Dinner with an Author

On Thursday evening we had dinner with my aunt, Julie Klassen. She flew to Charlotte this week to travel with Beverly Lewis for several book signings here in the Carolina's. Julie is an editor for Beverly, and has also written 3 Christian fiction novels herself. So - if you're ready for a good read, check out her books: Lady of Milkweed Manor, The Apothocary's Daughter, or The Silent Governess. Each of them are stand alone titles - so you don't have to pick them in any certain order. We had dinner with Julie, Beverly Lewis & an exec from Bethany House Publishing - then stopped by the New Life Christian bookstore for the signing. My mom, Julie and I went to find her books in the store, and my mom was going to buy several and have Julie sign since she was in town. Two ladies were standing by us, and my mom pipes up, "You really need to buy one of these books...and the author is standing right here." Of course, these ladies were somewhat skeptical, and so I showed them Julie's picture on the back of the book. Julie explained that her books were historical fiction, and had a Jane Austin flare. Well, that must have been right up their ally, because they each grabbed a book, had Julie sign them, and took pictures with her.
It was fun to catch up, even for just a few hours. Thanks for visiting, Julie!

Easter 2010

Easter morning we enjoyed our freshly grown grass and some yummy cinnamon rolls. For those of you who are unaware of the wonderful recipe - check out AllRecipes.com and search for Clone of a Cinnabun. They are just delightful. I make the dough in my bread machine, and then just roll out & cut the night before, then bake in the morning....yum!
Easter basket - full of goodies. After we gave her the basket - she was no longer interested in the cinnamon rolls - only the chocolate bunnies and chicks.
This was Elise's choice of breakfast for Easter morning...I know, I know - terrible. But probably not much worse than the sugary cinnamon roll?

John snapped a few shots of Elise in her Easter dress. I look at these pictures and again it hits me how fast she is growing up. She is just a delightful girl.



Hope you all enjoyed a wonderful Easter celebrating the Risen Savior!

Trip to D.C

Monday, March 29th - Mom, Elise and I made a last minute trip to see Paul and Jodi in DC for several days. Elise has proven to be such a great little traveler. It was a bit tricky to each carry on a bag, along with the stoller and car seat.
She was excited to pack her little bag, and loved coloring on the plane. The ride there was rather bumpy, and we had lots of turbulence as we came down over the Potomac toward the runway...I was even holding my seat as we hovered over the water just before landing - but we made it.
Once we arrived, we made some Easter cupcakes with neon dye for the frosting - so pretty!
We had an assembly line of sorts - Jodi frosted, Elise sprinkled and I took pictures!
Here, you can see another of Elise's favorite games - clips in the hair. I'm hoping she continues to enjoy this - I just love having someone comb and work with my hair...
There was also lots of bonding with uncle Paul. They played basketball, played out in the dirt making stick forts and she even put clips in Paul's hair - but I don't have those pictures on my camera...and for some reason, Paul had a hair cut the next morning. It was definately too short to put clips in at that point.


The cherry blossom festival had peak blooms while we were there, and so we took in the beautiful scenery with so many other tourists...but just a gorgeous day. The air smelled so sweet with the blooms and Jodi's comment was, "Oh, DC always smells like this." Hmm...

Our last morning, we made a visit to the Peeps store at National Harbor. Who knew? It's the only store in the US, and you can sample Mike & Ike's, Red Hot Tomales and buy peeps and other merchandise. We brought home a nice sampling of peeps just in time for Easter.
What a fun trip. Paul and Jodi we miss you - but we'll be back in a few more weeks.

Planting Project

The last week of March, Elise and I started a fun planting project to grow some Red Winter wheat for our baskets and pots in the house. Let me encourage you - if you want to grow something hearty, full, and fresh for Spring - this is your seed. My friend, Denise, told me about this great grass & we are loving it.
Every step of the planting project - I had my little helper. This is such a fun age - and Elise is just soaking up everything we say.
Here is a picture of our "grass" only 6 days after planting - it will need a haircut soon, but should last several more weeks if we keep the soil moist.
What a fun mantle idea for Spring. Thank you, Denise for the great tip!

Hunting and Scooting

On Saturday we ventured out for our neighborhood Easter Egg hunt, and Elise was very excited.
There were several kids there, and each child was to take home a dozen eggs, but there had to be extras, because after each basket had a dozen, there were still many, many eggs left to be gathered...so we got a full basket.

Here's some of the loot. Of course, we've had to monitor the candy intake this week, but that's all part of the fun.
Sliding at the playground after hunting.
Also, Elise was given the pleasure of using one of our neighbor's little toddler scooters. Their little girl has outgrown it, and it was just taking up space in their garage...so now they've offered it to Elise to use. I have to admit that a little 3-wheel scooter was no where on my radar as something I would think she would enjoy - but what a hit! Even better than the trike. Every day since Thursday last week she wants to get outside and use her scooter with her helmet. So - here's a clip of her riding it only a day after bringing it home. She's growing up so fast.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

On Saturday, March 20th, we welcomed the first day of Spring, and celebrated my mom's birthday. We went to a new cupcake shop at the Ballantyne Village. If you don't have a cupcake shop in your town, I'm told these are the latest trend...and they may be here to stay...just like your ice cream shops. This is a sample in their shop of a cupcake bouquet they can make...but we opted to each choose our own flavor.
Part of our samples included, lemon with lemon custard filling, nutella filled with Vanilla buttercream, chocolate with strawberry buttercream...and some kind of turtle. Very yummy!
It was our first, warm, breezy day in months with temps in the upper 70's...so we all sat outside near the fountain to enjoy our confections.
Yes, and in honor of sandal season...Elise picked out some spring colors for her nails: purple toe-nails and pink finger-nails. After we were done, she walked around and kept saying, "Mommy, these are just beautiful."

Welcoming Spring

March has been a month of trying to get warmer weather here in Charlotte. Finally, we are starting to see average temps after an unusually cold winter.
Elise and our neighbor, Kaylie were thrilled to finally get outside a bit.



One of the joys of home-ownership is fixing things when they go wrong. (Insert sarcastic sneer here.)
A few weeks ago, I was driving home and hit my garage door remote, and noticed that my door wasn't opening very fast - and as I pulled in the driveway, I could see the door was bending toward the center & getting demolished! John was away for the evening, so I called my dad to come over. Evidently, the spring that pulls the door open had broke in two, and completely pulled the door to the center as the opener was trying to work. Thankfully, we didn't have any cars in the garage...we would have certainly had damage to them. But, the picture below actually shows the door after we pushed it back out a bit to have some measure of security. I'm happy to report that after waiting 2 weeks for the door to come in, we now are even more grateful to have access to the garage for our vehicles and Elise's toys.
Last week I had one of my friends, Rachel, from Minneapolis visit Charlotte, and so we chose to visit the Latta Plantation near Huntersville, NC. I've never been, and so this was a good visit for me too. I was able to take her to some of my favorite spots here in the Queen City...Thanks for the fun!