Photos From Fall

Lots of water has passed under the bridge since the last post. The munchkin is in 4th grade now, and our schedule is busier than ever! Here are a few photo highlights.

First day of 4th grade!

We had a sleepover for the munchkin's 10th birthday party. Here they are painting fingernails.

We had a mystery-themed party, and used the Slumber Party kit from Dramatic Fanatic. I highly recommend these party kits! The directions were very easy to follow and the girls had a great time. Check out the cute cake my friend made to go with the theme!

For Halloween, we decided to continue the mystery theme. The munchkin was Shirley Holmes, girl detective, and our beagle played the role of her trusty sidekick, Watsonya. I found the pattern for the costume at the Martha Stewart site, and I found a huge cut of houndstooth polyester for less than $3 at Goodwill! Can't beat that!

 

One of the biggest highlights of recent days was Mary Beth's tennis tournament win. First place in girls 10 and under at a USTA Satellite tournament!

She won 4 matches to win the trophy. In two of the matches, she lost the first set then came back to win the second set and ultimately a tie-breaker to win the match. I suspect that it was her "never give up" attitude that won the first place price. Later, I asked her about it. "Well," she said, "some kids get all frustrated when they're losing, and it makes them not play as well. I decided that I would not let it bother me, and I wouldn't get lazy. I should just keep trying my best."

Wish I could bottle that.

Scenes from Summer

Picture slideshow personalized with Smilebox

Our Newest Addition

Meet Max, the newest member of the Lowe family! Hubby calls him Maximus Decimus and I call him Mad Max. Everybody calls him cute. In fact, he's so cute that my piano students are having trouble concentrating on their lessons with this little distraction running around. We adopted him from one of the local rescue agencies, and we deliberately picked the boldest one of the litter. He's not afraid of anything. He romps and plays with our two dogs like he's a dog himself. Unlike our former cat, he spends most of his day downstairs with the family, not hiding upstairs under the bed. This has created a few new challenges for us, like remembering not to leave food out on the kitchen counters. Even just-picked jalepenos are fair game. I don't think he'll eat those anymore, though! ;-)

 

Spring Highlights

I've been delinquent in my posting, but here's a long catch-up post.

The photo above was taken at Callaway Gardens. We had a lovely weekend there in April, and we'll definitely be making return trips. The Butterfly Center was a big hit with the munchkin (and the grownups, too), and I'm hoping we can return in September for "Blue Morpho Month."

The munchkin is turning out to be a little tennis powerhouse! She entered her second USTA tournament in May and won second place - her second second-place win! While we were tickled with her playing, what I was most proud of was that she played through brutal heat and blisters on her hand with no complaining and was gracious to her opponents.

     I've been doing some experimental gardening.

Bell pepper

 Lessons learned:  spring vegetables don't stand much of a chance in the Georgia heat. The truth is, we only have two seasons here - summer and not-summer. My lettuce went limp, it was too hot too quickly for the radishes and carrots, and while the spinach gave us a few salads, it bolted by late April. I might try again in fall, but I won't fool with those vegetables in the spring again. So far, the peppers are coming along nicely, and the pole beans are blossoming. We got a few zucchini from our two plants, but one of the plants has succumbed to what I think is squash vine borer, and the other one isn't looking good. Lesson learned:  pest control is a daily task, especially if you're trying to do it organically.

And finally, we said goodbye recently to our sweet kitty, Sebastian. I miss the little warm bundle of fur that snuggled next to me all night long. But he was sick, and the price of loving an animal is not allowing it to suffer when nothing can be done.

As for snuggling, we have no shortage of warm furry bodies. Our big dog Bella is always good for a cuddle, and the new beagle, Mollie, would be a lap dog if we let her.

incorrigible

First Tennis Tournament

It's been one LONG day, but it ended with the munchkin (on the left) bringing home a 2nd place trophy from her first USTA-sanctioned tournament. She played 4 back-to-back matches, beat the no. 2 seeded player, and won four out of 12 games against the no. 1 seed. Not bad for her first time out!

Battling it out for 1st place in her fourth match of the day.

More Scenes From Christmas

We spent Christmas eve and day in Florida at my husband's brother's house with them and with their parents. We always enjoy Christmas on the farm with our family and all of the animals. Our dog Bella considers it a Lowe dog family reunion! Some of these photos have already appeared here, and some are new.

Scenes from Christmas

It isn't Christmas 'til I decorate sugar cookies.

Santa brought a bulky gift early!

The reindeer are out.

Childhood flies away...

Elf Mayhem

The elves are here. Yep, I said elves. This year, we have not one, but two elves on our shelves. Ironically, this was the year when I thought maybe, just maybe, there'd be no elf.

