Beginning of March

Thumbs Up:

• I haven't posted in a while because we've been busy enjoying the fabulous weather! After lots of snow, ice, and rain, we've finally got sunshine and we're soaking up every minute of it! I'm even typing this outside from the screened in porch while the kids are napping! BEAUTIFUL day!
• With warmer temps we're getting pretty excited about our upcoming garden! Mike's gotten a little too excited and has already transplanted everything. Not quite sure we're over the freezes yet, but we can always buy some sheets to cover everything. Kennedy decided to pull up the labels out of the garden bed though, so guess we'll have to wait and see what everything is after it fruits!
• Met our soon to be new neighbors yesterday. They have a little 5 year old boy that already gets along great with Jackson. I see many play dates in our future! This whole neighborhood is filling up really fast and most of them have young kids like us! The best part is that there are only a few houses left to be finished before the construction is completed! I'm ready to be finished with all the noise, noise, noise!
• I absolutely love being Catholic and the way we celebrate Lent. This year I've decided to give up gaming on my iPad which consumes any free time I have usually! In place of that time I'm spending a little more time in prayer with God and it's been great. Mike gave up drinking and dipping which is huge and a lot of my prayer is focused on that and that he sticks with it! 

Thumbs Down:

• Mike is starting back his Master's classes on the 24th and it is just kind of looming over our heads. He has to take 2 classes this semester, 3 the next and 1 in the last semester to finish before Major boards at the end of the year. It has to be done, but between finishing up the i-course and these classes we won't be seeing much of Mike for a while. 
• Time change - enough said!

Pics from the last couple of weeks:

We live 'door to gate' 7 minutes from Cliffs of the Neuse State Park and decided to walk the trails last weekend. Jackson kept asking where we were going, he didn't quite get the concept of just walking!

Jackson's big cheese!

And now he's pouting!

Kennedy just liked to leisurely walk and lag behind the rest of us!

I bought K a new pair of TOMS from Zulily the other day. They're too big, but they'll be so cute when they do fit!

Check out these huge blackberries! Jackson ate all of these (not at once)!

Favorite Things:

Kitchen - seriously my favorite room in the house. I love how open it is in the down stairs and that I can look out windows or watch TV in the living room or see the kids in the backyard while I'm cooking. There is a ton of storage space and plenty of countertop space!

This is my favorite little nook in the kitchen. Mike bought me the Kitchen Aid Mixer for  Christmas and my Mom gave me  (after much begging) this very special cookbook that used to be my Grandmother's.

Double Oven that we negotiated in before we bought the house!

February Week Three

Thumbs Up:

• Mike and I had a super productive weekend. On Saturday while he was outside changing my air filters, brake light, and spark plugs, I was upstairs installing two ceiling fans in the kids' rooms. Mike also built the raised gardens in the backyard and relocated the grass that he dug up to the front yard and fertilized. It feels good to DIY sometimes!

I went into the garage to flip the breaker and this is what I found!

Glad he knew what he was doing!

Jackson's new ceiling fan. He picked out a baseball and basketball pull to accessorize!

• If I haven't mentioned it before now, the kids are crazy about the Frozen movie soundtrack and we listen to it all the time. They have all the songs memorized and burst into song at the most random times. Anyway, while I was getting ready this week Kennedy was singing Let it Go and I had to take a little video to share! Jackson is the singer of the family, but I think K's picking up on it pretty well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAlh-kNa2GI&feature=youtu.be

• We've had some amazing weather this past week/weekend and enjoyed a lot of outdoor time. It's supposed to cool off starting today, but it gave us all something to look forward to! The kids love doing sidewalk chalk, so we've been doing a lot of that. I only let them chalk on bath nights though; I think you can see why!

COVERED in chalk! I just noticed when I uploaded this that you can see Jackson in the background in timeout - ha!

Jackson standing in front of my artwork - it says Best Daddy Parks Here with an arrow!

Too busy to smile for me!

