Easter at Bellingrath

On Saturday my husband and I took the girls to Bellingrath Gardens for the annual Easter egg hunt. Even though we go to the gardens for Halloween, Christmas and other random times throughout the year this was our first time attending the Easter egg hunt. Let me tell you this is going to become an annual thing in our family. We all had such a fantastic time!

Sneaking up on the Easter bunny.

 They had three separate hunts which I thought was wonderful. Usually when we go on egg hunts my younger two end up getting upset because all the big kids get to the eggs before they do. Sophie hunted with the 4-6 year olds.

 As you can see she found quite a few eggs.

Audrey and Kylie were with the 7-11 year olds. They did pretty well too.

They take after their father.

They also had lots of fun activities for the kids to do. 

And Kylie has already told me that when she is in high school she is going to be an azalea trail maid. God help me. I need to practice my sewing now.

Hope all of you have had a great weekend and have an even better week ahead!

Strawberries, sun and a surprise visitor

Yesterday my husband and I took a little trip across the bay with the girls to attend a strawberry festival. The funny thing? The only strawberry we actually saw was one of those 'strawberry go round' rides. No matter we had a great time anyway.

The girls rode the mini roller coaster several times and then we took them to the park to play. By the way, while some of you are enjoying the cool spring like weather we've decided to skip ahead to summer. It was 91 degrees here!

 When we came home we were sitting on the back patio enjoying a much need bowl of ice cream (my butt disagrees with that statement btw) when this guy decided to join us.

Billy Bob Jr. or Turtley checking out the kids sidewalk chalk

 He walked all the way across our backyard stopping to look at the kids toys. Audrey decided that he looked like a Billy Bob Jr. (no idea where she came up with that!) and Sophie argued that no, his name was in fact Turtley. The funny thing was after he walked all over the yard he came up on the patio to check us out! It was so funny because he walked over to each of us before walking away. Well, almost all of us. Someone got a little freaked out and went inside.

 Have a great week everyone!

Weekend recap-shots, bikes, and other stuff

Is it really Monday already? This weekend kind of flew by for me, but it was such a great one I really can't complain. Friday was kind of a bittersweet day for me because I had to take my baby big girl in to get the last of her immunizations for school.

Still my baby.

 I cannot believe that in just a few short months my house is going to be empty of children from 7:30-3:30! I'm trying really hard not to think about it though. Anyway, Sophie did fantastic with her shots, not one single tear was shed. She's so funny, if I tell her she's going to have to take medicine she goes into meltdown mode. If I tell her she's going to get a shot, she's fine. Weird huh? 
Saturday was kind of busy. My husband actually had the entire weekend off so we tried to make the most of it. We took the girls to the library, then mom did a little shopping, then we stopped for lunch, and then we went to the movies to see Hop. To be quite honest I really didn't think I would like the movie, but it turned out to be surprisingly good. One thing that I really liked about it was there was no romantic storyline involved.  My kids always complain about "mushy stuff" in the movies so they were pretty happy too.
     On Sunday we decided to just hang out at home and be lazy bums all day. I'm really good at lazy so that worked out great for me. Audrey decided that she was tired of not knowing how to ride a two wheeler so she had her dad remove the stabilizers from her bike. After trying for several hours she finally was able to ride a few feet. I think with a little practice she'll gain some confidence and realize that she really can do it and will be riding all over the place.
I hope all of you had a nice, relaxing weekend too and here's wishing us all a great week ahead!

Weekend recap

This weekend started out in the most fantastic way. Do you remember last week I was complaining about how it was taking me forever to get Sophie a speech evaluation and that the last time we went I lost a piece off my purse? Well on Friday she finally got her evaluation. And yes she did qualify. It took every bit of self restraint I possessed not to shout "I told you so!" and sing the nanny boo boo song, but I was good and refrained. Also while I was waiting I found out that the principal had found the lock to my purse. I was so thrilled to get it back. Of course now I'm feeling a little guilty because just two days prior my husband told me to go online and order another purse (perhaps he was tired of my whining?) and I did. I offered to return the new purse when it arrived and he told me not to worry with it so being the good wife I am I'm going to do just what he says. So now I'm waiting somewhat patiently for this new baby to arrive.

