Blessing Brunch

 This past weekend I had the honor of pulling off a surprise party for one very unsuspecting friend!  I co-hosted a "Blessing Brunch" for my sweet friend Lori! She has bravely battled cancer over the last several months and that girl can now proudly call herself a survivor!!! WooHoo!!! Go Lori!!!!
(some people left before I was able to get a group shot...but here's a picture of a few of the girls).

 I moved a few extra tables into the dinning room and got out the good china because Lori deserved a fancy celebration!

 Yum!

 I love the pinterest inspired veggie tray.

 We encouraged everyone to bring a small gift of encouragement for Lori. Everyone came up with the most thoughtful things....gift cards, lotion, a blessing candle, the Jesus Calling devotional, flowers, etc. It was just perfect!!

 It was a great time of fellowship...

 ...lots of laughter and a few teary eyes....

 ...and we all got to pray God's blessing for Lori's life! 

We are so thankful for her and the healing God is working in her life!!

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I hope you all to remember this idea and just put it in the back of your brain somewhere. Unfortunately, we will all probably know someone diagnosed with cancer at some point in our lives and it is a cruel disease. I saw the idea of a "comfort shower" on another blog and just knew I had to do it for my sweet friend Lori! (I'm so glad I stumbled upon the idea...I take no credit for coming up with this and I couldn't have done it without my sweet friend Millicent). I wanted nothing more than for Lori to feel loved and encouraged and I think we pulled it off!

"he forgives me"

 McKenna wrote on Will with a marker. So McKenna went to time out. She was not happy. She was crying up a storm and then all the sudden the crying stopped. When I peeked around the corner I saw a sweet little boy hugging his sister. He went over to her all by himself.

I grabbed my camera to capture the sweet moment and McKenna looked up at me with a smile and said "Mom, I think he forgives me."

 And then that sad girl was happy again.

She sure does love her brother and he simply adores her!

Play Ball!!!

 For the next two months I'm going to be hanging out on the bleachers watching this handsome guy play ball! Today it was 46 degrees. Let's hope it gets warm in a hurry.

 Today was Christian's first "real" game. I say "real" because if you've ever watched t-ball you know it's not all that "real." Christian moved up to rookie league this year and they actually keep score and you can get out, so this is the real deal.

 Today was a super busy day, so I was only at the game for about 20 minutes, but Ryan was there to cheer Christian on! 

And he won, which is always a nice bonus and a great way to start the season!!!

Go Astros!!!

What we've been up to.....

 This week is soooooooo busy. I went to bed at 2am last night (okay actually morning) and I had to be at a meeting at 8:30am with two kids in tow. It's been crazy exhausting and it only gets more intense from here on out. It's my own fault of course. We bought a new washer and dryer and it's being delivered on Friday. So naturally I decided that I really should paint the wall behind the washer and dryer before the new one gets delivered. Well, that thought has turned into a major make-over of our entire laundry room.

 Thankfully I've got a trusty assistant who is determined to slow down help the process.

She wanted to have paint clothes like me. You should see my paint clothes, they have paint on them from every room of our house. Her's now have a little paint on them too!

Here is the BEFORE picture.

 It's a great room, it just wasn't pretty and you know...laundry rooms should be pretty :)

I don't have a complete plan in mind for what I want it to look like since I only decided to do this on Monday afternoon. But I know one thing...it will at least look better when it's all said and done. Be patient, the "after" pictures could take awhile!

Thursday

This is just one of the things we're up to today!! I hope you'll join in!!! What a great project to do with your kids!!!

Okay, where is the sunshine?? I need a little to get me motivated. I'm getting ready for a big neighborhood yard sale this weekend, then we've got baseball practice and I'm going to a school board meeting (oh the drama).

My life became much easier this week after I finally decided to do some babyproofing. Will no longer has free reign of the kitchen. ((deep breath)) it's so nice to have all the Rubbermaid containers nice and snug and organized in their appropriate drawer.

Hope you're having a good Thursday!!

Watching...

Can you see how dirty our windows are???

 They are constantly like this, thanks to little fingers and lots of slobber and I don't mind one bit.

This little brother loves to watch the big kids outside.

They're sweet enough to come over to him every now and then and tap on the window and make silly faces. So the window gets dirty from both sides and truthfully it would have made me crazy two years ago. But I'm getting better at this mom thing...realizing that these moments are fleeting and for goodness sake, if they want to kiss each other through the glass I'm not going to stop them :)

The Hunt

 And they're off...

 She LOVED looking for eggs!

 Christian was so sweet and skipped over all the pink eggs (without being asked) so McKenna could find them.

 A girl on a mission.

 

There were (2) larger blue eggs that were the most sought after eggs of all because they held a surprise.

We were blessed to have a beautiful day!

Overheard

McKenna: "Mom, I don't like salad because it's leaves you know."

Christian: "Mom, you're not going to believe this. Last night I was laying in bed thinking about multiplication and I finally figured it out! You know how you say 2 times 3?? Well, that mean two, three times. So I picture two, three times in my head and then I know the answer is six."  Ummm...hello Mr. Kindergartener...slow down a little bit. You are clearly your father's child.

McKenna: "When I grow up I want to be a ballerina like Ms. Barb."  That's her ballet teacher.

Will: "Hat"  Good job buddy! It took a few tries and you got it!

