Put to good use

Josh took the kids to the zoo in the beginning of March and came back with a season pass.  I think that has been the BEST $100 we have spent!  Being Cooper's FAVORITE place to go,we have now probably been at least 6 times in the last month and its great that it is practically free!

Easter Party

I got the honor of helping with Caroline's Mother's Day Out Class' Easter party.  It was a lot of fun and so neat to see all of the kids interact.  Her old school didn't have parent helpers, so I was excited to come and bring food!  They don't let younger siblings join, so I was lucky enough to have Josh meet me at the church and then take Cooper for an hour.  It worked out perfectly!  Cooper got to play at a nearby park and I got to spend some time with just Caroline.  Although it wasn't quite Easter, Caroline insisted on wearing her Easter dress.  She had worn it just about every day since Grami had bought it, so I gave in.  I just told her she could not crawl around like a kitty!  :)

I got to sit at her lunch table and she was so excited to have me there!

 She talks about these girls all of the time!

Egg hunt time!

 It's fun having her at our church now and having a lot of the same kids in both school and church.

Confetti Eggs!

We LOVE to make messes!

A WILD Time!

We celebrated Cooper's 2nd birthday just over a month ago with what other than... A Jungle Themed Party {featuring Elephants, of course!}  We decided to keep it pretty small because we weren't sure how many people would fit in our rental house.  Luckily it was a really nice day and we were able to be outside.

My little safari guide!

So many of my serving dishes and pitchers are still packed, but we managed to make do and enjoyed a nice brunch for all of the kids.

Most of the decorations came from things we had around the house.  Believe it or not, we had quite few!

I decided to make a cake at the very last minute and threw it together the night before.  I used a marshmallow fondant recipe that I found here and did my best at creating an elephant.  None the less, he loved it!

I also made the inside have a zebra look to it.  It was surprisingly easy and the kids loved taking turns pouring the batter in!

What does a jungle party need??  A life-sized baby elephant!!  I had really wanted this to be out front to greet all of the guests, but it was just a little too windy.

Caroline insisted on a flamingo shirt.

It was a wonderful day!

PROGRESS!!

We have a house!!!  Well... Sort of!  The foundation of our house was poured at the beginning of March and since then a lot has been done!  They were making good progress and then about a week and a half ago, I drove by while they were putting in the windows. Well, they were the wrong color!  After freaking out a bit and calling Josh, he made me call the builders. We got it all settled it, but getting the right ones meant re-ordering them and having them remade. So, it set us back about 3 weeks. But in the whole scheme of things, we have to remember that this will definitely be worth it!

Since we are now only about a mile away, it has been fun to drive by and see the progress. Okay, I have to admit that I probably go by just about every day. There's lots to be seen!  :). But we have been going over in the weekends and walking the house. It isn't the kids idea of the most fun anymore, but they love talking about where their rooms are going to be and they love running around.   It's nice that there are now walls on the sides of the house to keep them from falling!

The soon to be front door!

I absolutely LOVE going over to the house and seeing all of our hard work over the past year coming to life!  It is really neat to see our ideas and designs and be able to walk through all of our soon to be rooms.  I do feel so blessed to be able to do this and can not wait to actually move in and make it ours!!