Happy Birthday to Me

What a fun weekend! I turned 32 yesterday (yikes), but I must say it doesn't feel that much different than 31 :) We had a delicious Chick-fil-A breakfast, headed to the Easter Eggstravaganza at church, came home and got ready for Austin's soccer game. Then our awesome friends and neighbors, Kim and David, came over to watch the kiddos while James and I went out. A great time indeed!

Here's Abby at her Easter egg hunt. Emily wasn't feeling it. She warmed up to the idea a few minutes into the hunt. All those eggs in the background disappeared within approximately 3 minutes. Poor Abby wasn't as aggressive as some of the others and got about 7 eggs.


Of course Austin made up for what the girls didn't get. He started the "hunt" in a sprinter's position. And took off like a rocket when they blew the horn.

There were a bunch of fun activities. Including this really cool "train" - which apparently is available for rent (see the big "ad" on it). They even gave us a flyer after the ride - gotta love those marketers...

Here's Austin in his "car." A barrel of fun, don't you think?

Here are our kiddos stuck in the "cage of terror." Well, not terror... it only went about 10 feet off of the ground.

And what event would be complete without a slide-o-germs bouncy house.

Here's Austin with an egg on his face.

Nice kitty.

Emily went for the ladybug (of course). I mean, who hasn't heard the legendary tale of the Easter Ladybug?

Emily loves her cheese almost as much as me. The cheese on the chip, not the smile...

Here we are - with all our booty. Or lack of booty. Looks like there's plenty of room left for the Easter Bunny to fill those baskets.

This is Austin's amazing soccer goal he made later that day. Notice the ball in the air (and the distance from Austin to the goal). Perhaps it has something to do with the extra practice this week? Or maybe from James acting as coach this week in practice? Goooooooaaaaaallll!

James and I headed to dinner after soccer to a locally owned Italian restaurant. The atmosphere was great, the food not the best - but it was so nice to get away. We did a little shopping, came home and watched the rest of the Kentucky/West Virginia game. We're Mountaineer fans this month since James picked them pretty far in his March Madness bracket this year. Then we stayed up and played cards with Kim and David. It was definitely a great birthday!

Today for Palm Sunday, the kids had a performance at the beginning of our service. They all did a great job. We came home and played and worked in the yard. James even found another snake - yuck. That's the monster all coiled up... He was about 8" long. The kiddos loved "playing" with him.

Spring break pictures

My lack of blogging is a result of a serious lack of sleep. We're talking like 0-4 hours per night, and those hours are not all in a row. Thankfully at my appointment on Wednesday the doctor gave me something safe to take. Last night was the first time I took it, and I thought it was going to be some sort of magic pill - but unfortunately it wasn't. I did sleep from 9:00 - 3:30, but also woke up 3 times in between. I seriously think I got more sleep when I had newborn twins.

I am 30 weeks pregnant now. I'm still feeling pretty good overall, besides being incredibly tired. I passed the gestational diabetes test this time around. Yipee! Must have been all that late-night studying. They also scheduled my c-section for 5/26, but I would honestly be very surprised if I made it full term. Austin and the girls were both not full term. I've gained about 2o lbs so far, and I think it's pretty obvious especially in the evenings. It's pretty funny how much I grow as the day goes on. At step class last weekend I was talking to a girl I see pretty frequently up there and she had no idea I was pregnant. She thought I was "pudgy." Gee thanks. The baby is doing great and is constantly doing somersaults in my belly. It really is the coolest feeling and the kids think it's pretty cool also.

We survived spring break last week. We got out of the house at least once a day. Here are some things we did... nothing too exciting.

Played with chalk.

We made a lot of different things for lunches and snacks... including these "ants on a log." Raisins on peanut butter on celery.

We made jewelery

and shrinky dinks. Remember those? That's Cinderella supervising the operation.

Abby tried her hardest to catch a bunch of footballs. Poor thing. We're thinking about getting her involved in some sort of musical instrument next. James threw about 50 balls to her and she did manage to catch one from all the way across the yard. More of a defensive move than anything else... James was proud.

Emily watched Snow White on You Tube broken out into 10 segments. Another new princess movie she loves.

We went on a nature walk.

Austin was proud of this picture he shot.


A short while after our nature walk, Austin got a horrible rash on his face. This is 7 days later at our lunch date at his school today. It's finally starting to get better.

The challenge continues on learning how to ride a two-wheeler. At least he is smiling below, it doesn't happen often (when he's learning to ride, that is). We are setting a goal to practice every weekend. Obviously it's more mental than anything else. We'll get there.

