Category Archives: special events

Mar17

Happy Green Day!

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Happy Green Day!

stpatricksday2015

 

I’m not Irish, but I really enjoy St. Patrick’s Day. Maybe even more than a holiday like Valentine’s day, because there’s not a lot of pressure for gifts or dates, and you don’t even have be in a relationship to enjoy the holiday. And for some reason, Ireland has always been one of THOSE places I have been in crush with. I even got to spend 3 glorious days there in college. I wish I could go back and finish seeing all the places I want to there some day. 🙂

So, in honor of this great, green day, we donned our green and pretended to give our kids some “culture” today. Which included a stop by at the city aquarium. Not sure how that one fit in, but Evie did sit on a green mermaid, so that counts, right?)

We almost successfully took pictures –or not– to send to Grandma of the shirts she sent for the holidays. I tried super hard to get a cute pic of the kids together… and all of them turned out like this or worse. 

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Also, it involved bribing the toddler. Which is why she looks so sweet in this one. Chocolate chips do the trick, people. Or saying you can go outside to play after nap time. Whatever works. She likes to change it up often.

I made our favorite St. Patrick’s Day Shepherds Pie recipe, which is a lot of work and not entirely clean-eating approved, but worth it for a once-a-year meal!

And of course, we watched most of “The Secret of Kells” together… I love the animation and storyline, and it’s totally worth checking out if you haven’t seen it yet. I first learned about The Book Of Kells in my senior year of high school thanks to my mythology teacher, and then I actually saw it on display at one of our stops to Trinity College in Ireland, which was pretty amazing. Google is your friend if you haven’t heard of it before. It’s worth a side trip to learn about that artifact! 🙂

kells(Do you see what they did here,  people?! This happens throughout the whole movie.)

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, Internet! Or as one of my favorite brothers would say: “Happy Green Day!”

Apr1

The Aquarium and the Flowers

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The Aquarium and the Flowers
The Aquarium and the Flowers

I know I mentioned in my last post that things haven’t been going as well as I would like for me, particularly emotionally, the past month or so. In an effort to keep with my resolution to stay positive about things going on in my life, here are two fun adventures we’ve had as a family recently.

The Aquarium

Recently, a new aquarium moved into town not far from where we live. Since this area is booming, and city limits can take take 45 minutes to get from one edge of town to the other in GOOD traffic conditions, we found this to be a bonus. So despite the somewhat inflated price, we checked it out. Some friends had gotten a family pass for half off and hadn’t used it yet, so we invited them with us.

The biggest bummer was that the day dawned very drizzly and wet, and since the aquarium is all indoors, it got crowded pretty quickly. (And that happens on Saturdays, right?) But Evelyn had a blast.

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She got to see exotic birds and fish, crocodiles and tortoises, touch small sharks, starfish, and sting rays, and called the eels she saw “dragons” and roared at them.

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The staff was super nice, and one guy even came out and told us to stick around for a minute because he was about to feed the eels, and the kids usually enjoyed watching that. It was pretty neat. Definitely worth the family pass if you are going to go multiple times with younger kids that don’t think they are too big for the experience. 😉

 

Bluebonnet Season

Hands down, spring in Texas is both the worst of times and best of times. Worst of times: ALLERGIES GALORE. Even if you have never had serious allergy issues in your life, there seems to be at least one thing here that ends up getting everybody at one point or another.  But the wildflowers that pop up EVERYWHERE- any field, along the side of the highways, even on the side of a busy intersection- are gorgeous. It’s hard to focus on driving because I just want to stop and smell the flowers!

We were kind of overwhelmed last year and only caught the tail end of the beautiful wild flower season here for Evelyn, and we were sort of bummed about that. We made a goal to be better this year. So when I happened across a list of some of the best bluebonnet spots last week, I was determined we’d take advantage of the sunny Saturday we had to go get some pictures!

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As you can tell, we weren’t disappointed. Evelyn was entranced by the flowers, but not enough to keep still for long. We grossly overestimated her attention span in competition to all that goes on at a busy park on a Saturday. Despite all that, I still think we got some cute pictures and some great memories. (All these photos were taken by the very persistent Jared.)

instagrambb.jpg (One of my personal favorites that I took with my phone of us trying to compete with an airplane for Evelyn’s attention. Clearly, we lost her attention, but still got a great pic!)

Hope you enjoy our family memories as much as we have trying to make them!

Jan14

Baby Boothe v2.0

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Baby Boothe v2.0

It’s been overall quiet on the blog front the past few months. Not a lot of brave new attempts at yarn projects or recipes or overall random musings from my brain. But there was a very valid reason!

I know I put this on Facebook already last week, but there’s SOMETHING about this blog that always seems more official. It’s a good place to put more details compared to just a short, “Hey, there’s a baby on board!”