"Mama, is Zippy real?" my 9-year-old munchkin asked just before Thanksgiving. "Suzie's mom told her that she was too old for an elf, and elves come from a store anyway."

I thought fast. "Honey, you've seen the Elf on the Shelf display at the bookstore, right? So, you already knew that you could get elves at the store."

"Yeah..."

"You know, some of your Santa presents come from stores, too. You knew that, right?"

"Yeah..."

"Well, just because something comes from a store doesn't mean that Santa isn't involved." I held my breath. I'm not sure if I was hoping she'd buy my explanation or keep asking more questions. I've been a little ambivalent about the elf from the beginning.

"Ohhhhhhh!"

Sigh.

So, why do we have two? It was Thanksgiving night, and we were staying at my parents' house. "I can't wait to see where Zippy is tomorrow morning!" said the munchkin at bedtime. Uh-oh. Zippy was still at his summer residence in back-home-closetville.

"Honey, Zippy usually doesn't come until Dec. 1."

"But, Millie said that her elf was coming the day after Thanksgiving. Why would hers come then and mine wait until December 1st? I'm 100% SURE he comes tomorrow!"

After she went to sleep, I asked my mom, "Don't you have an old little Christmas elf that was grandma's?"

"I think so."

"Can we look for it?"

"Oh, Lord, that stuff's all packed up in the storage boxes in the closet. We'd never find it."

The closet had boxes stacked to the 12-foot ceiling. The elf was in the 9th box.

There was a note from Santa the next morning. Turns out that Zippy took a kick to the head while helping Santa feed the reindeer.  He'd recover, but in the meantime, Scotty would be filling in. After a few days, Zippy and his bandaged head appeared with Scotty and they've been working together. We think Scotty might be an apprentice. He's a little less mature than Zippy and is sometimes discovered doing mischievous things like eating our chocolate chip cookies, riding on the Zhu Zhu puppies, or drinking syrup.

I'm thinking that there's just no escaping Santa's elves. There will probably be an elf in the house when she comes home from college.

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Welcome, blog hoppers!

Happy 9th Birthday, Munchkin!

Her actual birthday's still 19 days away, but thanks to other weekend commitments in the coming month, the party was today. It was a beautiful day for it, and we couldn't have asked for nicer girls. They were all so polite and well-behaved. One of them even said, "Wow, Mrs. Lowe, you did a lot of work for this party!"  I just love her! The pennant banner above was easy to make using scrapbook paper, an alphabet stencil, a marker, and some ribbon. I could have bought one, but this one's more special.

The munchkin opened her present from mama and daddy early after mama and Auntie finished decorating the cake. Since the theme of the party was "An Old-Fashioned Ice Cream Social," we had some fun with the cake.

My poor photography doesn't do the cake justice. It was adorable! Tasted good, too. Again, we could have bought one, but then I we wouldn't have had the satisfaction of seeing (and tasting) something we did ourselves. Besides, sis-in-law and enjoyed making it together. I thought it looked great on my vintage milk glass cake pedestal.

I found some cute ideas on the internet using Starbucks Frappucino bottles, and adapted them for our party. It was really tough to drink all of those Frappucinos. (Ahem.) The round portion of the bottle label was free to print from the website Eat Drink Chic, and you can edit the words yourself.  I attached them to the bottles with clear packing tape. I ordered the straws here:  Pink Polka Dot Drinking Straws.

Our party started with chalk on the front drive. As the girls arrived, I had them draw their dream ice cream sundae. We had some quite interesting and large pictures to enjoy!

Next, we enjoyed an ice cream cone relay. The girls divided into two teams which they named "Ice Cream" and "Sprinkles." They took turns balancing a styrofoam ball on a waffle cone while they ran down around an obstacle and came back. We played for the best two out of three, and the winners got to be first in line for the food.

The girls really enjoyed playing a version of Duck, Duck, Goose that we renamed Banana, Banana, Banana, Split.

The girls created their own ice cream sundaes. I used some of my vintage Lu-ray pastels to hold the toppings.

All of the topping labels were found at Eat Drink Chic.

Since I'm a complete ribbon junkie, it was easy to use ribbon I had to create this ribbon topiary for the table. (Click here for instructions.)

There might have been just a little too much sugar at this party...

Of course, presents were next!

I found a bunch of ice cream cone containers of bubbles, so I let the girls take them outside and go crazy with them after the presents.

I send the girls home with gift cards from a local ice cream shop. I put each one in a glassine envelope and used a little wooden ice cream spoon as a tag. The printable tags that say "Thanks for Coming" are from Eat Drink Chic.