Spring Break Surprise

I have to preface this post by saying that I really think my kids have the best grandparents in the world. I know the world is filled with wonderful grandparents, but I happened to be pretty partial to the ones that love my kids so very much! They are always willing to do anything they can for my kids, they love being with them, & would honestly do anything for them. All 4 of them have spent countless hours playing with & spoiling each of them (as the parent I have at times taken issue with the spoiling aspect & tried my best to keep it at a minimum, but to be honest I am fighting a losing battle). That being said, onto the spring break surprise.

A couple of weeks ago Chris' parents kept the kids so that we could go out of town overnight. It happened to be a really pretty day, so they were all playing outside. One of my kids' favorite things to do outside is to ride their bikes, however, while they were outside my father-in-law noticed a few things going on with the bike situation. I won't go into all the details, but all 3 kids really needed new bikes. They were outgrowing the ones they had & one bike had been run over & the tire was warped. At the time no one said anything to me about it, but fast forward to yesterday morning & Chris' dad showed up wanting to get 3 new bikes for the kids! I was definitely surprised to say the least & the kids were sooo excited. This was such a sweet thing for him to do. The kids got to pick out what they wanted (with some stipulations from me), and bring them home to start having fun with them. They rode their bikes all yesterday afternoon & would have continued riding them all evening, but I had to drag them off the bikes to get to T-ball practice :0)

Thanks Daj!! We love our new bikes!

The First Sign of Spring

For me, this is one of the first signs of spring. To you it may just look like a bunch of weeds, but not to me. Some variation of this will be sitting on the corner of my kitchen sink until the end of summer, and a variation of this sat on the corner of my kitchen sink all last spring & summer and the ones before that and the ones before that...you get the point. My sweet boys surprise me all spring and summer long by bringing me flowers, and I received my first bouquet of the season today! They are always so proud & excited to give them to me because they know I love flowers. They also have a song that is sometimes sung while presenting the flowers. It goes a little something like this, "Flowers for mommy, flowers for mommy, flowers for mommy"...once again, you get the point. The flowers aren't always the same, as I said earlier there will be different variations. Sometimes I get the purple flowers that grow out of monkey grass, sometimes they are the small white flowers (I'm not sure what they are, but they are another kind of weed), and sometimes I get the purple weed flowers that are growing like crazy right now (at least around here), and last year they started getting brave and picking roses off a rose bush I have in the backyard. Even though I have asked them not to pick the flowers off that bush, it’s hard to get upset when their response is that they just wanted me to have something beautiful :) I'm not sure how many more springs & summers I have of my sweet boys seeing flowers & wanting me to have them, but I'm so excited to see that I'll still be getting them this year!

Yeah!!!

Spring Break is finally here!! I am so excited about Spring Break this year. Just the name is exciting for me--Spring Break--its screaming winter is on its way out & spring is here. I can remember way back when before I had kids in school & spring break meant nothing to me, but ever since I've had a child in school I always look forward to spring break (and fall break, christmas break, and summer...basically anytime they don't have to go to school!). I think for whatever reason I'm even more excited this year. Even though I don't have an exciting trip planned, I just love not having to get up, get everyone ready, & get out the door. We can stay in our pjs all day if we want to, play, and just be together. I'm not exactly sure what we have planned or what we will end up doing, but regardless of what we do I'm just excited to have some family time.

I hope everyone has a great spring break...even if spring break doesn't really mean anything to you :)

Is it just me?

Okay, I have to know. Is it just me or does anyone else sometimes think this whole blogging thing is kinda creepy? It's not the blogging about life & sharing it with friends & family that I find creepy. It's the part about anyone from anywhere (that has access to the internet) can find my blog & see pictures of us & read tidbits about our life. People could know things that I forget to tell my own husband. After I posted the story about the "drinking games" incident I forgot to tell Chris & he didn't know about it until he read it on my blog. I realize that isn't the most important information, and there's probably a million of these stories that I forget to tell people that are close to us. My point is that someone I don't even know could have known that my boys were playing "drinking games" at breakfast that morning & their own father didn't even know. Isn't that creepy? In some ways blogs are really good, and a great way to connect with people, but in other ways they make me a little crazy. I know that blogs can be made private, and before I created my blog I went back & forth on this (actually I'm still going back & forth on this issue). However, (and this is where I'm going to sound like a seventh grader) I just kept thinking about how many people I know who have blogs that are not private & these are reasonable people whose judgment I trust. So my thinking was that if "they" don't see the need for their blogs to be private why should I (basically the everyone else is doing it justification, & yes I'm familiar with the jumping off the bridge analogy). I also sorta felt like no one was really even going to be looking at my blog anyway because who really cares about boring old us. I'm really curious to know how people feel about this. Is it just me? Because it probably could be. I'll admit I'm a slight control freak, and part of the problem is that I can't control (and don't know) who's looking at my blog. I'm also a bit on the overprotective side when it comes to parenting, and it feels weird just putting my kids out into the world wide web for anyone to see. I'm probably over thinking it, and its all fine. But just so I know....is it just me?

