Welcome Spring!

The azaleas are blooming, the tree leaves are making their first appearance.

We've planted so many new trees and shrubs in our yard this year, I am hoping they continue to grow and thrive!

I will have to take some pictures of the transformation of our house once we finish the flower beds, and mulching. It looks LOADS better than it did last year. It's so rewarding to see the transformation of your yard and home, and be able to say "We did that". We have so many other projects coming up this summer too. Most of them are outdoor, but it's really where our house needs the most work.

We've been outside a lot, playing on her swingset. Tim recently replaced one of her regular swings with a tire swing. She loves it!

Brody's Birthday Bash

While it was extremely COLD for an early April afternoon, we still had so much fun!

Noel loved the face painter - I thought she did an amazing job, especially since Noel could not keep her eyes closed long enough for her to get a good "blot" with the painting sponge.

Here are some pictures

My friend Kim, her daughter Madi, and Bree

Giving the birthday boy a hug!

Nannie's Birthday Cake

Mom and Dad came up the first few days of the month, due to some home renovations taking place in their house.

It also coincided with mom's birthday. After much deliberation, Noel and I decided upon a Red Velvet Cake. I found an amazing recipe on the joy of baking website, so we went with it.

It calls for mascarpone cheese and cream cheese in the icing (yum!). Unfortunately though, I could not find mascarpone cheese at our grocery store, so we substituted with plain cream cheese. It was still super delicious!

Noel is potty-trained!

I was unsure how to go about this whole potty-training thing.

In the past, Noel has been quite clear that she was NOT interested in doing ANYTHING on the potty.

Thankfully, Dana and Jeff got us a potty-training kit for Christmas. It included charts, and stickers, and activities for her to do while sitting on the potty.

We started out giving stickers for ANY effort at all. Did she try to go? Sticker! Did she try to pull her pants down? Sticker!

After several days, she was doing SO well. On her first dry day, we got her a big My Little Pony mylar balloon. We promised her that when she finally had it down, we would get her a special toy.

One week later, after NO accidents and also some progress on using public toilets, we took her to the store to pick out her "special toy". She ended up choosing an Ice Cream Shoppe Play-doh station.

She hasn't faltered since, and is doing WONDERFULLY. No more diapers! Hooray!

We're so proud her :)

"Play with me, Kitty!"

Noel has finally mastered picking up the cat.

Unfortunately for the kitty, that means she gets to spend a lot of one-on-one time in Noel's room.