Monday, April 25, 2011

Easter 2011

So I didn't end up having much free time today. Poor Kate had a stomach virus today so I ended up doing a lot of laundry and a lot of snuggling with her. But I did get a chance to upload all of the Easter pictures. The girls had three Easter Egg hunts this week. That means the entire Bury household will officially be starting sugar detox tomorrow..... I am pretty sure we've surpassed the limit on what constitutes "beneficial" sugar intake... but we had fun and made sweet memories. Enjoy the pictures.

Easter 2011 Pictures

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Happy Easter!

Couldn't wait to share a little of our Easter day with you!

I've got lots of pictures and things to share but for now you'll have to settle for this sneak peek. Hopefully tomorrow I'll find some time to write, but don't hold your breath... Maddy is out of school tomorrow so my free time will be limited. :-)

By the way, Zack would like to officially announce that the pool is open for the season!
Contact him to reserve pool time. Ha!
Zack taking the first swim of the 2011 pool season!


Friday, April 22, 2011

To connect or not to connect.....


To connect or not to connect? That is the question I asked myself the evening of March 8th, the evening before Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Lenten season. Up until that night, I hadn’t even thought about giving up anything for Lent, but Maddy's teacher decided that she was going to give up Facebook and that inspired me. I too would give up Facebook for Lent and disconnect.



So what led me to disconnect?


Well, I had recently become frustrated with Facebook. I was frustrated that people posted insensitive comments or status updates without regard to others’ feelings or circumstances. I was frustrated with “friends”that would post vague status updates, yet when privately asked what was going on they didn’t want to talk. And, I was frustrated that I was occasionally guilty of the same stuff! In short, Facebook started to seem like a clique. Facebook had also become an obsession. I would constantly check it on my phone and could easily waste hours “stalking” friends.


So, on March 9th... I went AWOL on Facebook.


At first, the hardest part was not checking it on my phone, but after a few days I didn’t even think about Facebook. I would occasionally ask someone if I had missed any big announcements but, generally, I didn’t miss Facebook. I began to think “you know, I could live without Facebook forever.”But then I noticed something. Most of my blog audience came from Facebook. And despite a promise to myself that I would call or email people more during Lent, I didn’t. So I began to feel too disconnected, even from the very part of Facebook that made me want to disconnect in the first place. Funny how that happens.


So, on April 16th... I went back to Facebook.

I know… I only had one week left! How could I give up so close to Easter? To some, I’m sure that it seems like a complete failure and waste of time. To others, you may not have noticed that I was even gone. Ha. But for me, it was 5 “intentional” weeks that allowed me to focus on two important things.

The first thing was finding a church. I am excited to say that David and I finally found a church to call home. It only took us 9 years, a lot of visiting, and some serious discussions, but we found a church that we both love and are excited about. On April 3rd, our family joined Northway Church in Macon.

The second thing I focused on was my God-given purpose… What I am supposed to be doing right now? I had an idea but I wasn’t sure how to put it into action. So, over the last 6 weeks I have been praying about and working on another blog. It’s called Beneficial Kitchen. It’s a blog about living more beneficial lives when it comes to food, the environment, and our relationship with God. If you are interested, then here is a link: http://www.beneficialkitchen.com/ .

It is my intention to keep this blog, Bury Cute, as my personal blog about the girls and our daily lives. It is my desire that the Beneficial Kitchen blog will take off and, God willing, bless a few people. In the end, my need to disconnect from Facebook turned into a desire to be more connected. I pray that this time I can stay away from the pettiness that unfortunately surrounds Facebook and use Facebook to share my passion and faith in Christ.

