Memorial Day Weekend

I feel like I ate my way through Memorial Day weekend!  It all started with a trip to the movies with a great friend, where I ate my way through a bucket of popcorn and it never seemed to stop!  Ha!

Big Daddy took the kids camping for the night, so I took advantage and had a mini girls night at the movies.  We saw What to Expect When You're Expecting and it was awesome!  I laughed, I cried (in a good way) and I highly recommend it.

Saturday, Big Daddy and the kids packed up the campsite and invited me to join them for pancakes at IHop.

That afternoon we went for shaved ice snow cones.  My favorite!

Saturday night we had a potluck dinner with some great neighborhood friends.  We didn't start until late, because it is HOT here (already!), so no pictures except this one of ML and a friend dancing on the coffee table in the family room of one of the houses.

 We had a great time and the kids played and played.  The big girls of the group helped the little ones make up dance routines and then they put on a talent show for the adults (pictured above.)  We didn't leave until 10 - TEN! at night.  I couldn't believe the kids weren't melting down, but they were fine.  We finally dragged them home and put them to bed.  Guess it really IS summer and they really ARE growing up!

Sunday was our two doors down neighbor's 2nd annual Lobster Boil.  I don't eat lobster, and neither do the kids, but Big Daddy LOVES lobster and the kids always have a great time playing with their cul de sac friends.

So normal:

I love these two shots.  Big Daddy got JR and JR and his friend went right back at him!  Ha!

Monday we had a barbeque with my parents at their house and the cousins played outside in the playhouse and the pool.  My dad made everyone milk shakes and it was so hot we ate them inside!   Now THAT is hot!

Monday night we had our sweet friends over for dinner at our house.  We hadn't seen them in so long because baseball has kept us both busy, so it was great to see them.  I didn't take any pictures because we talked the whole time, but I did get this one of ML putting on a puppet show in the family room.  So fun to see her being so creative.  And she is soooo creative.  We're still trying to figure out where she got it all from.  :-)

And that was our busy, food filled Memorial Day Weekend 2012!  Even though our weekend was filled with food and fun, I am so thankful for those that have given their lives to fight for this great country I live in - they are the true heros.  And I am more than happy to teach my children about their great sacrifices, so that my children can also appreciate what others have done for us and never take their freedom for granted.

Last Day of School 2012

Yesterday was JR's last day of school.  We started the morning with a special breakfast:

Then it was on to awards day at school.
JR and his awesome 2nd grade teacher:

Not the best pic, but the best we could do, one of the other 2nd graders took this for us.

Can't believe how much they've grown!

After awards day, we co hosted a end of school pool party with JR's second grade class at our neighborhood pool:

I spotted a luna moth!  So amazing.

Drink table at the party towards the end.  I was able to reuse almost all of ML's mermaid party decor.  No pic of the snack table, it was a total mess by now!  Wet 2nd graders and m&m's make quite the mess.  Ha!

Mother's Day Take 2?

I don't live a tough life.  Really.  I know I am blessed beyond measure, but some days are just tough no matter what.  Saturday was one of those days for me.  We had lots to do, it was all me - Big Daddy was in Chicago for his 20 year high school reunion - and I. had. a. headache.  A BIG headache.  And it didn't get better.  Luckily, by the grace of God, I was able to get through Saturday no problem, but after the kids were in bed Saturday night, my head was hurting so badly, I prayed that God would take the pain away.  

Finally, able to sleep, it felt like moments later I heard JR tiptoe into my room and whisper, "Mommy, where do we keep the breakfast tray?"  It was morning, so I whispered back the tray's location, heard him moving around in the kitchen and soon return with this:

That sweet boy made me breakfast in bed!  My head still hurt, but my heart was so full of joy, I hardly even noticed.

Talk about answering prayers in unexpected ways.

Love that sweet JR to pieces!

Kindergarten Graduation Party

Last Friday, we celebrated ML's Kindergarten Graduation.  I wanted the morning to be special for her from beginning to end, so we did some fun things to celebrate.  Inspired by the "One Smart Cookie" printable, I baked ML a giant breakfast cookie (Okay, oatmeal cookies count as breakfast, right?  Right?  Even with chocolate chips?) to start her day in a celebration style. 

After ML's Kindergarten Graduation, we returned home to have a quick celebratory lunch with my parents at our house.  ML had requested a taco bar.  I made the fajita chicken and ground beef the night before and put it out in the warmer (essentially like a giant crock pot! :-) before we left for graduation!  It worked perfectly.  I really love this warming tray/ server.  It was a gift from my parents many Christmases ago and we use it all the time to entertain!

I set up a little dessert bar to celebrate our graduate.

Cupcake topper printables found here:   http://blog.candiquik.com/?page_id=3486  (sorry you'll have to copy and paste - I can't get the link up thing to work in this new blogger - it will NOT let me paste!  Boo.)

Congratulations ML!  We love you!

Celebrate Good Times

Fun, fun week!

We arrived home from Atlanta late Sunday night, and I remembered that ML had 'sock hop day' at school the next day.  I wanted her to be able to dress the part, but wasn't sure if I could pull off a poodle skirt in a short amount of time.  My crafting table looked like it had been hit by a tornado:

 I may or may not be better at getting started, than at cleaning up.  Ha!

It was around 10 pm when I started.  ML said she wanted a purple poodle skirt, but there was zero purple fabric in my fabric stash.  So we went for pink, but it turned out we didn't have enough pink.  So we went with....... Yellow!  I found an awesome tutorial for a poodle skirt and the whole thing was done in about an hour.    

For the poodle, I remembered I had some iron on transfer paper leftover from the triplet baby shower hostess gifts, so I used a sheet to print out a clip art poodle and ironed that baby on.  A quick, pink ribbon 'leash' for the poodle and it was done!

ML LOVED it!

The next day was JR's class field trip.  Big Daddy was supposed to get ML from school, but he ended up having to do something for work, so I left the field trip to pick up ML and came back.

She was happy to join in the fun!

We learned a lot and had a great time!

Someone has a little fun with my phone while he waits for his sister to get out of dance class.  This is now my phone's background picture.  Hello Dino!

The next night was our niece's 'actual' birthday, so we went out to dinner to celebrate.  My sister got Gigi's cupcakes for dessert.  ML and I share a love of cupcakes.

Like mother:

Like daughter!:

Sweet cousins

And that wasn't the end of our crazy week!  Up next:  ML's graduation!