mother's day...

mother's day was a special day for me and for the multiple generations of great mothers that i celebrate on this day.

the day began as most sundays do at our house, mark wakes up SUPER early and gets ready to go to church to begin band rehearsal at 7:00 am. he usually leaves the house around 6:45. later the kids and i make our way out of bed and start getting ready for church too. while we were in the middle of our "typical sunday morning routine" my first surprise of the day-- mark came home with breakfast tacos for everyone!! yummy! then surprise number 2-- he stayed home and helped get the kids ready for church and we all rode in ONE car to church!!! i know this doesn't seem like a big deal, but this was the best gift for me. thanks babe!! before we all got in the car he took a few pictures with kids and i. yay for surprise number 3!! i never think to take pictures WITH my kids. :)

then after church we {our little fam of 4} had a lovely brunch/lunch on the patio. it was a perfect sunny afternoon and so relaxing. the food was pretty good too. i loved being together with all my favorite people. surprise number 4!! (sorry no pictures!)

then we were off to celebrate with my family for the evening. we had a low-key afternoon hanging around the house and then about 4:30 the grandmothers arrived. olivia and jack played in the pool, we sat around and chatted, and the guys {my dad, mark, and my brother} made dinner. i am pretty sure my mom helped with the meal too, but the guys did most of the work.

me, gram lois, gram millie, and mom

my mom and her mom. (i love this picture and all that it represents to me.)

olivia and uncle sean. (just a cute pic of them after o got out of the pool.)

we sat down and enjoyed the yummy lasagna dinner around the big dinning room table. we thanked god for the His many blessing especially the moms sitting around the table. there were 4 of us- me, my mom, my dad's mom, and my mom's mom. i am so blessed to have each of these woman in my life. each of their examples have played a HUGE part in the woman that i am today and especially the mother that i am to my children. what an honor to have them in my life and to celebrate with them today. after dinner there was dessert and a few gifts exchanged to each of the mom's around the table.

what a great day! after we got to my parents house, i stopped counting the number of surprises because there were too many. i am so grateful and blessed. :)

i can't end this post without a mention to my mother-in-law, marsha. we did invite her to spend part of the day with us, but she and danny had the chance to go to the maverick's game so it didn't work out. i am so thankful they went because they were able to witness the mavs beat the lakers in a 4 game sweep. it was a great game!! all that to say, my MIL is the BEST!! i truly feel like a daughter to her, not a daughter in -law. she is an incredible mother. i am so grateful to have her wisdom and example as i raise her grandchildren. she always has an encouraging word to give and you always leave her presences knowing that you are deeply loved. i think that was her secret to raising such great children herself. today i thought about her often and celebrate the fantastic woman, mom, and friend that she is to me. love you b!! :)

to all of my friends that are mothers, i hope that you were pampered, loved, and honored today. to those of you who are missing your mom today, i pray that today was not filled with too much sadness and you were able to recognize the numerous ways that she impacted your life and the person you are today.

happy mother's day!!

easter sunday...

was packed full of church, family, food, easter baskets, and egg hunts OH and a few pictures to capture and remember all the fun we had!! here is our easter sunday...

easter baskets before church...

celebrating our risen KING, SAVIOR, and LORD at church with our family plus nana...

our little family

olivia, nana, and jack. we LOVE that we get to see nana at church on sunday mornings now.

then it was off to b and pop's house to celebrate with the bowlins and fifers. lots of fried chicken, easter baskets, sweet cousin pictures, and an easter egg hunt in the backyard. a really great afternoon...

uncle christman and jack. pop is back there too!

after the egg hunt picture. you can't tell but they had full baskets.

sweet cousins dressed up in their easter best.

the fun wasn't over yet! we loaded up and drove out to allen to celebrate that evening with the blanchettes. we had more yummy food. more family! more easter basket surprises! and one more egg hunt!

olivia and gram lois.

gram millie and olivia.

olivia with her third basket full of easter eggs for the day. she was LOVING it!!

jack and nana counting and checking out all his eggs.

what a wonderful day filled with so many reasons to be thankful. most of all i am humbled and grateful to know Jesus Christ personally. i am so grateful He desired to have a relationship with me so He lived a perfect and sinless life on earth, died on a cross, was buried, and rose again so that i might have life abundantly and eternally with Him. HE is what today is really all about and the reason we celebrate. to HIM be the glory and honor for all that He has done and for all the blessings He pours out to us. hope you and your family had a special day celebrating today. happy easter!!

disney on ice, toy story 3 style...

was so much fun!! both of the kids love toy story (it is the best gender neutral movie ever) and so i was pretty sure they would love this live show on ice. pulling in the parking lot at the american airlines center always means that fun is waiting inside. the kids are fortunate to have seen the circus, a past disney on ice show, and some basketball games there.

nana decided that she wanted to go and see the look on jack's face as he saw woody, jessy, bullseye, and the rest of the crew skate right in front of him. his reaction did not disappoint. he was pointing and yelling in excitement for most of the show.

we watched the show with friends sitting on all sides of us...

mickey and minnie opened the show. who doesn't get excited when they see mickey and minnie and all their friends- goofy, donald, etc. ...

jack's favorite part was the "evil zerg shooting at rex and buzz saving rex."

olivia thought ken and barbie's skating was the best! they did some impressive tricks.

i always laugh at spanish buzz and ken's fashion show.

friend heather organizes ordering masses of tickets so we can see fun shows like this when they come to town for a super discounted price AND go during the day. she is the best!! it was a great day and an event my kids are still talking about. :)

san antonio trip, again...