Happy Birthday Baby Boy!

I can't believe it has been six years since your big brother sang Hot Cross Buns to you in a hospital bed to get you to stop crying. I have had so much fun with you over the last six years. You have kept us on our toes with your various antics (like flooding the house at your 3rd birthday party), but we can't ever resist your sweet smile or the sparkle in your eye. I love that you want to give me every detail from your day when you get home, and I love that everyone is your friend. You have the sweetest spirit, and you make me laugh out loud everyday! I love seeing the world through your eyes & hearing your perspective on things. You are one of a kind, and I am grateful everyday that I get to be your mom. I love you baby boy...happy sixth birthday!

Did I really just say that

I'm sure that we have all, at some point said something and then thought to ourselves, "did I really just say that?" Well I had one of those moments this morning and it was pretty random & kinda funny so I thought I'd share. The story begins like this...The boys were sitting at the table eating breakfast before school, just like they do every morning. As usual I was running around trying to get things done & keep everyone on task so that we could leave on time. This morning I was especially distracted because the kids have their Valentine's parties today so that meant there were lots of "extras" that needed to be done this morning. So I'm in the kitchen trying to get the Valentine's gifts for the kids' teachers ready while listening to my 11 year old have a semi-breakdown due to her inability to wrap a box the way she thinks it should be wrapped, the boys are eating, and time is ticking away. I'm only half listening to the boys talk as they eat, but I hear them laughing while they engage in various contests that involve drinking the milk out of their cereal bowls. I believe it started with who could drink the milk from the bowl the fastest, and escalated from there into many variations of the same kind of game. As I stated earlier, I was distracted & time was ticking away, but I'm thinking that we have got to get moving. Well, the next thing I know I hear myself say to my boys, "Boys, you're going to have to take a break from your drinking games & go get dressed for school." What???? Did I just tell my 8 & 6 year old to "take a break from their DRINKING GAMES!" As a parent that is just not a phrase I thought I would ever say to my young children (or any at any age for that matter). I didn't even tell them to stop, I just said "take a break." Obviously their drinking games were the G rated version, and it was all completely innocent and lighthearted but ever since it happened I can't stop asking myself, did I really just say that...

A Glorious Existence

This past weekend was one of the busiest weekends that we have had in a while. It was definitely fun filled, but I might be too old for that much fun because today I am exhausted! There was all the usual stuff like basketball games, friends, & church, but we had some extras thrown in too. We also went to a play, a super bowl party, and a concert. All weekend we were literally just going from one activity to the next. The highlight of the weekend for me was on Saturday. Chris & I had the chance to go to The Killers concert, and we had a really great time. Chris has actually been to one of their concerts before in Chicago when they were touring with their last album, but I haven’t had an opportunity to see them so I was VERY excited. This is actually one of the things I love about Chris. I would never on my own think to even look for, much less buy tickets to go to a concert. He, however, is always doing stuff like that and we always have the best time. We went with a friend and a friend of that friend (wow, there’s got to be a better way to say that) and I was laughing nonstop. Chris is really funny and always making me laugh and the friend that went with us is funny too. Now add in the friend of our friend who also happened to be pretty funny…I was seriously laughing the whole time! Anyway, all the laughing was great, but not my point, the point is that the concert was really fun. They had a great show, I love their music, and I love Brandon (the lead singer of the band). Now I think everyone realizes that there is just something about musicians that is really cool, otherwise there wouldn’t be all those groupies running around following bands everywhere they go. Although I’m definitely not ready to sign up to be a groupie, I will admit that when Brandon (in case you’re wondering, yes, Brandon & I are on a first name basis, I just happen to call him by his first name more than he calls me by mine) anyway, as he walked off the stage I wanted to yell for him to come back…don’t go Brandon, don’t go!!!! Much to my disappointment he did go, and now the fun filled weekend is over and I’m left trying to drink enough coffee to get me through the day. I can’t complain though, I truly don’t mind the exhaustion, all the fun was absolutely worth it!

I have to say thanks to Nana & Daj for coming and keeping the kids for us so that we could run off to a concert like a couple of kids ourselves. The kids loved having you here & we really appreciate you for always being willing to keep them! You’re the best :)

Also, the title of this post is a line from one of their (The Killers) songs in case you were wondering where that came from. It wasn't me...I'm certainly not that poetic.