Yay for Caleb & Taylee!!!

My brother, Caleb, and his sweet wife, Taylee, came for a short visit this weekend. They arrived around midnight Thursday and left this afternoon. :(

We are so glad they came and also so sad to see them go. Sam and Abby just adored having them here. It's really quite funny! Sam was smitten with Taylee and Abby with Caleb. They even fought over them. It was so cute to see them enjoy their aunt and uncle who they really haven't seen that many times. It made my heart happy.

Thursday we went to the zoo with our preschool friends and had a great time there. We wanted to go again with Caleb & Taylee (it's sort of tradition) so we went again on Friday with the family. We had a great time and enjoyed the animals and good company. Sam and Abby even had their first ice cream cones! I know, what kind of Mom am I depriving my kids of ice cream cones!?! They loved them, so I guess we'll have them a bit more frequently now!

5 years old!!

We celebrated Sam's 5th birthday on Thursday (April 22). We actually started celebrating on Wednesday night at Chuck E Cheese. We told him he could pick where we would have his birthday dinner and that he could bring a friend this year. He chose Chuck E Cheese and his friend Caleb. Unfortunately, Caleb (and Grandma & BeBa) couldn't come on Thursday, so we decided to go on Wednesday. They had a great time riding rides, eating ice cream and playing games. Chuck E Cheese even made an appearance, which tickled the kids - especially Abby. (I don't have many pictures from our trip - my camera battery died!)

On Thursday, we started out our day with Dunkin Donuts. This is a tradition we started a few years back. Since this is a rare treat (twice a year) the kids were on a sugar high all day. It was not a good day nutritionally! :)

After lunch, Abby went to Grandma's and Sam and I headed out to spend the birthday money that was burning a hole in his pocket. First we went back to Teddy Mountain, so he could pick out an outfit for the dragon he had gotten at his party. Then we headed to Target. He ended up getting the Slinky Dog from Toy Story, 2 new squishies, a DVD and 2 animals. Thankfully he had some money left over! We were even able to pick out the bedding for his bunkbeds that we'll be getting this week.

All in all, I think he had a great birthday!

Let the festivities begin!

Today we celebrated Sam's 5th birthday! (His birthday is not until the 22nd, but he wanted to have his party at Teddy Mountain and next Saturday was booked.) He spent the night last night with Grandma & BeBah, but was up at 4am this morning (thankfully he was at their house!). He was so excited all day and it seemed that 3 o'clock would never get here. He had 8 friends come and he had a great time. They each got to pick out a stuffed animal, then they got to stuff it and pick out a shirt or pair of shorts for it and then get their picture taken with it. He got a lot of fun presents - our gift to him was a Buzz LightYear and Woody toy. He was so excited about them. I made a Toy Story cake for him. It was sort of a tower of cupcakes with his Toy Story toys around it. I have to say it turned out pretty cute!

We plan to go to Chuck E Cheese next week and he is taking a friend with him. We're actually doing that the night before his birthday. Our tradition is to have Dunkin Donuts for the kids' birthday breakfast and then I'll take him back to Teddy Mountain to get an outfit for the dragon he got today with the points we earned.

I can't believe my little man is almost 5. I always get sentimental around his birthday, but this year seems more so. Before I know it, August will be here and he'll be off to Kindergarten. He is such a blessing to us and I am so grateful to be his Mom!

Happy Birthday Sam!

Eggs! Where are you?

Yesterday was the last day of preschool for the week, so the kids did their Easter parties. Abby's class had an egg hunt close to my classroom, so I was able to sneak out for bit to watch her class hunt for eggs. Abby, as many of you know, is very vocal and speaks very well. The rest of the class was pretty quiet as they were getting their eggs, but you could hear Abby loudly and clearly shouting, "Eggs! Where are you? Do you hear us?" It was so funny! They all looked so cute. Her class had a fruit party (thank you teachers!) instead of candy and junk, so they also didn't fill the eggs. Abby was a little disappointed, but I told her it was empty just like the tomb and she went along with that pretty well.

We have 3, yes 3, more egg hunts tomorrow. I'll have my camera for these and will post some pictures for you.

We just finished an addition to our back deck and had our fence pressure washed. What a difference! The deck is now big enough to actually enjoy and just makes the whole backyard feel bigger. The kids and I went out to enjoy it this afternoon, but several giant bees started hanging around so we had to sneak inside quickly!

We're looking forward to Easter and being able to celebrate the resurrection of our Savior. The atonement is such an amazing gift He gave us and I've been trying really hard this week to teach Sam and Abby the real reason for Easter. For FHE this week we did a scripture egg hunt, with 12 eggs, each egg having a scripture and item to tell the Easter story. I think they enjoyed it and it was a fun way to teach about Easter.

Buttons

To know Sam is to know that he does not like buttons of any kind. He especially does not like to wear clothing with buttons nor does he like to touch anything with buttons. I forgot this bit of information about him when I purchased a new comforter for my bed yesterday. It has buttons all over it and makes the fabric gather a bit. I think it's pretty. Sam's first words were, "I'm never getting in that bed again." According to Mike this is worth its weight in gold. Often times he'll find his way to our bed in the wee morning hours and go back to sleep with us. Guess that problem is now solved! Who knew after all this time of us trying different things to get him to go back to sleep in his own bed, all we needed was a comforter with buttons!

It's March already??

Sadly my posts seem to be getting farther and farther apart!

Life seems to have been very busy and hectic lately. I feel like I'm behind on everything! So what have we been up to the last month?

We joined the YMCA and I have been working out about 3 times a week. Once we are finished with preschool in May that number will increase. I've been enjoying it and have even taken a few classes - something I don't normally do. It's helping me get back into the swing of things. It's been about 5 years since I belonged to a gym. I'm a bit rusty! Anyway, today I did a Zumba class for the first time and LOVED it! I can't wait to go back next week. I'm not much of a dancer, so I was a little aprehensive at first (didn't want to make a total fool of myself), but thankfully the class was large and you have to pay attention to keep up, so I figured no one was really looking at me anyway! The kids seem to be enjoying the child watch, which is good. It makes it easier to not feel guilty about "me" time when I know they are having fun. One of these days Mike will join us there too. I've been trying not to give him too hard of a time. :)

This week we had a few lovely spring days and were able to get outside and enjoy them before the rain started today. Abby must have loved it because she keeps asking if we're going to the playground again today. I think we all have a little spring fever.

We are so proud of Abby. She started potty training about 2 weeks ago and is doing so great! She's had just a few accidents and still gets tickled when she goes. We gave Sam skittles when he was learning, but her reward has been to make a phone call. The first few days of potty training she would call Grandma right afterward and exclaim, "Grandma! Iwent tee-tee!" She would then talk for the next several minutes walking around the house with the phone in her hand. She's a girl for sure!

Abby, Mom, and I took a trip up to Concord Mills Mall in Charlotte last weekend. It was a fun girls day and Abby is a great shopper. In Bed Bath & Beyond, our first stop, she found a plastic princess chair and informed me that she was getting it. I tried to talk her out of it telling her we didn't have room for it in the stroller, it was our first store, etc, but she said she would carry it and proceeded to push it all the way to the front of the store. Thankfully it was lightweight and only $10 because we did indeed buy it for her! (I know, I'm a sucker for those big blue eyes!) I think she really felt like a big girl and behaved herself very well. She'll be a lot of fun as she gets older and I look forward to many more girls days with her.