Playing Outside

Despite the fact that Benjamin says "the sun is blinding my eyes" everytime the sun is out, my boys LOVE playing outside.  I have a feeling we're going to be outdoors all summer long and I will need to buy lots of Oxi-clean for the grass stains :-)

Even on days like this when I wish I could pretend I was an ostrich and bury my head in a hole, I love looking at pictures like these and remembering just how blessed and privileged to be their mama.  Can't wait to fill our spring and summer with views from the kitchen window like the one above.

Love my boys!

Double Date

If you don't have best friends you should really find some.  Just not our best friends, they're already taken.  Ha ha!

All kidding aside, God has abundantly blessed us with wonderful friends since we moved here 8 1/2 years ago.  So many couples and families to share life with.  It hasn't been until the last 5 years that I've truly learned the value of a good friend and how worth it it is to invest in their lives and allow ourselves to be invested in as well.

And Jeremy and Kristen are all kinds of wonderful and we love them.

So we decided to double date.  Something we haven't done in awhile and something we will most definetly do again sooner rather than later.

Two teen girls watched our kiddos (6 kids for a whole day?  Built-in-birth-control right?)  :-)  The kids did great and we lucked out with a beautiful day in Portland.

Agenda for the day......eat at Benihana's.  Then find additional activities that could be structured around eating at Benihana's.  Maybe we're best friends with them because we.know.how.to.eat.

We left around 9:45am and headed to the waterfront to enjoy the sunshine and walk a bit.  Uninterrupted time to just enjoy conversation and share with each other....awesome!  Add in some vitamin D and we were loving it.

the cool bridge we walked across

Then came Benihana's.  Oh wow.  Let's just say I may have eaten every.last.little.bit of my filet/scallops combo dinner.  With rice, vegetables, shrimp, salad, soup and a scoop of chocolate ice cream.  SOOOOOO good.  I want to go back.  Now.  And the best part is that they give you $30 gift certificates for your birthday month so both Peter and Kristen had one to use.  Amazing food with bills cut in half?  Perfect.

After lunch we headed to the Pittock Mansion (inspired by another amazing friend Heather - thanks for the idea!!)  We're too cheap to pay the $8 per person admission but you can tour the grounds for free and it was really pretty.  We made it part-way down the path to see the arboritum, but didn't finish because it was getting late.  Besides, according to Kristen, wasn't the path we were walking on God's arboritum?  Ha ha.

After a quick stop at Washington Square for a slice of cheesecake a piece and a coffee (which we may or may not have consumed in it entirety on the drive home) we came back to our kiddos.  The babysitters had survived, cleaned the house and made cookies.  The best part was they wore our kids out and there was only an hour until bedtime once we got home.

It was a wonderful day filled with lots of laughs, food, and conversation.  Thank you Lord for our friends!!

A bit of sickness & a Mommy date

It all started on Thursday morning when I determined that we were going to go to Target and Costco in the morning.  Just to browse through their fun sections at Target, get some free samples at Costco, and all in all get-outta-the-house-for-a-bit.

I didn't think too much of it when Jonah wouldn't eat any breakfast.  He's been teething which makes him a little bit of a picky eater but I should have seen it as a warning sign though since he normally inhales breakfast immediately after awaking.

Sure enough.....right before I pulled into the Target parking lot, I smelled it.  Yep.  Jonah had thrown up all over himself while in his carseat.  Awesome.

I cleaned him up while he screamed at me since he just wanted to be held.  Then I changed his clothes and held him until he calmed down.  Then we headed home (after I calmed Benjamin down....he was upset we weren't going into the store)

I got the boys home, Lysoled everything and we were watching a show.  Then naps for the boys.  When I got Jonah a couple hours later he had blown out of his diaper all over his crib.  Double awesome.

I stripped him down, got him a bath, then did a huge load of hot laundry.  It was gross.  I almost lost it myself.

But we survived, vegged the rest of the day and Friday the boys were a bit whiny but never threw up again and only had slight fevers in the morning.

So Saturday we went to Costco as a family and everyone seemed well.  We spent the afternoon just playing, watching basketball, and hanging out at home.

Jonah insisted on sitting on top of Peter like this.  Ha ha! 

its always amusing when the boys climb all over their Daddy on the weekend like they do to their Mommy during the week

Last night though Peter wasn't feeling well.  It might have been side effects from his shingles medicine and it might have been what Jonah had.  He's feeling a bit better this afternoon, but didn't go to church this morning since he was up all night and pretty fatigued from it all.