We let Evelyn break the news.

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It seemed appropriate, don’t you think?

As of now, I am about 15 weeks. Due date hovers around the second week of July, though honestly I have no clue what to expect, since I was not allowed to go into labor on my own last time. So, if I am being honest, I am equally anxious about what that might mean for this round.

Those of you who have read about Evelyn’s birth story (which starts here, if you want a refresher. I don’t!) know that I lost a lot of confidence in the hospital and doctor experience, so this time we are going a little more “natural.” Jared couldn’t be convinced to consider a home birth, so a middle ground for both of us was a birthing center with midwives that is also close to a hospital in case there is an actual need for additional interference. And we actually “shopped around” with a few midwives and doctors to find a group that seemed like a better match for us.

I’d post a picture of the one ultrasound we got, but it is from week 8 or 9, and it wasn’t the most high quality, so you’ll just have to take my word for it that the slight belly bulge is now more from growing another small human and not from over-indulging on goodies during the holiday.

I’m pretty sure I meant to say more during this post, but several interruptions and a walk to the mailbox later, I’ve grown sleepy and lost my train of thought. So, Baby Boothe v2.0, here’s the Elisablog welcome to the family post!

Nov28

Thanksgiving!

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Thanksgiving!

I realized that there were some technical difficulties with my last post, because I wrote most of it ahead of time and set it to publish last Thursday, and then it disappeared into the interwebs never to be seen again. Boo. So, I’m going to end off the month of November with 10 things that I am thankful for (because 14 is just a weird number to stand alone).

  1. Rain- I LOVE the rain! One of the great bummers of our area lately was that we have been in such a horrible drought situation since we moved here. The last two months have brought several bouts of rain, and it is very refreshing to the land and the soul to see the flowers bloom and the occasional gray skies!
  2. DVRs/Netflix and all those wonderful ways to record and watch the myriad of shows out there. It’s helped with several of my loves of shows like “Castle” or “Downton Abbey” or even “Top Gear” (BBC version, of course!). And the ability to pause live TV, and rewind to watch a punchline you might have missed? How simple and great!
  3. Siblings- It stinks being so far away from our siblings, but having siblings is a great thing. Hopefully Evelyn will be able to have siblings and have a good relationship overall with them.
  4. Evelyn’s buddies: Evelyn has a few very special buddies around her age, one in particular, and it’s so fun to watch them play together. I am so grateful that she has the opportunity to interact with others her age and have fun fairly often. We can’t afford a preschool situation or programs like Gymboree right now, and I worry about her not being able to social with other little ones more. But she’s growing up so beautifully, and it’s even better when she and I get to socialize with others outside the home!
  5. Our Texas friends: We were so lucky just this week to be involved with others’ holiday celebrations on more than one occasion. We are far away from the family we grow up with, but this season, we were so lovingly included that it makes being far away from family so much more bearable. We love our Texas family!
  6. The miracle of babies- I was just looking at pictures of Evelyn at Thanksgiving last year… and the change is remarkable. I can’t believe how quickly my little girl is growing up!!!
  7. Cars- We got a new (new to us, that is) vehicle over the summer, and I LOVE it. And it has a BACK UP CAMERA. It’s the little things, people. But I love the wonderful comfort a nice working vehicle is.
  8. Email/Blogs/Instant messaging- I love the fact that email exists. I won’t argue that there’s nothing quite like getting a real, meaningful letter in snail mail, of course. But when you have a very active toddler and your only time to get things done is when she’s asleep, being able to use Google Chat/Hangouts or email or whatever have you to speak with loved ones all over the world helps keep them much closer, and updated on the ever-changing Miss Evelyn.
  9. Mother Nature: I LOVE the outside world. I miss the mountains, but where we live has many beauties of well. And I think of some of my favorite places that I have visited, like Arches National Park and Bryce Canyon, which are some of the most beautiful places I’ve seen, and I am so grateful there are so many lovely places in the world that I hope to share with my family.
  10. Thanksgiving- We need more times to focus on being grateful for what we already have. Which is part of the reason I hate “Black Friday” shopping so much. One day it’s “I have so many great blessings in my life!” and the next day, it is: “I need more STUFF, and I’ll fight tooth and nail to beat other people to the STUFF!” I have so much in my life, and so much to be grateful for. I wish we had more days every year to focus on all that we have instead of wanting more.

 

Nov11

Foxy Dancing

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Foxy Dancing

So, this is what happens when people get creative at our church’s annual “Trunk or Treat” party: Flash mob fun! (If you look closely, you might find yours truly out there amongst the foxy ladies.)

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LOOSELY based on the music video “What Does the Fox Say”. Though, I will say I think we all did a pretty dang good job when it was all said and done, and the kids especially loved it!