School's Out!

Summer is officially here! I always love to compare the 1st day of school and last day of school pictures of the kids. They change SO much in one school year. Pictures are Lindsay 1st and last and Brandon 1st and last (with his teacher, Mr. Cohen).

Lindsay's Recital

This year Lindsay took a combination ballet/tap class and for the final recital the class voted to perform a tap dance. They danced to the Jackson 5's "ABC". It was a cute dance and Lindsay did a great job! We are so proud of her!
Lindsay is third from the left.

Bella is here!

I haven't posted in a long time and a lot has happened at Casa Lemmons. We picked up our baby Chihuahua on May 17th and she has been making our lives sweeter ever since. Ooh and aah at the pictures of our tiny love muffin. She is a pound and a half of pure yumminess. And, yes, she is smaller than our Chihuahua Webkinz stuffed animal!

Lindsay is Ear-resistable!

Today is a big day for Lindsay. She got her ears pierced! Let May 8, 2008 be known as The Day My Little Girl Started Growing Up.

Jeff and I always agreed to let Lindsay get her ears pierced when she turned 5. We were all ready to go last year on her birthday and she chickened out. So, today after gymnastics Lindsay and I are at the mall eating lunch and running errands and out of nowhere she says, "Can I get my ears pierced?" I was all, "Sure, yeah - we said you could last year remember?" She says, "I want to get my ears pierced. Today." I looked at her and asked, "Now?" and she said, "Yes, NOW."

So, off we went. I wanted to find someplace that could pierce them both at the same time. First Claire's - no luck. Second Icing - no luck. Both places only had one angst-ridden teenager working there and no one else was coming in to work for quite some time. Our last hope was Libby Lu. We enter the store and I immediately notice only one employee. But this employee wasn't an angst-ridden teenager. It was a full-grown woman. A woman who looked capable of piercing both of Lindsay's ears individually and who could do a good job. A woman who could sweet talk Lindsay into enduring the pain of the second piercing while enduring the pain of knowing what was coming.

This woman delivered. She did a fantastic job! They are evenly spaced, centered and FABULOUS! Thank you, Casey, at Libby Lu at The Woodlands Mall! And congratulations to my Lindsay Fizzle. You were so brave and I am so proud of you!

Early Mother's Day Present

On Friday the kids went to parents' night out at the church and Jeff and I went on our monthly date night. We decided to have a wild -n- crazy night out and went shopping at Bed, Bath and Beyond. We have been through a bunch of coffee makers during our 11 years of marriage and have yet to find one that we both like and that we don't break within a couple months of purchase.

We both fell in love with the Tassimo. It's a single serve coffee maker and is the only one of its kind that Starbucks makes discs for. We have been brewing ourselves into caffeinated wildness since Friday night. Even our neighbors came over and we brewed them lattes and coffees. We are loving our Tassimo! Happy (early) Mother's Day to me!

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

To celebrate Cinco de Mayo, I made Patsy's Chicken Enchiladas and Chico came over to play. You have to have a chihuahua in the house to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, right?

Speaking of chihuahuas, last weekend Team Lemmons loaded up and drove to a farm in Plantersville, Texas where we selected the newest memeber of our family. Her name is Bella and she is almost 6 weeks old. She is a beautiful little chihuahua puppy that will come home with us by the end of the month.

This decision has been a year in the making and has involved lots of discussion, research and begging by the kids. After the Great Yellow Lab Debaucle of 2005, our family realized that a big dog would not work for us. Our kids specifically requested a dog that was calm, small, sweet, small, calm and small. Oh, and sweet.

We are frequent puppysitters for Chico, my friend's mom's chihuhua, and the kids LOVE him. He is sweet and calm and small. The kids can easily control him and aren't scared of him in any way. He is so gentle with the kids and is a big snuggler. We are hoping that he rubs off on Bella. We are
scheduled to puppysit Chico for the last week of May and Bella may already be home. We will go from a no-dog-house to a two-dog-house in the blink of an eye. Aye carumba!

Go Diamond Dusters!