So I took Ben to church with me and afterward we went to the Pizza Hut buffet for a Mommy date.  It's nice to spend some individual time with my 3 year old boy who is growing up so fast.  I love him to pieces, it was a bright spot in my weekend.

I'm watching March Madness again this afternoon.  We love watching all the games.  Great basketball teams, crazy competitive players, nail-biter upsets.....good stuff.

And now the boys are awake from their naps.....that was quick.

Hopefully Peter's feeling better for our planned double date tomorrow.  If not then maybe we'll just have to reschedule.

Writing his name

A couple months ago I was practicing writing letters with Benjamin.  He was so eager to try.  For about three minutes.  Until he couldn't get it and was immediately frustrated and wanted me to do it for him.  (I have no idea where he got that personality trait btw)  :-)

It was after about 10 minutes and trying whatever I could to get him to at least attempt drawing letters, that I decided that I would probably not be homeschooling.  Ha!  Okay, that's extreme, but goodness the boy is stubborn.

Yesterday though, he was in his tunnel, the area under the stairs, where there's a beanbag, books, and a chalkboard, and he came yelling.  "Mommy!  Come look!  I have something to show you!"

Peter had been home a few minutes and was playing with him in the tunnel, so I wasn't sure what exactly he wanted to show me.

Imagine my surprise when I crawled into his tunnel, and saw this....

Ben had WROTE HIS NAME!!!!

It's moments like this that are seriously the best part of being a mama.  I loved seeing his proud smile.....and let me tell you, this mama had a matching one! 

I asked him to do it again, and with a bit of help from Daddy on the "N" he wrote his name....

Benjamin just turned 3 in February, and I'm super proud of how smart he is, and how determined he was to learn to write his name.

Being a mama is awesome.  Being a mama to this adorable, capable 3 year old son?  A blessing.

WILW

Today I'm sitting down to blog while the boys nap, not because I have so much to post about, but because I'm trying to avoid eating all the chocolate in the house.  It's.been.one.of.those.mornings.

Anyway, linking up today for What I'm Loving Wednesday!

*  I'm loving that Jonah took a 3 hour nap the past two days.  Today, yeah, not so much.  It was nice while it lasted though and I spent some quality time with this booger while Ben slept.

*  I'm loving that Peter and I got a night away together last week.  We absolutely love our life, but also agreed that we love just spending uninterrupted time, just the two of us.

*  I'm loving the new episodes of Duck Dynasty.  Who wouldn't want Uncle Si to be at their family reunion?  At least for a few hours :-)

*  I'm loving the current favorite book of Benjamin's...."How I Became a Pirate"  If you have a little boy, he'll love it.  Pirates don't tuck :-)

*  I'm loving that Peter found some new jeans at the GAP Outlet this weekend.  I'm not loving that my extra 40% coupon didn't start until the next day.  FAIL.

*  I'm loving that Peter and I are going on a double date with our best friends on Monday.  Since they give you a birthday certificate during your birthday month, Benihana, here we come!  I seriously think we ate every last morsel they served us last time we were there, delicious.

*  I'm loving when I see little snippets of my boys getting along.  I spend far too much time attempting to get them to show any affection toward each other, so I'm truly praising God's for the love I see cultivating between them.

hiding from Daddy before lunch

 

just laughing at each other the other day.  So cute.

 

 

*  I'm loving that I will finally get a new drivers license on my birthday in June.  Since I got mine when I was 20, my license has said I'm "Under 21" for the past almost 9 years.  I'll now officially be "of age" on my license too, ha!

 

 

*  I'm loving that we have a night at home tonight.  I'm not loving that its because Peter somehow got Shingles and we can't be around the two gals in our home group that are pregnant.  We miss our friends.  Thankfully, Peter isn't hurting very much though and will hopefully clear up soon with the antibiotic.

 

 

*  I'm loving that it's a frozen pizza kind of night and that my hubby is okay with that.  He's kinda amazing like that.  I never posted pictures from his birthday last week.  It was low key on his actual birthday(it fell on a Sunday) but we celebrated with our coast getaway.

 



Now, I'm loving that it's time for a slice of pizza.  Yum!!