the birthday girl and mother's day

In May, Miss J turned 2 years old. We are so happy she is a part of our family. She has so much personality and spunk!

I started getting really sentimental on the day before her birthday, just realizing that it would be the last day she was 1. This is a picture of her and I before I put her down for a nap.

Here she is sleeping during the nap. Love these moments.

This is her birthday breakfast! We had French toast with buttermilk syrup, fresh fruit, and orange juice. (The flowers and vase are from M. He made them at preschool and gave them to me for Mother's Day.)

Her smile just melts my heart. She is so sweet and happy.

M bought these dress-up shoes for J with his own money. She really loved them!

Ha, don't mind her pajamas. We are really classy at our house!

Her she is with her new strider bike she got for her birthday. M was really quick to jump in and show her how it's done.

It was a really rainy day, but we it stopped raining for a bit, so we headed over to the high school track to test out the new bike. As soon as we pulled up, it started raining! We had brought a picnic, so we just went under the bleachers and had our picnic, rode the bike, and hung out.

 Literally, M "hung" out ^^^

Enjoying the picnic.

We just kept things low-key and enjoyed spending the day together as a family.

The Sunday after it was Mother's Day, so we made some cake and took it to my grandparents to share while we visited them for Mother's Day.

I am so thankful for my sweet baby girl. I love her so much. I'm also thankful for all of the mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, and nieces I have been blessed with in my life. Love them.

Christmas 2015!

Christmas Eve

Jake's parents were able to join us for the evening. It was so nice to have them. The kids were super excited to have Grandma and Grandpa there! We had a yummy dinner and a nice Christmas program.  

The "star" in the night sky on Christ's birth. 

Christmas morning

Traditional Christmas breakfast- monkey bread, fruit, orange juice.

The kids slept in...we had to wake them up! J was still pretty sleepy...

She perked right up when she saw Santa had not eaten the last cookie we left out for him. She had no interest in seeing the gifts, just eating the cookie.

M didn't really ask for much for Christmas, but the one specific thing he asked for was the play ice cream set he saw at the store.

Christmas afternoon

My parents came to visit us Christmas afternoon. Here are the kids opening their gifts from them.

We had a wonderful Christmas. All four of us were pretty sick during the month of December. One of us would get it, pass it along, get better, then get sick again. We felt kind of bad because we had to miss out on some Christmas festivities, but it turned out okay. Where we were home so much, I feel like it allowed us to focus more on the true meaning of Christmas, and not so much the other stuff. 

Merry Christmas...in March!

4th of july

Love the 4th of July! We spent it close to home this year. It was a good day!

-parade in the morning

-BBQ with the Palmer family in the afternoon (thank you, guys!)

-watched fireworks from the back of the car with popcorn and Scotcheroos!

valentine's day 2015

I love Valentine's Day! I think it is just a fun holiday to celebrate. Here are some of the things we did during the week of Valentine's Day.

 We had a Family Home Evening lesson on telling our loved ones we love them and what we love about them. We wrote what we loved about each other on the little hearts. My favorite was one M said about Jake, "Dad goes to work all day to buy money for us to eat." Ha, something like that, I suppose!

M got to make a Valentine's Day box for school. It didn't take us long to decide we would make a tractor for his box. He chose to do a red CASE tractor. 

Here I am teaching him how to cover the toilet paper roll with electrical tape to make his exhaust pipe. I wanted him to help as much as possible with his box. I didn't want to be that parent who did the project on their own, without the help of the child. Ha! It was a lot harder to have him help than I realized! 

I had him help pull the tape over the box to cover it, and to help cut the tape at times. I traced a circle on some construction paper for a tire and asked if he would cut it out. I knew it wouldn't be a perfect looking circle, but I figured it would still work...yeah...it turned out looking like a messed-up, skinny somewhat-kind of rectangle! M did fine, but I forget he doesn't quite have cutting with scissors down yet! Absolutely no resemblance to a tire. So I cut them out and told me where to glue them on the box!

He and his cousin are "driving" the tractor.

 It was a lot of fun making it! We both learned along the way! He absolutely loved getting all of the fun goodies from his classmates in his box. 

I LOVE sugar cookies...love them! I strongly dislike making them, though--takes way too much time! So I have decided I make them around Halloween and around Valentine's Day; I figure twice a year is plenty! This year Miss A came down to help us decorate the cookies.

 

Here are the kids with their valentines from Jake and I. M got a cane filled with Reese's candy. Baby J got a teething toy.

Jake told me I needed to leave the house for a couple of hours on Valentine's morning. I wasn't sure why, but I headed out to the gym. When I got home, this is what I had waiting for me! He made me my very own edible bouquet of flowers! Ha, I love that Jake thought of this and made it. He was so sweet to do that! He went out and bought the fruit and designed the bouquet all by himself. I was super impressed! Watch out Pinterest!

Love my Valentine!

That afternoon, Jake's parents were sweet to come and watch the kids for us so we could go on a date. We went and bought pants for M (I know, hot date...) and then went to Zupas to eat. It was so nice to go out! Thank you, again, Grandma and Grandpa B!