Gamers

Around this time last year Justin and I had our first encounter with a Nintendo Wii. It was a big hit. I would beat him at basketball and he would school me in yard darts. We had tons of fun just playing the basic games. After that first night it seems as though every person we know has bought into the Wii fad. One person would buy one, rave about it, and then the next person would go out and buy one. We have spent many a night with friends playing Mario Kart or Dance Revolution and every time, it never fails, someone always tries to convince Justin and I to get one. He would be all for it but I always say something like "we don't have enough money" or "I think it would get old". It was all a cover.

Justin and I are addicted to games. Last Friday night we had burgers and games at our house; The Wickes brought their game system, ECLG brought their extra controllers, and the Blounts brought Super Mario Brothers. After dinner everyone except Erin and I played a card game called Guts. In order to keep ourselves from falling asleep Erin read a magazine and I gave Mario Brothers a shot (huge mistake)...2 hours later my eyes are watering and my thumb had a new callus. Because they were scared I might bite everyone decided to leave their Wii equipment. Once we were alone Justin joined in and we ended up playing till 3 o'clock in the morning. We couldn't stop. With the progress we made on Friday, and sporadic playing through the rest of the weekend, we were able to conquer Super Mario Brothers in just 10 hours.

Conquering Mario Brother's was a wonderful experience for Justin and I.  We learned new things about each other...like Justin will sacrifice my life (well, actually Toad's) in a heart beat if it means he gets to conquer the world. I am choosing to tell myself that he would act completely different in the real, non-Mario, world.

So, in conclusion, Justin and I will not be buying a Wii. We are maniacs when it comes to completing games and will sacrifice both time and sleep for the glory of winning.

Random Roundup

1. "momma, momma, momma" Haley is now saying momma. I am so excited. I waited patiently while she learned dada, uh-oh, bye, and ball all the while tying my very best to not get my feelings hurt. I mean seriously, "ball", I am so much more important than an inanimate object, right?!? Unfortunately it was no use...I was crushed inside. On the bright side, none of that matters any longer. "momma, momma, momma!"

2. We tried a new recipe this week that I was quite pleased with. It was super easy (which is always important to me), really cheap to make (ingredients you probably already have around), and it was yummy (I love all Mexican food). I hate to sound like a broken record but I got the recipe from a blog I follow. Eventually I hope that all the creative ideas I read about are going to inspire me...I want to make original dishes...yet I like to follow recipes..and I don't really like weird ingredients...what a conundrum. Ha.

Here is the recipe for Mexican Casserole.

3. I had stamp club this week. Not postal stamp...rubber stamp. Good times as usual. We made two super cute cards. I love that this club gives me a chance to get out of the house by myself and spend some time with fellow crafters. Unfortunately this week left Justin to man bath night all by himself. Around 7:30, right in the middle of visiting with the girls, I received this text from my husband...

" Never giving a bath again. Everything was fine and when I turned around to grab the towel she stood up and slipped. Bit her tongue. Blood. Crying. She is Fine."

In the end everything was fine. By the time I got home Haley was peacefully sleeping and Justin had stopped crying. The only permanent damage is that Haley will now have to deal with jokes and nicknames from her peers about her forked tongue. Haha. Only kidding.

Asleep at the Meal

I love this photo of Haley. It perfectly sums up her life at the moment. She is just so busy learning, playing, and trying new things. She is into everything and loving every minute of it. She is so busy that once I actually get her to sit still and eat lunch she ends up ...

Homemade

I am currently all about homemade gifts. I love the way it feels to give someone something I made with my own two hands and to see their excitement (hopefully). In the beginning I thought it was also going to be a great way to conserve money however craft supplies have become somewhat of an addiction for me. I can't stop...I have boxes and bags and drawers full of stuff: fabric, glitter, socks, buttons, glue, paint, clothespins, tulle, wood, paper, etc, etc, etc. I have become a craft supply hoarder!!! Help! I am calling all of my friends and family to have birthdays, get married, have a baby, graduate, buy a new home, anything to help me deplinish my stock. HELP ME!

