End of the Year Banquet

 The MOMS Club just recently celebrated the end of the year banquet and my friend and I got to be in charge of planning it.  We did a rock star theme and had all of the moms dress up like rock stars.  However, instead of rock stars, 2 of my friends and I decided to be Run DMC.  Awesome!!


Amy, Paige and I as Run DMC.  We aren't not so hard-core looking right here.  Nice New Balance, huh?

The winners of the costume contest! 

End of the Year Party

Lily just ended her school year.  She had a great year and loves lots of the kids in her class.  Caroliney and I went for the end of the year party. 

Lily and one of her BFFs, Alena.  Her mom and I are in the MOMS Club together and they happened to be in the same class this year and will be again next year!!!

Butterfly Festival

We recently drove to Gainesville to join my friend, Beth, and her kids, Sarah and Will for a butterfly festival.  Sarah is a couple years older than Lily and therefore infinitely cool.  The butterfly festival was lots of fun.  All of the kids there were given a little envelope with the butterflies inside and then had to wait about 3 minutes when it was time to release the butterflies.  Um...yeah.  Giving a 4 year old an envelope with a living creature in it and expecting her to know not to crush it without me telling her was not the smartest decision I've ever made.  I took the one envelope that she had "felt" a lot and gave her Caroliney's, which I was holding...I'm not stupid enough to give one to C.  When we all opened our envelopes, I'll just say that mine didn't fly to far and I'll leave it at that.  Lily's flew right at her face, which scared the dickens out of her.  For the most part, the butterflies survived and filled the sky, flying in circles and landing on all of us which, again, scared the dickens out of Lily.

Waiting for their butterflies...


While we were waiting for our butterflies, Caroliney spied a wobbly man (balloon man), which she was the coolest thing there!!!


These are the envelopes that the butterflies were in.  Crazy, huh? 

After the butterfly release, the girls went and played in a little stream at the park.

An Oldie but a Goodie--Part 2

These pictures are also from November when we built our deck.  My dad, Bryan and Raul (our handy-man) built it in a day and a half.  We love it.  It is absolutely the best upgrade we have done to our house.  Or the fence.  Or the swingset.  Okay, pretty much everything we've done the backyard is awesome!!  We love to be outside.

An Oldie but a Goodie--Part 1

This picture was taken all of the way back in November, but I just got these pictures off of my mom's camera.  Lily and I were going to a cowboy themed birthday party and so, even though nothing on the invitation told us to dress up, of course we did!!  We were one of only 2 families there that did so except for the birthday boy, but we didn't mind.  As I've said before, we barely even need a reason to put on costumes!! 

Softball Injury!!! :(

Poor  Caroliney!!  She fell down at his last game and got a nasty looking goose egg.  The next day it looked 1000 times better than it had at the game.  It barely bruised, shrunk quite a bit and just had a few scratches.  Still something I'd prefer not to repeat, but she was okay and that's what's important.


Here she is offering the camera a baked Cheeto.  You can see her poor little noggin in the background.  

Here she is eating a baked Cheeto herself.  Her noggin looks fine today.  Hopefully no injuries tomorrow night!!!  

Easter Egg Hunt

I had to work on Easter Sunday.  So we had a very small, very impromptu Easter egg hunt at our house for just a very small group of friends on the Saturday before Easter.  I took almost no pictures, but here is what I got...

Our friend, Robin, and her 2 little girls.  They are very close in age to our girls.  Robin is a great friend and a great mom!!  Her girls are adorable and we were glad they came!!!

 We made C were a bunny hat the whole time.  She didn't mind and it was SO cute!!  See?!?

The hunt is on, and C thinks it's way more to just stare at the kids running around the yard.  

She did eventually pick a few up, but didn't have quite that drive for the hunt that Lily has!  Give her a few years!!

 Hunting eggs!!!  She has on her "super fast running shoes" for the event.  And, yes, Lily and Caroline wore the same dress.  BACK OFF!!!   I like matching clothes and I don't care who knows it!!!

Sorry.  I may be a little over-sensitive because I catch a lot of flack from Bryan about matching outfits.

4 of the 6 roommates from my senior year in college.  So fun to see them and get together!! 

Breakfast with the Bunny

Lily's school always has an Easter breakfast and has the Easter bunny come to it.  Caroliney's babysitter had a sick kid that same morning and couldn't keep her and so we were able to go with no worries about work.  It worked out perfectly for me...being a working mom can produce a lot of guilt on both sides...Am I doing enough with/for the kids?  Am I being a good employee?  Obviously, the kids are my main priority, but I like my job and I want to keep it.  So, when I have to call in sick because I have no other choices, I don't feel so guilty.  For some reason, I do feel stressed a bit when I ask off because there is something I would rather be doing.  It's stupid.  Particularly because I work with/for the best people in the world.  They are so flexible and let me make up my time in the evenings or early in the morning.  And because I only work part-time...one full day a weekend and 3-4 mornings a week for just a couple hours per morning.  It's wonderful and it's a good balance for me because I do like to work...to get out of the house, talk to adults, use my brain and my degree, but I certainly want to be home with the kids more often than I am working.  Working does mean that I miss out on fun activities with my MOMS Club friends.  It's all a struggle, but I think all working moms feel some sort of conflict even if it doesn't necessarily make sense to anyone else.  The truth is that I'm doing exactly what I want to be doing...working a bit and home a lot, so I'll make it all work the best I can.  The house suffers the most honestly, but that's for another post!!  Anyway!!!  Back to Breakfast with the Bunny!!  All 3 ladies were representing there!!  Lily's class came in and we all had breakfast together...then the bunny joined us.  The kids all went up as a class at first and then we were going to have the opportunity to add in a sibling and do individual pics with just our kids.  When the bunny came in, Lils would wave at the bunny from afar.  At the mall in the weeks leading up to Easter, she high fived the bunny once.  But she made it quite clear that she had NO interest in meeting him.  None.  Did not want to sit on his lap OR talk to him.  I personally can't blame her as a man-sized bunny freaks me out, too.  Caroliney on the other hand, seemed very excited about him.  Squealed and screeched when he walked in the room.  She nearly broke her arm off waving at him so much!  So I bet you can guess what each of them did...Lils walked right over and jumped up on his lap and C protested majorly when I put her on his lap.  A little role reversal!!  They like to keep me guessing.

Lils on the bunny's lap...with a very fake smile.  She was totally happy sitting on his lap, but she is back into fake smiling for the camera.  I think they all go through it, right?

Lily's whole class with the bunny---8 girls and 2 boys!!  You'll notice one little girl is hiding behind another girl because she was refusing to cooperate with having her picture taken.  Kids make me laugh!!  Don't we all feel like doing that sometimes?

The girlies with the bunny!!


After the Easter bunny breakfast, we all went outside to let the kids hunt for Easter eggs.  Lily is a champion egg hunter.  She runs around, all focused and gets way more eggs then they were allowed to get.  She had to give some back, but she didn't care.  She's way more excited about finding eggs than actually keeping them or eating what's inside.  Caroliney enjoyed the egg hunt because it was on the playground and there were tons of kids to look at. 

 Lily is in the ZONE!!  I couldn't even get a good picture of her during the hunt!!

C played while the hunt was going on.  

Relinquishing some of her eggs at the end!!