Easter 2014.......Three Weeks Later

Easter this year was COLD but more fun than ever!  It's fun to see how the kids "get it" more and more each year and have more fun with every holiday.  Audrey was actually interested in her Easter basket this year, and Parker was SO pumped when it was time to do the egg hunt outside.  They had so much fun!  As I mentioned in the Mother's Day post, our Sunday schedule is almost always the same, and the only difference in this Sunday was that I did not have breakfast at my parents' house.  We dropped the kids off and let them eat there because we had to be at both church services that morning to sing with the choir.  Instead of having them in the nursery all morning, they ate at my parents and stayed there until I picked them up after the first service.  Then normal Sunday activities commenced!  

Early morning Easter basket "discovery" at about 7:30 am.

Love the look on his face.

This girl loves wearing sunglasses.

A real and true smile from PBJ!

Okay so now we fast forward to about 5pm for easter egg hunt time at Omi and Opa's!

She got the hang of it pretty quickly.

And of course this boy was trying to find every egg in the yard.

This is Parker's, "Okay, you told me to smile and I'm smiling are we done with this picture yet?" face.

I love mandatory hand-holding!

This is the part where I forced them to sit and take a "good picture" together.  This was the best that I got!

And a little "real life" thrown in for good measure. 

...and here we are all together!

And for fun......here are the kids from last year:

Snaggle toof and the sweetest goofy brother a girl could ask for!  Note that Audrey is wearing the same dress.  I love that the smocked dresses can be worn for more than just one season!

Mother's Day 2014

This year was the fifth time I've celebrated being a mother.  It's hard to believe!  Everyone always asks me, "Are you doing anything special for Mother's Day?"  It's definitely a special day, but it plays out like every other Sunday for us.  The kids and I have breakfast at my parents' house while Ryan plays the piano at church.  Then we meet him at church and attend the second service.  After the service, we go to lunch with Ryan's family.  After lunch, we get the kids home to take naps.  While they're napping, we try to get a few things done around the house and every now and then take a little power nap ourselves.  Once the kids wake up, we head over to Omi and Opa's house for dinner with my family.

This was the schedule we had today!  I took a couple pictures of the kids and also wanted one with my children.  It's a rare thing to be in a picture since I'm usually the one taking the pictures, but I got my man to take it for me.

This is what the majority of the pictures from any picture-taking sessions I have look like.  My goofy children!

Not the best picture of Audrey, but this boy sure does love his sister.

This girl is into picking up rocks right now.  She is the type that would put them in her mouth to eat them, though.  Makes us just a little nervous!

Me and my babies.  And my giraffe neck apparently.  Whatever--I had to go with the best overall picture and this was the one!  

For fun....here are my other Mother's Day pictures!

2013

2012 (damn.)

2011

2010 (first ever!)

Looking forward to so many more! 

Parker's First Soccer Team

Parker played soccer this season on the BLACK DRAGONS team with his best buddy, Wyatt.  I was reluctant to sign him up at first because I didn't think I was ready for the commitment and, honestly, soccer is just not my thing.  The strong persuasion of a certain best friend changed my mind, and I am so glad she did!  I really enjoyed watching him play.  He seemed to make some progress throughout the season, and I'm proud of him!  Here are shots from the first game:

Parker with Coach Jimmy.

Buddies in action!

They have zero personality.

Nothing like competing with your own teammate for the ball!

Waiting to be called in by Coach.

Everyone who attended the game to see Parker--Lulu, Leah, Honey, Granddad, Ian, Mona, Granddady.  (not pictured--Haley, NayNay, Audrey, and me!)

And now pictures from the last game:

Pre-game warmup.

This little sweetie cheered for her brother and said, "Go, Caca, Go!" 

Love the arm movement.

Taking the ball to the goal!

Go, Wyatt!

Pretty sure we told them to smile but Wyatt decided to transform.

No words--love these two boys!

Last picture of the season.  Very proud of this boy!

Baby Geeeeeeeearl

I wanted to record a few things about Audrey that I want to remember.  She is talking up a storm lately and saying so many cute little things and is such a sweetheart!

• her:"hey, Momma....know what?" me: "what baby girl?" her: "i lub boo"
• She is in LOVE with her baby dolls.  She likes to burp them, squeeze (hug) them, make them dance and cover them up with a blanket and put them to bed.  She'll say that they're crying and then rock them to make them feel better.  She also loves her real life baby dolls, Leah and McKinley.  

• Some of her other favorite activities are coloring with markers, opening and shutting lids to chapstick, toothpaste, and lotion, playing in the pantry and in her pretend kitchen.
• Another person she loves most of the time is "Cocka" aka Parker.  They play together pretty well most of the time--haha.  He does really irritate her a lot of the time because he'll continuously say something that she's asked him to stop saying or get in her face when she's already frustrated with him.  True big brother style! 