Monday, April 18, 2011

Strawberry Patch Field Trip

Last Friday, Maddy's school went on a field trip to pick strawberries at Twin Oaks Fun Farm, in Forsyth. Maddy talked about the upcoming field trip all week. She told everyone from the pharmacist at Walgreens to the cashier at Kroger that she was going to the strawberry patch. She also told these same people that Daddy had left early in the morning and wouldn't be back, which meant I got a lot of questioning empathetic stares from these people. Sorta like they wanted to ask what she meant but also kinda didn't want to know.... What Maddy meant to say was that Daddy was a on business trip and would be home in a couple of days. I gotta work with Maddy on what she tells people, I don't want her to be shy but I also don't want her to share everything. :-) 

But back to the field trip, the kids got to pick strawberries, play on the amazing playground, eat ice cream, and of course have a picnic. Maddy told me that her favorite part was eating ice cream... It was a lot of fun and again I tried to snap as many pictures as I could... but that little Kate moves quickly.

Maddy with her fresh picked strawberries.

Sisters picking berries together.


Maddy with her buddy, Cassidy.

Kate inspecting her "harvest".


Friday, April 15, 2011

Flashback Friday - 4/15/2011

Maddy
 April 2007
Look at that hair! 


I love this picture and how it captures her staring at her foot.
So cute!

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

My Quaterly Craft Project

I consider myself a fairly creative and sometimes crafty person. I like reading blogs about home decorating and projects. I have the best intentions when it comes to implementing those ideas into our own home but somehow I rarely follow though. Maybe it's the fact that I have two small children running around, maybe it's a money thing (crafting and home decor are not a top financial priority), or maybe I am just lazy and scared of making a mistake (I am a bit of a control freak and perfectionist). But every now and then something inspires me enough to dig out my glue and staple guns and make something. This happens about once a quarter...my last quarterly craft project was our kitchen table. This quarter it's art work for our master bedroom....

Like a lot of people, I have this fascination with typography (letters, initials, monograms). I am always on the lookout for our initials: B, J, D, M, K.  I have often found our initials but they also came with a price tag that I couldn't justify. This time my inspiration came from some scrap fabric I had and a desire to finally do something with our master bedroom lamps. So $10 and trip to Hobby Lobby later I had everything I needed to make some typography art for our bedroom. Here's what I made....

 1. Got these initials for $.99 at Hobby Lobby and painted them a vintage looking turquoise blue.

2. Took two 11x14 canvas' and wrapped them with my scrap fabric. 

3. Once dry I used my glue gun to adhere the initials to the wrapped canvas. 

4. The final product: typography art for our bedside tables.

Can you guess who's side of the bed this is? Ha.

So in the end I am really pleased with my "typography art". It's inspired me to work on on our bedroom and make it a grown up room. I think I am off to a good start but next on my list is to paint the walls. And by the way, don't you just love my lamp? Mimi found those for me last mother's day and I love them!   

Monday, April 11, 2011

We're local celebrities....well sort of.

Picture from front of the Macon Telegraph Business Section
Remember the Mulberry Street Market I told you about last week? Well if you read the Macon Telegraph then you might have read the article in Sunday's business section about the market. And if you paid super close attention you may have noticed that the we were in the picture on the front of the business section. We weren't mentioned by name but it's kinda cool that our picture was in the paper. :-)

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Mulberry Street Market

Mulberry Street Market opened this afternoon in downtown Macon and we went. For local readers,  Mulberry Street Market is a producers only curbside farmer's market that will be held every Wednesday afternoon from 4:30-7:00pm on Mulberry Street in Macon.  For those of you wondering "producer only market" means that the only vendors at the market will be local farmers who grow their food versus vendors that are "wholesale produce distributors". Meaning you can guarantee that what you are buying was grown locally.

I've been excited about this farmer's market for awhile now. I like the idea of eating locally and more organic but to be honest, it's hard to do while staying on budget and when you don't have local access to stores like Whole Foods. But it's something we are working on as a family and I hope to share more about it on the blog. 

Today's visit was an exploratory visit just to see what's available. The market is conveniently located across from David's office so he was able to take a break and come with us. For our first visit I think we did pretty good. We were able to get local cage free eggs, spinach, romaine lettuce, strawberries, local honey, and grass fed pork sausage (for David). All in all it was a good visit to the market.

As we left Kate needed a snack so we let her try some strawberries. She still doesn't understand the concept of taking "bites", instead she puts the whole thing in her mouth....