Thanks to a baby cousin on the way I was able to make a dent in my stash last week. I made a sock monster (who lended up looking a lot like a rabbit), a taggie blanket, and some blocks that spelled out the new baby name.

I think they all turned out pretty cute and looked even better incorporated into the diaper cake that my sister and I collaborated on. She provided the adorable burp cloths, the personalized wipe case, and the little baseball cap.  

I think the parents to be were quite pleased. Perhaps not so much for the homemade gifts as for the 100 diapers that they now have to unroll. Ha.

The Oaks of Southdown

When Justin and I moved into our home a little over two years ago the name of our subdivision was a complete after thought and something we never even really considered about until just recently. About a month ago our wonderful HOA updated our neighborhood entrance...

At some point some person sat down and decided that planting two new palm trees at the entrance to The Oaks was a good idea. I agree that something had to be done but was a tree synonymous with sun and sand the best idea we could come up with. The trees that had been there, two beautiful old oak trees (hence the name of the neighborhood), were unfortunately lost during Ike and had never been replaced. The update is quite pretty with all the new flowers and landscaping but it just doesn't seem to fit. Maybe I will try and sneak over in the middle of the night and do a little graffiti update myself.

On the bright side the trees make me chuckle every time I drive by.

Random Roundup

1. Following with the gross theme I have had going for a few weeks...I had my first dental cleaning in three years on Tuesday. It is so ridiculous that it took me this long considering I actually like having my teeth cleaned. It all started in the beginning of my pregnancy. I didn't have a current dentist and therefore would need to have xrays taken anywhere I tried to go. I put it off for 9 months I an effort to protect little fetus Haley from the big bad outside world. Once Haley was born I immediately made an appointment with a local dentist for a cleaning. That guy turned out to be a quack. He said I needed to have some kind of deep cleaning that was going to cost me almost $800. He was out of his mind if he thought I might actually go through with it. For the next several months I was so frustrated with the situation that I just kept putting it off. Eventually, after my teeth began to grow fur, I decided I had to do something. I suckered my husband into getting copies of my xrays from the quack and got a second opinion. To wrap this up quickly I just had my teeth cleaned, plus some work done, for $80.00....and I have my next 6 month cleaning scheduled for September. Yea for no cavities!

1.a. The only draw back to my new destist office is that the dental hygenist has really large boobs and kept rubbing them on my face as she cleaned my teeth. So ackward!! On the plus side I am sure Justin's dental hygiene will improve greatly.

2. This weekend we attended a baby shower for my cousin Blake and his wife Amanda who are expecting their first son in July. The shower was at my parents house so once again we packed up the car and headed to Geronimo.To make the trip a little more interesting this time around we carpooled with CELG!!! Let's just say that four adults and three kids in car seats does not allow for much personal space in a Tahoe. Which is really weird because I always think it is so roomly when it is just Haley and I tooting around. Ha. In the end we all survived the trip and managed to not get in any fights. Phew.

3. Over the course of the week I did quite a few little craft projects: a sock monster, a tag blanket, some personalized blocks, etc.. They were all components to a diaper cake that Erin I made for previously mentioned baby shower. I don't want to toot my own horn but I think they turned out pretty cute. I will have a more detailed post later this week showing the finished products.

4. Who uses the word toot this many times (twice seems like alot for the word toot) in one post?!?! Apparently it must be my favorite word.

5. Haley added a new word to her vocabulary this week...."toot". Hahaha. Just kidding. She is saying "ball". It is the cutest word yet cause she does this crazy mouth pucker thing when she says it. She kind of pushes her lips out and up. I will have to try and get a pic. Oh, and she is walking. She can take about 4-5 steps in a row now all by herself. It is pretty sporadic and still not too often so I have decided to classify it as just semi-walking. My mommy instincts are tellnig me that we are within weeks of full on walking.

Check out the video below for footage of Haley semi-walking and her gnarly wipeout! Ouch!

