Easter time

I love Easter and I love having my parents in town. They were here for Easter weekend, and we had a ball with them. Mom has always wanted to go to the Dallas Arboritum, and we finally made the trip out on Saturday - what an amazing place! Donny had given the boys a pep talk: "Now, boys, your Nonny is very excited to see all the flowers, so you need to be sweet and let Mom take lots of pictures of you in the flowers and tell Nonny how much you love being there, k?" They obeyed nicely, except I don't think they even needed the pep talk - they had a great time and so did we all! That place really is just breathtakingly beautiful, and they had neat displays, craft tables, rodeo stick horse races, etc. for the kids. Beautiful weather, beautiful scenery, just really nice. Here's a couple of my favorite pics from our outing:

Then we went to the Head farm for their big family gathering on Sunday. This was our second time to join them, and it was great! They bring oodles of Easter eggs to hide, lots of side dishes, and prizes for the egg hunters, and the Heads provide fried chicken and the rest of the stuff. My favorite thing from the day was the cute little baby chicks that the Heads bought from the local feed store . . .that were dyed for Easter!!!! Hysterical!!! Brady had to keep going back to check on the baby chicks over and over - he was pretty impressed with them. I was, too!!! Good news - these chicks will not be the laughing stock of the chicken coop for long - they loose their baby down and get feathers that will NOT be the current color.

Warm "Mommy moments" from the day: Tyler woke up, greeted us, and after we said, "Happy Easter!", he replied with "That's right, and Jesus has risen!" Later that day, it was Colby's turn to pick a prize from the prize table at the egg hunt. He immediately reached for a cute little pink sparkly stuffed bunny, and just as his parents started to wonder about our little boy, he walked over to his baby cousin, Annie, and handed it to her. What kind of sweet boy picks out a prize just to give to his baby cousin?? What a man that one is on the road to becoming. Love him. And Papa Head made sure he got another trip to the prize table where he picked out a mean t-rex dinosaur (making his daddy feel a little better!he!)

This tired Mama is headed to bed. Just wanted to write down my thoughts before they flitted away in my short term memory! Jesus is SO good, and SO alive and active today. Where would I be without Him? Love Him. God is good.

Double up Saturday!

Saturday was our two-birthday-party's-in-one-day event, and we lived to blog about it!! Yea! And it was SO MUCH FUN! We started off the day celebrating sweet little Brady's life - can my baby boy really be 2 years old???!? We had a small family party with Brady's token buddies - the Obermeyer twins and our might-as-well -be-family the Yowells. Cousins Jonathan and Lael came over with Uncle Randy, and Aunt Moni came solo, which was fun for her. Donny's parents were staying with us for the weekend as well. I think Brady man felt very celebrated, and he blew out his candles like a champ! Of course, blowing out candles is one of Brady's favorite pass-times, so 2 measly little party candles was no big deal for him. Remember, he was my wax-aholic baby a few months ago, and has been obsessed with candles for quite some time. Sweet thing.

I had a major flash back as the kids were all chowing down on yummy Mickey Mouse cupcakes of a birthday I had (#4 maybe? Help me, Mom?) when my Mom made a panda bear birthday cake for me with lots of black icing, and all our little faces were COVERED in black icing from lips all over to the far reaches of our tongues. That was Brady and all his little buddies! Cute, made everyone giggle, and made for some great pictures!!

Does Colby have the longest tongue in the world or what??

Blowing the party horns and sporting the nice mouse ears for a group pic.

Next bash was that afternoon for Tyler. Ladies (or gentlemen - don't want to seem like I think only ladies read this blog), you need to know that I have the GREATEST party planner on the planet for a spouse. All I did was shop for supplies, order the cake, fill up the pinata, and show up to decorate - Donny researched games, activities, made a music CD for special effects, created light sabers out of pool noodles, and ran that party like a champ! Love it!! Seriously, he could do kid party planning for a living and make a good income for our family, I'm bettin'. If this 1429 thing doesn't work, I'm voting for that as a back-up plan!! he! Tyler had a ball at his Star Wars party, and he knows that his Dad ROCKS. I did help him decide what order to do things, and was a nice sounding board for ideas, but he really did just do that party all by himself otherwise!! What a man I have . ..