McKenna: "I know the Easter bunny is not real and Santa isn't either. And the tooth fairy is just mommy too. Only the binkie fairy is real and I know it because she came to our house."

Will: 13 Months

 

  This little boy reminds me so much of his big brother at this age. Will is on the move with his little walker. He has two of them and is all over this house. He can even steer them around and over things. And sometimes when someone is chasing him he actually runs. But he will NOT deliberately walk. As soon as we try to get him to walk on his own or even by holding onto one of our hands, he sits right down. He will not take a step for us. Not one little step.

I'm not too worried about it because I've actually seen him take steps quite often all on his own when he forgets that he's not holding onto something.

He pulls up on everything and cruises all the time. He's constantly getting hurt. It's so sad. He has bumped his head and smashed his fingers or fallen over too many times to even count.

Will's favorite toys are doors, tv remotes and the vacuum cleaner. And that's why he only got snacks for Easter.

Other stats:

Eats table food

Still loves his bottle

Says "uh-oh, dada, Chrish, this & hat"

Naps very little

Hates the feel of grass

Laughs & laughs at Christian and McKenna

 Thinks it's funny to quack like a duck

crawls, cruises & walks with his walker

loves baths

hates diaper changes

size 4 diaper

Size 12-18 month clothes

Christian's To-Do List

Christian wrote a To-Do List yesterday and I just found it.

Here's what it said:

"Go to school
Go home. Yes!
Relax.
Play with McKenna."

 
I think he's got a pretty good life :)

Easter Week Recap

 I kicked off our Easter week by heading over to Christian's school!!! I helped with his class' Easter egg hunt. 

I made these cute rice krispie treat bird's nests for Christian's class, with little chocolate eggs and then I put a little birdie peep on top of each one.

 It's always fun to see Christian in his "school element." He's such a good listener and very serious at school, but he has lots of friends.

Ryan took a few days off of work so he would be home for Christian's spring break, so we started our big shutter painting project. Oh what a project that turned out to be. It took all week.

On Saturday we headed over to our church for the first Easter Egg hunt of the season.

Christian was pretty intense about his egg hunting. Everyone one else was done hunting for eggs and Christian was still out there looking for more.

On Saturday we could finally declare our shutter project was done. As you can tell, we went with the original navy color. It was the simplest thing to do, although I still love the idea of a red door, but that's not going to happen for now.

Then it was time for Easter Sunday. You will notice that there are no pictures of me. I got some random virus on Saturday night and spent the next 48 hours dealing with a fever of 103. I almost wore a sweatshirt and jeans to church on Sunday morning. That's how bad I felt. Normally I would have just stayed home but I needed to teach Sunday School. Anyway, back to the picture above....our kids always go on a scavenger hunt to find their Easter basket. This year the clues were words instead of pictures, so Christian really had to do some reading.

I love it that all three of them sat right down on the floor and played with their stuff. Will was eating some of his snacks that he got, Christian was doing a word search and McKenna was coloring a picture.

This picture cracks me up....McKenna got a horn for her bike. Christian was not impressed.

We went a little overboard this year and surprised our kids with a second scavenger hunt. They had no idea what to expect.

Even Will had fun watching the big kids run around the yard looking for clues!

They got a little nervous when one of the clues led them to the birdhouse at the back of the yard. Ryan stuck the clue in the hole to the bird house and when the kids went to get it a bird was pecking at the clue.

 

The clues led them to the shed where they both found new bikes. I know, I know...complete over kill for Easter. But McKenna didn't have a bike and it was time for her to have one. She doesn't have another real holiday coming up until next Christmas, hence the big Easter.  She fell in love with this "Pinkalicous" bike because it has a carrier on the back for your baby doll, but I didn't get it for her for her birthday because they were impossible to find in stores and when I found one online it was over $100. But miracle of miracles...a few weeks ago I found the exact bike she wanted for $25 on Craigslist!! Score!

Christian still had a 16" bike that was too small, so he got a new 20" bike. It's a little big, but he's handling it just fine and he's so excited to have "real" brakes. The thing I appreciate about Christian is that he gets it that his bike was a big deal and he was sure to thank us over and over.

Here's a picture of just the boys!!! I could just look at this picture all day long! I love them so much!! 

P.S. Do you see that fence behind the boys on the side of our yard??? Well, our neighbors just got horses this weekend. Oh my word it's so exciting!!! Their names are Twister and Shadow!! So fun to literally have horses in our backyard! And the best part is, we don't have to take care of them!!

The Lord is Risen!!

"He is not here; he has risen, just as he said."  Matthew 28:6

Nine

Yesterday Ryan and I celebrated our ninth anniversary.
It was a pretty low key day.
We didn't have any big plans because it was Christian's first baseball practice and I had to go over to Christian's school in the evening.
Not romantic, but about mid afternoon I was standing in the yard painting our shutters...
Christian and McKenna were giggling in the back yard.
Will was taking a nap.
Ryan was putting down some new mulch.
And I decided that all my dreams really are coming true.
Everything I had dreamed of and wanted my life to be nine years ago doesn't even compare to how great my reality is today.
Nothing's ever perfect, but yesterday came pretty close to it.

Happy Anniversary to the man who is making all my dreams come true. I love you Ryan!
I have a feeling my reality 9 more years from now will be even better than anything I could dream up.

Wordless Wednesday