Playing at the Park

Check out how tall this slide was!!!


it totally freaked Stephen out =)

Happy Tax Return to me

We have been incredibly blessed over 6 years of marriage in many ways, but one in particular is that we have been given some great Target furniture for wedding presents, lots of hand me down furniture, and found a few incredible yard sale deals.

This year has been the first year that we have ever purchased furniture ourselves =)

God's blessings have absolutely blown us away.
Not to just provide what we need
but providing means to invest extra in our home,
and to splurg on things we've always thought about.

One area of "ministry" =)
that needed a little help was our kitchen table.
(My parents gave us their old kitchen table -
the kitchen table I grew up with. We painted and refinished it,
and it was holding up pretty good.)
The sad part was the chairs.
Slowly but surely they died.
We replaced them as we could when we found the right style at a yard sale but never got around to painting them to match. For the past year or so we have had a black table, two black chairs, two green chairs, and two folding chairs at our table.
We've got incredible style, I know.

My love for hospitality never really slowed down because our lack of a proper dinning set. We just laughed about it and enjoyed our company.

Anyway, one of our silly little dreams that is now a reality:
a table with EIGHT matching chairs.










Yay! Stephen finally fits at the kitchen table!

Anyone want to come over for dinner? =)

Toddler Tuesday: tent

One of my great finds

(in addition to an $8 train table and $1 new Stride Rite shoes)
at Children's Market consignment sale...


A pop up tent for the beach!



We're READY Nana and Papa!


check out this pose!


"Look! It fits all my friends!"

Easter Pics (with outtakes)

I have pretty much decided that it is impossible
to get two toddlers to pose for a picture... we try, but why?
They are super cute playing together
even though they wouldn't look at the camera

Outtakes: Jackson and his first tie!

Precious memories
as Stephen wrangles him to stand still and get a tie on.

Easter Baskets and Egg Hunts

Spring Cookies

[Side note: I was reminded today that these are indeed

NOT Easter cookies.

Praise the Lord that our salvation is not based on
bunnies, flowers, eggs and butterflies!]

We spent the whole day enjoying our SPRING cookies.
We started the morning by making the dough after breakfast,
then rolled them out before lunch, baked em,
decorated this afternoon, and ate some after dinner.






concentrating




This is just fun.




Stephen with his masterpiece!
A sprinkle artist - who knew?


I'll spare you the long list of descriptive names we gave them
But, if you are interested, here's a few you can look for...
Scary bunny, aka looks-more-like-mean-dog-than-a-bunny
Olivia Grayce's monogrammed cookie
Nose-less bunny

"mmmmmm"

Toddler Tuesday: eggs

Some people like smelly vinegar-y decorating...
but for us... STICKERS!

After a quick science lesson with the girls about eggs
(you must be very gentle, they will crack, etc...)
we decorated our eggs.

My cuties with their finished project!