Mother's Day

It was such a treat to get to spend the day with my family on Mother's Day.  Aside from our brunch to take my mother and grandmother out, Craig and the kids spent the day at home with me treating me to a bunch of my favorites.  Jack and Craig left in the morning to get me one of my favorite treats, a strawberry doughnut.  After church, we took my mother and grandmother to Grandstreet Cafe for a nice brunch.  I sat on the couch and read a magazine during nap time (aaahhh) and then we picked up a pizza for dinner.  (No cooking the entire day, Wow!) Here are a few pictures from my fun day....

The kids and I before brunch

Nana Marsh, Grandma Do-Do, and Maren

Craig and I at brunch--(Jack took the picture!)

Nana, Grandma Do-Do, Jack, and Maren

my mother and grandmother

TLC

The time had come, and although I said I would never tackle painting the inside of our house again, looking at the filth on our walls was really getting to me.  A couple of months ago, probably inspired by getting new carpet, I came up with a "list" of all the projects lurking around our house and decided to take the bull by the horn.  I had "magic erasered" our walls to the last glint of color trying to get off crayon, scuffs, marks, and many other various things I couldn't even identify.  The only answer was repainting and as a stay-at-home mom, I decided it wasn't worth it to pay someone else to do it.  Thus began my trip up the extension ladder, for those of you who have seen my house, know the height of my walls.  I'm not completely done, but am starting to feel better that our walls are clean.  Here are some pictures from the process.  (I am somewhat impulsive and like to start on a project the minute I get the paint, so some of the "before" pictures were actually taken in the middle of the process.)

The Great Room: (repaint the room, touch up trim)

Before (again, got excited and forgot to take before pictures until I got the trim done)

Before

After- new color, CLEAN walls

After

Kitchen After

The trim before any work

Sanding and filling

More Filling and Sanding

After

After

Maren's Room-(repaint the walls, refinish bedroom furniture)

Completely forgot to take before photos, but here's the new green walls and furniture

No more cherry wood, a much more "girly" finish

The Formal Living Room-and basically the remaining interior walls, as all of our walls run together (repaint, update)

Formal Living Room- slightly before

Starting the Trim

After

After

Entry Hall- After

After

Girl's Trip

It's sad to say, but definitely true, it has been five years since my last "Girl's Trip."  It was beyond time to get away, and my mom and I decided to "hit" Vegas.  This was a fun destination considering I had been several times, and she had never been introduced to Sin City.  It was a blast and we both had a ball.  We enjoyed going to the spa, shopping, eating; and yes, even gambling.  My mother quickly found her favorite slot machine--The Maltese fortune.  This was a coveted machine for her, as she has two Maltese at home that she adores.  She also looked for patterns to help her gambling abilities; she was pretty sure if she took her shoes off, it would "payout."  She did have some big moments; however we stuck with nickel and penny slots, so even the big moments didn't qualify us for a high roller suite.  None the less, we had a lot of fun together!!!

Crown Center: Take 2

As most of you know, the stomach flu made a nest in our home a little over a month ago and decided to rent space for a bit.  A couple of weeks ago, we tried to go to Crown Center to meet up with relatives who were in town for the weekend.  We were all so excited to see the "Under the Sea" exhibit and have lunch with our cousins.  Just as we were getting ready to pull into the parking lot though, the stomach flu hit Maren and Craig's car.  The kids were devastated when I informed them we would have to turn around and go back home.  I promised we would be back.  As luck would have it, we have finally evicted the stomach flu from our house, and we were ready to try Crown Center again.  Yesterday the kids and I had a ball at the exhibit--here are some pictures from our adventure.

Beginning Writing...

Fellow teachers will understand my excitement from these photos.  Last summer, Jack and I tackled the big "learning to read."  It is something he picked up rather quickly given the task, and something he still continues to surprise me with everyday.  Writing however, has not been a particular area of interest for him.  A few months ago though, I began to notice him starting to add letters to the pictures he would draw.  I've had some field experience interpreting writing, but I couldn't make these out without his help and many times the letters did not match the sounds.  Lately though, he's been leaving me little "notes" to tell me things (see photo #1).  I loved this note, it says "My tummy hurts (and the heart means I love you)."  Phonetically, it makes perfect sense and I am so excited about it!!  The second photo is writing we did together.  He placed stickers on the top of the paper to make a picture and wrote a sentence to describe it.  We used this to talk about spacing, capital/lowercase letters, putting the vowels in our words, etc.. Clearly a "light bulb" is going off and I am so excited that things are starting to connect!  Go Jack!!

Jack Is 5?!?!?!

It's bittersweet.  I would compare this year's Birthday (the big "5") to the first Birthday.  I still can't believe five years have gone by; where did they go?  I still feel like I had Jack, let alone Maren.  Those of you who know me well know I'm pretty sentimental about all of this.  Five sounds so big.  It means big things, Kindergarten being the biggest of course.  Despite all my trying, I didn't get out of it though, the Birthday came. I still don't want to admit that my little monkey is 5, but he is and I'm adjusting.  I'm continuing to try to "freeze-frame" everyday and ignore all those out there who tell me "it just starts to go faster the older they get."  It's already going fast enough; I'd really like a set of brakes that could slow more down than my Tahoe.

Unlike last year, Jack was very excited to have a new number this year.  He was so excited for his party and was not disappointed!  He got to play with cousins, eat pizza and cake, dress up like a transformer, and open presents!  What a day!  Here are a few pictures from the big day...

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Shame On Me...

Shame on me for breaking "mommy code" and blogging out loud that "everyone (was) healthy."  I should have known I was jinxing myself.  Last Friday we ended up in the Emergency Room with Maren.  She fell off her chair at lunch and split her lip open on our kitchen table.  Thank goodness Craig had just gotten home from his last business trip and was there to help us get to the hospital.  Four hours and two stitches later, we got to come back home.  As promised while the doctor stitched her up, Marsy got to wear her purple tutu and eat purple ice cream when she got home.