Mother's Day - 2014

I always love the fun homemade gifts I get from Jacob that he makes in school.  They mean so much to me and I will treasure them forever!  I cant wait until I start getting them from Henry as well.  This year Jacob made me a cute hard and a necklace in school that I just LOVED!

The past couple of years I've tried doing things to create memories for my mom for Mother's Day instead of buying gifts.  It's hard for me to come up with new ideas for gifts, so I thought this was a good alternative.  I know I always enjoy doing stuff that is meaningful and will help create new memories, so I figured she would too.  Last year I took her to Spa World for the day.  That was fun and relaxing!  This year, however, I decided we'd go paint some pottery!  I have never done it before and I don't think she had either, so I figured it'd be something fun we could do together for the first time.

We went to a place in Sterling called Color Me Mine.  We both picked out what we wanted to paint ... my mom, a jewelry box type thing and myself, a vase.  

For the first time painting pottery, you'd think I could have chosen something a little less difficult.  Lol  Anyway, we just took our time, enjoying ourselves, choosing our colors and carefully decorating our jewelry box and vase.  It took us about 2-3 hours total, but it was well worth it, and I, personally, was enjoying some quiet. haha

After we were done painting our pottery, we decided to stop next door at Sweet Frog for some frozen yogurt.  Little did we know that our frozen yogurt would be free!  SWEET!  Lol

After our frozen yogurt, we went home to get our guys ... all four of them .. and then we headed out for dinner at Outback.  I specifically wanted to eat there because I really wanted the Ahi Tuna Salad they have.  It is SOOOOO good!!  Funnily enough mine came out long after everyone else's, and mine had the least amount of cooking time.  What the heck?!  But, whatever .. dinner was good.  The company was good.  Our day was good.  We had a really great, low-key Mother's Day, and I wouldn't change it for anything. :)

Jacob's *6th* Birthday!

It's hard to believe our little man and first born is SIX today.  He's not a baby anymore. :( He's turning in to a vibrant, athletic, smart little boy right before our very eyes!  I so wish we could slow time down or stop it altogether.  

This year Jacob's birthday fell on a Friday, so I didn't get to spend the entire day with him like I like to do on my kids' birthdays.  He was at school all day, so I decided to take a healthy snack of watermelon in to school to share with his entire class, so we could all celebrate together.  I love that we're allowed to bring stuff in to school for their birthdays.  It makes their day even more special!

After school Jacob rode the bus home with his friend, Hayden, and had a fun playdate with him.  I love that he's making buddies, and hope that he'll always have his friends close to him.  It's something I never experienced since we moved around so much growing up, so it's very important to me that my children grow up with the same friends from grade school all the way through high school and beyond.

Anyway, at 6 this evening, we picked Jacob up from Hayden's house and headed out for his birthday dinner.  He chose Joe's Crab Shack (of course! That child could eat his weight in seafood. lol).  While we waited for our table we snapped some family pictures.  I'm so glad I get these photos each year.  I know some day I'll love looking back at them all.  Heck, even now it's fun to see the difference in all of us from one year to the next.

After dinner we came back to our house for presents and cake.  My parents got Jacob the new Soccer game for his Xbox (our gift is still on it's way).

And, for the second year in a row, I made Jacob the tie dyed cake he requested.  It's fun to make and looks SO cool!

Happy birthday, Bubba!!  We love you so very much! 

Love, Mommy

Easter 2014

I've learned a few things from this past Easter.  A) Hide the Easter eggs inside the night before instead of in the backyard.  The squirrels and raccoons ate most of them!  And, B) Hide the Easter baskets.  The kids woke up early and let us sleep in (thanks, but not really, lol), but in doing so they ate almost all the candy in their Easter baskets and I got no pictures. :(  Sad mama bear.  So, anyway, next year I'll be hiding their baskets and hiding the Easter eggs for the egg hunt inside the house, too.

When we were finally woken up by the boys and found out they had eaten over half their candy, we got up and I made everyone some special Easter pancakes.  Check these cuties out!

I got the idea from Pinterest.  I wish I could take full credit for it, but isn't he so cute?!

After breakfast, the boys and I finally got around to dying Easter eggs.  The last two Easters time has just gotten away from me and we always forget to do this.  This past year time got away from me so much that we ended up doing it the afternoon of Easter!  They had a lot of fun, though, and we created some really cool looking masterpieces.

In the afternoon Gee and Pap came bearing more Easter baskets for the boys.  I DID get pictures of them opening those at least!

The boys' big present from the Easter bunny at my parents' house was their new recliners.  I love these things!  I wish we had them in adult size!

As you can see Henry was in love with his new chair!

We had a yummy dinner that night that consisted of ham, green beans, potato salad, deviled eggs and rolls. And, for dessert I made a delicious cake.  I had wanted to do a peep cake, but couldn't find the right peeps at the store, so I had to forgo that part.  It still looked great and tasted even better, though.

The recipe for these deviled eggs can be found here.  I made them for the first time last year, and I loved the way they turned out so much I decided to do them again this year.  John and my step-dad won't eat them, though, so I have to make a batch of regular deviled eggs for them.  I don't know why they won't eat them ... they taste exactly the same as the regular ones.  *shrug*  Anyway, you can see last year's post about these same eggs here.  I think the color turned out better last year.  I think I put too much food coloring in them this year. :-/

We had a really nice, low-key Easter Sunday .. it was perfect!  I'm very excited for this coming Easter, though.  We finally have a Church home, so we'll be going to Easter Sunday service!