Mulch Cowgirl

Delia is fascinated by big piles of mulch. Our neighbor had one, her playground had one, and in early April, we got one too! She got a kick out of seeing the truck dump it out in our driveway. Then she got her little gardening tools and started digging.

I LOVE MULCH!

And being a cowgirl.

And being sweet.

And breaking out in spontaneous dance.

Party Party

We have been to a LOT of birthday parties over the past few months. There have been castle inflatable jumpers, indoor cardboard castles, tunnels and ball pits, and on and on. Usually, if I am toting 2 kiddos and all their stuff, the camera doesn't make it out of the car. I had just been to a photography workshop the day we went to this party for our friend Joseph (late March), so I was playing with some pretty sophisticated things that I had learned, like... taking the camera out of Auto mode.

Look at this face! This girl would never sit down to supper and say "Yuck!" then go screaming to time out because she refused to apologize.

Money shot.

Delia is getting really good at pumping her legs to swing herself - I think that is what she is doing here.

Delia's friend Amelia. They are getting so big!

Who teaches these girls to pose?

Could Joseph be having any more fun?? Birthday!! Balloons!! Pizza!! Yeah!!

Springtime

Holy guacamole I am behind on my pictures. SO, here goes!

I took these pictures in early March on one of the first days when it was warm and pretty.

Delia loved all the little teeny flowers that were blooming and just started running through them.

These flowers are really teeny!

Delia and Miller, just chillin'.

I don't know what is going on here.

This is me trying to be good at photography when I'm really not. Still fun!

Storm Chase Update

Had a solid chase on Saturday. We started in Pratt, KS and weaved our way up toward Topeka where this storm first started showing good rotation.



As the storm passed over residential areas of Topeka and Interstate 70, it produced a menacing funnel. Thankfully, it did not touch down here. The animation speed of the gif above is 1/10 of reality.



North of the interstate, there was a river with few crossings, lots of dirt roads, and more trees than we prefer. We muscled through it and were rewarded with some good views.


We came across some damage, including a large tree across the road. We never saw a tornado touch down, but it is possible. May have also just been downdraft winds.


We followed the storm to Leavenworth, KS where we crossed the Missouri River. We then found a bluff and watched the remaining storms roll by.

Bananas

SO many pictures to catch up on.... for now, here's this.

Delia's First Dance Recital

Delia has been taking ballet (and tap) since January. She loves it and looks forward to class all week every week. We were concerned that she would be very shy in front of the crowd (~250 people), but that was definitely not an issue.


This is when they first ran out. Notice the two girls on the left still trying to find their marked spots on the stage. Also notice the teacher on the bottom right giving instructions. This is the last moment where all the kids were even close to being on the same page at the same time.


I think two of the other girls are about to jump or maybe just landed, but you can see Delia's amazing "vert" here. She is still shorter than the middle girl.


Delia strikes this pose a lot. It may or may not have actually been a part of the planned routine.

Ok, I was wrong. They actually got in sync pretty good for the exit.

After the show. Thankfully, mom knew to take flowers because dad was new to all this. Despite the fact that he takes her to practice each week and he took her early for dress rehearsal and "curtain call," he was woefully underdressed and sans flowers.

Passe or Crane Kick?

The Pioneer Woman! In February!

I haven't really been in the mood to post happy fun things because of the tragic tornadoes we had in April. Over 340 people were killed in Mississippi and Alabama, making it the second worst tornado outbreak in history. Since there are only about 3 degrees of separation in Mississippi, we had several family members or friends who knew people who were killed. Grady spent a Saturday in Eupora, MS behind a chainsaw and a tractor helping some old friends remove fallen trees from their property, and he's going back tomorrow. I dropped off some toiletries and blankets at a collection station downtown. So, send money to the Red Cross and help your neighbors. Now, on to lighter things.

Since we've dropped The Biggest Loser (it really is the same thing over and over), I don't watch much TV at all. My only celebrity obsession is Ree Drummond, The Pioneer Woman. Long story short, she married a cowboy, moved to his cattle ranch in Oklahoma, started a blog, and people went nuts over it. Her recipes, her photography, her kids, it's all fantastic. So fantastic that she has won tons of awards for the website and she's recently been featured on the Today Show, Throwdown with Bobby Flay, the View, Good Morning America, Southern Living magazine, etc. I check her site almost every day, I have her cookbook and use it often, and I am in the middle of her latest book, which tells the story of how she met her husband. And she is hilarious. The rumor is that she is getting her own cooking show. So when she came through Memphis in February on her book tour, I took baby boy and went up to stay with Jennifer for a girls weekend.

Cameron (7 months), Brooks (4 months) and Jennifer

You had to have a ticket to even get in line and we didn't realize that you could have gotten these "line tickets" ahead of time. When we arrived at 6pm, they were letting group A get in line. We bought the new book, got our line tickets, and our group letter was something like "T." So we went to eat dinner, came back, got coffee in the bookstore, looked at some books, strolled the babies around the store, and finally, around 10pm, we met Ree and she signed our books.

Yay! A nice lady with a really nice camera took our picture and emailed it to us!

Shopping the next day with the babies. Everyone kept asking if they were twins. "Shopping" with babies is kind of a joke. I think we went to 2 stores, but it was still a great weekend!