A Weekend (and Week) In Pictures

Too many events have happened over the course of the last week to explain everything so I am doing a picture post! I have been really busy lately, which explains the lack of posts. Ella-Ann's last of school was last Friday and we have been busy bodies ever since! You would that that now it is summer break that I would have less to do but I feel like our summer is filling up with activities, which is fine by me!

My Mom came down for a visit last Friday (left on Tuesday morning) so I was able to take Ella-Ann to Anna-Kate's birthday party by myself on Saturday morning. The theme was Fancy Nancy so Ella-Ann had her fanciest attire picked out the night before and had it all on, jewels included, by 7:20 a.m. Saturday morning! She was so excited to see Anna-Kate! Above is Ella-Ann with a few of the girls eating a fancy lunch!

Ella-Ann had to sit as close as possible to Anna-Kate while she opened her presents.

Pierson was our centerpiece! Ella-Ann never took off the crown she made at Anna-Kate's birthday party all afternoon, evening and the next day!

Waiting to eat lunch at a new restaurant in the Highlands.

Ella-Ann thought it was fun to sit at the bar and watch the bartender mix drinks!

I surprised Ella-Ann and had Mara-Kate over to spend the night Tuesday night. I had to work as the volunteer mom for Rane's PMO that morning (had completely forgotten I was on the schedule so it was a hectic morning, to say the least) so I had to take Ella-Ann and Pierson with me. Ella-Ann had an absolute ball playing with the little kids! All the little girls wanted to sit in her lap and hold her hand. What was so funny was that one of them was as big as her and wanted to sit in her lap! I took the kids for the first time through a fast-food drive-thru (gasp!) for lunch because we were in a hurry to meet Jana halfway between here and where she lives (north Georgia). It was the quietest my car has ever been, I think! Ella-Ann and Mara Kate were SO excited to see each other! It has been 4 months since they had seen one another....way too long! They had a ball playing all afternoon and really enjoyed playing in Rane's water table. I met Jana halfway again on Wednesday so return Mara Kate. Now we are busy getting ready to head to the beach!

Happy Birthday Spencer!

Today we celebrated Spencer turning, dare I say, THIRTY-TWO! I love birthdays and I love celebrating them and doing things for other people, i.e., mainly making the birthday cake and eating it! Spencer has been in Denver for ATS, which is a conference in his field, since Saturday so we were thrilled he was home and we got to celebrate together. He didn't have to go into work either...yeay! Rane and I ran birthday-related errands this morning and made the cake together. It was a strawberry layer cake and it is the first birthday cake I've ever made that actually turned out exactly how I wanted it to...finally! I picked up some salmon from Whole Foods, along with a roasted vegetable medley for dinner. I made mashed potatoes as well. The kids devoured their food quickly in order to get to the cake! It was a good day and hopefully Spencer felt special!

The cake!

It was white and red velvet cakes with Cool-Whip and strawberries in between the layers. I dirty iced it with vanilla frosting before covering it in Cool-Whip. It was really fun to make!

I forgot to take a picture of it, but Ella-Ann and Rane made a "Happy Birthday Daddy" banner that is hanging on the wall behind him.

The kids loved helping blow out all those candles!

Rane thought that was the coolest thing ever!

Sweet Moments

Simple, sweet moments with my kids makes me incredibly thankful for them. Even though days, and even nights, can be crazy around here I wouldn't change a single thing. When I sneak up on them and watch them interact with each other, like they were doing yesterday afternoon, melts my heart and makes me so happy that I get to stay home with them every day and watch them grow up. Yesterday I walked into the living room, where I had laid Pierson down on the floor, and Ella-Ann and Rane had laid down beside her and were singing to her.

Pierson was eating up all the attention and was talking back to Ella-Ann.

Side note, P is wearing Ella-Ann's outfit.

Pure happiness.

Money NOT Spent

Check out my loot! I cut coupons yesterday, with my handy dandy helper, Miss Ella-Ann, and realized I had several coupons that would allow me to get items for FREE at Publix! I couldn't wait until my weekly shopping trip to rack it in so I went this morning to pay my grocery bill with coupons! My total before store savings and coupons was $23.14 and I paid only $2.92! I obviously realize there are much better coupon queens out there than me but I am so happy about what I did that I had to brag! I try to always have my savings below my total that I pay at the grocery and I usually do but this was my best little trip yet! The only item I truly paid for, even though I had a coupon for it, was the Almond Breeze milk, everything else was free. Now that I saved that money I can go spend it elsewhere, of course! ha!

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to my amazing mother! I love you so much and want you to know you are the best mother a daughter could as for! I also wanted to wish my mother-in-law a Happy Mother's Day because she is a very important person and influence in my life as well!

