Hello Petunia (May 10)

Marty is still in full on spring planting mode and he picked up these gorgeous petunias for a planter in the front yard. They are so bright they almost hurt your eyes and they will grow like crazy and take over the planter in a few weeks. So exciting to watch everything green up and take off again each spring. I know I've said this several times already, but after that crazy winter, I am still so happy to see the sun and see things growing again.

Happy Mother's Day (May 9)

My lil blue Nikon CoolPix died a few months ago and I've been limping along with this project, lugging my digital SLR everywhere or relying on my 2.5 megapixel cell phone camera to capture my photos of the day since then. I had been hinting for a quite a while that I wanted another pocket sized camera and I was hoping with Mother's Day approaching that someone would take the bait. Well, it worked! I woke up Sunday morning to the sounds of my kids coming into the room with a big tray full of french toast for a wonderful breakfast in bed. Then they gave me this little number. It is 12 megapixels (my SLR is only 8) and it has a cool touch screen feature. I love it! So many fun features and I plan to try many of them out with this project so watch out!

It's a Chopper, Baby (May 8)

We were heading to Jeff City to go to a birthday bash and on the way down there, we spotted a group of choppers making their way south as well. This one just cracked me up. I think the picture speaks volumes...

FREEZING (May 7)

Our second softball game of the week was SOOOOOO cold. The girls had to wear long sleeved shirts under their uniforms and many of them gave up and put on sweatshirts and jackets over their unis as the game went on. The sun was shining brightly, but the wind was wicked and a storm front moving in caused the temp to drop about 10 degrees in a few hours. We were frozen like little Popsicles by the time the game was done. Max and I cuddled together to try and stay warm but it didn't help much!

New Brew (May 6)

When I was in Kirksville for my work conference last week, I had the great pleasure of trying the Classic American Pilsner, a new beer from a brewery called Ray Hill's BrewHouse. The story I heard was that he was one of the brewmasters from A.B. and when they were bought out, he ventured out on his own. This stuff is great and I was super excited to find it today at my local liquor store. It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking some up. (Bueller? Bueller?)

Clematis (May 5)

Marty started a clematis vine a few years ago on the front of the house. It always does very well, growing almost as tall as the garage each year. He prunes it all the way back to the ground each fall and it comes back every spring - a cycle we look forward to year after year. This year, the blooms have become HUGE! Usually they are maybe 4-5 inches in diameter, but this year, they are as big as dinner plates. We can't figure out why the blooms have gotten so large, but they are beautiful.

Maxasaurus Rex (May 4)

We found these great felt hats at Michael's the other day. Natalie and I went in to get something (I don't even remember what it was) and as usual in a craft store, we found ourselves distracted by all the fun stuff. I don't even remember if we ended up getting what we were after, I just know we came home with three of these cool hats to play with. Max got the dinosaur, Ella got a pig and Natalie got a Roman soldier's helmet. For a whopping $6 we had a great afternoon of dress-up fun and some great memories to go with it.

Natalie Pitches (May 3)

We did not know that we were going to be playing kid pitch softball this year so needless to say, we hadn't practiced pitching. At all. But, like most challenges Natalie faces, she just jumped right in with both feet and picked it up pretty quickly. Coach worked with her a few times at practice and she got to pitch an inning at her first softball game of the season. The first year of kid pitch is pretty rough, the coaches step in after the 4th "ball" is thrown, but Natalie was pretty pumped that she threw three strikes while she was at the mound. Go Natalie!

Nature Art (May 2)

We usually make a trip down to Peace Park for the Earth Day celebration each year. Not because we are into hugging trees per se, but there are a lot of fun activities that are free for the kiddos and it is a great excuse to get out and get some fresh air. There is always a craft station where the kids get to make something using natural materials. This year's project was a tee-pee out of sticks. Ella has never really wanted to do the craft until this year. She really had fun choosing from all the materials available and placing them in just the right place on her project. I'm so glad that she's beginning to enjoy all the things that the big kids like to do.

Wohlgemuth Welcome (May 1)

Just wanted to capture a little shot of the front door. Trying to snag shots of things that help make the house a home. Marty gave this to me after we bought this house. We knew we were going to be here for a while, so it means a lot to put our name on the house. We'll have been here for 9 years in September. Time is flying by...

Welcome Home (April 30)

I was only gone for a couple of days for my conference, but I sure missed my family. Ella welcomed me home with a little help from Elmo. This was taken with my phone camera, so the quality is not that great, but it sure is cute.

CCEM Rocks (April 29)

Most of the photos taken on this evening of our conference are probably not for public consumption, so I will just highlight this one. This was taken in the women's restroom stall at the DuKum Inn in Kirksville, MO. There was an actual chalkboard in the stall and all of us gals in our CCEM group had to jot something down. I focused in on the most appropriate message, which is also the truth - CCEM does rock. Even in Kirksville.