Lindsay had a double header on Saturday morning and had 6 hits off the coach pitch! At the beginning of the season, the girls would get 3 coach pitches and (if needed) 2 swings off the tee. Coach Greg decided that all the girls were good enough to quit using the tee. Way to go, Linz! I still need to do an entire post on all of the softball cheers we have learned this year.

Team Under Armour

Grandpa took Brandon to play golf on Friday afternoon and they wore their matching Under Armour golf shirts.

Go Astros!

How cute is this picture of Brandon, Drew and Grant??? I love all the missing teeth!

Brandon's baseball team won their 2nd game on Saturday night and beat the Marlins again 14-10.

It's April 6th - Have you done your taxes yet?

Another crazy weekend for Team Lemmons is in the history books.

On Friday, my sister Gwen flew in from Florida (along with a weird rainstorm that sent the temperature plummeting). The whole family met up at a restaurant to eat dinner before dropping Brandon and Lindsay off at church for Parents' Night Out. Our church hosts this event on the 1st Friday of every month to give parents a break. It costs about the same as (maybe less than) a babysitter for 4 hours of adult freetime. And the kids LOVE it. They see all their church and school friends, make crafts, watch movies, etc. While the kids were at church, the adults (G&G, Jeff, Jessica and Gwen) went to see the movie 21. We all agreed it was a pretty good movie. Heck, it was good to see a movie for adults for a change!

Saturday morning Brandon had a baseball game. And all I will say about that is the Astros one game winning streak was snapped by the Angels. Lindsay's softball game ended up being rained out because of the weird weather. Many errands were run in the afternoon, dinner at G&G's and then Jeff and I rented the movie No Country for Old Men and split a bottle of really good wine.

On Sunday Lindsay attended the 5th birthday party of her friend, Eme. It was a princess themed party (what else??) and the girls had a blast. Lindsay wore her Snow White costume from her ballet recital last year. (Man, we are getting our $75 worth out of that costume! As you recall, Lindsay was Snow White for Halloween, too) There was face painting, fingernail painting and tiara making activities. The grand finale was the beautiful cupcake arrangement Eme's mom made. Well, actually the grand finale was when I backed out of their driveway and scraped my car down the side of Eme's grandma's car. Oops!

All dressed up for the party

The Princesses

What a lovely tiara you made, Lindsay!

The cupcake flower arrangement

Finally on Sunday night, we had our neighbors over for dinner and I gave Charles his cancer cross-stitch to wish him good luck for his last full week of chemo.

Is it April 15th Yet???

Lots to update since my extended absence from blogging. Things are very busy at work and both kids are playing sports, so I haven't been as organized as usual and have slacked off on the blogging.

There are several things going on with friends, so we'll start there. My friend, Bernie, gave birth to her 3rd child, Luke Haberman, on March 12th. Immediately after his birth the doctors found a very rare and serious heart defect known as Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome. He has already undergone one open heart surgery and will face 2 others very soon. Bernie has a Caring Bridge website for Baby Luke and you can visit it here:

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/lukehaberman

Our next door neighbor, Charles, has finished his second week of chemotherapy treatment for his testicular cancer and is now completely bald. I finished the cross-stitch I made for him and will be framing it to give him as a gift soon. Here is a picture of the subversive cross-stitch I made for him. It's a little offensive, but hilarious and expresses the collective sentiment about his cancer.

Spring Break for the kids was a much needed respite from the usual routine. I was able to work almost every day that week while the kids played golf with G&G or hung around at home with Jeff. The bluebonnets are out in full force here in Texas and we took some pictures for posterity.

Easter was the last Sunday of spring break and we celebrated by going to brunch with G&G after church.

Last weekend Lindsay's softball league held their annual County Line Shootout tournament against another league from Spring. Lindsay's team, the Diamond Dusters, did very well. Lindsay improved tremendously in the final game and really got the hang of how the game is played. I think playing so many games in a row helped keep the girls involved in what was going on. Each girl (& coach!) received a medal for their participation. Lindsay is SO proud of her medal and rightly so.

Now, if only we could get Brandon's Astros to win a game. Yes, sadly, Brandon's team is in last place in 7AAA division and has an 0-5 record. I'm very sad for Brandon because I know he is very frustrated at his team's lack of success.

