It's a Wonderful Life

Last weekend was the Father/Son camp out for our stake.  While the boys were away, I invited a few Moms and daughters over for a little "girl party."  It was pretty simple- potluck style dinner (I subjected everyone to my 100% whole wheat pizza crust- haha), visiting in the backyard, and then of course, the painting of the nails.  I was pretty excited to try and paint Anna's toes for the very first time.  It's a good thing I chose a light color, because she was quite wiggly! Oh my goodness is there anything better than chubby baby feet???? Loved spending time with my Anna girl! Blueberry face-light :) The boys had a great time- no ticks this time! They came back so dirty that after washing them in my bath tub, the bath tub itself required a thorough scrub down.  Camp out: success! Last Monday evening, we took the van in to get a new tire.  While we were waiting, we hung out at the mall for a bit.  Usual...

Anna is 14 months old!!!  I feel like she is getting so old.  Apparently this is something that happens to your sweet little baby over time . . . I have mixed feelings about it.  :)  Mostly I love it.  I love seeing her become more and more confident in her world.  To see her actually play with her siblings and friends.  To hear her babby babbles sound more and more like actual words.  However, every so often I will get a pang for the little bundle I nursed for the first time, or miss the feel of her tiny head in the crook of my neck while I rocked her to sleep.  I know these pangs are only going to get worse, as my children age :( Anna is a ball of sunshine.  I've notice lately that she really loves to make us laugh. If she does something that one of us thinks is funny, she seems to tuck that away in her "funny girl arsenal" to have at the ready.   She looooooves to go outside (pretty unusual f...

Monday night, Chick Fil A had a little mother son date night event.  My friend Andrea, called to tell me about it a couple of weeks ago.  It sounded so cute, so we signed up.  The theme was "knights."  They handed out balloon swords and paper shields to the boys when they walked in, along with some hand outs.  One talked about what it means to be a knight and one was full of suggested talking points for the mothers and sons, which I thought was pretty funny.  It was a great excuse to do something a little different with Jackson and Wyatt. On Tuesday, we tested out the ice cream maker for the first time.  It was crazy how the whole process flooded me with childhood memories.  It seems like any family get together in the summer or anytime we got some really good fruit that would make good ice cream we would do just that.  I'm so excited to try some of the yummy sounding recipes I've been collectin...

Well, it's a shame that Father's Day follows Mother's Day so quickly, because I don't think I can measure up to what Erik did- he and the kids made me feel so special!  (I'll try my best to make his Father's Day great too ;) ).  As soon as I woke up, Jackson and Wyatt were eager to bring me their presents that they made.  It was fun to see the seed that Jackson had nurtured in his kindergarten class the past couple of months finally make it home (it was suppose to be a surprise, but somehow the info got leaked a few weeks ago).  Wyatt drew me an adorable picture.  Is there anything better than seeing the pride on your kids' faces as they give you a gift they made??  The boys convinced Erik to get me the thing I've wanted for 8 years now: an ice cream maker.  I dropped some not so subtle hints to them during one of our Target trips a couple of months ago- haha.  Erik also added to our Friday Night Lights collection with season 4. After c...

For play group on Thursday, we went over to a farm in Berryville to pick strawberries.  I had never done that before- it was great!  The strawberries were so much  more flavorful than the one we'd been getting from the store (that come from Northern California, sigh).  Eating local is great :) Anna l-oooo-ved the berries.  When researching the different pick-your-own farms, I read of a few that don't spray with chemicals.  I'm pretty sure this was one of them, but I certainly hope so because Anna was chomping away at these! Wyatt really wanted to bring his Batman bucket. So pretty! And I've been meaning to post these pictures of Wyatt helpfully scratching Erik's back last Sunday afternoon.  As you can see, the scratching turned into jumping.  Jackson and Wyatt decided they were just like the kids in the Dr. Seuss book, Hop on Pop :) Poor Erik! The Staker kids were over on what was a pretty rainy and cool day....

Yesterday was my Rugged Maniac race.  It was so much fun!  We left about 9:00 am for our three hour drive (it was in Petersburg, south of Richmond). In line to register.  Wahoo! The race certainly had a party atmosphere.  There were bounce houses for the kids, which they loved. I've been catching glimpses of Anna and Wyatt playing together more and more- it's so cute! So there were a few women from my ward that ran it.  I loved our matching shirts :) (I look super awkward in this picture, because I thought someone was behind me, haha). Showing our team logo As we were waiting for the start time, Erik was being the good photographer and taking lots of candid pictures. He started to get a little snap-happy though, when he enlisted these fellow racers to join me in a picture. There were lots of colorful racers there, but none were quite so naked as these two yuckos.  Erik walked up to them and said, "Hey do...