Easter weekend

What a great relaxing Easter weekend. We drove down to my parents house on Friday and spent the weekend with them. Friday we painted Easter eggs and visited. Saturday was a little chilly in the morning so we lazed around and didn't do much until 10:00. Then it started getting nice so mom, Mark and Macie went and built a snowman then me and mom went for a run. The afternoon was so gorgeous we went and played at a park and then did Marks family tradition of rolling the eggs down the hill. Sunday morning Macie went on an Easter egg hunt and found lots of yummy treats and her basket. We always love to go and visit my mom and dad, they always stuff us with delicious food, we play fun games like ROOK which we beat them at. Had to brag there as we never win. And they give us a nice break from having to parent all the time. It was such a great weekend and so fun visiting Papo and Gampo (what Macie calls my mom and dad). 

SUNDAY DRESSES!!!

To say my Daughter has a lot of dresses is an understatement. She has an abundance of dresses, that mostly only get worn one day of the week. Silly me for buying so many, but I love them. I absolutely love Sunday mornings and getting Macie all dolled up. I hope I never stop loving to do that. I never buy a dress unless it is on sale and then I can also get another 20 to 50% off of it, so it is not like I have blown a ton of money, but there are so many cute dresses and not enough Sundays to wear them.  I am excited for spring and summer to come, so we can wear dresses during the week day, it is just to hard in the winter when it is cold and we have to bundle up like crazy. 

Once again the best pics I could get of her, one day I hope she will want to take cute pictures for the camera, for now I do my best to get what I can.

DISCOVERING

The weather has really started to get nice the past couple of weeks, and getting outside is almost daily for us. The other day Macie wanted to go outside in the backyard and play, but Wade was not napping and has had a nasty cold the past week, so I wasn't going to be able to go outside. I put aside my worried mom wows and got her all bundled up and let her play outside all by herself. It was scary for me and I can't lie I watched her like a hawk but she was fine the whole time, she played with the puppies, picked at leaves, climbed her playhouse, looked at and admired the puppies poop, and brought all the balls onto the deck. She loved it and I loved that I got over my fears and trusted Macie to play outside and be safe. Today was especially gorgeous and although Wade was napping I had some things to do when Macie came and asked me to play outside, so again putting aside my fears, I bundled her up and she played and discovered for over an hour.

I am so in love with this pic and wish I knew what she was finding

Big Boy!!

Wade looks so grown up in this picture. Wanted to post this for memories.

Note the big drool stain on his sweater, sadly he always looks this messy. 

PINK EYE!!!!

My little munchkin got pink eye. :(. When your kids get sick or hurt or crazy red pussy goopy eyes your mother instincts kick in an extra notch. I felt so bad for her I bought a book mark at chapters just to get change for the carousel ride at the mall while we waited for her RX. Of course some French fries for this French fry lover and when she asked for a box of smarties when we were paying for our groceries at Safeways I couldn't say no, which I have always done in the past. 

Mommy Secrets!!!

Being back at work 2 days a week was the best decision I could have made for myself and my family. I know lots of people probably think I am being selfish, and lots can't imagine going to work when there kids are so little, heck I even think I am being selfish, however I am so much happier and so excited for my days off with my kids. One of the best parts is I find it so much easier to fill our days. As I have written before I am not very creative and find it hard to think of things for us to do throughout the day, hence the reason I get out of my house a lot. From Fun Zone to Open Gymnastics, to parent and tot swim time. With only having three days now to think of activities it has been much easier and we have drastically cut back on how many shows we watch. As long as we get up and going and head somewhere in the morning, I only have the afternoons to fill the time, which is super easy when it is nice outside, we head outside or walk to the park, then come inside for some free play and then maybe some structured play. Then time to make super and wait for Daddy to come home. There has still been some rough days and some temper tantrums and meltdowns but life is definitely in a better place now. It also helps that Wade is so much more mobile, is amazing at playing with his toys, and though he still likes to be held it doesn't need to be 24/7. So the biggest reason for this post is because I wanted to ask all you moms and dads out there what has been your most creative easy activity that you do with your kids to fill the time throughout the day. I will share mine in hopes that you will all share yours so we can all benefit from this, as I am sure I am not the only mother who finds it hard to fill our days with fun, useful activities for our kids.

Mine has definitely been are play bins. I bought this bin from the dollar store for probably $4. I started by filling it with snow and then adding spoons and then those small tupperware snack holders. I fill the tupperware containers with water and then add food coloring. I put them directly in the bin and she loves using the spoons and taking the water from the containers and putting it on the snow and watching it change color. As the snow has started to harden and also melt I have done a couple more ideas. One is the pinwheel pasta with again spoons, bowls, containers and let her just play, kind of like a rice station only I find easier to clean up. A couple times I have also filled the bin with a small amount of water then again added spoons and bowls and soap and she will take her zoo animals and give them baths, I also give her a small tea towel here to dry them off with. Anytime we play with our bin it usually occupies a good 30 to 40 minutes of our time and lets me get some stuff done around the house. Alright so there she be, my best and most creative activity, oh and the best part wicked cheap, $4 for the bin and $2 for the pasta. Your turn to share now.

Memory sake

Another one of those post that I want to write just for memory.

I am a pretty lucky mother to have such a good 2 year old. She definitely has her moments and is very strong willed but overall this kid is pretty easy to be around  and a lot of fun. Today though Macie was perfection. Nothing could upset this girl, she didn't whine once, listened and followed through with everything I asked her to do. Played so well buy herself, with Wade and with the puppies. She was so happy all day, full of energy and so much life. She was constitently singing all day long jumping and dancing around. At the park she was running around and laughing so hard i thought she was gonna lose a lung. Hands down one of the funnest days I have had with my kids, seeing as Wade was pretty darn awesome today too.

WADE'S NURSERY

It is not totally done yet and I am still waiting on a couple things that I ordered of etsy that are taking forever to come but for bringing him home from the hospital to a completely empty room besides a bed and dresser it has come along way. I decided to just focus on certain colors I wanted for his bedroom and bring in cute accessories that matched. The main two colors are Navy Blue and Green, followed buy some red accents and hints of yellow and orange. I am really happy so far with how everything has turned out and can't wait to get the blanket finished and my etsy things in and up.
I also am going to sneak in a couple cute pics I took of Wade in his bedroom.

what a handsome little dude

we can't decide if we should paint the dresser white or leave it the way it is

this is my favorite part of the decor

hoping to one day make the blanket smaller.

This boy has muscles!!

Boys really are built different then girls. I remember the first time I touched Wade's legs I couldn't believe how strong they were. Only 2 days old and I was feeling acutall muscles. He has definitely proven himself in the boy department. He was rolling both front to back and back to front at 2 months and two weeks ago he started a bit of the army crawl and this past week he perfected it. Not even 5 months old and this kid is crawling. Although it is cool to see him doing these things when he is still so little, it makes me realize how much faster he is growing up then Macie. He is almost half way to one and it feels like we just had him. Slow down little buddy, don't grow up to fast on me.

Wonderful moments

Although the circumstances were not ideal, and I would have rather been down just visiting for fun and not for our Mothers funeral. There really were some wonderful moments in the sadness of Vicki's passing. We shared some wonderful memories and good laughs and got some great pics, mostly of Macie.