40 - 1! Happy Birthday JP!

Well, honey, it's the last birthday with a 3 in front! Momentous. We had 8 or so families over and had a great time as usual. How blessed we are to have such fun, down-to-earth, incredible friends in our lives! And, yes, somehow I ended up doing the splits again! And after I promised myself I wouldn't! I really don't know how that keeps happening....

Anyway, we had a cookout and the weather was perfect, the kids were amazingly calm & cooperative. Except, of course, for the little incident where Taylor got a big piece of hotdog lodged in her throat and had to go the ER to get it out! Thank goodness Dr. John was at the party. But still it was a lot of fun! Can't wait til the REALLY big one next year! And the kids are still singing, "Happy Birthday to you, you live in a zoo..." You all know the rest.

And, yes, that is Ronnie in the Optimus Prime helmet. Who else would it be?

Aren't we supposed to be nice to each other? It is Easter after all!

I have to admit, Easter morning wasn't exactly what it should have been. Fighting should absolutely not be a part of the Easter celebration. Shouldn't we all be remembering the miracle of Christ rising from the grave? Well, unfortunately life gets in the way sometimes and we are all just human, I guess.

The kids were ugly to each other, everything was chaotic trying to get everyone ready on time, and of course, I just wanted to have time for pictures, you know, the ones that last a lifetime.

So we go outside, it's freezing, the kids are complaining, no one will smile, and well, mommy had a little breakdown. I went on strike. I dropped the camera, went inside, and said that's it. IT!

Really, hadn't we just been to the beach for a week where we a bought all new clothes & shoes for everyone, bought Build-A-Bears, ate out every meal, played in the pool even when it was soooo cold, played games, rode go-carts, and ate enough doughnuts to feed a small third-world country?

We get in the car and I let them have it. You're familiar, I'm sure -- "the mommy speech." It goes something like this... "After all I have done for you this week -- taking you to the beach, buying you everything you wanted, and this is the thanks I get? All Mommy wanted was a few smiling pictures. That's it. And you couldn't even do it after all I do for all of you!"

Then we go in, hear the sermon, and the guilt is welling up in me the whole way thru.
I felt horrible. I closed my eyes, prayed for forgiveness... patience. I love them all. How can we all act that way to each other? We learn through our mistakes, right?

Needless to say, I have no cute Easter pictures for the blog, but we did decorate Easter eggs and had a great time doing it. I promise to have a much more meaningful Easter morning next year kiddos.

Spring Break in Destin - Brrrrrrr!

Alright, so I'm a little behind on blogging. When I have time, I'm learning more about how to do it instead of actually doing it. I will get better -- it's that ole learning curve, you know? Well, March was jam packed. Especially since I had a little surgery that knocked me off my feet for a while, but I'm back. Better than ever!

We also had the kids' Spring Break so we went to Destin for the week. It was great to get away, but the weather was pretty windy & cold. At least we had heated pools, hot tubs and terrific shopping. We spent a lot of time at Destin Commons and of course, at Build-A-Bear. Jacob got a dinosaur that his daddy named Dyno-mite. Later, Jacob insisted he was "Dyno-Mike" instead. We all had a good laugh.

I had the kids by myself for all but 2 days of it -- Jonathan needed to get back to work. So between still recovering and having all three kids around every moment of every day for 9 days, I was definitely ready for the school bell to ring! But I did enjoy spending time together as a family with no other distractions. We love our neighborhood, but it's a wee bit rowdy sometimes!