Easter 2016

Another holiday has come & gone!!  With that being said, I realized that I only decorate my house for three holidays each year; Halloween, Thanksgiving/Fall & Christmas.  I do squat for Valentine's Day, St. Paddy's Day, Easter or the 4th of July.  I guess I'm just more drawn to the Fall!

 

We hadn't been down to my parent's house in Sarasota since Christmas so we were definitely ready for a long weekend there!  As Easter arrived, Cam's Spring break ended.  Since we work full-time, spring break doesn't mean all that much to Cam since he still has to go to the school all day & stay at their wrap-around program.  It's definitely nice not having to worry about homework though & get a break from baseball!  We did take the day after Easter off since it was a teacher planning day.  That meant one more day in Sarasota!

The cousins were united & it felt so good!  The dynamic duo of Cameron & Mikayla were apart for three whole months!!

Since then, Cameron has continued to shed more teeth, although he actually went a long stretch without losing any.

The boy has definitely been on a growth spurt lately & he'll be taller than me before you know it.  As he now asks for 2 sandwiches for dinner, I know he must be growing quickly!

Then there's my sweet, little Reese!  I got her signed up for pre-K in the Fall... where has the time gone?!  I'm so glad she's a November baby because I so wouldn't be ready for her to start kindergarten!

The kiddos were ready to find their baskets & go on an egg hunt when they woke up Easter morning!

This little boy was looking rather dapper in the outfit his Grammy bought him before she headed to Chicago.

Although the kids have seen my mom several times since Christmas, my dad's been working a lot so he hasn't been able to come up to our house.  It was so great to have the whole family back together again!

Even though Reese is getting older, the other kids have a much greater advantage, so we gave Reese a fifteen second head-start in finding eggs.  Not that they hadn't been on the pool deck all morning, scoping out the backyard ahead of time!

Reese was sporting a new dress that her Grammy bought too!

Handsome boy!

The girls!  And that's Easter in a nutshell... lots of catching up, hanging out, cooking & just enjoying each other!

Recent happenings

Baseball started back up a few weeks ago, so our weekends have been consumed with sports.  Not only is Cam playing spring ball, but Reese is signed up for tball this season too!  Cameron is also playing flag football on Sunday mornings.  That's a whole lot of activities packed into each weekend!

  

How stinking cute is Reese in these massive pants?!  Mike took the kids to be sized for their uniforms & apparently only a small would fit over her sizable belly!! 

The first couple of times that Reese batted, she ran to the pitcher's mound instead of first base.  Another time she tried to field her own hit instead of running to first base.  It is so funny to watch her games... nothing like a gaggle of four year-olds running aimlessly around the field!

Cam is having a great season so far too!  After they rearranged the ages last season, he completely skipped a league and went from coach pitch to kid pitch.  After they realized what a mistake this was, he's gone down to machine pitch which has been perfect.

Cameron got the game medal his first flag football game too!  It's his first time playing & he's loving it.  It helps that the weather has been super cool vs. unbearably hot.

If you haven't discovered this laundry soap/stain remover, you need to run out and buy it STAT!  The kids play baseball on bright orange clay & I have never been able to even budge the stains from their white pants.  In previous seasons, I basically tried & failed after game one & gave up, letting Cameron look homeless at the rest of his games.  Cameron's team mom mentioned this soap, so I ran out & picked it up at our local grocery store for about a dollar a bar.  It worked & Reese's pants are gleaming white after three games played!  It's the little victories in life that make me the happiest!!  My mother-in-law who is in town tells me that her mom used this soap when she was a kid; it's been around for a long time!

 

Speaking of victories, I've been wanting to clean our garage before the weather gets hot & we did just that this past weekend.  We literally took everything out, pressure washed the garage & shelves & put everything back in an organized way.  We also got rid of a lot of big things that no longer worked which saved a ton of room.  A guy came out & picked up a truck full of junk for about $80.  Big price but so worth it!!

We used to have a super cheap, wire shoe rack on the wall, but it would constantly break, showering the garage floor with shoes.  We took a run to IKEA on my day off last Wednesday in search of a better shoe rack.

 I liked this shoe rack since it had a built in bench, but I wasn't willing to spend $60. 

 As we wandered around, I noticed this narrow bookshelf for only $25; seemed like the perfect solution for our shoes & it was!  It is so nice that everything in our garage now has a tidy home.  I'm finding myself loitering out there, just so I can enjoy it in all it's glory!



Since I'm obsessed with turquoise, I've had my eye on this kitchen cart from IKEA for a long time.

I went with the intention of getting it as a bookshelf for Reese's room, but couldn't resist putting it in the kitchen.  Not only did it clear my counter of the cookbooks, but I freed up 3/4 of a pantry shelf by putting the big jars of flour & sugar as well as other baking essentials on the bottom two shelves.  Nothing better than ticking of the to-do list & getting things in order!