The Buskirk Peach Tree - 2010

Some of you may remember back when this little blog began 2 1/2 years ago: Justin and I were newlyweds and we were just moving into our current home. At that time a lot of my posts revolved around our precious little peach tree. Neither Justin or I had any prior experience with fruit trees and we were both a little in awe...this amazing plant is going to create bountiful fresh fruit for us. That is not exactly how things unfolded.

That first year we watched one (seriously, just one) sweet fruit grow and grow and grow. About a week before time to harvest the unthinkable happened...some hungry, greedy, selfish bird ate it. I still think about it and have to shake my head in disgust.

Last year was basically the same. Haley was a newborn and we were so wrapped up in our new family that we neglected the little peach tree. I don't think a single flower got pollenated. I felt sad but at the same time wasn't ready to set Haley down long enough to do any kind of yard work. She was so gosh darn cute!

This year I set out to make things right by the peach tree. When the first signs of blossums started showing up in early March I went into gardener mode. In order to turn those blossums into delicious peaches I knew I needed pollenators and in order to get pollenators around the tree I needed something to attract them to our yard. As you have heard in my previous posts our yard has been a little lack luster lately and definately did not offer the enticments I needed. Instead of importing fragrant flowers to place in the yard I decided to play wet nurse to Mother nature and set out sugar water (thanks dad for the tip)...I think I used enough to attract every honey bee in the Houston metro area. It seemed a little silly going out there and refilling the sugar water every other day but I kept at it. And good thing I did....

It might be hard to see in the previous pics but the peach tree is loaded down with little baby peaches. Too many for that pesky bird to ruin for sure. The branches are already starting to sag and it is still early in the developement of the peaches. Not sure how we are going to solve that one just yet but I am sure we can figure it out. I will keep you guys posted on the progress and hopefully have some fruit to share at harvest time. Everything is right in the Buskirk yard at this moment!

Cousin Blake and Chocolate Oreo Pudding

Growing up my cousin Blake and I were close in age so we spent a lot of time with each other. Looking back it may have sucked for him since I was the girl but I tried my best to be obne of the boys. I was always right there with them wrestling, shooting water balloons at cars, and pulling skateboards behind bikes. In the tangle of cousins he and I were in the middle between the cool older boys (Kurt & Blain) and the little baby (you know who you are). Not sure if it ever happened but I like to imagine that there was a meeting of all the boy cousins at one point and Blake vouched for me getting into the gang. For that, regardless of the fact that it is a ficticious event in my mind, will have me indebted to Blake forever.

As we have grown older our visits revolve less around worms and jellyfish and more around jobs and our growing families. Blake and his wife Amanda are due with their first child this July...it is going to be a little boy! Baby Graedon and Haley are set up almost perfectly to be the new Blake and Sara. Unfortunately for Graedon the gender dominance is now girls. I will try my best to keep my little munchkin from painting his nails with sparkly polish...I promise.

Blake and his wife Amanda

My older cousin Blain, me, and Blake. No idea why I have my arm around him like I am his pimp?!?! Maybe the beer in the foreground is a hint.

So, my cousin Blake is pretty great, be he is not the star of this post. The real star is the recipe he gave me for Chocolate Oreo Pudding Deliciousness. I am not really sure if that is the real name (since I just made it up) but it sounds good so I am going with it. Anyway, I needed a new recipe to make this past weekend for a party at CELG's and remembered Blake bringing this to a family gathering not too long ago. This dessert is super yummy, super sweet, and super easy...since I remembered to use milk this time. I would suggest eating in small servings unless you want to be useless the rest of the day with a tummy ache (this really happened). Here is the recipe for all you sweets lovers out there.

 Ingredients

1 large box of instant chocolate pudding

2 1/2 cups milk

1 container Cool Whip

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1 package of Oreos (we used Oreos with chocolate filling)

Chocolate syrup (if you need an extra kick of chocolate)

 Hershey bar ( again, only if you need an extra jolt of chocolate)

Recipe

Combine pudding mix and milk. Whisk for 2 minutes. Add in the Cool Whip, the condensed milk, and two good squirts of chocolate syrup and stir. Layer ingredients in a glass container beginning with syrup, then oreos, then pudding, and so on. Reserve a couple cookies to make the top nice a pretty. We also added some chocolate shavings for that wow factor.     

