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Apr 26, 2011

Slight Break In Programming...

Hey everyone! So, I am still alive out here, but I haven't posted in the last week or so. I kind of have a lag in motivation in lots of areas right now- blog, tot school, crafting, etc. Plus I got a virus on my computer which means I lost any recent files, so tot school will have to be re-created. :( I have a couple things I have done but haven't posted about (parties, crafts, tot school activities) but I just haven't felt like doing anything. Part of me feels like I am blogging for no real reason and part of me likes to do it and hopes that readers enjoy it. I kind of had a slight melt down with my husband a couple weeks ago, thus the recent absence. SOOOOOO, I will get back on track soon and get back to blogging if I feel it is what I want to do...and hopefully it is something I want to continue doing because I love to go back and read about my favorite boys! Sorry to my faithful readers- mom, brad, al and em! :)

And seriously, how cute are my favorite boys?!







Apr 12, 2011

Date Night- Scavenger Hunt

Brad and I are once again on a kick to try to do a date night each week. This will usually be something at home once the boys are asleep. So, last weekend we made each other clues to go on a scavenger hunt around the house! We bought a $5 prize while grocery shopping earlier in the day so there was a small reward for finding all the clues.

The clues Brad make up for me were really creative! Clue 1 took me to the trash bags (it is a quote from my favorite movie, Tommy Boy!), Clue 2 took me to our house address.





Clue 3 led me to one of John's books, Clue 4 was hidden under Matthew's formula, and the 5th clue was leading me to the prize by a Toy Story bath book.






Here are my typed clues for Brad and a couple pictures of him searching around the house. He won an A&M hat...made with masking tape. haha! He had a good laugh with it even though he won't actually wear it out of the house. I offered to paint an A&M on it and he said only if I bedazzled it too. :)










This turned out to be more fun than I expected and was a cheap date night!

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Apr 11, 2011

Selfish Mommy? Advice Needed!

Alright moms, I need your help!

Now that Matthew is old enough to go to the gym daycare room, I can start working out during the day instead of waiting until after the boys go to bed at night. And let's be honest. Who has energy to work out at night after chasing after two kids all day long?! When John was a baby, I was still teaching so obviously working out during the day wasn't an option. So, this is all a new mom experience for me!

A couple weeks ago I took both boys with me to the gym, dropped them off in the daycare room (for the first time!!), and headed off to the group exercise class. I was actually really bored with the class (who wants to do 50 lunges in a row? BORING!!) so I was happy the daycare lady had to come get me after 20 minutes because John was crying. Well, not happy that John was crying, but happy I had a good excuse to leave the class! I think John must have gotten a little freaked out that I wasn't there so once I calmed him down and got him playing with some cars, he was perfectly fine and didn't want to leave when I was done working out.

So, here is what I am struggling with. I feel like I am being really selfish to leave them in this room (with people I don't know!) just so I can work out for an hour. I know that John will be fine playing with toys and can be around new friends. I know Matthew will be fine, although I am worried about how much attention he will get since he can't crawl or anything yet. I just feel like I technically can work out at night and not have to leave them during the day. We are usually so busy during the week (why was I ever worried I would be bored being a stay-at-home mom?!) that I would probably only make it to the gym during the day once or twice a week anyways so it isn't like I am totally leaving my children all the time.

Brad says that I need to do things like that for myself so I don't go crazy...and drive him crazy. :) He said he would be worried about me if I didn't want to do things for myself. I DO want to do things for myself, but I feel guilty for dragging the kids along with me just so I can work out. If I were leaving the boys with a family member (grandparent, aunt, etc) I would be totally fine because I know they are getting some special time with special people. Maybe it is the fact they are being left with strangers that makes me feel put off by it?

So, what do you guys think? Anyone have the same issue when you started back to the gym and eventually got over it?

I mean, who would want to be away from these cuties for more then 1 minute?! :)



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Apr 8, 2011

Visit to the Farm

Last week John had a ton of fun doing lots of farm animal activities. I planned to do farm stuff when I saw that Nash Farm in Grapevine, TX was having a 'Spring into Nash' event. It was a perfect cap to the week! We met my sister, her family, and our parents. We got there right when it started and by the time we left 2 hours later, it was packed!! John had a blast- he had his first pony ride, pet lots of farm animals, rode a stick horse, went on a tractor ride, punched his name in a piece of leather, worked in a garden, and played horse shoes. How could this NOT have been tons of fun for a 2 year old?!























