enJOYing the little things . . .

Snowpocalypse 2011

That was quite a blizzard. I still can't believe there was lightning and thunder in the middle of it! Earlier this morning we attempted to dig ourselves out of the snow. Okay. Truth be told, I did not partake in the digging. It was my hubby who did all the work. It took him several hours, mostly because the plows keep pushing the snow back onto our drive. Poor Ronald. Snow drifts are crazy tall, and the kids took advantage of the one on our front porch. They made it into a little sledding hill! The sun has been out all day, but the winds are still pretty wild out here in the cornfields. The kids and I are definitely enjoying our 2nd snow day, and we're very thankful for a warm home complete with a fully stocked pantry and fridge!

Kids trying to get out of the garage. It took them awhile!

Clarkie showing off his "snowbrows" - hahaha!

Fun video of Clarkie sledding off our front porch, and in true Clumsy Clark fashion he face plants into the house at the end!

 

Sweet November

Four years ago on my birthday I went into labor at eight o'clock in the morning with my first child. Later that morning while still in early labor Ronald and I stopped by my all-time favorite bakery, Toni Marie's, and purchased a birthday cake. I thought for sure that our new baby girl would share my birthday and that I would be able to eat that cake later on in the day to celebrate both our birthdays. Boy was I wrong. Miss Cadence was born via c-section almost three hours after my birthday ended and I never got to eat my cake. No matter since her birth and the memories of my 28th birthday are so much sweeter than that cake.

Cadence was so excited when she woke up on her birthday. Five minutes had barely passed after she had woken up when she enthusiastically told her daddy, "I looooove being four years old!" We had lunch at Chuck E. Cheese, our yearly tradition for Cadence's birthday. Afterwards Cadence and I blew out candles on the cake we get every year from Toni Marie's.

Hope your November has been as sweet as ours!

Happy Halloween!!!

From Little Mermaid and the gang. :o)

Playhouse Disney Live

For Cousin Jakey's 2nd birthday we went to see Playhouse Disney Live over the weekend. I have two HUGE Playhouse Disney fans so this was a really big deal. Aside from Clark freaking out for the first 20 minutes (he kept crying, "Les goooo now, Mama!"), the kids had a fabulous time seeing characters from some of their favorite shows.

The gang from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Well, four of them anyways.

Darby, Pooh and Tigger from My Friends Tigger & Pooh

Handy Manny and his tools

And Jakey's all-time favorite, The Little Einsteins - Clark freaked out when he saw the smoke coming out of Rocket the rocketship. And yes, this is the Rocket that is the namesake of our third child. <Thank you, Miss Cadence for bestowing our baby #3 with a nickname that he will probably never outgrow, haha.>

If Stanley and Jojo & Goliath from Jojo's Circus had been part of the show, I think Cadence would have been in heaven. Regardless, she had a smile pasted on her face the entire time. Funny . . . immediately after the show Miss Cadence kept asking why Rocket didn't have any windows like he does on the cartoon. Um, good question Cadence. Maybe the little Einsteins were hot under all the lights?? Or maybe they wanted the audience to hear them better so they rolled the windows down??? Clever answers that satistified Miss C. I made the mistake of thinking that I was in the clear from other probing questions. I thought wrong. When we got home Miss Cadence kept asking why the Little Eisnteins and Darby in the live show were "big" unlike the characters in the cartoon. I had no clever answers this time so I finally asked her what she thought and she said that they were probably just be pretending to be the "real" characters that she watches on TV. Pretty observant preschooler I have, you think? Cadence seemed satisfied with her own answer and finally stopped analyzing the show after making this comment, "At least the 'big' Little Einsteins weren't scary, Mama." Well, maybe not to her, but to Clarkie - that's another story.

A few more photos to try and make up for me not posting so much lately:

The finale

Thanks to my sis for emailing me these two pics of the kids and all of us.

Hope you are all having a good week!

As promised, zoo pics

Had a nice time at the zoo with my sister and her family. Thankfully the weather wasn't too hot. Clark loved seeing the elephants. My favorite was the screech owl above. This one is 15 years old and going blind in one eye. Beautiful bird.

If you haven't visited the Garden yet, you should! Bunches of holiday layouts. I love Christmas, but I'm just not so crazy about scrapping my holiday photos, lol. This one is my favorite from this Garden.  Pics from our first Christmas in our new house. Miss Cadence was so worried Santa wouldn't find us, but sure enough he did. ;o)

Layout copyright Two Peas in a Bucket 2007

Totally loving this song right now.  So much I just might finally break out the iPod that Ronald won this past Christmas (still sitting in it's box unopened) and use the iTunes gift card I have to download this song . . .

