Spring Break..

what a blur last week was! with work mixed with no school, we had lots of playdates & kept busy!

Glad that tomorrow we'll be back to routine!

Friday we went to our friends' Brooke & Presley's house & played after naptime. It was amazing weather right before the cold front hit- so we took full advantage of it!

I snapped a few quick shots of these sweet girls. They used to be in class with Mason but moved to a private school recently. We love these girls too much so we have playdates when we can!

Sweet Miss "Pressie" as Mason calls her.

Pressie thinking she's bored with what I'm doing..and would much rather be playing with Baby Maddox!

Miss "Brookie" as Mason calls her...Pressie's twin sister..

Love her curly hair!
Presley thought her orange would be a better photo op for me than she would! ha!
Mason was way too busy having fun to sit for any kind of picture, but Maddox is pretty darn good at sitting, so I sat with him for a while. Here, I just wanna ask, "Where did your neck go??"



Ruh Roh- no no no, don't eat bark..or grass...or rocks!

oh Soooo pitiful. YES, i told my baby NO, and he cried.

and then I took a picture. I'm so mean!

Saturday we woke up and it was COLD! Winter came back on the 1st day of spring!

I worked all day with a wedding set up, came home and about then it started snowing, so as a bribe to Mason if he ate all of his dinner, he got to run outside while it was snowing after dinner. The great thing about snow...is it's COLD, and Mason doesn't last too long in it (he gets that from me) maybe 10 minutes tops.

All he did was run in circles with his tongue hanging out for about 7 minutes. Then we were done. Thank goodness!

Sunday we woke up to a few inches of snow and it was gone by noon thankfully!
It was still cold out, so this is about what the boys did on their final day of spring break- played, played and played. Yes, Mason has a hammer in his underwear. What you can't see is his underwear are actually backwards. Isn't that the cool handy man way to do it?!

fun with friends

our neighbors/friends came over this evening & we had some fun playtime outside before it got dark (as much as i hate the time change, that is one bonus with the longer day!) I've really been trying to photograph the kids and friends a lot more, these 2 cuties (other than my kids) made easy subjects :)

First....can't pass up the eyebrow action...

From March2010

M & A kept each other busy... M is a good worker & A is a good supervisor!

From March2010

Big Brother Alexander

From March2010

Being a Boy

From March2010

Back to my cutie. Swear he is always a happy baby...that bottom lip just makes him look so serious..One of these days I'll catch him in excited mode! that baby needs a haircut BAD!

From March2010

Meet little G..or Baby Grant..

From March2010

LOOK at those eyes.........

From March2010

he is such a happy baby! He thinks I'm pretty funny. (So do I Mr. Grant!)

From March2010

This little guy is such a chatterbox. I love that baby babble! I can't wait for him & Maddox to be best buddies :)

From March2010

Shelby girl keeping an eye on the big boys for me. GOOD DOG. sit. stay.

From March2010

uh oh she let one by! I call this one "....and we're off!"

From March2010

Thomas the Train with the Thomas'

Gavin was gone out to our friends' place on Saturday night to do a few things to his car, So i took the kids to the early service at church on Saturday and then we got up early on Sunday & went to see Thomas the train (and met up with our friends the Thomas Family- very fitting)! We didn't buy tickets to ride the train, because I'm cheap like that, but instead paid $5 to get in to do all the fun stuff. Mason played with train tables, watched the miniature toy trains, played with Thomas stamps, watched the music man show play bongos, went to the petting zoo & watched Thomas come & go. Next year we'll probably ride the train, but I will tell you we go there at 10 am & it was good timing, however, I wish we had gotten there an hour earlier! by 10:30 it was getting packed & we left at 11:30 am. Sunday and EARLY is the key apparently! Thomas wore the boys out and maybe more so ME!

Jackson, his daddy & Mason watching the mini trains. Isn't Jackson's daddy a good sport? haha You could call this training for 2- they're expecting #2 in August!


My sweet baby boy


Jackson the Thomas posing for me by Thomas the Train. Mason refused. He was in a mood.