 

On Sunday Audrey and I had a fun day together. My husband was home from work so he watched Kylie and Sophie while I took Audrey to do some shopping and lunch. I love doing things with all three of my children, but I just adore getting to spend one on one time with them like this. I'm pretty sure she enjoyed the one on one time too.
It's been pretty spring-like here for at least a month now, but yesterday marked the official first day of spring. It was in the eighties here so I think it's pretty safe to say I can now put these guys back in the closet for another year.

 

 I'm trying really, really hard not to complain (too much) about the complete lack of winter we got this year and enjoy the nice weather we've been having. Yesterday we took the girls out to my mom and dads house for a little kite flying. You'll have to use your imagination and pretend there is a really cool picture of my kids flying their kites right here since my camera battery needed charging and I didn't realize it until too late. They had a fantastic time and one of the kites even managed to survive their abuse.
When we got home my husband and I were treated to an actual fashion show starring the super famous celebrity Sophie.  We had no idea we lived amongst such a fashionista.

No, those are not my hands in the picture thankyouverymuch.

And since today is teacher work day at the girls school it looks like our weekend continues on. I hope all of you have a wonderful week and can get outside and enjoy this nice spring weather.

What I've been up to (a.k.a. the longest post evah!)

Things are finally starting to settle down around here somewhat. First we had Sophie's birthday, then Christmas, then we decided to start on the playhouse/loft bed project and then Kylie's birthday. My house has been a total disaster and I think I am officially insane now. I was going to do a post yesterday about what's been going on around here but decided instead to attempt to get my house back in order (somewhat) so you get to hear all about it today. I know you're completely underwhelmed. So here we go......

• Thursday morning Audrey left for school with a loose tooth. I know I sound like a horrible mom, but I crossed my fingers and prayed when she got on the bus that she would lose it at school. She whined about it the night before (and that girl can whine!) and all morning long and quite frankly I didn't think my nerves could handle it anymore. Apparently her teachers nerves couldn't take it either because when she came home she told me that her teacher pulled it for her.  

•  Friday of course was Kylie's birthday. We gave her a present before school and later in the day Sophie and I took cupcakes to her class. I still have a hard time wrapping my brain around the fact that she's nine already. I think next year when she hits the double digits I'm really going to lose it. 

• On Saturday just to show yet another example of my complete insanity I took the girls to Toys R Us. They had some gift cards to spend so I thought I would let them go buy some more crap toys because you know, we just really don't have enough around here. Naturally Audrey had an all out fit in the middle of the store. It was awesome. My favorite part was when she started wailing, "You don't love me that's why you never buy me anything!" and everyone in the store had to stop and give me dirty looks. Because you know, no ones kids ever have meltdowns at the toy store. On a good note though I think I actually managed to achieve the impossible (for me anyway) that day. I got not one, but several pictures of my girls TOGETHER! Not only did I get some together pictures of them, but they were all looking at the camera! Crazy I tell ya!

•  Sunday sadly was the day from hell. I kid you not. We decided to have family over for Kylie's birthday on this day since it was the only day that my husband had off. My house was still a mess because we had to move everything out of Audrey and Sophie's room for the bed project we've been working on. For some people this would not be a big deal, but I am extremely anal retentive about my house. My family thinks I have OCD because I cannot stand to have anything not in it's proper spot and have a tendency to umm, kind of freak out a little when it's not.  So anyway I was not in a very good mood to put it mildly. My parents showed up an hour early, the mother in law arrived ('nough said), and then my brother came by. My mom and mother in law apparently thought it would be fun to see who could be the most depressing. They talked about social security, their health and how broke they are now that they are retired. My brother sat and texted his girlfriend the entire time and then acted somewhat put out that I didn't have a charger that would fit his blackberry. And did I mention my house was a mess? Luckily Kylie told me that she had a great time and of course that's all that matters. 

Oh and Duke played that night and won so that kind of helped too. Anyway, that's what I've been up too. The bed has been moved into place finally. I still need to add the trim around the windows and door and do the curtains and then I'll share some pictures of it.

Weekend recap (a little late)

This weekend was one of pure chaos, but so much fun! On Friday I took Kylie to a sleepover at a friends house. She hasn't been to a sleepover in quite a few months so she was kind of excited. However, I think Audrey was probably more excited because this meant (in her words of course) that she was now the big sister. 
On Saturday after I picked Kylie up we had to run some errands. Not fun this close to Christmas obviously, but unfortunately it was a necessary evil that had to be done.  After we finished I took the girls downtown to a Christmas parade. Once again my husband was working and had to miss out. Sometimes I really hate his job. After the parade I took the kids to my mom and dads house for a visit. 
On Sunday we had some family over to celebrate Sophie's birthday. Her birthday isn't until Thursday, but we wanted to have her celebration over the weekend and waiting until the weekend afterward would not work out for obvious reasons. For the second year in a row she had a Hello Kitty theme. The child is obsessed with Hello Kitty for some reason. 