I have had a wonderful day with my family. I was given a gift this morning and a sweet card from Spencer and the kids and my awesome mom sent me a gift that I received in the mail yesterday....a super cute market tote that is fuchsia and white polka dot with my monogram on it! I know, so thrilling to my readers! We went to church and spent the afternoon hanging around the house. My one and only request for this day was to eat at my favorite Atlanta restaurant, Nuevo Laredo. It is kind of a haul to get there from where we live now, especially with 3 kids, so we don't get to go often so I really miss it. I was incredibly disappointed when we pulled into an empty parking lot tonight because it was closed! Spencer even suggested that I call to make sure they are open today but I mocked his request and said, "Of course they are open, it's Neuvo Laredo!" Well I ate my words and we went to another Mexican restaurant instead. Not as fabulous as Neuvo Laredo but it was a good backup. Unfortunately my children didn't turn into angels for this monumental day for me....oh well, there's always next year! ha!

I recognized the bag immediately and jokingly asked Spencer if he quickly found this bag in my closet to throw my gift in on the fly, not thinking that he ACTUALLY went to my favorite store.....

Anthropologie and ACTUALLY bought me something to wear! I was highly impressed! He took Ella-Ann to pick out my gift last week and Ella-Ann said she picked out the beutiful white skirt all by herself! She said, "Daddy said we could get it for you!" Awwww!

The kids and I before we left for dinner. Ella-Ann and Rane were lookin' a little rough, they had been outside all day.

Yesterday I fed rice cereal to Sweet P for the first time!

She did pretty good. I'd say she was the easiest to feed for the first time out of the 3!

Signed, Sealed, Delivered

Spencer signed a contract yesterday with a hospital in Tennessee! We are almost, ALMOST done with Spencer's fellowship! I say "we" because we have been through all of it as a family and I do feel very much a part of Spencer's training, in a way, because it is all I have ever known. I met Spencer one week before he started medical school at UK so really I don't know a time where he wasn't in some sort of training!

I will not disclose on the blog where exactly in Tennessee we are moving but we are thrilled with where we are headed. We will be closer to our families and that was our number one reason for moving, period. It is so important for us to be near our immediate families because we obviously love them very much and we want our children to grow up with their grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Both Spencer and I grew up very close to our grandmothers and we want the same for our kids. We know how great that is!

Being in Atlanta has been, for me, an opportunity of a lifetime. I have always wanted to live in a big city and experience what that is like. I loved living downtown, right in the heart of it all, for 2.5 years when we first moved here and I have also enjoyed living a little further away from downtown the past 4 years. I will miss Atlanta immensely, especially my church and all of my friends, but we are ready, very ready, to move. We are moving at the end of this year and I am literally counting down the months, weeks and days until the big day! I feel like everything Spencer has worked so hard for has led up to this moment and now that we know the end is FINALLY in sight I can hardly stand the wait!

I am incredibly proud of all the hard work, long hours, long nights, and extra shifts my dear husband has put into this training and supporting our growing family as the years have passed. He worked himself to the bone, as any intern does, the first year of his residency, which is also the year we had Ella-Ann. That year is a blur to me because it was so hard. Ella-Ann and I rarely saw him so we are so thankful he is around so much more these past couple of years. Our last two children actually know Spencer! Spencer hardly ever complains (yes he does at times but certainly not as much as I would if I were in his position) and would never toot his own horn about his accomplishments and how far he has come so I am doing it for him! We celebrated the occasion this afternoon with a cookie cake and two of Spencer's favorite drinks......

and sparklers! I know, my cake decorating is fabulous, right? I nearly broke my hand trying to squeeze out "Congrats!" Don't ask about the half-iced cake either. Unfortunately Spencer is working this evening so we couldn't celebrate with champagne so I picked up his nonalcoholic favs.

On another note, we went to the park that is near our home again this past weekend. I remembered the camera!

