Second Half of March

Thumbs Up:

• Jackson's school had a pajama day and pancake lunch on St. Patrick's Day. He's still talking about how cool it was to wear his pjs to school!
• FROZEN came out on DVD and thanks to Pinkie and Pa we are now proud owners. The kids have watched it as much as possible since it came out! 
• Kennedy is officially registered for 'school' twice a week starting in the fall. I took the paperwork into the church where the school is located and didn't think I was going to get Kennedy out. She was so excited to look at everything and wanted to stay and play. I think she's going to love it!
• Jackson and Mike enjoyed two weekends in a row of golf outings while Kennedy and I went on mother/daughter shopping dates. I think we all had a great time. 
• With Mike super busy with his instructor upgrade and now masters classes, the kids and I have tried to stay out of his hair. I took them to the circus on Wednesday. They had a great time and Jackson was even brave enough to ride the elephant and pony. Kennedy was not as adventurous, but still had fun watching it all.
• I've been wrapping presents this afternoon for Jackson's birthday next week. Can't believe my little guy is turning 4! It really does go by so fast. 

Thumbs Down:

• While it's definitely a good thing that Kennedy is very independent, recently it's been getting out of hand. She literally goes behind me and will turn off the light I just turned on so that she can do it herself. We've been working on potty training (sometimes) and she won't let me put her on the potty or undress her. If you pick her up and put her in bed, she will immediately get down and put herself in bed. It's downright exhausting. We're both learning to compromise a little so that I don't get frustrated, but she can still show her independent side. 
• Both kids have been very resistant to nap time recently. Kennedy would nap much better if I could put her down earlier, but we don't pick up Jackson from school until 1pm, so they usually don't go down until at least 1:30.  Jackson is hit or miss on nap time. Some days he naps for 2 hours and others he doesn't nap at all. At least he has learned the art of playing quietly in his room while Kennedy finishes her nap. The past couple of days I've had to sit on the stairs to keep an eye out and make sure that they stay in their rooms and at least try to take a nap.

Daddy dressed Jackson for church and when he came downstairs we discovered we were twins!

Sibling Love!

Jackson wanted to take our picture too, he's been into photography recently!

Sporting green for my body pump class on St. Pat's!

Jackson's rendition of Sully from Monster's University.

K had to show off her coloring too!

Kennedy has figured out how to hitch a ride with Jackson!

Shopping day!

Kennedy faired pretty well after our shopping!

Then I treated her to her first pedicure! Jackson was my fabulous photographer.

She didn't want to take a bath or put on socks and shoes because she thought the paint would go away.

There's the great photographer!

and dancer...

Circus!

Not a great picture, but this crazy girl was attached to the string by her hair - ouch!

The $8 elephant ride that lasted 1 minute!

Pony ride!

Favorite Things:
Living Room - Home of Mike's prize possession, his fabulous 70" TV.  I love our fireplace even though we haven't hooked up the gas yet!

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!