 She had a fantastic time and of course received a ton of presents.

 

 After everyone left we loaded the kids up and took them to Bellingrath Gardens to see their Christmas in lights exhibit. This year we were smart and decided to take the wagon for the kids. I told them that next year I'm riding in the wagon. My feet still hurt just thinking about all the walking we did!

 The lights were gorgeous of course and everyone had a great time.

 Today the girls and I plan on staying home all day and being lazy slugs and enjoying the last few days before Christmas. Hope everyone has a fantastic week!

And the craziness begins...........

This weekend seemed to be the kick off of the holiday madness for us. It was a lot of fun, but I'm kind of happy that today is just plain old Monday with nothing scheduled. At the beginning of the December my husband and I have always given the girls matching pajamas for Christmas. We wrap them and put them under the tree so they can open them and then wear them all that month. The funny thing is even though they know pretty much without a doubt that their present will be pj's they still get extremely excited. Since at least one of my girls is asleep in the evenings before her father gets home from work we decided to wait until Friday to have the opening of the pj's. 

 

 Since I was kind of worried that they would open their gifts and start to moan, "great. pajamas again." (which they didn't by the way) I had another little something for them to open. I picked up some of the little webkinz for them thus earning my spot as mom of the year. I know most kids are kind of over the whole webkinz thing, but mine are still crazy over it.

 Then on Saturday I decided to take the girls to a parade in a nearby town. My husband was working so yeah, not a very smart decision on my part. Luckily my mom and dad met us when we got there so it wasn't too bad. Kylie and Sophie had fun, but Audrey did not. As I've said before she tends to be super sensitive to noise, textures, etc. and the noise level was really bothering her. 

 Naturally my family being my family the parade was not without incident. First we parked in a church parking lot. The girls were playing in this little garden area while we were waiting for the parade to start and I was standing a few feet away with my mom and dad talking. Some woman that apparently had no clue as to how to drive an SUV pulled into the parking lot. She swung out to try to park and came within inches of hitting my mom, dad and me. Then she almost mowed down my kids. Needless to say mama bear was pissed. Then when the parade ended I put the kids in the car and Kylie immediately began to cry that she needed to go to the bathroom. I told her I would drive her to a nearby McDonalds. Umm, yeah that didn't happen. I pulled the car out only to find that someone from the sheriffs office had pulled their car in front of the exit and I couldn't get out. So I started to back up, but a line of cars had formed behind me so I was stuck. So I'm sitting on a street stuck in traffic with a crying eight year old. Then the parade doubled back so I had to wait for that to clear. Finally the bands and floats went by and the officer moved his car and pulled out into traffic. A few other officers were bringing up the rear of the parade and one let me out into traffic. No sooner had I pulled out into the street than lights and sirens came on. Naturally since I had done nothing wrong I ignored them. Then the car next to me turned on his siren, flashed his lights and CAME ON THE BULLHORN and told me to get off the road until the parade cleared. Two words. NEVER AGAIN. 
Sunday luckily was much better. We took the girls to the Shriners Christmas party. They had a great time and I almost got a picture of all of them with Santa. 

 

Two out of three's not so bad. Oh, and apparently Santa wears an earring. Weird huh? Then the girls went out in the 40 degree weather with no coats (because their mom totally sucks) and road a train. 

 They felt like popsicles when they got back, but they had fun. Then we left the party and took the girls to see Tangled. If you haven't seen this movie you really need to. It was really cute. Kylie has despised pretty much anything princess-y since she was about six (weird kid, I know) and even she loved it. All in all it was a pretty good weekend I think.

Happy Monday!

