Rainy Days Aren't So Bad

After the storm had passed, we ventured outside to have some fun.

 Floating a duck down the river.

Chasing along side

 Jumping in puddles. She got upset that her skirt got wet so she went inside while we were talking to the neighbor.

 

She came back with no pants.

 She took a little fall.

Upset again.

This is my favorite shot of puddle jumping. Pure bliss.

Easter Egg Hunt

Hurst had a little Easter egg hunt that we attended this past Saturday. My brother & his family came along and also brought one of our old friends & his family. It was fun. Elliot did really well. In fact, she had so many eggs in her basket I told her she had to stop. I was afraid it would break!

 Family photo-Lane had to work :(

 Before the hunt.

 Just starting.

 Her loot.

 It's hard to get a true smile from this kid.

 And it's even harder to get 3 2 year olds to all look at the camera.

Worn out.

Spring

With all of the rain lately, Spring has definitely arrived. We took the kids back to the temple today because I knew they had good landscaping with lots of flowers. So here are a ton of pictures. You'll have to excuse Lane's closed eyes in a few of them & our windblown hair.

 

Pantry Proud

On the Nate Berkus Show, he has a little segment called "House Proud". This is my mini version of that for my pantry. I have a good amount of space in our pantry, which is a blessing & a curse. As you can see in the picture below, it was a bit out of control. There really wasn't any organization to it & the messier it got, the less I tried to fix it, until I was at the point of literally just tossing groceries in there. I am happy to say with a little inspiration from I Heart Organizing Blog, this picture is now a thing of the past.

 Here's my little clipboard on the inside of the door with our weekly dinner menu. I just laminated it, so I could reuse it each week.

 Underneath the menu is my grocery list. I love how it's categorized, making shopping a lot easier & faster.

 And here she is...

I love it. On the bottom shelf is a can rotator I got online from Shelf Reliance. That is a great site if you're into food storage. There's certain things we use a lot of, so it works out great for us. 

The middle shelf has the pull out drawers with the labels: bread, baby (formula & baby food) & snacks. And on top of those are little baskets with the labels: chips, breakfast (oatmeal, nutrigrain bars) & drinks (hot chocolate mixes, herbal teas, marshmallows)

And the top shelf has all the baking supplies (flour, sugar), noodles, & tupperware for whatever we're eating at the moment. I'm not completely happy with this shelf because you still have to move things around to see what's there. Part of the problem is that our shelves are so deep. Not really sure how to fix it, but it's a lot better than it was. Oh & the 2 labels you see on this shelf are: Sides (Idahoan Potatoes, Mexican rice) & Seasoning Packages (taco seasoning, Hidden Valley Ranch mix).

Happy St Patrick's Day!

We started this morning off with a "Leprechaun breakfast" (Lucky Charms & green milk).

 Then we had a little scavenger hunt that I found on Pinterest.

 Gold at the end of the rainbow.

 

And since it's our actual anniversary, here are a couple of family pictures. All of this in 5 years!

Swings

We went to the park with my parents & my dad wanted to put Davis in a swing. I told him that I thought he was too little & needed some blankets around him to hold him up. But of course my dad didn't listen & Davis actually did quite well.

5th Anniversary

We celebrated our anniversary a little early this year. We has something else planned on our actual anniversary that we wanted to do, but just not for our anniversary. Does that make sense? Anyway we went to dinner at The Ranch in Las Colinas.

I know this doesn't look like a place you would want to go for an anniversary, but I'm not a fancy restaurant kind of person...unless it comes highly recommended by a trusted friend. I just can't shell out big bucks for "elf food" that I may not even like. After looking at the menu online, we decided that this would be a good place to go. It's a lot nicer than the usual restaurants we frequent which justified our special occasion. Anyway, the food was AWESOME! We got a sampler appetizer that's meant for 4, but we polished it off in about 5 minutes. I ate way too much, but didn't want anything to go to waste. By the way, the food there is all from Texas, right down to the goat cheese on my burger. And they have live music (Josh Ingram plays every Tuesday). Lane got the red fish and said it was delicious.

Lane planned our after dinner entertainment. He kept it a surprise until we were on our way. First he tried to tell me we were going to Medieval Times, to which I faked excitement. I did a pretty good job too because he believed I truly wanted to go there. Not that it would be a bad place to go. In fact I do want to see the new show they keep advertising, but I just don't want to do it on my anniversary. Luckily he knew better. Our real activity was to go on a gondola ride. It's an hour long ride through the canals of Las Colinas. It was a lot of fun. You get Ferrero Rocher chocolates and sparkling grape juice. We had a great time just relaxing on the water. Towards the very end, our gondolier busted out singing "Because You Loved Me" by Celine Dion. Right when she started Lane & I both had to hold in our laughter, but she actually had a really good voice. It sure beat the cheesy cd music she had on earlier. 

 Wish this picture wasn't blurry because it's the best one.

Kissing under the bridge

Sorry you have to see this last one, but I want it in my book :)

I can't believe we've been married 5 years! Every day Lane impresses me in some way. He is the most selfless person I know and I'm so lucky to have found him.

Six Flags

We got season passes to Six Flags & I'm pretty sure it was the best idea ever. Elliot just LOVES it. Lane had the week off, so we went twice.

 Davis was such a trooper both days, just hanging out in the stroller.

I wish I could have gotten a better angle of Elliot. I have no idea why, but she decided after the ride started to close her eyes the entire time. Too funny.

Davis is 5 months!

My little sweet cheeks is 5 months old today! For some reason I keep thinking it's 6 months, but nope, just 5. How horrible of me to try & age him! He is the best little baby. Very easy. Today especially he has been a fantastic napper. Usually his naps are 30 min, 2 hrs, 30 min (which isn't bad). But today it was 1.5hr, 1.5hr, 

35 min. Maybe he's hitting a growth spurt. Speaking of which, I just ordered him clothes for Spring/Summer and went with 9 month onsies & 6 month shorts. I got everything from Carters. Right now he's in 6 months & they fit him well, so I decided to go up a size to give him room to grow. His big accomplishment is that he FINALLY started rolling over on February 29th, so almost 5 months. I thought that day would never come. He loves to stand with you holding his hands. He gets a big kick out of it. He also loves grabbing my face & squeezing my cheeks. Just what I want to do to him!

Trying to Work Out

I just came to the conclusion that I suck. I knew I hadn't worked out since before Davis was born, but I still thought I could do an easy work out. I was wrong. I had pinned a couple of no equipment interval workouts. They looked doable on paper. I even ordered an interval timer to help keep me on track. Well 10 seconds into my first interval (60 seconds of jumping jacks) I thought to myself, "oh crap". Really? I can't handle jumping jacks? Actually I did finish that one but I could hear my bones cracking at every bounce. And that's pretty much how the rest of the work out went. There were only 9 60 second intervals that I was supposed to go through twice. I called it a good day at 1 go round. I'm such a pansy & I know that I will be hurting tomorrow even if it was a wimpy workout. I'll just keep at it until I can get through it semi-easily. Swimsuit season is just around the corner & I already bought a splash pad pass to take the kids to, so we'll be in plain view of other people a lot.