4 Months

This morning I took Pierson to the pediatrician for her 4-month check up. She is doing just dandy! She weighs 13 pounds, is 24 1/2 inches in length and her head is 16 1/8 inches in diameter. Broken down she is in the 25th percentile for weight, 50th for height (She's 2 feet tall now!) and the 75th percentile for head. Looks like she's inherited Spencer's big potato head, his words, not mine! Her eczema is still bad but we are doing what we can to keep it under control and she has a flat head on the right side. I was told to put all of her toys on the left side of the crib to make her look the other way and in my head I am asking, What toys? What crib? Poor baby girl, doesn't even have any toys because she doesn't play with toys yet so I threw some in Rane's crib this afternoon, where she was sleeping for a nap, and when I went to get her she was still looking the wrong way! We busted out the exersaucer today too to get her off her back but we were unable to put her in it because she screamed bloody murder all afternoon because the shots in her leg she received were hurting her so badly. It was absolutely awful. I have never, ever heard her scream so loudly. I had to stay outside with her during Rane's nap because she was screaming so loudly and I called Spencer to have him come home to help me. She finally calmed down after a couple of hours and some Tylenol. The pediatrician also told me that I needed to stop swaddling her, which I knew because she is 4 months old but she will not sleep without being tightly bound. I have tried a few times for naps and she just screamed forever until I caved and wrapped her back up! So tonight I am not swaddling and I know she will take forever to fall asleep and be up in the middle of the night but I know it needs to be done, especially since she hasn't even attempted to start rolling over yet and the flat head problem! Sweet baby girl was so worn out from the day she fell asleep in the Bumbo seat while I was making dinner......

Bless her heart! That would be Rane's arm in the picture. He pushed a chair over to the counter and climbed up on it because he was so concerned for her. He would pat the Bumbo seat and ask me, "Mommy, what's da matter with Peeson?"

On a side note, we are experimenting with Rane sleeping in Ella-Ann's room the past two nights. Ella-Ann has become deathly afraid of everything, even Peter Rabbit, which she watched at school last week while the older classes tested! Peter Rabbit? Really? She is also afraid of earthquakes and tornadoes. Looks like the TV will be OFF when the news is on in the mornings from now on! It doesn't help that they talk about it all at school too! So Rane being with her has helped some, but he wakes up early some mornings, of course being the last two mornings, so we have heard them before 6 a.m. each time. However, I was up at 4 a.m. the past two mornings anyway because with the bad storms we had the night before last I reset our clock in our bedroom incorrectly when the power went off and got up at 4 a.m. to work out instead of 6 a.m.! I also got up at 4 this morning to watch the royal wedding, of course, even though I recorded it! I just couldn't wait! So we shall see a couple of more nights how it goes with the two of them together but I am not going to like being woken up before dawn if it continues so they may be separated again!

Easter Festivities

This weekend was absolutely fantastic. We had our annual Easter egg hunt at a family's house from church that we go to every year on Saturday afternoon. It is something I look forward to every year because it is so much fun...plus all of my friends are there, not that I ever get a chance to talk to them because it is mad chaos but, you know, at least we are there together! Ella-Ann was so excited about the day that she decided to start it at 5:30 a.m.! The kids had a blast and got lots of eggs. Rane had to donate some to Ella-Ann, a.k.a., I took handfuls out of his basket and threw them into Ella-Ann's basket while he wasn't looking, since she was majorly beat out of the eggs by her peers! Girlfriend needs to practice! There was great food, as usual, and once we ate and hunted the eggs we headed home.

Spencer had to work Saturday afternoon, which was the not fun part, but the kids and I had a good time sitting outside. My parents gave Rane a pirate water table for his birthday so Friday Spencer put it together and the kids thoroughly enjoyed playing with it all afternoon. I put them outside at 2 p.m. and I, literally, removed Rane from the table to come inside at 4:30! He loved it!

Today the kids received their Easter baskets full of trinkets and candy. The Easter bunny gave Rane a big dump truck since he loves playing with his little ones outside. He pushed the big Tonka truck back and fourth across the yard for over an hour this afternoon! We went to church and celebrated Easter Sunday with our church family. It was a wonderful celebration with lots of great music and a good message. The kids sat with us and enjoyed it as well.

This afternoon we again played outside. I cooked an Easter dinner, in case you are dying to know, of mashed potatoes and gravy, fish, creamed corn, roasted vegetable medley, rolls and a key lime pound cake for dessert. Yum!

Happy Easter!

Ella-Ann and Anna-Kate eating their lunch together at the egg hunt.

Rane cracked me up. They had the 2-3-year-olds corralled on the steps holding them until it was time for them to be let loose. Once they announced they could head into the yard Rane started climbing over the kids in front of him and once he realized they were too slow.......

he took matters into his own hands and went through the landscaping around them all and was the first one out!

Man he was good. His little basket was overflowing! Next year we will have to give him the big Halloween pumpkin!

Ella-Ann's disappointment in the lack of eggs is evident in this picture.

Eatin' some goodies!

The awesome pirate water table!

Easter fun this morning!

Pierson was up as well, dressed in her bunny pajamas!

Peeps after breakfast! Rane's first!

Yeah, that's as good as it gets folks.

We arrived early for church to get a seat. Rane was beyond thrilled to not be in the nursery!

You cannot see it very well, but Pierson is wearing Ella-Ann's Easter dress...size 6 months, and it fits!