last year about this time we took at trip to san antonio with our friends the herridges and it was a complete success (click here to see that post), so we decided to try our luck again this year with a similar trip. most of the elements were the same- we stayed at the herridges house (brad's parents), plenty of downtime to just hang out, good conversation, delicious mexico food enjoyed on the patio, and a couple nice dinners out with babysitting provided by mama merle and grandad (brad's parents). doesn't it sound great? it is! some of the highlights for our little family were...

lunch on the fabulous patio of la fonda...

yummy and so relaxing.

followed by cupcakes from the cutest little cupcakery down the street...

olivia loved her neapolitan cupcake. mmmmmm!

jack really enjoyed his too, but only AFTER he got over his fit from us not buying him the GIANT cupcake he had his heart set on. we are mean parents, what can i say! :)

and on saturday we decided to try fiesta texas with the kids. last year we had a great time at sea world, but didn't really want to do that again. we had a really great time and the kids had a blast!!

greeted into the park by tweety bird. a great start to a fun day!

olivia, jack, and grant on the teacup ride. the very first ride of the day. :)

not sure the official name of this ride, but it was olivia's favorite.

grant and o loved the kiddie roller coaster. this was HUGE for o! we were so proud of her for giving it a try. of course, she loved it!!

we all rode the carousel. jack especially loved the ride and the horse he picked out all by himself.

jack and grant on a kiddie version of the "cliffhanger." i love this picture of the boys. :)

and i finally, the most hilarious picture of the trip...

yes, we were suckers and bought this, but we were all laughing so hard we couldn't leave without it. you can't really see everything that is going on, but basically i am terrified that jack might fly out of the boat (notice his arms trying to grab onto something), mary is holding on to him for dear life. olivia is screaming in terror because this ride was pushing her low risk-taking limit a little to far. mark is trying to have fun while comforting and reassuring olivia the entire ride. and brad and grant are just loving the ride and have no idea all that is going on behind them. i am sure it will only be funny to us, but even today it can me LOL. :)

it is weekends and get-a-ways like this that recharge my spirit. we left san antonio, driving north on i-35 energized, thankful for deep friendships, and grateful for the chance to get away to laugh, enjoy one another, and make memories together.

**i took a bunch more pictures, but my camera computer are still not getting along so not all the pictures made it onto the computer. camera and computer are currently in remediation for their issues, and we are hopeful that soon they will be best friends again.**

spring break 11...

i was still without a camera for spring break this year, but we did have some fun so i want to make sure i document it. the pictures i do have are all from my photo friend extrodinare- misty!

we started out the week with a fun overnight at b and pop's house with the cousins and rara. we packed a lot in 24 hours and had so much fun!!! you can click here (sarah's blog) to see pictures from our time. we watched movies in the "movie theater," made s'mores in the firepit in the backyard, played hard, swam in the hot tub and even made a fruit pizza. it was great to have some good quality time with some of our besties and have a fun change of scenery for a couple days.

the rest of our week we had planned to spend time with the haynes crew who was driving across the state from el paso. the haynes gang was hit with a fever virus, surprise trip to the er, and some car issues so those plans were altered quite a bit. olivia had been counting down the days until she would see lilli and i was just as excited to see the haynes girls, so we made it work and did get to spend a day with them in allen. i figured the kids were already on antibiotics, we're safe! ha! i know that is not really how it is supposed to work, but oh well. the kids had a blast playing together and i was in heaven sitting and chatting with two of my dearest friends in the whole wide world.

whole kid crew! these kids are going to love eachother no matter what! their mama's will make sure of it. in all reality, they really do have so much fun together.

lil and olivia so excited to be there, even if it was laying on the couch. poor lilli. :(

"the littles" as we refer to them. posing in all their moonbeam cuteness.

"the bigs" or baby bffs. what a trio they are!

for the final days of our break we headed out to the lake and farm to spend some time with my family. it had been so long since we had been able to get away, so it was a PERFECT ending to our spring break.

a picture perfect day...

we made another trip to the dallas arboretum this time to see dallas blooms. it was BEAUTIFUL!!! i have lived in dallas for most of my life, have a membership to the arboretum, and yet i have never been when the tulips were in full bloom. we are usually a week or two late with our spring visit to the gardens, but this year it was perfect timing!! i am so thankful for the morning we spent walking around, taking pictures, and playing in the wide open spaces.

i of course wanted the kids to get all dressed up in their easter clothes so we could get some easter pictures with the flowers as our backdrop. with a little bit of bribery o and j did pose for some pics. i think they look so cute in their pastels. asking them to pose together is still too much to ask, but we did get some good individual shots.

nana came too. she is always so helpful when i am determined to get pictures of the kids AND she loves the arboretum, so she is always up for a visit with us. bonus for nana this trip, she got in a few pictures with the kids. they sure love her, if you can't tell from the HUGE smiles on their faces when they are with her.

then after pictures, we did a wardrobe change so we could really play and enjoy the rest of our time.

we walked around and thru the azaleas...

jack walking thru the flowers and in no mood to take more pictures!! such a boy!!

olivia posing around the pink azaleas.

we played in the fairy tale playhouses...

jack in the "jack and the beanstalk" house.

olivia reaching for rapunzel's hair.

and we ended our trip throwing pennies in the fountain, making wishes...

awww, spring is really here and i am so thankful for a fun morning with my mom and my kids.