This totally cracks me up because we have pictures of my dad holding me when I was very young trying to use these type of stilts when we took a family vacation to Williamsburg. (you can barely see him behind me in the picture!). I so need to find that picture to compare!





Have a wonderful weekend!

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Apr 7, 2011

Under Construction

If you are browsing around my blog, you can probably tell it is all weird looking. It is under construction! Sorry for the mess! :)

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Winner!!!

WOOHOOO!!! I recently found out that I won a gift certificate to Fat Quarter Shop!



I am so excited because they have SOOOOO many awesome fabrics on their site!

How did I win? I linked up a project on kojo designs and was drawn as a winner. Very easy!



So, the real question is (besides 'who is envious of me?!') is, what in the world should I make?!?!? I want to put this gift certificate to good use! Any suggestions?

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Apr 6, 2011

Miss Pretty Pretty's Playhouse

I saw these felt playhouses from Miss Pretty Pretty over a year ago. I had grand plans of making one of my own for John in 2010, but that never happened. I think I was too intimidated by all the awesome ones from Miss Pretty Pretty and others around the blog world.

I think John and Matthew would love the farm playhouse:



and I LOVE the cupcakery! Too bad I wasn't a little girl still!



She Wears Flowers is hosting a giveway for one of the playhouses. Go over there for a chance to win! Good luck though because I REALLY want to win one! :)

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The Baby Shower {that isn't}

I am part of a fabulous Mommy group that started back in 2009. We were all in a 'new mom' group at a local hospital that met every Friday when the babies were only a couple weeks old. About 10 of us decided to go to a dinner for a Mom's Night Out and we have been hanging out for playgroups and MNO's ever since!

The babies are now 2 (ahhh!!!) and we have a our 3rd group of preggo mommies adding baby #2 to the group. Why is it that we get pregnant in groups?! We decided to have baby showers as a Mom's Night In to celebrate the new mommys-to-be but we weren't going to give gifts. With so many moms in our group those presents would add up quick and since we all have babies, we don't REALLY need anything. Instead of presents, we bring dinners to the families once the baby is born which is so helpful!

Last week we celebrated three mommies-to-be who are having their new bundles of joy in the next month or so. I co-hosted with two other moms, Stef & Debbie. We had a great time planning this little celebration and the whole group had so much fun at the shower!


three beautiful mommies!


the party planners!

Amazingly all three moms aren't finding out the sex of the baby. So our colors were bright pink and bright blue. We played a game 'Baby Price is Right' so we tried to incorporate The Price Is Right into the decorations.

Stef found these super cute mason jars for drinks through Hostess with the Mostess. I made the straw tags on photoshop. Very easy and so cute!







Debbie made a super cute diaper cake and the moms each got to take home a layer.



The MNI showers are always pot luck and we had some yummy yummy food, including cupcakes and ice cream sundaes!









I made these name tags since they are what you immediately think of when you hear 'The Price is Right'. I made them the color of each mom's first child. (way more pinks than blues!). I left the majority of the tag blank, because let's face it, we already know each other's names! We put out markers and the idea was to make up a silly name. Most of us weren't super creative at that moment so we kind of turned it into putting nicknames from when we were younger which turned out to be really funny to hear the background stories on all the nicknames!!







Debbie made these bags and guessing forms so that we could all guess the name, sex, weight, etc of all the new babies. Then the mom got to take home the bag and put all the papers in her scrapbook.






Stef put together the Baby Price is Right game. Each contestant (the moms to be) got a pad of paper and they had to guess the price of different baby items. Whoever guessed closest without going over got a little baby bottle. Whoever got the most baby bottles won the game. However, at the end, we decided to give away the items individually to whomever guessed best rather than winner take all.










We all had a fabulous time and I hope the mommies-to-be felt extra special that night! I just can't wait to meet these new babies soon. These three babies will bring us to about 17 kids in the group. We are turning into the Duggars! haha! :)



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