• Audrey's current bedtime routine is as follows:  She takes a bath.  She gets her overnight diaper and PJ's on.  We brush teeth.  While I'm brushing her teeth she holds her toothpaste and wants to take the lid on and off.  When we're done with teeth, we read a book.  Her favorite right now is "Night Night Little Pookie."  When we're done with the book we make sure she's had kisses and hugs from Daddy and Cocka, and then it's lights out time.  She'll sit with me in the rocking chair for a couple of minutes and then usually asks to get in her bed--so different from Parker at that age!  While we're rocking we'll sing songs or just "talk" a little.  Before I lay her down I'll stand by the crib and rock her in my arms for just a minute.  I always say, "good night (kiss)...sweet dreams (kiss)...I love you (kiss)....I'll see you in the morning (kiss)."  She'll say some of the words as I'm saying them.  She usually goes right to sleep once I lay her in the bed as long as both of her babies, her bunny, and her blanket are in there with her.  Generally, she sleeps all night!

• She puts a country twang on a lot of her words--baby geeeearl (baby girl), peeeeop (poop), rot deya (right there).  I'm sure there's more!
• She loves to sing loose versions of the ABC's, Twinkle Twinkle, and Rock-a-bye Baby.  I've tried to get her singing them on video and have been semi-successful.  It's very, very sweet.
• When she wants one of us to pick her up or love on her a little, she'll say, "I wanna see meeeeeeeee."  What she really means is "I want to see YOU."  Toddlers and their grammar.

• She asks to listen to "boom bop et" (elvira) and songs from Frozen.  If I start singing and leave of the last words in a phrase, she'll usually finish them!
• She's really starting to have a little bit of an attitude and temper, and it's funny and frustrating at the same time.  We'll tell her to do something and she says "i own wan to" (I don't want to).  She also throws things when she gets mad or frustrated and throws little temper tantrums here and there when you forcibly remove her from an activity.  I definitely think she's going to have a more terrible "terrible two" phase than Parker did.  

I'm sure I'll think of more--I'll keep a running list.  She is so funny and fun to watch and listen to!

Parker's 4th Birthday!

Parker's birthday this year was just as crazy as ever--haha!  I will explain...as always...in pictures.

His actual birthday was on a Tuesday, so he went to Honey's house with Audrey as they always do.  When he came downstairs in the morning we had balloons and his presents from us waiting for him.  We gave him an Optimus Prime trailer for his Transformers, two new Transformer, and a pair of shoes.  We actually didn't give him the shoes until the evening because they hadn't arrived in time to open them in the morning.

Of course he had a little help!

A smiling miracle occurred!

Notice the elbow saying, "back off my stuff!"

In the evening, Ryan picked the kids up from Honey's and we met at Chick-fil-a for dinner.  After we ate, Parker played in the playground area for a few minutes and we went to Cold Stone for dessert!  He was super excited and ate the entire cup of kid-sized ice cream.  It was definitely a great day! 

We had his party on Saturday from 11-1.  I prefer doing it in the afternoon but this was the only date that was going to "work" with the majority of our guests and the afternoon time was not going to "work" for everyone so we had a midday party!  It was kind of nice because naptime was right after and we were able to play with some of Parker's gifts when he woke up from that nap.

The theme of the party was Transformers Rescue Bots.  This is his favorite show right now, so it seemed like the best and most obvious choice.  Once I committed to the theme, I realized that you can't get Rescue Bots decorations/party supplies anywhere except for Etsy, and most of the Etsy sellers are just using images you can find on Google.  After searching and searching, I decided to make a Rescue Bots plan for the cake and just do a bunch of primary colors for balloons, plates, etc.  It worked out great!  I also had a banner made at Walgreens at the last minute (seriously--less than 24 hours before the party) that really made me feel like things came together. 

The BEST party of the party was the bounce house Amy brought over for the kids to play on!  They had an absolute blast--even if it was only about 40 degrees that day.  

The boys enjoyed their lunch at the "kids table" in the playroom.  Parker was saying "rescue bots cheeeeeeeeese!"  haha.

This little girl ate almost an entire piece of pizza for lunch!

I really wish I had taken more pictures of everyone at the party, but I'm glad I at least got these couple!

The baner!!  Oh and the kids, too.  hahaha.  

Parker-4, Audrey-21 months, Wyatt-3 1/2, McKinley-5 months, Haley-11, Leah-4 months, Kaley-3 1/2, Ian-almost 8!

Sweet boy about to blow out his candle!  He was less than thrilled because he had to come in from the bounce house.

There was so much drama having this cake made.  I was happy with it in the end!  "Roll to the Rescue" is the Rescue Bots motto.

Audrey was lovin' on baby Leah.

Coming up next is a questionnaire post for Parker.  I'll save it for tomorrow--or two months from now--haha!