 Delicious!

Thanks Blake and Amanda for the yummy recipe. I am sure it will beome a staple in my slowly growing recipe file.

Makes Complete Sense

Found this quote and thought I would share. It is so true for me...except mine may be a little compulsive if you ask my husband.

"I really love to clean. It's not anything compulsive, it's just that you can see a difference when you're through. Not like raising kids or something that you're not sure how it's going to turn out for a couple of decades."

Random Roundup

1. I apologize to the readers out there with weak stomachs since this blog is becoming somewhat gross. Last week I talked about vomit and this week it is road kill. I apologize however I just couldn't resist sharing. Monday I was driving home from work when I happened upon some uncommon road kill for the Pearland area. It was a "little armored one" (aka an armadillo). It would have been way cooler if it was still living but still an interesting sight.

Fun fact: the armadillo is the official mammal of Texas.

2. I had taken a little siesta from working out for the past 2 weeks but starting Tuesday I was back on the band wagon. The first night was a little rough but I made it through. To be quite honest I had gotten slightly disillusioned by my minute weight loss and had lost sight of my goal. The reason for my renewed devotion to weight loss...we booked flights to Nebraska for Justin's high school reunion in May. I have got to look my best. Justin has a reputation to uphold. Hahaha.

3. This weekend I made french dip sandwiches. They are one of Justin's favorites and I felt like being a loving, sweet wife. Anyway, I got the receipe here. It was pretty tasty. There are tons of recipes out there in blogland and I am loving trying them. So far they have all been pretty good but with my luck I am bound to get a food poisoning dud before too long. Ha. I also made a yummy pudding dessert but I will have an entire post on that one later.

4. Justin and I finally got around to doing yard work this Saturday. We did not get it entirely finished (we ran out of sod and the nursery was sold out for the weekend) however it is already looking amazingly better. I planted some new flowers in the beds and planted seeds in a bunch of pots. I really haven't had much luck growing flowers from seeds but we will see how it goes. I will keep ya'll posted. 

5. Haley's newest fascination is not with walking (still not there yet) but rather with sitting in chairs. She has no reservations. She will climb into anything that she can pull herself into. This weekend she sampled the seats of her toddler rocker, mommy's glider, daddy's recliner, the couch, and even a dining room chair. The last one was a bit scary since it has no arm rest and it is over tile!!! What kind of mom am I!?! She has even learned how to dive head first into her wagon so that she can just sit in the seat. You would think with all her MacGyver-esque maneuvering to get into a chair she would be able to walk!!!  

Bluebonnets 2010

I love bluebonnets. Living in the big city we don't really notice them too much untill we take a trip out on the open road. The Texas roadsides are filled with these and Indian paintbrushes. I want to pick them all but unfortunately I don't like breaking laws. Hehe.

My parents have a wonderful friend, Cathy, that they have known since high school and who lives within a mile of them in Geronimo. When we were visiting my parents last week for Easter she offered up her front yard for our yearly bluebonnet photo shoot. It was so kind of her to share her beautiful yard with us.

The pictures turned out great. So good in fact that I have not been able to pick a favorite. Maybe I will just print them all and see how I feel. I eventually want to get one blown up and framed for the house.

Easter Weekend

We spent Easter weekend with my side of the family in Geronimo. It was a really nice visit made even nicer by some great weather. We spent alot of time outdoors. As usual Justin spent several hours down by the creek fishing while Haley and I helped in the garden planting tomatos and green beans. My parents have promised to share the bountiful crop when ripe!

The Easter Bunny Found Us

Haley was very worried that the Easter bunny wasn't going to be able to find her in Geronimo at Granny and Poppy's but somehow he did. That is one amazing bunny. He brought her all her favorite things: crasins, goldfish, and m&ms. She even got a new dress and her very first pair of flip flops. It was a great morning.

E. Bunny Nest

"Not sure if I am ready for this."

Baskets full of Easter Joy.

 

M&M face