It's easy to get this one to pose! No moods yet! YEAH!


Once I was able to get Mason to cooperate, it was impossible to get all 3 to smile for me!


Family pic of the Thomas' day out with Thomas- Jackson wouldn't look at me, so I grabbed his popcorn. :) He finally looked! HAHA



Boy did we ever time leaving perfectly. Mason wanted to go back on the bounce house. We waved Thomas goodbye as he pulled out for his next ride & we left. No argument! it was great :)

Meal planning (Before Monday for once!)

I try and meal plan for our family, but it doesnt always work. Or i can do it for 1/2 the week. I need to get in the habit of it again!

Just a little FYI on how we have changed up our diets in the last few months- 95% of our dinners are all natural foods or 'clean' foods meaning I prefer to have as little process foods in our house, we eat foods rich in whole grains, fruits & veggies and we have recently switched our meats to grass fed grain beef & completely all natural (free range if possible) chicken. I cannot express HOW much better the beef taste!!
I don't cook with anything that has high fructose corn syrup, not only for Mason's allergy to corn, but i see benefits of us all keeping it out of our diet. We are also joining an organic fruit & veggie co-op with our neighbors to introduce some new veggies and not to mention a cheaper grocery bill. not only is it eating healthier foods (i never ever buy produce from the mega super stores like walmart) but it also helps support local farmers. We do have our occasional dinner out, but for the most part we eat 95% at home.

Sunday (tonight): Spaghetti
Don't really have a recipe but here is what I use:

1 can of Hunt's all natural diced tomatoes
1 can of Hunt's all natural tomato sauce
1/2 a chopped up zuchini or squash
1/2 of an eggplant (after chopping you salt it so it doesn't become soggy when cooking)
1 small onion finely diced
1-2 cloves of chopped garlic
1 lb of lean hamburger meat
few various spices like italian seasoning, salt, pepper, little bit of sugar
I also always put it on whole wheat Angel Hair pasta because that's Gavin's favorite!
Cheese is also always good :) Love mixing some shredded mozarella cheese into my bowl of spaghetti but my husband prefers to eat that gross overly processed parm. cheese. (gag!)

Most people don't care for so many veggies in their spaghetti, but my key is chopping it very fine and my boys gobble it UP! give it a try, our veggie rich spaghetti is so yummy!


Monday: No bible study- but we're all meeting at a park with the kids and dinner- so we'll bring our heated up spaghetti leftovers. (love any excuse to eat my leftovers!) and a side salad & fruit

Tuesday: Italian baked chicken with italian seasoning, lemon zest, olive oil & sprinkling of goat cheese with a side salad & red potatoes

Wednesday: Tortilla soup (trying this recipe!) (thanks for posting this recipe charlotte, it looks good!

Thursday: it's whatever night- leftovers or make yourself a sandwich/panini!

Friday: Grilling night! We'll grill up one of our yummy steaks & a big side of grilled veggies (bell peppers, onions, red potatoes, mushrooms, asparagus) I'm also going to attempt some brussel sprouts this week too!

Check it out!

If you haven't ever ventured over to my other blog- come on over...

Artsy Fartsy Designs

I've recently revamped (okay it doesn't look any differently) but I've REPURPOSED my Artsy Fartsy blog. I LOVE that name. so many things fall under that. So do I. SO, instead of just using it to promote my paintings, I've finally decided to turn it into a craft blog which will still showcase my work, but also other craft projects I did, do & have going on. Also, I'll add some tutorials!! Everyone tells me I should teach some craft classes. HUH? Me teach? yea right. But NOW that my NEW craft room is almost complete, and considering the size of it, I do plan on having some "Moms Night IN" nights with some girl friends. I can't wait to show off my craft room when it is complete! We've still got a few projects left to do though. So come over and check it out! :)

