Mother's Day

For Mother's day, hubby had the great idea of having a family picnic at a local park. Unfortunately, only hubby's side of the family was able to make it, but we still had a great time!

Anyhow, we rented out one of the park shelters for the day. We were able to get a great one that was a short walking distance to the playground and restrooms and also had it's own green space around for playing. Everyone chipped in and brought hot dogs with all the fixings, different salads, chips, drinks and watermelon. Actually, we ended up with FOUR large watermelons!!

The kids had lots of fun playing various games around the shelter with items supplied by my sister-in-law; baseball, horseshoes, catch, bubbles etc.

We walked over to the playground and had even more fun there. The food was great, as was the company and conversation.

While there we also did a combined mini birthday celebration for all the May birthdays we have in this family; five including mine. All the birthday girls had a cupcake with a candle in it and we all sang. Everyone opened their gifts and polished off their sweets.

It was very hot, but it was lots of fun!

Happy Fourth of July!

To celebrate we went to a visit a friend who was spending the day hanging out on her boat at the marina where it was docked.

It was a fun little party, especially after the sun went down and it began to cool off a bit!

The best was watching all the beautiful fireworks right over water! It was a great sight.

For the occasion, I made Gigi a special patriotic dress and J a matching diaper cover and shorts. My cute coordinating kids!

I tried to get my mom to take some pics of us, but we did not have a good space set up and the kids were not really cooperating. So we did the best we could!

Easter Day

On the eve of Easter Sunday, we set out baskets for both kids - empty of course - so the bunny rabbit would come fill them up. And wouldn't you know, those lucky two were surprised by a couple of very full baskets in the morning!

Gigi was quite pleased with everything she received; the bubbles, the wind up fish toy, the bicycle riding bunny, sunglasses, lip gloss and oh yeah..tons of candy!

J's basket was quite different. He got 4 jars of stage 1 baby food (green beans and peas), a toy hammer that makes sounds when you pound it on something and a pair of rattle booties. Great basket for a 5 month old in my opinion. :)

After going through the treasures in their baskets, we got ready for Church. After service we went straight home to get ready for family to arrive.

I made a ham, green beans, asparagus, mashed potatoes, a green salad and we had rolls.

Oh, and we gave J asparagus for the first time and he LOVED it!

After eating, the kids got to tear through yet MORE baskets that were given to them from family.

Then it was time for the Easter egg hunt!

We had to keep reminding Gigi that there was candy in the eggs so she would keep looking for them! She did pretty well for herself in the end.

After all that excitement, everyone just hung out for a while and the kids played. Even J got in some socializing!

Happy Easter!

He has Risen! Mark 16:6

There's a story that started on Christmas,
When a baby was born in the night
And those who came far - who followed the star
Were seeing a heavenly sight.
the years hurried by, and the boy, now a man,
Could make the blind see with the touch of his hand.
He was born to be King - he was Rabbi and Priest.
But the best that he had, he gave to the least.
He was born and he died - almost 2000 years ago.
He laughed and he cried - he felt all the fears we know.
He hated injustice - he taught what was right.
He said, "I am the Way and the Truth and the Light."
His friends soon believed that he was the One,
The Savior, Messiah;in fact, God's own Son.
But others, they doubted, they did not agree.
So they took him, they tried, he died on a tree.

God has made a way for all who mourn and grieve.
Death will never be the end, if you just believe.
There's nothing to fear, nothing heaven knows.
For he died for us to give us life,
and to give us hope,
He rose.

- Cindy Kenney from "An Easter Carol"

Easter Eggs!

Today we dyed Easter eggs.

This is actually our first year dying eggs at our house. We did solid colored eggs first. Then we used the same white crayon technique that we had used on the paper eggs for our garland. We wrote things like "Hoppy Easter", "2009" and "J's First Easter". Gigi just drew on crazy designs.

Easter Crafting

This week Gig and I have been reading tons of Easter books, watching Easter movies and making Easter crafts. It's been a fun and full week - and we still have more to do before Sunday!

We made a basket using some yarn, white glue and a balloon.

It's not very sturdy, but it's a fun decoration for our table. It was really messy making it though so I didn't get any pics of the whole process.

It was fun though!

We also made an Easter egg garland. I cut the egg shapes using my fantastic Cricut machine. We then used a white crayon and drew designs on the white eggs. When we painted the eggs with watercolors, our designs "magically" appeared! Gigi thought this was "pretty cool".

I had ordered some foam character crafts from Oriental Trading when they got clearanced out last year and saved them - I only paid about $1 each package (and each craft usually brings a dozen). So I dug them out of the craft cabinet this week. We made some foam bunnies and foam chicks. Even daddy helped!

They come with suction cups and you're supposed to stick them to windows but I haven't figured out how exactly to do that just yet. I'll hang them up somehow.

We also made a little sign to hang on our front door. Gigi really impressed me with this one. She glued all the craft sticks together herself (it's supposed to be a fence). She colored the rabbit and glued on his eye and tail all by hereself and colored the eggs. I can't believe how great she is getting at coloring! I cut the rabbit out, wrote "Happy Easter" and attached the string to hang it.

We stil have other crafts planned but I don't know if we will get to them all.

Happy Valentine's Day

We ended up not getting to most of the crafts I wanted to do for Valentine's day. Okay, actually we only did ONE craft. Oh well.

Gigi made foam door knob hangers. She gave one to Mima and put the other on our front door.

My mom kept Gigi over night at her house, so we only had little J to take care of. Hubby made a yummy steak dinner for the two of us (and even cleaned the kitchen when he was done!) and we watched a movie. Nothing too exciting or overly romantic, but we did have some quiet time while J slept so that was nice. When the movie was over we just hung out and talked a while.

Oh, something romantic hubby did do - he actually MAILED a Valentine's Day card to me! I though it was so sweet. It was a very nice surprise for me when I checked the mailbox. He definitely earned some brownie points with that unexpected move!

Finally, here are the picures we had taken of the kids. We sent them out to family - hopefully everyone got them by Valentine's - if not, sorry!

Happy Groundhog Day!

Well, according to Punxsutawney Phil we will be having 6 more weeks of winter. I know many of you are fed up with winter, but for us, it has actually been quite pleasant. The colder days are a welcomed change!

Gig and I read a couple of books about Groundhog's Day;

• The Groundhog Day Book of Facts and Fun by Wendie Old
• Groundhog Day! by Gail Gibbons

Then we went on the Internet and watched a video of this morning's ceremony in PA.

It was a bit long and I had to fast forward a little so I wouldn't completely lose Gigi's attention and interest.

After that Gigi did a couple of coloring pages.

We both made a pop out groundhog craft

And a Groundhog hat.