This is Emily's artwork. On the right is a puppy. On the left is her. I guess the difference is the dog ears?

Austin thought the highlight of spring break was helping out at his sister's soccer practice. So like I said, nothing too exciting :)

Abby and Emily turn 5

My babies are five years old now! I can't believe how fast my sweet girls have grown. James took the day off to help celebrate - we all had a great day. They will tell you the best thing about being five is they can chew gum now.

First stop - the gym. The girls were excited to get their birthday hats.

Second stop - their first professional manicures and pedicures. They loved the attention. Emily picked yellow nail polish for her feet which was a little different...


Third stop - It'z. It was crazy busy today, probably because of spring break. There were several field trips and tons of families.

The first minute of this ride started out ok. Then Emily started screaming at the top of her lungs and even said, "Mommy, I am so mad at you." Like I forced her to get on the ride.... wasn't my idea.



We came home and opened presents and ate cake. More princesses for the girls to play with.

Check out the pretty princess cake. It's going to take us awhile to finish it.

Starting our vegetable garden

This isn't our first attempt at a vegetable garden. A few years ago we planted some tomatoes (just in pots) and did not get as many as I hoped we would. I think it had something with us going on vacation for 10 days and several of them died of thirst. Since we're definitely not planning any summer vacation with the arrival of the baby (except maybe a small camping trip at the end of the summer), we'll have plenty of time to nurture our small garden.

We initially were going to tear up some grass and create a real garden. Then we decided against it because who knows if we'd be digging into a power line, pool pipes or part of our sprinkler system. So instead we just used a portion of our back flower bed. On one side we planted tomatoes, and then on the other side we have green, red, and chocolate peppers. Austin was really interested in the chocolate peppers... We also have some jalapenos and cucumbers. Finally, we're going to plant some onions and more tomatoes in pots. So not the biggest garden, but I'm hoping it works out this year! Then maybe next year we can add to it. James' parents had the most beautiful garden with everything you could possibly imagine - that is our dream one day!

My mom came over yesterday to celebrate the girls' birthday (which is Tuesday). Then we went to Austin's soccer game. After that, she watched the kiddos while James and I ran some errands. We actually had lunch together - Red Robin has a new southwest salad - very good! Not as good as Chick-fil-A, but seriously what is? We then visited the mall to replace the batteries in my heart rate monitor (how exciting) and then we were off to pick out our veggies.

The kids were all into it. Who wants to go first?

It was about 75 degrees outside - and the girls were sweating like it was 100. Just wait until July!

This is one half of our new garden. Each of us planted one tomato in this section - we're going to keep a tally and see which plant wins.

Hard at work...


The wild-eyed gardner...

Organizing school stuff

Organizing the kid's school stuff has been on my list for - oh let's say for about a few years. I finally dedicated my time this morning to creating a new system.

This is what I used to do with the kid's prized school creations:

They got thrown into a Williams Sonoma bag in the office. All three of the kid's stuff.

So I took a rare trip to Wal-Mart, invested in a 3 inch binder, some dividers, and some sheet protectors. Then I started sorting out the mess.

It was fun looking at Austin's preschool and kindergarten papers. He has come such a long away, it is truly amazing. This is one of my favorite items I found from early kinder.

It says, "I look in the mirror and I see a boy with a nice smiol. And I see a girl with new earings."

What?! Bwaaa Haaa Haaa!! I know he will get a kick out of that when he's older.

So I made sections in each grade for stories, pictures (on the bigger items I take photos of them, and eventually I will print them out and stick them in the folder), awards/certificates, report cards, nice teacher's notes, sports pictures, his cards to us, etc.

Here is a story he came home with a couple of weeks ago, I think it was written several months ago though because he really does know how to spell crayon.

"The Craoun and the Pencil"

One day I went to school. My school is WCES. When I am in my class I unpack my things. Wow! It's a pencil

and a croun dancing. What are you doing here! Were doing the Cha Cha here! It's privacy!

I dicided to write a story. "But what can I use." "Hey! You can use us!" "Who" "us" "who" "us" So I started to write a story.

Too funny.

So here is the finished product. Well technically it won't be finished until he's done with high school, so here is my work in progress. I hope to fit all of elementary school in the same folder, we'll see...


And I don't know why, maybe because he's the oldest and I kept more of his stuff, but I don't have nearly as many of the girl's school things. I need to make a more conscious effort to save them!

Oh and this is what I am doing for the kid's school pictures. Somebody had gotten three of these books for me after the girls were born and I finally started filling them out. I think it's a pretty neat and organized way to keep up with school individual and class pictures.