Cowtown 5K 2010

So the week before last we graduated from our "Couch to 5K" running program! JUST in time for our first major goal. When we decided to do it we set a goal in sight- the Cowtown 5K! It was our first official 5K. We actually participated in one back in early January, but we hadn't completed the C25K yet & just did our 'training' at the race, I think we ended up running about 18 minutes of it. BUT the cowtown we ran the whole thing! I was very proud of us, but I was also disappointed in our time. When we ran the JiggleButt Run 5K in Arlington in January our time was 48:10. Granted it was a smaller run, first year for it & we started out running. The cowtown races (Ultra, marathon, 10K, 5K & kids 5K) all together had over 21,000 participants!!! Needless to say we didn't even get to run for the first 4 minutes at least of the run. So our time came out to 40:20. Not great. but our goal is to run one 5K a month & to improve our time each time! Overall, we did good & had a good time!

This was our view looking *BACK* from where we were standing from the starting line-- we were maybe about 1/2 way back.


I took a few pictures from the FW Star Telegram site... I can't get over how many people there were.

We ran with these guys for a while- the FW Fire Department. There was a ton of them. We ran in front of them for the first 1/3 of the race, it was neat because they sang their FD chants, it was so loud we couldn't even hear our playlist! They passed us up, they were kind of like a train pushing thru, everyone just moved aside!

Amy, Rilee & Chris came down & cheered us on. Laura is in the Blue, Jes is in the pink & I'm in Black- cant see us very well, but this was us finishing the race. It looks like everyone is walking, but I promise we were running!!

Red Faced & Sweaty Jes, Me & Laura

Stinky Me, Rilee & Amy- my cheerleaders!!

I was on the NBCDFW.com website & saw this picture - It's my friend Genevieve from Houston!!! How funny is this??? There were 3 of them, they were thing 1, 2 & 3 and ran with a Cat in the Hat! I thought this was hysterical! They ran the half marathon- Go GENNY!!

UP NEXT: Our March 5K is next weekend we'll be running the Dash down Greenville 5K in Dallas. THIS should be fun :)

Baby #2 is 1!

My sweet baby boy turned 1 last Friday. 1....... can i just keep him like this forever and ever? M #1 was a good baby and all, but he never seemed like a 'baby'. He always seemed older, more toddler like...but this one...uh, he is the sweetest, best baby ever. ever. ever. I can't have another, because I can't guarantee that the next will come out like him. I could have 10 more if they were all like Maddox!

So here is Maddox's stats:

23.6 lbs

80% for height (not sure what the measurements were)

has 8 teeth & currently working on 1 molar

sleeps from 8 pm to 8 am with a 2-3 hour nap. (LOVE this)

only eats what he can feed himself, he's exploring new foods, but still loves his organic bunny crackers the most. he likes: waffles, blueberries, bananas, plums, beans, toast, sweet potatoes...

he is very music oriented. loves music and just lights up when anyone sings to him.

His favorite things are:

his giraffe toy

the yellow measuring spoon (came out of a pack of 4 spoons from the target $ section i bought for the boys)

his play table

Baths

his 2 new birthday toys that play music

"Backpack" on Dora the Explorer. He thinks Backpack is HYSTERICAL. not so much myself.

and of course his all time favorite toy- his big brother.

Maddox started crawling about 3 weeks ago and is getting so much faster and into lots of things. thankfully most things are toddler proofed so we should be good!

He pulls up to his knees and is really trying to pull up to standing. He's very quiet and observant but when he does talk it's BABA or Daa (like for Dog) and he tends to get louder and louder until squealing especially when the cats are around. I think he's trying to scare them! He currently loves spitting and blowing raspberries at anything and everything, especially when I tell him or *anyone* NO. He gives high fives, head bonks, escimo kisses (rubbing noses), open mouth kisses & when he hugs you he grabs your whole face. Must say I love them all!

Overall, we have an extremely happy & healthy baby! Never could I have imagined how much joy baby #2 would bring to our family. God knew the perfect match for our family, and I couldn't have picked anyone better. I am so so so blessed to be his mom. I can't wait to see how much he grows & develops over the next year!

in honor of following tradition- I must include Maddox's 1st Birthday Invitation (birthday pictures coming soon!)