Only 2 more weeks until tax season is over! I have so many grand plans in my head that I fantasize about when it's finally April 16th. Organizing the house, cleaning out closets, planting flowers, etc, etc, etc. I need to squeeze a massage appointment in there somewhere - Jeff gave me a gift certificate to a local spa for Christmas and I can't wait to use it.

Flu Season Still Going Strong

Brandon is out of commission this week with the flu. He's been home from school for two days. He hasn't had a fever since yesterday morning, so hopefully he can go back to school tomorrow. Right now it feels like summer with both kids home during the day!

Play Ball!

This past Saturday was Opening Day for both Brandon's baseball league and Lindsay's softball league. Jeff and I had to split up and take each kid to their respective parades.

On Saturday Lindsay also had a double header (they won both games). By the second game Lindsay had pretty much figured out the flow of the game and was having fun. After she spent one inning as pitcher, she came back to the dugout and said, "I don't want to play any other base than pitcher!" She liked being in on all the action (typical Lindsay!).

Honestly, I think half the battle in her league is to make sure your coach can pitch to the girls. Our coach was very experienced and lobbed the ball over the plate every time. The coaches on the opposing teams weren't as consistent and their girls had a hard time getting a hit.

Brandon's team played a mini-tournament game on Friday night and lost 7-1. But we won't dwell on that. Hopefully they will improve as the season wears on.

Here are some pictures from opening day. (Brandon lost another tooth on Friday at school, so now he just has the big front two teeth.)

Call Me Irresponsible

As a late anniversary present, Jeff took me to see Michael Buble in concert on Saturday night. It was an amazing show! He is so talented and his band was incredible. We had a great time. Here is a link to his website:
http://www.michaelbuble.com/
A group called Naturally 7 opened for MB and was an all a capella group with no instruments. Each member of the band performed an instrument only using his mouth. They sang "Broken Wings" and it sounded just like the Mr. Mister original - but with human voices as the instruments. You have to go listen to them if you have iTunes. Or here is their website:
http://www.n7house.de/

Girl Scout Cookies

Yes, it's that time of year again. I can eat an entire box of Samoas (or as they are called now "Caramel deLites"). And I actually did eat an entire box in one sitting yesterday. I'm proud of the Girl Scouts for removing all the trans fats from their cookies - and they taste exactly the same as before.

Study Redecoration Project

I finished the redecoration of my study last month and it's finally organized enough to take pictures of it. I work from home a lot doing tax returns and the original set-up was not convenient or comfortable for working. Now I have lots of workspaces to sew, scrapbook, wrap presents and do tax returns for work. I love my upholstered chair - you can't tell in the pictures, but it's mini fleur-de-lis on a red background. The phrase on the painting above my desk says, "We tend to seek happiness when happiness is actually a choice".

11 Year Anniversary!

Kaylee and Lindsay

On Friday, February 22, 2008, Jeff and I celebrated our 11 year anniversary by going out to dinner. We used a new babysitter named Kaylee who the kids LOVED. Brandon apparantly loved her so much that he took a picture of her and Lindsay. We will be calling Kaylee a lot more in the future!

Theta Bingo 2008

Cynetha, me and Carrie

Cindy and Jen with their bingo cards

Thursday, February 21st was my sorority alumni chapter's annual Theta Bingo! The event benefits CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates). It's a girls' night out event with dinner and bingo games. This year our table had a bingo game winner - Cynetha won a family fun basket full of games, candy, etc. Everyone always has a blast at Theta bingo - women get a little wine in them and get crazy while playing bingo.

Babysitting the Triplets

On Monday we helped Jen and David out by babysitting the triplets while they went to a meeting with their CPA. Brandon took these pictures with his camera - I'd say he is quite talented at capturing busy 2 year olds! The trips were very well behaved, but Jeff and I are thankful that our kids are out of the busy toddler phase.

Photos:

David and Dylan

a slightly blurry Garrett

Dylan and Caroline playing

a distrustful Caroline

Dylan with the pirate hat

Heart Ball 2008

On Saturday, February 16 Jeff and I attended the annual American Heart Association's Heart Ball. This year's theme was "Untamed Hearts" and had a jungle motif. There was a silent and a live auction, dinner, dancing, etc. We had a blast!