Busy Friday

2 weeks ago was the perfect storm of stay at home mommy/school/neighborhood activities.  It was Teacher appreciation week - so.... on monday bring cookies, on wednesday bring a pasta salad, on thursday bring homemade cards for 5 teachers, on friday bring something for the goodie bag, etc etc. Friday was also (1) Mother's day Tea,  (2) the set up for the yearly district foundation fundraiser,  (3) Children's book week parade (dress like your favorite book character) and (4) the neighborhood Front Yard Cookout.  Bob was able to maintain his normal schedule....although one day he helped out his company's Golf Tournament committee by doing a 'dry run' of the golf course.


 There's nothing sweeter than the First Grade Mother's Day Tea.  All the mommies show up and are escorted to their tiny seats where there are poems and drawings and flowers.  Then the kids sing several songs they've been rehearsing for weeks in their music class.  Parker normally tries to match a little better than red with blue plaid, but she was wearing part of her book week costume.

After the musical number, they served us lemonaide and cookies.

After that, I dashed off to help stuff 750 goodie bags for the next night's fundraiser.  It was one of those days where I ate a sandwich while in transit.

For the book character parade, Parker was Clementine.  She was thrilled because being Clementine meant she could carry around a stuffed kitty.  I was pretty pleased with our costume choice.  There were about 100 Junie Bs and a jillion Harry Potters.  Do you think there's any way I can convince her to be Laura Ingles next year? 

If it was a contest, the counselor would win.  She was Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs.

So after the Book Parade, we dashed to the grocery store and got provisions for the cookout.  Did I mention we also had a house guest that night too?  Luckily he's low maintenance.
There's a little island in our cul de sac, so everyone gathers there.

Cookout night coincided with one of the Mav's playoff games, so Bob borrowed a blow up screen and a HD projector so no one would have to miss a dribble.

You can't tell from my photos, but it had an amazing picture quality.  No one could believe how clear it was. 

Counting change

Mothers Day Meals

I wrote a nice long post about my lovely Mother's Day, but it has disappeared somehow.  I heard of this happening to someone else recently, so I may need to start looking for a more stable blog program and one that's easier to edit.  This newest version is sooooo glitchy. 

Anyway, hopefully you read what I wrote before, because there's no way I can recreate that magic again, but here's a short version:

Mother's Day brunch prepared by Bob and Parker.  Below that is dinner - Parker and Bob had spinach from the garden.

 

New garden bed that Bob and Parker made while I napped.  It's going to be for cantelope, pumpkins and sunflowers.  I obviously haven't learned my lesson about over planting.

Happy Anniversary To Us

Today is our 10 year anniversary! We've been slightly upstaged by that other wedding that happened today, but that's ok.
Parker has two little Brittish friends (twins) and they both wore tiaras all day at school today! Why didn't I think of that? Maybe next year I'll wear a crown of plumeria and gardenia in my hair all day. 

Parker's first room service

Scrambled eggs and fries. 

Nice to know our heathly ways have rubbed off on her.

All done!

Bob had a great race!  Personal best by about 4 minutes.  # 1726 overall out of 27000 roughly.  All his hard training seems to have paid off...he looks better than I've ever seen him after the other 2 marathons. As hard as it was I think he enjoyed himself.

- via Android

At 01:04 PM: Finish Athlete

At 01:04 PM: Finish Athlete Alert. Bob Post. Time 3:02:21, Pace 6:57

35k 2:30:35 Pace 0:06:56 Project

35k
2:30:35
Pace 0:06:56
Project finish 3:01:39

Our spot

Carla
- via Android

25k 1:46:33 Pace 0:06:52 Project

25k 1:46:33
Pace 0:06:52
Project time 2:59:54

15k 1:03:45 Pace 0:06:51 proj

15k 1:03:45
Pace 0:06:51
proj time 2:59:28

5k. 21:22. 10k 42:32 Pace

5k. 21:22. 10k 42:32
Pace 0:06:52
Project time. 2:59:54

Quick update with pictures

Sorry about the non-working pictures earlier.  I know it's cruel and unusual to say I'm posting drawings and bluebonnet pictures and then not do it.

Here are some quick pictures and updates of what's going on with us. Here's drawing Parker did the other day....she came home from school very inspired because she went to art that day and practiced drawing glasses. Notice how she has the straw broken in to two parts because "that's how it really looks when you see a straw in a glass". She's also added lots of details....dots for the fizz, a cherry, a lime wedge and an umbrella. The top sign says "Fetreing Chery LimeAde" (Featuring Cherry Limeaide) and the bottom says "Soda Shope" (Soda Shoppe).

