Isn't he precious?

                                                                   my brother, that it.

this is what he gave me for mother's day. gave me a good chuckle.

let me give you the back story.

gaither scripture tea:

my parents love the gaither's.

love them.

they have every vhs and dvd that has ever been made by them.

every darn one.

my brother and i don't particularly care for that style of music so we always joke about who gets all the gaither music when our parents go to meet the good lord.

this is why i got the promise tea with "inspiring gaither lyrics on each tag to set your spirit singing".

orange tootsie pops:

when we were young, maybe 10 and 13, we went on a family vacation to mt. rushmore.

my parents bought a huge box of tootsie pops at costco before we left home and leaving that great mountain i was ready for a tootsie pop.

a chocolate tootsie pop because they are my favorite.

my brother, however, knew i hated the orange ones and would not give me any other color besides orange.

my parents got tired of me squawking about the suckers and told me to eat the orange or do without.

i did without.

and to this day we joke about the orange tootsie pops.

so again i say...isn't he precious?

mtn. view lacrosse

We have so enjoyed watching austin play for mountain view this year. he went from not knowing how to play at all last year to mastering it and becoming so much more aggressive this year. he has worked hard to get his share of playing time and gets better each game.

The Almost Forgotten Argentina Posts: Part Six

Today is a random post about Argentina. Enjoy!

The Asado

An asado is a huge barbecue. And boy do they love their barbecues. They look for any excuse to gather together and eat meat. They raved and raved about how good it would be so we were all excited. I am pretty picky about my meat but was willing to give it a try.

Along with the beef we regularly eat, they also include the innards consisting of spleen, intestines and blood sausage. What is blood sausage you ask? The cow's blood and spices poured into a casing and left to coagulate. Mmmmm.

I made myself try one thing. The spleen. And it was nasty. The end.

Regular sausage and blood sausage. It looks harmless enough but I wasn't about to try it.

Here are some pictures we took in the square. It was a beautiful day!

This is Martin(marteeeeen). He was fabulous! So full of life and personality. And he can do a spot on impression of just about anyone he meets. It's so awesome to watch. He needed a new Bible so we all pitched in and bought him one before we left. 

He is doing an impression of Lauren here. "And, like, I don't know, like, which shoes to buy."

Priceless.

Breakfast. These little babies were our morning meal everyday we were here. And let me make clear that the yellow stuff is not lemon, nosireee, it is creamy custard and oh so good. Bye bye diet, hello pastries!

The girls and I went for coffee one night and on the way home decided to try a couple pictures in the park. At night. By ourselves. Jumping pictures no less.

These were our sleeping quarters. Close sleeping quarters. Ten air mattresses crammed into this tiny room. There were also four or five more on the other side of the wall. We were sardined like I've never been sardined before.

Next to Melissa's bed was the door. If I had a dollar for every time she was hit in the butt with that thing. The door was thin, metal and stuck at the top so every time it was opened it made a super loud noise which was really great at night when we had our potty parade. One of us would get up to go to the bathroom and within five minutes we had all been up to go. Laurel, Skye, Melissa and me. Not necessarily in that order.

One of our coffee/smoothie runs.

Handsome Rob. Name that movie.

One last group photo the night before we left.

It seems every foreign country has a sign they like to do in pictures. This is Argentina's.

One more picture of the cute Martin.

i can't believe i'm doing this

before you go any further, if you have issues with messes, an aversion to clutter or are just plain ol' judgmental you might want to skip this post.

i also want to say that i really really really can't believe i am putting this out for people to see but if it gets me this

then i am totally fine with it.

if it doesn't bring her to me then hopefully the shame of people seeing my bonus room like this will get my butt it gear. 

seriously folks, you have no idea what you are about to witness.

i also must put up a disclaimer that the rest of my house does not look like this.

i have been reading mandi's blog for a while now and i love her thrifty, chic style. it's what my house would look like if we were best friends and i could buy cute stuff and let her fix it, paint it and place it for me.

unfortunately that isn't the case.

but fortunately she is doing this fantabulous makeover contest.

and soon you will know just how bad i need this thing.

are you ready?

OK, here goes.

this...

this is my bonus room.

(please take a look while i hide under my desk)

to start the tour if you look to your right we have the sewing/ironing/fabric craft portion of the room. to answer your question...YES, it is almost impossible to do any crafting here.

directly opposite we have the computer/scrapbook/ebay/garage sale pile/library portion.

straight ahead we have the entertainment area. pretty entertaining isn't it?

and to complete our tour we have a full view of the scrapbook/bathroom/where the heck is the door to get me out of this pit portion on our lovely bonus room. don't you just love the fan pull? 

me either.

and that, my friends, completes the tour of our overcrowded, overstuffed, underused because of the above pictures room.

please mandi! please please please pull me out of my pit!

it's offical!

the magnolia doesn't lie...it is officially spring! just look at those blooms. there's no way they could be wrong.

tis the season

lacrosse is in full swing at our house. it is the time of year where six days a week are immersed in lacrosse and we eat things like fish sticks and pizza for dinner cause we don't get home til 7:30 but we love it. these are from taylor's game last week. austin's first official game is today. woohoo!

a gardener and his sidekick

rob is an outdoorsman. anytime he can be in the yard doing something is a happy time. he has put countless hours into our yard since we moved in here.

she is just like him. she has always preferred being outside. playing, riding bikes and, yes, working in the yard.

rob wanted to start most of our garden from seed this year so about four weeks ago he got his seedling kit, all the seeds and they planted. now they all look like this so it was time to transplant.

she loves to get out with her daddy and get her hands dirty. she spent most of the evening filling pots with dirt, transplanting the veggies and writing what it was on the pot in her own little abbreviated form. 

this year we are doing:

butternut squash

jalapenos

onions

potatoes

asparagus

carrots

garlic

watermelon

cantaloupe

cilantro

strawberries

lettuce

cucumbers

broccoli

corn

pumpkins and

zucchini

we think that's it. we may add more if there's room. 

we also needed a new composter. we have a wooden box that rob built a couple years ago but it isn't the same. she left her friends house to come home and help put it together. so sweet.