Thumbs Down:

• Mike and I were so sad that we couldn't make it back to Lubbock this past weekend. The Raider Awakening Retreat had it's 50th retreat and there was a big push for alumni to come back and participate. A lot of our great friends and family made it out for the occasion and it would've been great to see everyone like old times. Raider Awakening is a Christian retreat put on by the students at St. Elizabeth's University Parish at Texas Tech University. It is what brought Mike and I and many other couples together as well as strengthening our relationship with Christ. Makes us feel old to think that Mike retreated on RA #26 and I retreated RA #29 and they're already on 50! Doesn't feel like that much time has passed.

Favorite Things: Back to the house! This week it's on to Jackson's Room! His room is actually designed as a bonus room, but we put him and all the play room stuff together. It is seriously huge and I don't know many other 3 year olds that have 52" TV in their room either! He's definitely one spoiled little boy.

Like any huge room, you have to have your own entryway!

Finally put Mike's old baseball cards to good use.

 I meant to post this a while back, but this is where all the lovely Christmas cards you sent us are now. We pray for a different family each night!

Huge closet too!

The 'art' corner!

I think he knows he got a good deal too!

February Week Two

Thumbs Up:

• Snow Days mean lots of "togetherness" and family time. We've been enjoying all our time together watching the Olympics! Figure skating is of course my favorite, but you can't help be drawn to all the events. The amazing athletic ability of the competitors is out of this world. The Olympics, like the military, always make me feel super patriotic too!
• Another thing I finally accomplished thanks to the snow days was making a flight suit purse. I've wanted to make one since I saw them online like 5 years ago, but back then Mike had no suits to spare. Then when he finally gave me a couple old flight suits I didn't have the time. Thankfully, he agreed to watch the kids one day while I worked on the purse. I think it turned out really well.

• Mike and I have never been big on celebrating Valentine's Day. I try to make it more of a 'fun for the kids' kind of day. I remember growing up that my Dad either wasn't around due to Stock show season or we were with him at the San Antonio Stock Show during Valentine's Day and my sister's birthday which is the day after. He always did something a little extra for Carey and I separate from our Valentine from both he and Mom. I always thought that was special and he still sends his own card, treat, or both to me for Valentine's even now. My Daddy will always be my forever Valentine! I hope K can say the same about Mike when she gets older.

• I finally got a haircut! I didn't do anything drastic, really just a trim. It's crazy when you have kids the things that go by the wayside because it's just hard to get them done. I hadn't gotten my hair trimmed since August when I had my parents to watch the kids for me. It was a nice treat!

Thumbs Down:

• The van passed 100,000 miles last month so the time has come to do 'scheduled maintenance'! We forked over quite a bit of money for a new timing belt, new tires, flushed power steering, flushed transmission fluid, new spark plugs and cabin air filter. We should be good to go for a while. The truth is I absolutely love my car and I want to keep it running in good shape as long as possible, so really it's a small price to pay. I just would have much rather gone on a shopping spree with that money!
• I really hope our family is on the mend. Jackson has had a couple 24 hour things last week, I had the upper respiratory stuff two weeks ago and Mike had some type of food poisoning yesterday. I'm just ready to have all of us healthy for a little while! Thankfully Kennedy is strong and healthy!

Favorite Things: I'm taking a break from house pics this week to share LOTS of pics from our holiday weekend trip with Mike's squadron. We left a little late for the trip due to road conditions, but had a blast the short time we were in Boone, NC. Our cabin included all the folks that are in the same instructor course as Mike.

Jackson with his 'adoptive parents' for the weekend, Atlas and Slammer! 

Pretty sure Jackson has a huge crush on Atlas and wanted her to do everything with him!

Draino and June. The kids loved playing with June. I think she was a little overwhelmed by them!

Kennedy spent most of her time finding snowballs with Diablo.

Jackson just wanted to eat snow!

After the kids went to bed the adults participated in some extracurricular activities! Apparently if you have Everclear and a lighter you can blow fire! Slammer, photographed here, has it down to an art form!

Mike's was actually way better than this, but I just caught it at the tail end.