 
And here's what happens when she puts the whole thing in her mouth....


She cries...because we have to pull it out of her mouth before she chokes.
Poor baby. :-)

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Spring Break - Part 2

To continue from where we left off yesterday, we returned from Hilton Head Tuesday evening. It was still wet and cold Wednesday morning, so you may be asking what do you do in middle Georgia on a rainy day? You go to Bass Pro Shops!
This was Nana and Granddaddy's first visit to Bass Pro Shop and only my second (so don't get any ideas that I go there all the time). First of all even if you don't like the outdoors or anything related to the outdoors you still gotta visit the store just to see the inside. It's crazy. Secondly, I guarantee everyone can find something to buy there. We found "rib rub" for BBQ ribs and candy. We also had lunch with David and visited an antique mall that afternoon. Between Bass Pro Shop, lunch at The Rookery, and shopping at Payne Mill Antiques I would say we had a well rounded "cultural" day in Macon. :-)

Thursday started out the same as Wednesday, more rain and cold. We loaded up the van and headed to Atlanta. At Granddaddy's request, we started our day at The Varsity. If you didn't know, he went to Georgia Tech, his dear daughter (me) went to UGA so there is a bit of a family rivalry going on there but I won't bore you with the details. We put our differences aside long enough to enjoy chili dogs and onion rings, although I am pretty sure the onion rings at the Athens location are better. Ha! :-)


After lunch we headed over to Imagine It, the Children's Museum of Atlanta. I am kinda a snob about children's museums but I was really pleased with this one. Maddy described it as the "best newsuem she's ever been too." Both she and Kate had a ball running around, touching, playing, and climbing on everything. I tried my best to get pictures but it's kinda hard when you are chasing Kate around trying to keep fake food and moon sand out of her mouth. :-) Be sure to look at the web album for pictures.
Kate operating a crane. :-)
Milking a happy cow. :-)

Weee...look at me I did it all by myself.
After playing for several hours we headed back home with enough time to hit another antique mall. On Friday the weather finally turned and it was beautiful so we went to Madison, the town General Sherman deemed to "pretty to burn down" on his infamous March to the Sea during the Civil War. We had a delicious lunch, walked around town, and of course shopped for antiques (if you haven't noticed, we do a lot of that). Saturday was the perfect day for a BBQ with family and friends. And on Sunday we said goodbye to Nana and Grandaddy and spring break. It was a busy fun filled week that I am still recovering from. Thank you Nana and Grandaddy for visiting us, we love you!

Web album

Monday, April 4, 2011

Spring Break 2011 - Part 1

Maddy's spring break (yes, I know it's crazy that preschool has spring break, but they do) was last week and for the first half of the week we spent it in Hilton Head. We met Nana and Grandaddy there and stayed with family friends Uncle Jim and Uncle Lew in their beautiful house. The weather only cooperated with us on Saturday and Sunday morning then the rest of the week was rainy and cold. On Saturday we headed to the beach for a picnic and some fishing.
This was Kate's first time walking on sand. She had a little trouble at first but caught on quickly. She loved playing in the sand almost as much as she loved eating the sand. :-) Kate also loved sitting in the little beach chair that Nana and Grandaddy bought them. She loves to practice sitting down in a chair.

 Anyone else notice that red hair on Kate?
 After taking Maddy and Kate for a bike ride on the beach, Maddy tried her hand at fishing. Of course on our way to the beach we had to stop at Wal-Mart so Grandaddy could buy Maddy her very own princess fishing pole. Nana and Maddy fished for awhile with a little help from Grandaddy.

 Then Nana finally caught a fish!
After a long day at the beach we headed back to the house for naps and dinner. We enjoyed a sunny Sunday morning around the house before the rain and cold weather rolled in. Despite the weather we still had a nice relaxing time in Hilton Head. Thanks Uncle Jim and Uncle Lew for sharing your house with us! There are more pictures from the beach so check the web album. Tomorrow I'll share pictures from the second half of spring break when Nana and Grandaddy come to Macon for a visit!
Hilton Head Web Album