How did that happen?

Last Thursday Reid celebrated his FIFTH birthday. How on earth did that happen? It seems crazy that he is already five. On the other hand, he does have two younger siblings already, so I shouldn't be so surprised.

We didn't do anything extravagant -- just dinner, cake and presents with Grandma & Grandpa and a good friend. It turned out to be a very nice day. And no fancy cake this time -- I just couldn't get it done. I did try a new chocolate frosting recipe, which was a disaster. I'm afraid I have lost all trust in Martha at this point. The frosting was TOO chocolaty and very runny (even though I doubled the powdered sugar in it to try and thicken it up).

Here are a couple of his five year photos I took:

And to top the week off, he "graduated" from preschool. Now, don't get me started on this...I think graduation ceremonies for preschoolers are silly. From the looks of things on Friday, however, I was the only parent who thought that way. Oh well...Reid enjoyed the event, and that is all that I really care about.

My latest crafting project!

So, here are a few pics of my latest crafting/knitting project. I love the way it looks, but won't be making another because of how difficult it was to attach the skirt to the bodice. I think I stitched the skirt on WAY too tight, so it is possible that the stitches will get ripped out anyway. It was a quick project, at least!

For those of you on ravelry.com, this is the Summerlin pattern!

Bugs!

So, Lucy is quite a girly girl. She loves my shoes and purse and clothes (though, she'll happily try on anyone's clothes). She also hates bugs. And when I say hate, I mean she is deathly afraid of anything that looks like it could be a bug -- a speck of lint, a poppy seed, a housefly, etc. I'm not sure where she gets this from, because I don't tend to freak out about bugs (well, at least not anymore -- having my bug killer out of the country for a year cured me of much of my fear of critters).

If a fly lands on the table while we're eating, she'll scream, start shaking and yell "bu, bu" until someone else shoes it away. If there is a bug buzzing around the window, she'll stop whatever she is doing to watch it, just to make sure it doesn't come and get her. And, heaven forbid there be a black speck of lint on the carpet -- it COULD be an ant, you know -- because she might not go in the room again.

Sigh...and we live in North Carolina, which is like one great big ant hill.

A long weekend...

So, I spent the weekend in Ohio visiting Hannah. It was a good weekend for me to go, because my mom was having surgery, so I got to be there for that, too. (Her surgery went well, by the way.)

I snapped a few pictures of Hannah while I was there and thought I'd throw them up, since it has been a while since I put a new picture of here up, too.

We didn't do too much exciting. We watched "The Blind Side" (which was very good) on Saturday and, well, I honestly don't remember what we watched on Sunday (something I've seen before...it obviously made a huge impression on me). Hmmm...that is bad. But, we did watch a movie on Sunday, after my mom got home. Thanks to our movie watching, I managed to finishing knitting two projects and start a third. I'd put pictures up, but two of the three are gifts, so I'll have to do it at some later point. The third project is for Lucy -- a sundress with a knit bodice and sewn on skirt. I'm working on the skirt this week, so I'll put a picture of that project up later. It better be done this week, though I need to stop and get some thread to finish it.

Hannah and I also did a bit of shopping, but I think Hannah enjoyed the stop at Maggie Moo's and the chocolate shop more than the rest of the shopping (I cringe to think of the number of calories I consumed on Saturday). They had red velvet ice cream, which I am totally inspired to try and re-create at home now -- it was REALLY good.

I drove back yesterday. About half way home I realized that I didn't feel very well. By the time I got home I could barely talk and my head was stuffy and ached. So, I guess I didn't miss out on the bug the kids had thrown around last week.

My dear sweet husband took all three kids with him tonight to our church group meeting so that I could have some downtime and work on getting better, for which I am truly grateful. I got one of the good ones, that is for sure!

Some recent pics of the kids!

A week or so ago we headed to the local botanical gardens with some friends. Here are a few shots of the kids from that trip, since I haven't posted any of them in a while!

And, I don't think I've mentioned it here, but we now have a new fully licensed bicyclist in the family! Check out Reid's new trick:

Neuschwanstein & Bavaria

Ah....this is taking me forever to get through the pictures!

This was, by far, my favorite day of the trip. We spent the night in Garmisch (which was a lovely little town -- a winter resort, really).

Our first stop of the day was Neuschwanstein, which is the castle that Disney based theirs off of and it was also used in the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Here is a shot of the outside:

I'm not sure if this was purely decorative or if this was a downspout, but I thought it was cool:

Just another part of the castle:

And here are several shots from the castle grounds of the surrounding area, which was dotted with rolling hills, little towns, lakes and the Alps!

This is the neighboring castle, which we didn't have time to hike to and it remains on my "to do" list for the next trip:

This was an observation bridge that was built behind the castle. It was a great spot to get pictures of the castle, so we hiked to it.

But then I wouldn't go more than a few feet onto it, because I don't like bridges, so I only got pictures of what was below the bridge. I was amazed at how clear the water was here!!!



We saw these signs repeatedly in Germany and referred to them as the "frog crossing signs". They totally amused us. I'm assuming the sign means something about slippery roads, but I guess they could just really love their frogs there. I wish I would have taken more time to photograph the things that we saw like this better -- the ordinary stuff that is just SO different than what we have here in the US!

A little funny for you...

...on Sunday, when we were driving to church, Lucy was being quite talkative. She was giggling and saying silly things, so I told her, "Lucy, you're a ham." Reid responded from the backseat with, "Yeah, Lucy, you're a steak!"