Asteroid deflection training - pairs were challenged to deflect "asteroids" with either their hands or light sabers. I mostly posted this one because I thought Paul's face in there retrieving balls was funny!

Exercise in listening to the "voice of the force" (one kid leads the other one around an area while they can listen only to the voice of the one leading, telling them where to walk.

After Jedi training was complete, each young Jedi received a certificate of achievement in a awards ceremony.

Colby was SO excited to be "the one" who busted open that Darth Vader pinata!!

Darth MamaThis gift was the highlight of Tyler's day . . .the Indiana Jones Lego set - all he really wanted was the Lego character - he could care less about building Lego sets. But the character shaped like a Lego - now THAT is something. Go figure.

Attack the Daddy's!! After the festivities, Lance, Donny and Paul were engaged in a serious light saber duel - not sure who the winner was, but it sure was funny to see how engaged in "battle" the Dad's got!!

We both feel like a big load has been lifted off our shoulders . . .we even got to spend a good chunk of the day today cleaning out the garage and a couple of other areas of the house so we could "cross them off the list" of things to do, which was nice.

Good weekend. No more whining. I can make it!! Thanks for "listening" . . .

Snow day

This week has been wierd. After a great weekend away with my sister and all our cute kids to my parents home, we had that first random snow at night on Tuesday, so we went from shorts on Sunday to big coats again on Tuesday. Then Tyler came home with suspicious spots on his face and neck which we later figured out was chicken pox. He was fine - a little itchy, but he actually had a grand time staying home for 2 days until the spots "crusted over" (such a nice term, isn't it??). So, between juggling work schedules, commitments, wondering whether or not we'd have our double birthday Saturday for Brady and Tyler, life has been a little nuts. Oh, and then there's all the things we're still trying to do to get our house ready to put on the market - had the carpets cleaned on Monday afternoon, fence guy came Wednesday afternoon, purging of closets, packing up "clutter" around the house, paint touch-ups . . .the list seems never ending, and I'm sure ready to get to the bottom of it (the list, I mean). And I haven't been able to spend any good time with my "girl buddies" with all our sick kids, etc. Whine, whine, whine. I really did intend to just post about the nice snow on Thursday and how it was fun to see all the huge snowflakes, watch my boys have fun making and throwing snow balls, and how I'm glad we had a fun "snow day", and then I started off into a pity me party!! What?!? Forgive me - I'm rambling a lot.

Yes, Colby's coat is about 2 sizes too small . . .our weather didn't get cold enough soon enough for me to get him a new coat, and now I can't find any around these parts! Oh well . .spring is coming

Here's a new topic, though: Brady's birthday is tomorrow - my baby is going to be 2!! Tyler turns 7 on Monday, and we are having 2 parties tomorrow - a Mickey Mouse one for Brady in the am, and a Star Wars one for Tyler in the afternoon. Whew!! Crazy people - who plans 2 parties in one day, anyway?? Nuts, I tell ya!

Back to the chicken pox, though - please join me in praying for protection over my other little ones so they won't be sick. Colby was vaccinated for it so it wouldn't be a big deal, but little Brady man hasn't had that vaccination yet. I have no idea if the effects are not as severe on a little one versus school age? I just know that selfishly it sure does make it hard for Donny and I to juggle work schedules with sick ones at home. Thankfully I'm only gone 1 1/2 days a week, and DV has a lot of flexibility . . .but really I just don't want my little guys to be spotty, and don't want them to spread any of their fun with others as well!! We're steering clear of baby Annie so we don't infect her.

that's all for now . .my sweet in-laws just arrived so I must be off!!

Blessings -