I hope all of you had a fantastic holiday weekend. I have to admit that I was a bit worried that my sanity would not survive having my children and husband underfoot.  Not only did it survive, but we had a great time. We put up our Christmas tree and a few decorations (sorry, no pictures as our little tree looks kind of pitiful) and even wrapped a few presents. The present thing for me was kind of a big deal because I hate wrapping presents. I love to buy them and give them to others, but the wrapping? Not so much. 
In other accomplishments I ordered the kids new carseats (ouch!), took loads of stuff to goodwill, organized some things in the kitchen and uploaded tons of pictures to a photo storage site. My computer crashes about once a year so the photo thing is a must for me. Speaking of photos I took a few of the girls on Thanksgiving and thought I would share. Unfortunately poor Kylie can't take a picture without blinking so hers didn't come out so great. I'm going to try to schedule a real photo session with someone that half way knows what they're doing after Christmas.

Yes, Sophie has boots too she just didn't want to wear them.

I also took some time out to do some things for myself. I had my hair colored finally (darker) and ordered myself (yes me, not the children) some clothes. I'm crossing my fingers that they fit my big butt. Speaking of my big butt I added another street to my walking  route and I'm hoping that will help shrink it some. This street has two big hills and they are kicking my butt big time. I'm hoping all this walking is helping, I know that I feel better since I've started.
Have a great week everyone!

Playing Hooky

Friday we had to take Sophie to New Orleans to get her skin graft checked out. I gave Audrey and Kylie the option of staying home and having my mom and dad watch them after school or playing hooky from school and going with us. They chose option two. Now before you get jealous thinking that we went down to the French Quarter and did all the fun touristy type stuff and ate some awesome food don't. Last year we did that and the girls didn't care for any of it. So this year after Sophie had her appointment we went to Lakeside mall and did some shopping. Sad, I know. After shopping we road over to Gulfport Ms. and went to the Lynn Meadows Discovery Center. This place is awesome. They have all these cool areas where the kids can dress up.

margaritas anyone?

 Or they can film a cooking show.

 Or experiment with science.

 

See what it's like to do construction work.

 Or just climb around and burn off some excess energy.

 

 All in all we had a really great day and I'm glad the kids chose option number two.

Weekend recap-Tantrums and Projects

This weekend was positively insane. It didn't get off to a very good start because the girls were are icky with allergies. For some reason Sophie always runs a temp when she has them and that is just what she did. All.weekend.long. The bad thing is that I cannot get medicine into her to save my life. When she had pneumonia a few months ago she actually elected to get two shots everyday rather than take the medicine. It's that bad. That meant that I pretty much spent all weekend holding her. Not a bad deal, but I also had spend my time fussing at a certain eight year old that I am convinced has recently become possessed by some unknown evil force. Seriously, my Kylie has had her moments, but for the most part she has always been a sweet, loving child. Apparently those days have gone bye-bye. She has become rude and self centered and I am at my wits end. The times I wasn't trying to coax her little sister to eat or drink something I was spending fussing at her to do her homework and quit being mean to Audrey. It was bad.
Speaking of projects we had quite a few going on here this weekend. Audrey had to read a book and decorate a pumpkin to look like the main character. She really, really wanted to do The Princess and the Frog because she has a slight obsession with Princess Tiana, but when she realized that she had to stand in front of the class and give an oral book report and tell the names of the author and illustrator she changed her mind. The book report part didn't bother her so much, but the author and illustrator had somewhat hard to pronounce names so she decided to do something else. Fine by me. She picked the book Mittens about a new kitten. 

 

Naturally we had no grey paint so we had to mix our own. She really enjoyed her project and I think it turned out okay.

 I let Kylie and Sophie pick out a pumpkin to decorate as well, but it didn't go quite as well with them. Kylie kept complaining and ended up not doing anything with hers.

  I warned her I would post this picture.

Sophie took some markers to her pumpkin, but as you can see by her face, she just wasn't as into it as she normally would be.

 Kylie also had a reading project to do this weekend. She had to write a book report and make a diorama. Her teacher gave her a paper to write the book report on with lines on the front and back. She filled those out and wrote an additional six pages. She's kind of long winded I guess. After much arguing I told her I wasn't helping with her project anymore. I'm hoping that her grade doesn't suffer too much for it because the diorama was definitely not her best work.

 And not to be left out I'm working on a project of my own. It's not finished yet, but I'll give you some hints about it. It's not a room (thank goodness!) and it's something you play with. Here's a picture of the curtains I made for it. Please excuse the wrinkles, someone who shall remain unnamed for now wadded them up and threw them to the side. 

 I'm crossing my fingers that it will be finished on Wednesday. It requires the cutting of wood and I don't trust myself with power tools so I'm going to wait until my husband is home to make him do it. Hopefully it won't turn out as badly as my last few projects. Wish me luck!