Hoppy days...

Busy Easter weekend for the Nockinbirds.  I've only just recovered.  And now we start TAKS testing.  Happy thoughts, think happy thoughts.  Saturday started with Build And Grow fun at Lowe's.

We now have a backless bird house suction-cupped to the window so we can see when we have guests.
After a refreshing snow cone, we got the news that the McKinney cousins had arrived!  It was off to the U-pick strawberry patch!

Look for the giant metal strawberry sculpture, you can't miss it.  Really.

Some of us were a little hesitant to embrace the agricultural life.

But we all got into the swing of it pretty quickly.

Little Miss, with the berry stained fingers, is a very productive picker.

Eight pounds of strawberries went home with us.  Not counting the two Lolo had a squishy grip on for the whole adventure.

Lolly came home with us for an afternoon of cousin fun.  Emily often takes advantage of a contorted Twister victim for some kiss stealing.

Which really ruins balance and concentration for all.

An unusual quiet fell over the house, and I realized the fun had moved outside.  They discovered Little Miss's "garden" is full of tiny snail shells.  You never know what unexpected treasures you may stumble upon.

Next, it was shells of a different kind... Easter eggs!

The egg spinner was not especially successful, but it was enjoyed.

FOUR! dozen Easter eggs.  It's worth a week of egg salad and devilled eggs for breakfast for all the fun they had.

We've had some serious family patience issues over the tying of shoes (which she almost has down) and pulling of socks juuuust right.  Sequined laceless sneakers seemed to be an option we can all live with.  If only she could wear them to school.  It's a fight every morning to get the uniform sneakers tied acceptably.  Ugh.  Hopefully a phase she'll phase out of over the summer.

The Easter Bunny came!! With Squinkies, Zoobles and Zhu Zhu puppies, oh, my!  Mr. Bunny went with a lamb this year, since we already have several Webkinz bunnies.

The festivities were at Molly and Papa's.  The half-installed sprinkler system made for a fun Easter egg hunt.

Nothing says Christian holiday like a cold brew at the kids' egg hunt.

Topped off by the best ham EVER and a carrot cake that could make you go off chocolate.  A very good Easter weekend.

She's wheels off, baby!

The stars were in alignment and the training wheels were removed (for the second time) and off she went.  Walking...bicycle...next she'll be driving.  All moving her further away from being my baby and further away from her mother--WAAAAAAHHHHH, sniffle, sniffle. 

Busy couple of weeks...

but aren't they always?

The AP classes made their annual trek to the 6th Floor Museum.

This is the first time in the eight years that I've been going that it was ridiculously cold.  They're huddling for warmth before the traditional grassy knoll photo.

The chill seemed to take some of their high-spirits away.

This was the closest we got to having any of them run out to have their picture taken standing on one of the X's that mark the spots where JFK was hit.  They usually don't grasp that this is a busy road in a busy city.  And we didn't have to push anyone out the way of a DART train this year--all around a successful trip.

Lunch at Spaghetti Warehouse is always enjoyed greatly.

It's a little bit harder to get most of them excited about art museum, however.  Except for those who wander into the African tribal art rooms--they're always struck by carvings with the exaggerated male...ahem.  They're not all like Ma and Pa Kettle's Kids Go To The Big City Museum...just most of them.

In other exciting news of the last two weeks, Molly finally proved she's a genius.

Little Miss and Loverboy made pizza.

MMMmmmm.

And all the Nockinbirds enjoyed art night using the 3D graph paper for drawing and the hypotrochoid kit (like a spirograph--which you can no longer find!) that I picked up at the museum shop. 

We had a Christian Round Up Spaghetti Dinner (Christians, cowboys, spaghetti--of course!) to keep our Friday night lively last week.  Little Miss is belting out a tune next to the girl in the pink hat.  Molly won the class project in the silent auction--a bird house.  Given what she paid for it, we will be displaying that treasure inside.

Last Saturday we started the long process of rehabing the yard.  I found a serpent in our garden and when I yelled "snake!!!!!!" (when I finally realized it wasn't an overly large worm as I first thought) my mother came to my rescue armed with...a stick she had just trimmed.  The serpent has obviously lived to see another day.  But, we also found a horned toad!  I think he was a little dazed having just been raked out of a flower bed along with a bunch of ugly red mulch.

Last Sunday I tried out and adjusted a recipe for vegan (!?) maple oatmeal raisin cookies.  Serious yum.  Everybody loved them.

Tooth #5 (on the bottom) vacated the property Friday at school.  Little Miss was very proud that she pulled it herself.  She just counted 1-2-3 and pulled straight up to her nose.  Followed by lots of blood.  I wonder if Miss Stanley knew what she was getting herself into when decided to become a kindergarten teacher.

The same Miss Stanley who came to Little Miss's bday party and who we saw last night at another classmate's bday party.  Isn't that sweet?  If I went to my student's birthday parties...well, I'd be the only one who wouldn't get a "minor in possession" ticket.  We've had some serious scandals going on with a large number of students this week.  Alas.  But this party was seriously cute!  It was at a costume jewelry/beading store and they all got to make a necklace, which Little Miss is modeling above.

I spent the top half of my day giving the ACT.  FUN.  NOT.  Totally took the desire to snap photos out of me.  I think tomorrow's going to be another yard day--tune back in for some landscape love pics.

And CHEER Again!

Hello there.  I haven't forgotten about you.  Spring Break was K-razy (fun) and then I needed a week to recover.  Not the kind of fun I would have needed recovering from twenty years ago...but still.  I love me some Spring Break!

