on the trampolene, tethered to a bungee cord in the SportsWorks. (The lowlight for Grace was missing this because she just didn't have the patience to stand in the long line! Oh the wailing!)




We ended that day at the Duquesne Incline. Which is this old historical trolley that takes you up and down the mountain with a great view of Pittsburgh!

Thanks to my Aunt Brenda, who buys our family a COSI membership every year for Christmas, we got in FREE to all of the museums/science centers with the reciprical membership! It would have cost us upwards of $160! Thanks Aunt Brenda!

We ended the trip with a stop at Mommy's favorite store, Ikea, and even had to put down the last seat in the van to fit all of our purchases in. We bought a ton of stuff for our new addition (info and pictures coming soon!) And, on our way home we stopped at Cabella's in West Virginia. I call it my brother-in-law, Eric's version of Ikea. All of those stuffed animals are pretty cool. But I can honestly say, there is nothing there that remotely tempts me to spend money. Nothing at all!

Grace-isms and Isabelle-isms

We are in the midst of the winter doll drums here. Although I can't complain since we have had a very mild winter here in the Midwest. I don't think we've seen nary a snow day around these parts! So if you're wondering where we've been. We are here. But I'm not feeling much inspired right now! While dreaming of warmer sunnier days, we were chatting about where we'd like to go. I was in the car with my well traveled children and the following conversation happened:

Mommy: Isabelle, would you like to stop somewhere for vacation on our way to India next time? Maybe London or Italy or Turkey?
Isabelle: Yes! Turkey. Definatley Turkey
Grace:.....Fitaly! I want to go to Fitaly
Mommy: Sounds good. I'd like to go to Greece. Doesn't that sound like fun?
Isabelle: Not Fitally or Greece. Chicken. I want to go to Chicken.
Mommy: *chuckle* You mean Turkey, right?
Isabelle: Chicken. You said we could to go Chicken
Mommy: I'm pretty sure I said Turkey.