Mother's Day 2011

We worked hard on our Mother's Day presents this year.....

We painted flower pots then made cookie flowers on a stick and put them in the pots.  they turned out really cute-a lot of work, but totally worth it. 

I received this (and beautiful flowers that died before I got around to taking their picture)...

It has the boys hand prints over their letter

I know, they are the greatest, and I am so blessed to have them.

And at church the Primary sang songs for the Mother's.  When the kids sing at church it always makes me emotional with their little sweet voices, well except for the last time when Abram refused to get up there-and he just stood up in the row we were sitting in and sang-oh well.  I didn't know they would be singing, so I didn't get the chance to prepare him, etc. To my surprise, when they got up to sing, he went right up there and stood by his little friends and sang.  My favorite parts were when he started waving to me, then made the "I love you" sign in sign language and then turned it into Spiderman fingers and shot me with webs mid song (that's our thing ya know, we say "you know what this means? I. love. you. Then you flip it upside down and shoot the person with a web-anywhooo), my other favorite part was when (mid-song) he ran down the steps, down the aisle to our pew and whispered, "I love you Mom!!" and ran back up to finish the song.  I was the mother to that kid and I couldn't have been more proud.

After church we headed to Melton Hill Dam and met up with my family for a picnic. 

Throwing rocks with Great Grandma Ann...

Playing games with Nana...

The cookies were a hit, well at least with the kiddos...

It was a great day to be a Mom.

I Am a Child of God

This is the song we sing every night at bedtime. I saw this video, and it made me happy-so I thought I'd make you happy too.

My Boys

Two reasons I am so grateful to be a Mommy.

 

Boys and the Zoo

I took the boys to the zoo a couple of weeks ago and I was pretty nervous because Reese has decided he now hates the stroller and is pretty head strong about not being in it.  So I knew that he would want to walk around, and he isn't the best listener being 2 and all.  I guess I decided I needed a challange-so we went by ourselves.  And only I have the natural talent and gift to pick the day that 27 schools (no, really- I asked how many when we got our tickets) are there on a field trip!!!  I had really bad anxiety upon pulling in the parking lot and seeing close to a million buses.  Unfortunately, i had already told them where we were going, and there was no talking them out of it (I tried).  So being the hard core family we are-we braved it.

The funniest thing happened.  I believe I have mentioned before that Abram's favorite zoo animal is the zebra.  Why? I don't know, they never do anything terribly exciting.  There we were, admiring the zebras...

when something crazy happened.  I was so dumbstruck I didn't get a good picture.  I heard a thud and saw something that looked like this


landed right behind their shoes!!! (I didn't get a picture of the one that landed directly behind them, this was actually the second time it happened.) My first thought was poop! But as I looked closer it was a mud ball.  WHO IS THROWING MUDBALLS AT MY CHILDREN?!?!  NO JOKE, I turn around and find the culprit

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! It just so happened that it was just us and another family there in that area. I looked at the other kids' Mom, and both of us said, "Did that really just happen?"  And started laughing, then we went to give the elephant the attention he needed.  The elephant is Reese's favorite zoo animal anyway.

We walked around and saw the precious baby red pandas they have there.

 
And Abram displayed some parcel tongue abilities (sorry to all of the harry potter fans if I misspelled that)....

Luckily he didn't cast any spells to free them. 

And as a side note, Reese did pretty awesome walking on his own.  There were a few "not listening" moments where he screamed bloody murder as I put him in the stroller as a consequence for running off, but other than that it was great. 

A Hail of a Storm

A couple weeks ago (I think it was the 27th) there were tornadoes that came through the Southeast.  They were really devastating in Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee.  There was a lot of destruction, and a lot of lives lost.  We were very blessed to only endure slight damage and scary hail.  On the front and back of our condo are sliding glass doors.  When the hail started I thought for sure it would bust through, but it didn't.  All 5 of us (dog included) huddled in our half bath/laundry room downstairs and read books and played with flashlights. I was surprised at how calm the boys were.  We new it was supposed to bad, and when it started I said, "Everyone to the bathroom!" and that's where we went.  We ended up having a sleepover in the living room in case we needed to go back in the bathroom.

This is our walkway after the first hit of hail.  Our yard look like it had snowed.  It was really scary. We had some damage to the screens, Kris's truck, and lost electricity for a couple of hours. I am so grateful that we were safe.

BIRTHDAY BOY!!

My baby turned two on Friday. 

pretty crazy weekend with it being Easter weekend too. Which also made it more exciting is that my cousins and their families came in as well to celebrate. The theme was the Cat in the Hat-which is a favorite in our house. I had a vision of how it was going to be-parts of it happened, other parts there just wasn't enough time. It didn't matter though, Reese had a great time and he was surrounded with people who love him very much.

I let the birthday boy cheat and have an oreo ball for after breakfast snack...

We went to the park. it was forecasted to be scattered thunderstorms all afternoon.  But it ended up being a perfect beautiful afternoon for a birthday party.

Eating cupcakes with blue icing is serious business....

Made some new "friends"......

Opened some presents....

and noticed many rules we accidentally broke....

Reese loves being tickled and looking for things.  He has started talking a lot more just in the past week.  He loves hotdogs, apples, strawberries, bananas, and graham crackers are his favorites right now.  He randomly pointed at something in Target last week and said "Green!" we haven't been working on colors, but he was right.  one of his favorite things to say is "disgusting" taught to him by his brother.  Reese's favorite animals are elephants and cows.  He is getting even more independent, doesn't like to be in the stroller, or in the cart at the store.  Reese loves the Spideman theme song, and still has a contagious laugh and smile.  He loves nursery at church, cars, trains, firetrucks, dinosaurs, the Cat in the Hat, Dora, and Dino Dan.  He loves to say "Mama, mama, MAMA!" until he is absolutely positive he has my undivided attention, and then will just smile and giggle until I look away and do it 57 more times.  He has also got some serious dance moves, in fact he learned just today to do a forward roll on his own. 

I am starting a tradition of telling the boys about the day they were born on their birthdays.   I remember being enormous and SO excited. I remember being pregnant and missing you even though I hadn't met you yet.  It had been cold in Georgia, but the week you were born it was gorgoeus and warm, and everything was in bloom.  I remember how much it ached because I had to wait so long to hold you while you were on oxygen.  I also remember how natural and comfortable you were in my arms like that was exactly where you were supposed to be.  You used to sleep best on my chest, which worked for a while, but you were getting so big so fast it got a lot harder to do that.  You have a zest for life and take things head on (sometimes literally).  You are as stubborn as your Mother and I hope you used that for good as you get older.  You make the most pitiful faces when you are sad or upset.  I have sung "I love you a bushel and a peck" to you since the day you were born because I remember my grandparents singing that to me.  You are full of energy and you amaze me everyday.  We love you so much, happy birthday sweet boy!!