Mothers Day 2014

With Easter being late-ish this year, Mother's Day seemed to sneak up without warning.

Jake's school hosted a cute muffin snack the Friday before Mother's Day. (Though I am not shy to share outloud that I know these Friday afternoon school parties are more a gift for the teachers because we take our kids home early and they can start their weekend faster.)


But, he gave me a super cute card...
....and a beuatiful handmade vase.

Brooklyn made me something at school, too. She's pretty spot on with everything except for the fact that I have had brussel sprouts maybe twice in my life. BUT, I have been pretty excited about this new side dish in my life, and we have been talking about it a lot (how to cook them, how to flavor them, when we should have them, etc) so she is justified in her declaration that roasted brussel sprouts are my favorite food.

All in all it was a nice weekend that ended with Sunday brunch at our house with the family. Another hard holiday to swallow, but pat our backs we made it, and I am truly thankful for those two precious angels that call me Mommy.

Color Me Rainy 2014

The Saturday before Easter, Chad and I participated in our second Color Me Rad 5K race.

Though the weather was less than ideal (chilly and drizzly). It could have been way worse AND it was still fun.


It was Emily's first 5K race (yay!).
Heart in Sol represents once again!

And the "After Shots..."


Love this girl, Sarah, and her willingness to run crazy races with me (even though she says she is not a runner).

It's so nice to have a hubby who likes to do this with me...or at least tolerates them enough to do them with me. :-)

Despite the weather, it was a fun morning, and I am so glad we went there, did it, and got the (super cute) t-shirt.

Our Easter Egg-stravaganza (all in one post)!

Honestly, I don't remember when Easter happened....was it late April? We celebrated before and after Vegas with the kids' various activities and then we just coasted through and survived the actual day as it was our first "real" holiday without Larry.

Nothing can prepare you for those, you know? No matter how big or small, any day or occasion that has any sort of tradition or sentiment or feeling attached to it is just hard.

Hard.

Sucks really.

I'm not gonna sugarcoat it, and I want to be honest because this is our life right now. And we have reached that point where the rest of the world is traveling at normal speed, and we are still trying to grasp what this new normal is and how our life even ended up like this.

But that should be a post for another day.

This one is about Easter. But what better holiday to "break us in" to new tradition and a new life than the holiday that celebrates the fact that our God sent his only Son to die for us and that He, that only Son, died and rose again so that our sins are forgiven and so WE may live.

We. May. Live.

And we are living.

Yes, sir. The best we know how and the best we can.

We are living.

Right before we left town for Vegas, one of our favorite preschool families hosted an egg hunt at her house for a few families. The kids had a blast and got SO MUCH CANDY.

 

Literally hours after we returned from the west coast, we headed over to Jake's school (jet lagged and all) for his annual egg hunt.

 

Chase's mom and I swear every year we think we get a pic of our boys with buckets on their heads...

This is one class party you cannot be late to. Because I swear this egg hunt lasts all of about 4 minutes.

I'm serious. 4 minutes.

I timed it.

This group cleared out HUNDREDS of eggs in 4 minutes.

And again, SO MUCH CANDY.

And then, there was Easter Sunday morning at our house. Where the Easter Bunny came and brought  lots of goodies but pretty much NO CANDY.
 But the kids were fine. :-)


And we got to talk about how fun it must have been for the Easter Bunny AND the Tooth Fairy to visit our house in the same night.
 

Later that day, we went to Gramma's house where the kids had another egg hunt (but shhhh, we just re-used the candy that they had already received from previous hunts), and we watched Claire just be cute. 

And that, my friends, was Easter.

Vegas, Baby! (Final post!)

We rounded out our vacation to the west coast with some Cirque du Soleil Beatles style, some pole dancing on the monorail, and a second trip to the BEST BUFFET EVER (which was prefaced by a trip to the treadmill with the greatest view ever).

It was a wonderful trip that came at a time where we needed to get away, be with family & friends, and just escape from reality for a while. And the family and friends who came with us were amazingly supportive, fun, generous, and compassionate. We are truly lucky and can't wait to vacation together again soon.

 

 

 

The time change finally caught up with Jake and he just couldn't hang during dinner...

 

 OMYumminess...

 

 

I know we have been celebrating since March, but happy birthday again, Dad! Love you and glad you picked such a fun place for your birthday party. :-)