Mother's Day

Mother's day (May 13) was special around our house because of the excitement from big sis!  She had secret gifts and plans that she just couldn't wait to tell me.  It was quite cute!  Little man and big sis lavished me with an abundance of homemade gifts and a great gift card.  I have a feeling Disco helped a bit with the decision for the gift card :)

For the 2-3 weeks big sis was making her Mother's day plans, we all got to watch robins build a nest and raise 3 young robins right on our porch.  Momma robin was the most prominent member but once the babies hatched we saw daddy robin quite a bit too.  Our kiddos enjoyed learning about the birds and watching the baby robins eat worms - we heard a lot of "ewww" and "yuck" followed by giggles.  Not long after our own Mother's Day past all the baby robins left the nest.  We didn't get to see them take off from the nest and I know that can be tricky at times.  But I choose to believe they all safely made it during their first flight. 

The whole process was another gentle reminder to slow down a bit and enjoy our own "babies" at home while we can!

Easter 2012

Easter fell on April 8th this year.  Since it is mid-May and I am just now getting back to blogging I don't remember many of the details from our Easter weekend.  We did attend our church's EGGstravaganza the Saturday before Easter.  As well as a much smaller egg-dying event at catlady's house.  On Easter day we attended church and loaded up for our family egg hunt at Aunt K's house.  Of course the egg hunt at Aunt K's house was my absolute favorite because it was my grandparent's old place.  So it was where I spent my childhood searching for eggs as well.  Yup.  That pretty much sums up what I can remember about Easter.  Pics from my sister's house below:

Holiday Weekend

This weekend was a FUN and RELAXING one.  We got up Saturday and watched big sis play basketball.  Then loaded everyone up for a quick trip to Dallas to visit with friends.  The theme of the visit was "veg-out."  Both kiddos and adults took it easy all weekend and just enjoyed each other's company (for the kids that really meant watching TV and videos but hey, it was their vacation too and that is what they wanted to do).  Our kiddos got SOOOOOO excited about the visit to IKEA.  Favorite activity was riding up and down the elevator with two doors.  Big sis just thought it was so cool to go in one side of the elevator but leave the other side.  I stocked up on bday gifts for all the parties we will attend this spring and big sis got a new craft and little man picked up a carrier for his puppy dog.  Disco's only purchase was a cheese grater we could use for making laundry detergent.  And I didn't get anything for myself . . . huh, I just realized that.  Guess we will have to make another visit soon! :)

On the MLK holiday we decided to show our love and give to others by picking up trash around the neighborhood.  We got home too late from Dallas to do any of the planned community service events around town.  I kinda liked making up our own this time.  The kiddos really got into being the first to find a piece of trash and then there was a lot of discussion about who's bag got each piece of trash.  Who knew they would be competitive about trash???  We walked along the road and also through the woods near the creek.  A pleasant outing for sure - and we snagged 3 bags of trash.  Not too bad.

Favorite part?  The fact that the kiddos "dressed up" to be volunteer trash collectors.  I'm sure we looked like trick or treaters combing the neighborhood . . .

Christmas 2011

Christmas was a whirlwind of activities this year.  I spent a lot of my time finishing school and then catching up on a semester's worth of activities/cleaning.  It was a lot of FUN but exhausting all the same.  I am happy to start out 2012 feeling caught up, though.  And that includes catching up on sleep and relaxation.

The kiddos enjoyed big sis' Christmas pageant, driving around to see Christmas lights, making a gingerbread house, holiday parties at school, visiting Santa, picking out a Christmas tree and decorating it, candy, candy, and more candy, holiday music, presents, and lots of extra time with mom and dad and other family members.  I'm definitely NOT ready to go back to work after 2 weeks of fun with the family!

Building, I mean eating, a gingerbread house

One of the few times we actually saw them decorating
instead of eating :)

Cow train at the tree farm

Cow train at the tree farm

Picking the perfect tree = easy.  Taking a
picture where everyone is smiling = not so much

Pig races at the tree farm

Checking out the Christmas lights with Aunt K

This is the yard where Christmas threw up

Just SO MUCH to see

Uncle Scott and Aunt K were amazed by this house

No other house is decorated on the block like this one.
I wonder if you can see it from space . . .

Santa came!

Presents from gaga and bondo

Presents from gaga and bondo

Opening presents at grandmother and granddad's house

Opening presents at grandmother and granddad's house

Merry Christmas 2011

I've been slowly catching up while on Christmas break . . . not enough to catch up on blog posts yet.  But I've finished school, spent plenty of time with the kiddos, and started shoveling myself out of all the things left unattended this year.  Life is good! 

Wishing everyone a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

JOY!