Some Bluebonnet pictures with her cousin Lexie.

 

 

We are busy getting Bob ready to run the Boston Marathon on Monday. His bib number is 3713 and you can sign up for tracking or watch the live feed here: http://www.baa.org/races/boston-marathon/event-information/spectator-information.aspx I assume they'll have a camera at the finish line. He's in the first wave (fast people) that starts at 10am Boston time and you can look for him to finish between 3 and 3.5 hours after he starts if all goes well.

Friday

It's friday (or it was when I took these pictures), and friday always ends with pizza.  Sometimes I make the crust, sometimes I get it from Whole Foods.  This was a busy day, so I did WF dough. The toppings are usually whatever leftovers I have that I know won't get eaten over the weekend.  One was red bell pepper, onion, chicken and jalapeno.  One was zucchini, tomato, onion, pesto and goat cheese.  Wanna guess who's was who's?  (did I punctuate that right?)  Parker has recently moved WAY out of her pizza comfort zone and likes black olives on hers.  Last week she had red bell pepper and if we are ordering delivery, she requests sausage. 
Parker was not so thrilled to take this picture as you can see (since it wasn't her idea).  She doesn't appreciate being rushed, and you have to rush when you set hot food down in front of Bob and then say "wait a minute...".  

Parker being a mime (she's trapped in a glass box)

The mime thing is Parker's newest "look at me!".  She's determined to do a mime routine for the school talent show...if she can figure out how to incorporate a headstand into the act.

The other two Parker funnies this week are the day she woke up speaking in a British accent and her singing her original song, Chlorine Spider.  I'm tempted to get video of the Chlorine Spider song, but it really sticks in your head once you've heard it, so probably wouldn't be nice to inflict on you.

It lives!

I thought for sure that my asparagus, which I have been waiting 2 seasons to be able to harvest, had frozen.  All the fronds were totally dead, like dry sticks.  I was shocked to go out and see 3 shoots poking up!  Yay!!  I think there are a few more ready to shoot up too. I picked it and had it for dinner that night....Bob and Parker won't touch asparagus, so I didn't have to worry about sharing. 

So after that unexpected success, I was motivated to get the beds prepped for the spring and summer planting.  Parker and I are hoping that Bob will make us one more garden box so we don't have to plant the melon in between the boxwoods in the flowerbeds again.

Latest Parker email to Bob - Fwd: Look

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Parker Post"
Date: Mar 18, 2011 2:19 PM
Subject: Look
To: "Dad" <bpost.ut@gmail.com>

look at your head dosent it look smooth

Fwd: Thank you mommy

We've set Parker up with the ability to take pictures and email them.  We've been randomly getting emails like this one. 

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Parker Post
Date: Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 7:59 PM
Subject: Thank you mommy
To: Mom <cgpost@gmail.com>

Thank you for doing my nails,I relly like them

First tulip

Random update

I don't really have much to report, but I'll post some catch up pictures anyway.  

For the last couple months, another first grade mom and i have been working on a quilt for the school's fund raising auction.  We had the kids all color a quilt block, and then we sewed them together and had it professionally quilted.  The quilter was either inspired by our great design, or took pity on us and did a great custom job, going around all the hand prints and adding hearts here and there.  It looks so nice!  Now all we have to do is bind it, and hope it sells for a lot.  Here's Parker's square.  I'll show a pic of the whole semi-completed quilt in another post.

Buddy the fish is doing well (knock on wood).  We've upgraded his tank to one that is lighted, heated, filtered and planted.  Bob has him trained to eat from a syringe.  After some tummy issues, we had to switch his food to tiny pellets, but they sink, so you have to give them to him one by one or he misses them and the foul up the tank.  We also have to soak them first, so the dropper makes them easier to handle.  Buddy gets very aggressive and bites the dropper if you put it in the water...I'm pretty sure we could get him to 'jump' up for his food if we wanted to, but that doesn't seem very nice. 

It's warming up here.  I noticed today that the Angel Trump that we had in the garage for the winter has a couple big flowers on it.  This was a big surprise since I've only seen it bloom late in the summer.  The Myer lemon tree (far right) has lots of blooms too.  Hopefully we'll have lemons this year.