Trip to Greenville!

Saturday we visited our friends in Greenville, S.C.  It was beautiful!  We went and walked by the river downtown.  The boys loved the water and the park.  

 Johnston, Jameson and Miss Destiny!

 The kids loved climbing on these rocks. 

There were a lot of ducks (white and mallard) and big geese swimming and sleeping on the rocks out in the river.  It was so cute..they were all paired up!  Can’t wait to see all the babies this spring/summer swimming around with the parents!

Destiny and Jameson posed by the rose bushes in the kids park on the river.  Johnston of course was off doing his own thing!

 Jameson pulling on Peter Rabbits ears!

The three bears!  Well…they eat as much as three bears! 

We will be having a picnic this Spring down on the grass!  It is so peaceful there.
Thank you Uncle Kenneth for taking such great pictures of the kids.  We can’t wait to come and explore Greenville with you all again soon!

Fun Friday!

Friday has turned into our run around day.  We always hit the library.  Sometimes the weather is nice enough to hit a park.  Since I have Great-Grandma with us we end up going someplace to eat.  This past Friday the weather was beautiful we ended up going to one of the parks by Lake Lanier before heading anywhere else.

Johnston is so outgoing.  He invited this little girl to play with him and Jameson.

Jameson was a prisoner!  He doesn’t seem to unhappy about it.  (I have a feeling he escaped down a slide soon after this picture was taken!)

Best buddies!

I had to take a picture of these geese just to show you how low Lake Lanier is.  You can see the water in the background.  Last year these geese would have been paddling around right where they are.

You can really see how low the water is in this picture.  The water should come right up to below the trees trees behind the boys.

Jameson was very interested in how high he was.  He kept asking if he was going to  jump now.  Uh…no!!!!

Saving big on play food!

We play "restaurant’ quite a bit at our house.  "Chef" Johnston whips up great feasts of imaginary food to feed us.  The kitchen counters are covered in all the pots, pans, utensils, and spices that he uses to make our fine meals.  He really gets into it…but always cleans up after himself!

I thought about buying play food for us to use, but with Tim in school I just couldn’t bring myself to spend money on a non-essential item.  However, I did have an inspiration which was received with great enthusiasm from the boys.   It turned into a fun project for us all!

I took a Southern Living Magazine that was at the bottom of my MIL’s magazine basket.

We cut out any food items that looked good enough to eat.  (They really enjoyed this!)

Then we used clear contact paper to make the "food" more durable.

We cut them out….

Then we had a feast!  

Don’t forget dessert!

When we were done we had about 30 different food items.  We put them all in a gallon ziploc bag.  I love that they take up no room at all to store and they were free!

Good clean fun!

Fresh from the shower fun!  The boys have turned our closet into their cave!  Johnston has taken up sleeping there as much as we will let him.

More clean fun!  Jameson putting a few miles on his horse before calling it a night!

Outings with daddy!

Tim likes to surprise the boys by swinging by to pick them up on his lunch breaks.  I never know where they are going until they return.  Tim always takes the camera so I can enjoy the adventure as well.  

Todays adventure was a trip to a local park.  The boys thoroughly enjoyed themselves!

 Why must slides be climbed?  Johnston claims it’s the "shortcut".

 Our adventurous Jameson loves all types of slides!

 "He flies through the air with the greatest of ease…."

 Where Johnston goes….Jameson will follow!

Crock-pot Crazy!

Today Johnston and I played chef.  Which means while we got dinner into the crock-pot we talked with French accents and put "chef" in front of our names.  When we are really crazy we pretend we are taping our own show on the Food Network!  So much fun! (Thanks for this idea "chef" Destiny!)

When I looked in the fridge this morning trying to see what I was going to make for dinner I found half a bag of broccoli that I buy in bulk from Costco.  Usually we don’t seem to eat it fast enough and I end up throwing about a 1/4 of the bag away.  So there it was…..just looking at me.  We have had raw broccoli for almost two weeks straight and I personally was done with it.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw my crockpot and bells started ringing.  I could almost hear angels singing.  Ok…maybe not….but ideas started flying through my head.  I hadn’t done any shopping last week due to Tim’s dad being in the hospital.  So I wasn’t sure what I had that would work.  I grab a few things that I had around and we "created" a soup!  It turned out so good I had to post.  

Johnston cut up two carrots.

One large onion and the carrots ~  sauteed just slightly.

Pouring the raw broccoli into the crock-pot.

All ingredients must be taste tested for quality!

Just about to stir in the cheese Johnston grated.

Ready to eat!  It sure was yummy!

Recipe:
Raw Broccoli (just poured almost to the top of crock pot)
2 carrots (chopped and sauteed w/ butter)
1 large onion (chopped and sauteed w/ butter)
1 small can corn (will use frozen next time)
1 family size can of cream of mushroom soup (any cream soup would do probably)
1 soup can of milk
About 2 cups of shredded cheese (we really didn’t measure…might have been more)
Salt
Lots of garlic powder (only form of garlic my mil had at her house where I cooked dinner, will use
minced garlic next time)
*Throw everything in the crock-pot.  Stir.  Cook on high for 3-4 hours.
**I’m going to play around with herbs next time and I might add celery and rice as well.

Update on Tim's dad!

This has been the longest week we’ve experienced in a long time.  Tim spent Tuesday thru Friday at the hospital from 8am to 6pm each day.  He was allowed a 30 min visit at 8, 11, 2, and 5.  The rest of the day was spent sitting in the waiting room with Dot (his step-mom). 

As of today Tim’s dad has made a miraculous recovery.  On Tuesday Burns (Tim’s Dad) was put in ICU.  This is how things looked:
1. They didn’t know where all the blood was coming from (vomiting, etc.)…but they replaced 5 pints of blood that morning.
2. He was on total life support
3. By 5pm they put him on 24 hour dialysis.  His kidneys had shut down.
4. His blood pressure was 85 over 40…when he got to the ER that morning they couldn’t even get a reading.  This raised questions of how much damage, if any, did his heart have. They were able to get his blood pressure up a little by putting him on 4 different medications.
5. It also looked like he had a heart attack the previous day.
Within the last 24 hours:
1. He has been taken off dialysis.  They still aren’t sure if he will need to do dialysis for a while until his body get’s back on track, but he is off right now and things are looking good.
2. His breathing tube was removed today.
3. He is almost off of the 14 meds that were helping his body function.
4. He was given another 2 pints of blood.
5. Asked for a cup of coffee.
6. They think he will be out of the ICU by this Monday. 
Wednesday we were at the "need a miracle" stage…..today he gave Tim a note for the boys and me.
It read:
I heart JB, JJ and Bky 2.  Heart, Dad
Translation:
(I love Johnston Burns, Jameson Joe, and Becky too.  Love, Papa Burns)
God is so good!!!

JB & JJ with Papa Burns ~ Winter 2005