Ragball 2012

Yesterday we headed up to Hiddenite, NC to play some ragball. Every year our good friend Steven organizes a Ragball event to raise money for a charity. This year his Walmart store was raising money for Levine Children's Hospital. There were three teams this year and I got placed on the Coke team.

Ragball is pretty much slow pitch softball but with a very soft ball. The game is loads of fun and is great because people of all skill level can play. Turns out I was the only girl on the Coke team. So you can guess where I ended up playing.....yeah right field. Most of the games I was swatting flies out of my face. But I actually did get two pop ups hit my way and I caught both of them. I still got some skills left from my softball days. I got a couple of good hits and thankfully didn't strike out like some of the other guys on my team. 

We ended up going undefeated. We won all three games. Lets just say that I don't run any faster then I did when I was a kid. I think I actually run slower if that is possible. After playing three games back to back, lets just say I can feel all the muscles in my body today. Oh and I ended up sliding into second and was safe, but came up with a scratched up knee. Yeah my sliding skills have not changed either.

I did enjoy having Virginia sitting in the dugout cheering me on. She even asked me when she grows up if she can play. Fingers crossed I may still have a chance at her playing softball. She starts ballet this summer. Can't wait to see her dancing, should be super cute. 

After the games were over Reiggin picked me up and we handed back to his parent's house to hang out. Virginia was already there enjoying blowing bubbles with MiMi and Sadie. Virginia loves it up there. Mimi has old barbie dolls that Virginia loves to dig into every time we come. And she gets to go visit their cows and sometimes even gets to go check out the chickens. There is just plenty of land for her to run and play. 

Once Reiggin's dad was done collecting all the chicken eggs. We headed to Crackel Barrel for dinner. That pretty much rounded out a perfect day. Can't beat ragball and some family time together. 

Fairy Charms

During my week of Screen Free time or my attempt at screen free week I decided to do more crafts with Virginia. I was trying my best to not be on the computer during the day. So that meant I couldn't search Pinterest for all the crafts that I had pinned. 

But the library came to my rescue. I always forget that my libraries have whole sections of art and craft books. Virginia and I spent quite some time sitting in the art and craft section trying to find the best craft books to check out. One book that both me and Virginia loved was Sweet Pea's Garden Special Things to Make and Do. It was a whole craft book themed on Fairies. 

After our yard sale adventure Saturday and one new boo boo from the terrible sidewalk. We decided to take it easy inside and make the Marigold's Fairy Charms. This is a super easy recipe on how to make your own beads. 

Salt Dough Recipe:

2 cups of flour

1 cup of salt

1 cup lukewarm water

Mix the flour and salt together, then slowly add the water until it binds together to form a dough. Knead the dough until it is smooth, then cover it and leave it for half an hour before use.

Bake the finished models at 200 F until they are golden brown and sound hollow when tapped. Small beads will take around 45 minutes. A larger pendant shape will take up to an hour and a half.

The book calls you to use a cookie cutter. We decided to use our heart shaped cookie cutter. To make the beads you roll the dough out into a snake and then cut the snake in pieces to roll in your hand to make a ball. Using a metal skewer you poke a hole in the ball and leave the beads on the skewer  to bake. 

Here is where our problems began. Well actually I think my problem began when I added to much water. I think our dough was just to soft. And I noticed the dough beads on the screwers didn't keep their shape well and again this could be because of our dough being too soft. I also believe I will make the cooking time longer. Our beads didn't finish cooking in the 45 minute time either.

We plan to do this craft again and make the adjustments and hopefully come out with some super cool beads that Virginia can paint herself. Then assemble into a pretty necklace and bracelet. I will say if you use this recipe that it does make a large amount of dough. Enough to make a lot of beads or to use as a sculpture. 

One cute project in the book was to make cute fairy items for a garden. Some examples they gave were little mushrooms for the fairies to sit on. There are tons of crafts in this book that are great for all ages and even for the big kids in your family or a kid at heart.

Painting with Virginia

Lately Virginia has been wanting to do more and more painting. I have finally came up with a a routine that really isn't much work for me. Virginia still gets to enjoy her painting and I get to relax at the same time. I just tape a large piece of paper to the coffee table. It does help that our coffee table isn't brand new so I don't worry about paint getting on it. The paint is washable so clean up is quick. I put all the paints on a paper plate and roll out her brushes. I get a small cup of water and a old towel. The only thing that I have to assist her with is cleaning and drying the brushes. I basically sit back and read a book and watch my daughter create her master piece.

To Grandma's House we Go.....

Going to Grandma's house each Wednesday is becoming my daughter's favorite tradition.  We wake up and get our shower's and bath and make our weekly trip to the Mt. Pleasant library for story time. Which if you are in this area is the best story time around. After story time we head home and take care of Cookie for a bit and any house cleaning that needs to be done. The whole time Virginia is asking when we are heading to Grandma's.

It is about an hour drive to Gastonia, but totally worth it. Each Wednesday we head down to visit my parents for dinner. Can't beat a homemade dinner from my Mom. Virginia gets to visit mawmaw and pawpaw.  She even gets to play with cousin Samantha. They are only 4 months apart and I am so glad that they are super close. With the addition of Zach the house is even more full of cuteness. I love that I get to see my niece and nephew once a week. And it is always nice to catch up with my sister Susan.

