Slip N Slide

As promised, here is some video from an absolutely gorgeous day here when our extremely adorable little girl explored the slip and slide for the first time. Most of this happened during Max's nap time, but you will get a clip of him discovering it as well. It's kind of funny because he had completely forgotten how the whole bathing suit thing worked. 

Mother's Day

I had an outstanding Mother's Day! It started with my little buddy and his cold feet cuddling with me, watching Netflix in bed, while Jason and Alia went to Starbucks to pick up my favorite breakfast. I enjoyed my breakfast and the newspaper in my pj's and then took a long, hot (uninterrupted) shower! After that, the whole family went to the farmer's market for our first trip of the season. We were excited to see so much going on already, but no berries quite yet. Next, I went down to the outlet mall ALL BY MYSELF to do a little shopping (for me, not kids). It was productive, strange and amazing all at the same time.

When I arrived home Jason and the kids had prepared a scavenger hunt for me "pirate style". (Alia is really into Jake and the Neverland Pirates all of the sudden.) The treasure was the "relaxation cave", aka the upstairs bathroom, all set up and ready for a bubble bath for me later that night. We had Prosecco and appetizers and then the most amazing dinner EVER!!! Jason made fillet oscar style. Easily his best dinner to date. Then, as if it could get any better, he made peanut butter cookies that had little peanut butter cups in the middle of them. They were amazing and I hope he never makes them again. I inhaled them at an alarming rate. 

Here are a few pictures from my perfect Mother's Day. I am so lucky!

Another big accomplishment of Jason's that day, was getting the table into the dining room all by himself while I was gone shopping. Alia helped set it for dinner :-)

AMAZING!!!!

They were all dressed up and adorable when I get home too.

So, I changed into some of my new duds and we were all fancy together.

My Smart Little Cookie

As many of you know, Alia has really taken off with her reading. She has always loved books and loved being read to. Now, she reads to us every night before bed. It's crazy! With all of this natural interest in reading, I haven't really been pushing the writing too much. She still has over a year until she starts kindergarten so I'm just trying to capitalize on what she shows interest in and then go from there.

SO ... on Mother's Day Jason was cooking dinner and Alia was needing something to do to keep her out of Jason's hair. I suggested she get some paper and make a list to help Daddy. We gave her some of the ideas, but she did all of the sounding out and writing on her own.

corn, cup, wine, pot, pan, bread, fire

The Move (and stuff)

To say that we have been busy the last month or so would be a grand understatement. However, we are finally "settled" in the new house. We close on the old house on Friday and are looking forward to only managing one residence. We are also looking forward to putting a freeze on all house related projects for a bit and just enjoying the summer in our new neighborhood. The kids are signed up for some summer camps, we are hoping to get in some swim lessons (registration is this Saturday) and we've already purchased our plane tickets to my dad's house for a week of relaxing on the lake this summer. We are hoping to do lots of playing outside at our new playground, swimming in our community pool, play-dates with friends, trips to the farmer's market, zoo, etc! 

Here are some random photos from the last few weeks ...

In the midst of all this insanity, I turned 35. Ugh! I got a brand new giant gym bag just like I asked and some other special little surprises that the kids picked out for me. 

A view of the pre-move insanity

Alia and Max were both very in to helping load and unload the u-haul. We used it to move as much as we could (without throwing out our backs) on Friday, then had movers come on Saturday to do all the heavy stuff. So worth it!!

First play-date at the new house ... with Carson and Landon of course. We had a picnic lunch on the back porch then walked to the playground and played for a bit.

Best Friends!

(PS. We've had some fabulous weather here and I have some great pics and video of Alia on a slip 'n slide in the backyard. I'll get around to posting it soon.)