Thirty-one yesterday

Happy birthday to my Ronald. Also known as Twin, Kambal, techno geek, Ron and Ronaldo, but more importantly as Dada and Daddy.

Sweet Cadence wanted to get her Daddy a present with the money she had in her little purse. Three dollars and some change. So I took the kids to Target because I want them to learn that no matter what the cost of the gift, if you give it from your heart it will be the very best kind of gift. Pretty much everything she wanted to give her daddy was out of her budget (obviously) so I suggested that she get him his favorite candy bar. She loved the idea! Cadence was kind enough to share her money so that Clarkie could also buy a present for their daddy - a packet of gummy bears. And thank goodness for the Dollar Spot which had two cute little birthday gift bags for one dollar.

Total spent: $2.81
Lesson learned: priceless

None of the pics I took of Clark and Ronald turned out, so here's a solo of Clark being Mr. Naughty. He likes to move our ottoman so that he can play with the light switch in the family room. Fine by me as long as he doesn't smear his poop on the wall anymore.  Yup . . . happened just the other day. What is it with boys??!

Happy Wednesday!

3 and 31

Cadence turned three years old today!  We started off the morning by giving her a super cute outfit from Gymboree that she wore on her special day.  We had lunch at Chuck E. Cheese and thank goodness none of the employees dressed up as Chuck E. and walked around or we would have had one freaked-out birthday girl.  Afterwards, we headed home to a Blues Clues themed "party" and to have our traditional white raspberry mousse birthday cake from Toni Marie's bakery.  Cadence favorite part of the day was opening her presents - a bunch of Bitty Baby accessories and a digital camera all her own.  A few photos from Cadence's day . . .

And yesterday, yours truly turned thirty-one.  It was a low-key birthday (I don't even have pictures to share), but it was a good one nonetheless.  My sister and her little family came over to watch the kids so that Ronald and I could go out on a date.  I can't even remember the last time we went out, just the two of us.  The weather was beautiful so we took advantage of it and walked around our local outdoor mall and then had dinner at one of the restaurants there called The Clubhouse.  I had their yummy chicken piccata for dinner, and for dessert I had creme brulee which was just fabulous!  After dinner we had planned on watching a movie, but there's nothing out I really want to see.  We headed to Borders instead and it was so nice being able to just sit and read through magazines and home decor books.  It was a very nice birthday indeed.

Happy weekend!

Halloween Recap

Took the kids trick-or-treating at the mall yesterday morning where we met up with Cousin Jakey and his girlfriend Cassidy.  I think Cadence enjoyed seeing all the costumed kids as much as she enjoyed getting candy.  A lot of people kept mistaking her as a pumpkin, but she was way too shy to tell them that she was Nemo. Clark stripped out of his Mickey Mouse costume after we had lunch in the food court.  Ronald and I had planned on taking them out on our street in the afternoon, but by the time he got home from work it was quite chilly out.  Cadence still has a cough and the kids and I just finished our last doses of antibiotics so I decided it was best to just stay home and pass out candy and Play-doh.

Our Columbus Day Weekend

We drove around the tip of Lake Michicgan and spent two days in southwestern Michigan in the St. Joseph area.  Visited Stover's Farm and went apple picking.  My parents used to take my sister and me apple picking in Michigan when we were little so I was really excited to take the kids.  Cadence was a great helper, trying her best to reach the apples in the trees.  Clark, on the other hand, kept picking up rotten apples from the ground.   Such a character, I tell you.



Afterwards, we headed to the beach about an hour before sunset.  Cadence loves the beach.  She got busy making sandcastles and whatever else in the sand right away.  Clark did not want to have anything to do with the sand.  Ronald kept trying to put him down, but he would pull his feet up.  So I had Clark sit on my lap with his legs on top of my mine, and he would freak out every time Cadence and I would put sand in his hands or on his feet.  Silly boy.  Finally, I just put stood him up in the sand.  He gave me his scrunched up fake cry look, I told him he'd be fine.  He stood there for about five minutes letting his feet get used to the texture of the sand, and then he was okay.  Ran around for the rest of the time we were on the beach.





We went back to the beach the next day.  Altogether it was a wonderful time.  More photos HERE.

Cousin Jakey's one!

After driving back from our overnight trip to southewestern Michigan last evening (will blog about that later), we went to my sister's house for some yummy Coldstone Red Velvet ice cream cake.  Yum.  Can't believe Jakey turned one yesterday.  It's so fun watching Cadence & Clark run around with their little cousin.  So glad that they get to grow up together.

Happy birthday Jakey Poo!!!  :o)