Easter Recap!

Yeah, yeah, yeah...it's 2 weeks later.  I know.  But we did have a nice Easter!  I saw this image on pinterest and it made me giggle:

image courtesy of tatertotsandjello.com

Liam's school was doing their Easter lunch the Wednesday before, so being Liam, he picked out some fancy clothes for himself:

The hat.  The bow tie.  The hands in the pocket.  I love it all!!

Easter weekend, we went to my parents house and the boys got outside for a bit to practice baseball with Brian and Pappy:

 

 

 

Nana and PopPop had sent some gifts for the boys, and Liam was excited to do some painting....please note Gracie, the art connoisseur, overlooking his work:

"The use of your blended colors is just exquisite" ~Gracie

The next morning, the kids were thrilled to discover that the Easter bunny had made an appearance overnight to hide some eggs and baskets.

 

 

 

 

 

The rest of the day was spent passing the time until DINNER!  The boys played with their new stuff, Liam built puzzles, and Jake built some Legos.  Unfortunately, I took zero pictures of dinner or anything after, but it was delicious! 

 

 

 

We hope you had a great Easter, too!!

Happy Valentine's Day!!

Happy (belated) Valentine's Day!!

The kids did their school celebrating on Friday, where they both took in valentines to their friends (Jake had ninja turtles, Liam had Paw Patrol....obviously.), and Jake made a cool box to take in.  Remember the days of wrapping up a box in scraps of a brown paper bag and then cutting out construction hearts to stick on?  Those days are behind us since now this non-Martha Stewart mama can buy an awesome $3 kit at Target and make the box into a pirate ship within minutes.

I have no idea what's happening in that last photo.  Moving on....

That e-card cracks me up every time....mainly because it's so true!  That being said, my v-day started out perfectly because I did get to sleep in until 7:30 that day, woohoo!! (and yes, 7:30 is crazy sleeping in around here, where someone is normally awake around 5:30....)  All 3 of my valentines got me a bouquet of flowers, tulips (my fave!), and Sarris chocolate (they know the way straight to my heart)

 

We spent a few hours late morning delivering valentines day baskets for the church; they were going to either shut-ins or people who are recovering from something (cancer, a recent death of a spouse, etc).  We took the kids with us, and I'm so glad we did....everyone's face lit up when they opened the door to find those two cuties standing there with a basket :)  If we can, we'd love to do it again next year!

The boys hung out in the afternoon while I ran out to my happy place (target, of course), then to get my eyebrows waxed...I nearly got snowed in there as a sudden crazy snowstorm came through.  It was really quite a sight!  Any small desire to go out to dinner that night was squashed by the storm, as we didn't want to get stuck in something again.  We went all out for our fancy family-friendly dinner at home, eating in the dining room and even busting out the china for our soup! 

The kids went to bed, and we watched one of our favorite shows with one of our favorite couples....our valentine's days aren't too glamorous anymore, but I wouldn't change a thing :)

Christmas Break - The We Left the House Sometimes Edition

Better late than never, yes?  Lest you think that I did nothing but sit around in my pajamas and eat Christmas cookies all break, I present to you.....the few times we left the house!!  Hooray! 

On Saturday after Christmas, the beautiful weather continued and we ended up going skiing.  Yes, you saw that right..."we".  As in, me too.  Actually, me AND Nana!  Nana ended up being a ski hustler, she told me she hadn't been in over 15 years and assured me that she would be at my level.  First run of the day?  She's swooshing down the mountain like she does it every day!  Hustled by my own mother in law!! :)

Here is a lovely shot of me, looking about as clumsy as I feel coming down the slope.

But seriously, the weather was perfect that day, and the boys had a blast of course!  I was completely drained by the end of the day, and well into the next day... Sunday was a blur, I was pretty much useless.

The week after Christmas, I decided that I needed to get back on track with some type of workout.  The number of times I exercised since the first week of December added up to zero.  That week was when my total body fusion class I take at work ended, and then I spent the remainder of the month walking to the closet to get cookies and called it a workout.  I had signed up for that class again and would start the first week of January after going back to work, so I knew that if  I didn't do something over the break, it would be absurdly painful to start that class back up.  So I popped in the Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred 3 times the week after Christmas and tried to not die or swear at the TV.

 You know, they say you can learn a lot about yourself when you work out....kind of get lost in your own mind and really focus on YOU.  I found that I did learn something that week....I learned that if I mute the TV so I don't hear Jillian's voice yelling at me to keep going and replace it with a blaring Britney Spears playlist on my phone instead, I am much, much happier.  Namaste.

I'd like to think that maybe Brit was even cheering me on....

For new years eve, we headed over to the neighbors house, they host a small get together every year (super convenient for us, since we just have to walk across the street!)  We came home around 11, got the boys to bed, then I declared that I was going to bed, too.  Brian gave me a hard time since it was almost 11:20 by then and couldn't believe that I'd just give up on seeing midnight at that point.  Ugh.  FINE.  So I drag myself downstairs (just in time to see Taylor Swift perform, so at least there was that!)  Then, I look over after her performance to find this....

 OHHHHHHHHH.....maybe going to bed wasn't such a crazy idea, huh??  Then I promptly passed out myself during the commercial that aired around 11:55pm.  We woke up on the couch in a state of confusion at 12:30, mumbled a "happy new year" and stumbled up to bed.  #wildandcrazy

On New Years day, we met a few friends and their kids at the bowling alley, which is always a good time!

And that, my friends, pretty much summed up our Christmas break.  As always, it went too fast, but we had fun while it lasted!!

Christmas Break 2014 Recap - The Lazy Edition

I still can't figure out why 2 weeks goes by so quickly!!  Christmas break ended up being a nice balance of spending time with friends and family, enjoying all of our new stuff, and being completely and totally lazy.  I definitely spent more time in PJs or sweatpants than I did in real clothes over the course of the 2 week break, and I consider that to be the sign of a good vacation.

The day after Christmas (Friday), the boys spent a huge chunk of time in the morning enjoying their new toys, and I spent a huge chunk of time in this position:

Oh yes.  Those are new slippers. New PJs. New blanket that is like a little slice of heaven covering your body.  Those are my kids in the distant background, playing and not fighting.  That's coffee in my hand.  Basically, this is a picture of pure, mama bliss, my friends.  Soak.it.up.

 

The boys loved checking out all of their new toys, and it was even warm enough to test out roller blades and roller skates in the driveway that afternoon! In pajamas...obviously.

On Monday, Nana and PopPop headed home and the kids were stuck with just me once again :) I went from knowing nothing about Beyblades (one of the most coveted items on Jake's Santa wish list) to being an expert by the end of the day.  #boymama

We enjoyed some new Wii games, including Ninja Turtles (which I don't really understand how to play, but Jake loves it) and Toy Story Mania (which the whole family loves):

Jake taught me how to play chess....maybe "tried" to teach me is a better way of putting it.

 

we played a lot of Go Fish:

We read some books....

Watched some movies:

Popcorn and a movie at 10am?  Sure, why not?  it's Christmas break!

The kids spent a lot of time breaking in their new markers and colored pencils:

Gracie did a whole lot of this:

And of course, there was lots of time for snuggles:

My new mug from Anthropologie!!  Thanks, mom!

Liam often asks to "hold hands in the house" <3 comment-3--="">

One night, the kids begged and begged to have a sleepover in Liam's room.  We figured it's break, why not let them try?  They LOVED it.  And actually did it a few more times over break :)

Jake the bed hog

That's it for part 1...you can probably see why I titled this recap the lazy edition.  I promise, we really did leave the house over break.  Not much, but we did.  Until next time, Happy New Year!