My parents love getting to spoil the girls and now Zach I believe. It is scary how fast they all are growing up. Seems like just yesterday that Virginia and Samantha were learning to walk and talk. Now they are running around and starting to learn to ride big girl bikes. Here are a few photos from this week's visit.

I feel like I will see this expression more and more as she gets older.

Picking flowers with MawMaw is her favorite thing to do.

Virginia finally asked to hold Zach. She is also starting to ask where we can go to get a baby sister.

Getting to hold this little man is one of the highlights of my Wednesday. He is getting so big. Love Him.

How Does My Garden Grow

I never thought I would be writing about me growing anything other then weeds. But this year I decided to try my hands at growing vegetables and tomatoes. We planted tomatoes, carrots, bell peppers, snap peas, and flowers in pots this year.

             

So far so good. My snap peas are hanging in there, after a scary battle with Cookie. I thought they were died, but I saw some peas on the plant yesterday. The bottom of the plant is still fighting and I hope the plant stays alive long enough to finish producing the peas. 

I just transferred the tomatoes and carrots to pots outside. We will see if I can keep them alive and healthy.  I plan to transfer the bell peppers at the beginning of next week to pots outside. Just maybe I might have a little of my mom and grandpa's green thumb. I think my mom could make something grow out of rock. She is that good with getting things to grow.

Virginia also got to plant something this year. At her speech class they planted a few seeds in a cup and got to bring it home. Her teachers were not sure what the seeds were so we will be surprised once they fully grow. I picked up a small clay pot for her to paint and we transferred her plant yesterday into the pot. 

I can't wait to see if we are able to harvest any vegetables or tomatoes this year. Also some flowers have bloomed around the mailbox and around the big bush in our front yard that Meredith and Donnie planted the previous owners of our house. And the flowers that my parents gave me actually are growing strong. I can't wait to see them when they bloom. So slowly our front yard is starting to look pretty good.

Carolina Girls' Pinterest Challenge

                                    

Like many people my friends and I love ( addicted to ) Pinterest. My best friend Lisa came across some Pinterest Challenges on other blogs. Where people do a project off of Pinterest at least once a month and blog about it. Since all of us run our own blogs and have Pinterest boards overflowing. We decided that we should start a blog together and do a Pinterest challenge once every two months. This is where Carolina Girls' Pinterest Challenge was born.

My friends some from as early as preschool and others from high school came together and decided to do a Pinterest Challenge once every two months and then blog about our project. The blog writers are Me, Lisa, Susan, and Katie. We cover North Carolina, California, and Washington. We are all very different and live different day to day lives. But we have all managed to stay friends and stay in touch since high school. 

It was tough picking one project to blog about. And I caught myself blogging about Pinterest projects here on my personal blog and hitting myself thinking dummy you should have put this on Carolina Girls' Pinterest Challenge. But like always I waited til the last minute and decided to finally sew a baby's play diaper for my daughter Virginia. She has been getting into pretend play mode lately and she loves pretending to be mom. So I knew this project would be perfect. 

If you would like to see my project and the other girl's projects jump on over and read Carolina Girls' Pinterest Challenge. So far mine and Lisa's project is posted on the blog. I am waiting very patiently ( laughing out loud ) for Susan's and Katie's projects. 

Screen Free Week: Day 1

So this week is Screen Free Week, where you either stop watching TV and using the computer. Or you try to cut down on your screen time. I have decided to take the challenge. I don't plan to cut out screen time all together, but to cut back. I plan to check my email once in the morning and once at night. I also plan to check in once in the morning and once at night on CentralPiedmontMommies.com. I am hoping to avoid facebook all week long. I decided to take this challenge so I can spend more time with Virginia playing, crafting, and reading. So instead of telling her I will be right there as soon as I get done with this email, or read this blog, or read this thread I can say yes lets go do that. 

Going without TV isn't that bad for me. I really don't watch tv during the day at all. Unless you want to count Virginia wanting to watch Caillou on netflix. But most the time when she watches that I read the book that I am currently reading that month. The computer is the toughest thing for me. I love reading all my craft blogs, Pinterest, checking Facebook, and checking in on CentralPiedmontMommies.com. 

Today was the first day and it went well. I stuck to my rules and we spent most of the day away from the home. So that helped alot, I found myself wanting to get online when we were home. Here is how the day went.

First up we went out for a girl's lunch at McDonald's. 

Next was a stop at our favorite park, Harrisburg Park. She loves watching people play soccer. Today she was lucky that there was a soccer ball left on the field. She quickly ran over and started playing and kicking the ball in the goal.

After the soccer field, she loves the swings the most. She can spend hours on these things.

The thing that is best about the park is the library is right beside it. So after the park we ran over to the library. After she picks her picks, she loves to play her favorite dora game on the computer.

Today was a special treat, because we had to go to Concord Mills to return a few items. Every time we go to the mall Virginia has to ride the Merry Go Round. She loves this thing. After the Merry Go Round we stopped in at Books a Million. This is becoming our new favorite store.

After running around we got home and I did a little house cleaning and got ready for my Moms Night Out dinner at Mi Pueblo. I had great adult conversation and met some great new moms. Overall the first screen free day was great. I can't wait to see how the rest of the week goes.