And the fun never ends for the Nockinbirds.  Little Miss had cheer competition at Cowboy Stadium this past Saturday.  That's always some good people watching!

Including watching my people.  The sparkly stars were a new addition to the makeup line up.  I'm still washing stray glitter out of my clothes.

Molly stopped by to enjoy the show on her way back from the McKinney Bandy's.

Loverboy took this one as we awaited the cheering. 

There they are!

And they got to have a picture made with a REAL (parts of her anyway) Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader!!!  Her name just happened to be the very same as Little Miss's!  They both seemed excited about that.  I think Little Miss would sleep with her trophy if we let her; she made sure it was her picture.

And Molly caved in and shelled out for a cheerleader dog, custom outfitted to "match" Little Miss.

The happy attitude was waning as we left.  We were all a tad drained, not the least because there was a two-year-old little girl that went missing for two hours while we were there.  It occured to me that not only is this cheer thing only a step away from "Toddlers and Tiaras" but also a child molester's dream.  Ick.  Thank God the little girl was found safe and sound.

For some reason, walking backwards to the car cheered her up.

And we were all quite cheery over dinner at El Fenix.  The "gingerbread man" sopapillas really brought smiles.

I'll be back with true stories of Spring Break.

Cheer!

Saturday, the gym had a practice performance along with a "show off" by the tumbling team.  Holy cow.  Those kids must have springs in their feet.  Little Miss is the second one (the one to the right of the girl in front).  Of course, my battery gave out after the first 27 seonds..but enjoy.

I'm glad I wasn't in charge of sweeping the glitter eye makeup off the floor.  I don't know how this ended up more labor intensive for me when it wasn't even an actual competiton, but it did.  I was put in charge of wrangling the mini team when they weren't on the floor.  Lot of energy in that group.  It started at 1:30 for makeup (better than our last competiton when we had to be in Garland at 7:00 in the morning!) but we were there until 6:00.  This is sounding really whiny.  It was fun and ALL the kids got a chance to "show off"--Little Miss was, of course, first in line to run the mat and she nailed her cartwheel--for the first time...and in front of a crowd.  Each of them also got an award.  Hers was "most improved."  My favorite was "prettiest in pink."  Very creative coaches.

Scary smile.

They also got goody-bags, a picture frame, and a megaphone sign with their name on it.  I contributed nothing to this effort, so I feel like a total slacker parent--maybe that's how I pulled wrangling duty.  Good trade.

In case you were wondering, I do have a matching spirit shirt.

Sunday we enjoyed just being at home.  Little Miss was put out with the "messy birds" who knocked feed out of the feeder and onto the patio, so she was sweeping it up.

And seeing if she could reach the top of the whirly-thingy.  She could.

We took our daily walk around the yard, appreciating the flowers and flowering trees.  We noticed a low level buzzing sound when we were under the redbud.  When a bee almost flew up my nose, I realized it was coming from the pear tree--and the bazillion bees making happy among the white flowers.  We decided to avoid the pear tree until the sun is setting and the bees have called it a night.

In the front yard, those two were making a lot of noise for such small birds.

This guy, look for the yellow at the bottom of the tail in the middle of the frame, was one of a hundred that were enjoying the day among the red berries, which, by the way, are completely gone from this tree as of today.  I need a bird guide and a zoom lens.

I'm looking forward to day light savings time...more time to enjoy being outside.

March, in like a lamb

Even after the beating that was the TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) day today, or maybe because of it, I really needed to get outside and enjoy the glorious weather we've been having. I won't elaborate on the beating except to say, one down, three more to go at the end of April...except that my school has decided to proceed with the next two days as if we were taking the math and science TAKS tests and use those results as benchmarks for the April (real) exam.  Note that social studies is left out of the fun.  We had to give up two days of our class time last week to give our benchmark, now we lose two more days instructional time to give math and science benchmarks...bitter much?  Eight school days until spring break!  Now back to the delights of March...

The whole yard needs a lot of work, but I decided that weeding the front flower beds would be a nice way to spend an hour after we got home.  Little Miss was very excited to help...

if helping was running around chasing the dog with her repurposed Walmart/weed collection bag.  I got about 1/3 of the left side of the bed done when my bag was full.  LOTS more to do.

Then we took a flower finding tour of the back yard.  Individual daffodils are popping up in very odd places.  Do bulbs migrate?  How?  The picture above is of the big tree in our back yard.  I had been leaning towards believing it was an ornamental pear tree, but I'm not sure.  It's full of white flower buds right now.  We'll see.

Molly identified this one as a red bud tree.  But it looks quite a bit different from the one in the front yard that she thought was a red bud...I'm going to need some reference books...or the internet.  Yea for spring!

A day of yum...

Sunday was very high on the yum scale in Nockinbirdland.  We finally got around to making the Valentine's Day "funfetti" cookies.  Good on their own, even better with canned icing and spinkles.  We were super fancy and put a decorator tip through the corner of a baggie, squashed all the icing in and went to town.  Reminder to self:  keep slice/bake cookies and icing on hand.  Little Miss was self entertained for quite some time.  And she did a pretty good job, too!

She must get it from her Molly...

who made a ridiculously delicious chocolate/pecan meringue pie for Sunday dinner (the dinner was chili-dogs, really good chili-dogs at that).  Best meringue EVER.  Proving the law of karmic balance, perhaps, were her turnovers...

a sad waste of pastry.  That pie, however, numnumnum.  I need to ask her for the recipe to make it again soon!