HALLOWEEN 2011

Our family attended catlady's annual Halloween party.  The decorations were FABULOUS!!  Food was awesome and it was a fun time for all.  This year Disco was, well Disco (sporting his 70's attire), big sis and I were decked out in 80's outfits, and little man was Frankenstein. 

For Halloween night big sis was a witch and little man was Frankenstein again.  We trick or treated at our neighbors' houses and then headed up the hill to a road in our neighborhood that is closed for an excellent trick or treating experience.  Families take over the road on foot and residents have parties in their front yard.  Adults walk along with their own treats in hand while kiddos run from door to door begging for candy.  We met up with some friends from big sis' school and had yet another year of Halloween fun. :)

One of our neighbors has a BIG display
the kiddos LOVE to visit every year! :)

The Fourth of July

I think the 4th of July is my favorite holiday.  I know I have mentioned the 50+ year tradition of family festivities more than once on the blog.  I could be nice and link to those old posts but I am being lazy tonight. ;)  Our 4th of July tradition is one that includes old friends, good food, new friends, LOTS of children, fireworks, watermelon, and fun times in the country.  This year we even got to see some floating lanterns soar over from someone else's firework display (like the ones from Tangled). 

Not many pics from us this year - just what we captured on our phones:

Practicing the day before . . .

 













Parachutes!!!



A Wonderful Father

He would spend every day reading "Green Eggs and Ham" to our kiddos if they would let him :)

Happy Father's Day Disco!

Easter

Easter - April 24th, 2011.  Again, catching up on old posts from the spring.  I love spending Easter at my sister's house.  The house used to belong to my grandparents so I have fond memories of my childhood Easters there as well.  And we meet up with my family as well as catlady's crew for some fun times outside hunting eggs.  Since the kiddos are getting older we added softball and croquet to the festivities (most of the good pictures were of little man playing softball this time).  It was another lovely spring day!

Egg hunt

Um . . . I'm doing a bit of catching up.  These pictures are from the Easter egg hunt we attended in April.  Yeah.  I didn't do a good job of posting pictures this spring.  Oh well.  Enjoy them now :)

Ka-Chow

I am just worn out with our schedule lately - fun activities and lots of work all at the same time.  And little man is about to drive us batty as he digs his heels in for the "troublesome threes" that are soon to arrive at our house (we are literally being hit over the head with glimpses of 3 already).  Needless to say I am not keeping up with blogging.  So I was searching for some posts that might have gotten "lost" in the shuffle and found this one I FORGOT to post this past Christmas.  I'm glad I found this video.  It made me smile today - enjoy!

Disco got a new "toy" during the after Christmas sales this year.  It was a remote control to turn on the Christmas lights.  Of course he couldn't just pack it away for next Christmas . . . so he taught the kiddos how to turn on the tree lights by "magic."  Disco taught them to use the word Ka-Chow because we are big fans of the movie Cars (especially Mater but Lightning McQueen is cool too).  I left the true ending to the video.  Usually I edit out the downward spiral and chaos but it just cracked me up that they were tussling over "lighting" the tree.  True sibling rivalry!

Day 6

Happy Valentine's Day!  Today was the last day of extra time with the kiddos during our snow days and scheduled closings for school.  Big sis hung out with me while I worked from home while little man went to daycare.  In the afternoon big sis went to dance and Disco and I were able to join little man for his Valentine's Day party and some beautiful sunny afternoon playtime in the backyard.

We were also treated to some fun time with the grandparents today!  My time with big sis was going really well this morning - I worked while she watched the agreed upon Valentine's specials on TV and enjoyed some Valentine's crafts. Then she got bored (signs of which included a sudden onset of numerous questions and "momma" every 30 seconds).  Luckily, Gaga called about the same time big sis got bored and heard the desperation in my voice.  Gaga wanted to drop off Valentines for the kiddos anyway so she ended up taking big sis to a surprise lunch at McDonalds. 

Grandmother and Grandad called us Sunday night to tell us they were still in town and offered to watch the kiddos.  Disco and I decided to take them up on their offer and enjoy a Valentine's date night.  It was wonderful to have an unexpected Valentine's meal treat with my hubby,  We got to try an old Italian restaurant in town that we had never visited before tonight.  It was yummy!

So the best Valentine's Day presents - love from the grandparents!  Somehow the stars aligned today so that Disco and I got to work and have a much needed date sans kiddos.  Grandmother, Grandad, and Gaga more than deserve our love and thanks this Valentine's Day!  :)

A couple of pics that we took of little man as we were traveling from one activity to the next:


Little man couldn't wait to open his Valentine's.  He had
to stop on the front porch to open up his loot after school



















Little man was SO proud of the suckers
he found in his treat bag. 
He told us "One for me and one for big sis!"