Benjamin's 1st birthday invite!

Benjamin was invited to his very first birthday party of his own this past weekend. Benjamin and I went to The Wonder Place to celebrate Parker's (his classmate) first birthday. But shhh...don't tell ME, she's been begging me all week to take her!

A birthday party won't even stop a boy from showing his puppy love. Too sweet! "Don't worry, Mom! I've got this!"
I think he worried just about every parent there but me. But he is one of the oldest ones in his class and he did start walking at 9 months, so why should him sliding down worry me? Sheesh!!!

Uh-oh! There's trouble...Benjamin and his buddy/classmate, Fisher. They're pretty much inseparable.

"I've got this, Mom! I've been doing this for years!"

"Wait, why is Miss Carla here? Am I at school???"

"Can I have one of these IN our home?"

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

I know this is sort of late considering Dr. Seuss' birthday was the beginning of March, but it's better late than never. Even though their school really didn't do anything for Dr. Seuss' birthday, I had to show off the kids' shirts anyway.

The cutest Thing 2 I've ever seen...although he's really my Thing 1 boy!
ME was proud of her One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish shirt.

Fast forward to a few weeks after the author's birthday, Drew and I took the kids to the Dr. Seuss exhibit in the Clinton Library. The whole way to the museum, ME kept saying she didn't want to go because she didn't want to go see "Cafferine the Hat". But as you can see from the pics, she really enjoyed it (although I think Drew and I really liked it more than the kids)!

How happy am I? Holding one of fave little people and standing next to probably my two most favorite characters of all time! I'm just going to tell myself that the reason Benjamin isn't smiling is because he was taking it all in. Ha!

Future President? ME's standing in front of the replica of Clinton's Oval Office (insert all of which I ordered back in my design days working for Kaki Hockersmith).

I couldn't understand why she was so anti-Cat in the Hat until we left. When we drove away, she said, "Hey Mom! We didn't see 'Cafferine the Hat'". I told her that we did and reminded her that we took pictures next to him. Then she told me and Drew that it wasn't the real one, it was just pretend. So we figured out that she didn't want to see the mascot walking around. Ha! I love kids' descriptions.

Spring Break 2011

I didn't do anything totally crazy or totally fun for Spring Break, but I sooooooo enjoyed my break!!! And even though I wasn't wild and crazy, I can now check off another item on my "bucket list"....my mom and I finally went to Lake Village to shop at Paul Michaels. I must say it is big, but it was definitely not worth a special trip just to go shopping. Plus there's nothing else down there. So we decided since we were in South Arkansas, we figured we would venture around elsewhere, so we "hopped" over to downtown El Dorado to see what At Home in Arkansas is always promoting. The ads that they put in their magazine for this small little "boomtown" are always so cute, but I can honestly say that advertising is a powerful tool! Yes, the downtown was cute, but there's not much too it. At least my mom and I can say that we've now been there and done that, plus we got to spend some quality time together sans kids!

I found one of the red phonebooth that are always found in the El Dorado ads.

While my mom and I were exploring South Arkansas, the kids spent the day at the zoo with VeVe. ME finally got to see the Penguin Exhibit! She's reminded several times since then that the zoo has "Lauren the Penguin" (actually it's Laura) and two elephants...Mary and Ellen.
The rest of Spring Break was spent just "chillaxin'", as Drew says, with my two favorite kiddos.

Benjamin got some puppy love time in with Dixie.

We went shopping at Mary Elizabeth's Target (as she calls it). She loves that they get to sit next to each other even when Benjamin is sleeping.

We even went to Krispy Kreme. ME was very insistent on wearing her pj's, too. Who cares? It's breakfast time!

Benjamin was probably wondering why I've never taken him to Krispy Kreme until now. He kept taking bites and saying "Mmmm!"

We explored through the bookstore and ME realized that there's a stage there. The stage is not for reading, though,...it's for dancing, of course.

This just might be Benjamin's new favorite place to go. He took a beeline to the truck books section. I wish you could've heard him shouting "truck, truck" in his gruff voice and making the truck noise. H-I-L-A-R-I-O-U-S!!!

Are you surprised that ME is holding a Dora book?

Last, but not least, we made time for the park (and it is also called "ME's park", in case you were wondering) with some friends.

How long will this playing together thing last between siblings? Can I make it be forever?!?! ME and Davis had such a hard time figuring out how to push Miller, but they had fun anyway.

Did you know that I have a very BRAVE boy?!?! This slide has actually become "too small" for him. He prefers the "scare your momma because I'm way up high by myself" slide these days.

ME even showed off some more of her independence during Spring Break. When we got back home from church that Sunday, this was her first thing to do on her to-do-list.

Is that an old picture of me or is that ME?

How many of you can do this?

"It's not hard, Mommy!"

More updates...finally!

I'm FINALLY getting around to blogging about the beginning happenings in 2011!!!! Scroll down to "Let it snow, let it snow...let it stop" (1/15/11) post and then read up to get get caught up.

Wye Mtn. 2011

My parents and I took ME, Benjamin, and McKenzie to Wye Mtn. this weekend. I know...it was brave to tak e all 3, but it was fun (although tiring)! Of course, we never got a picture perfect shotof all three of the...actually I guess you could say we didn't get that picture perfect shot of any of them. But we did capture those "Kodak moments" and made memories as VeVe would say. For some reason, I'm not able to post more pictures for this post, but you can probably guess why it was tiring just by looking at the pictures below. ;)

Thiswas an attempt to get all 3 of them. If you look closely, you can see ME running away on the left, the white arm on the right belongs to Benjamin, and McKenzie was somewhere behind me. Ha!

ME was such a great help (when she wanted to be) in helping gather Benjamin and McKenzie.

"Linus" is 17 months old

Benjamin is now 17 months old, which means that I almost have a household with 2 kids (no babies)! This is a bittersweet thought, but this also means that I have more people in the house that I can start having convos with pretty soon!

• I've started calling him Linus because lately he can't go anywhere in the house without his blanket. At least he's not sucking his thumb though! He just did that for a very short time his first few months.


• He's gonna be in a marching band when he grows up. Ever since he learned how to walk, I always try to distract him when he's fussy by saying "March, march". Let me just say that he's an excellent candidate for a drum major!


• He can now sign "please", which makes for a happy momma, because he's replaced a few of his whines with another form of communication!
  He's fearless and has managed to figure out how to climb up on pretty much everything...scary!


• He's still a great sleeper and eater. Total opposite of how ME was at this age!


• He's stil just a ball of fun and pure cuteness everyday. I can't stop smiling everyday because I get to see his sweet face. Those dimples are a perfect solution to any bad day! :)

Jump Zone Field Trip

My Dad and ME went on a field trip to Jump Zone with her class. I know she had tons of fun, but I think Dandy had even more fun and was even more tired than she was. :) ME and Benjamin are so lucky to have the best grandparents in the world!

Happy birthday, John Hardin!

One of Mary Elizabeth and Davis' classmates had a birthday party at the LR Skatium tonight. We got to bring our own wheels to roll around on or rollerskate. So much fun!!!

Doesn't she look like a pro? It took some getting used to and, of course, she wouldn't let go of me to skate around, but she had fun.

We took a "car" for Benjamin to ride, but the second he saw a Mickey Mouse ride, he beelined toward it and didn't let it out of his sight.
Friday night date?
Awww...this place brought back memories for me and Ashley since it was our jr. high hangout spot.

This was perfect for ME since we don't ahve a good FLAT spot for her to ride her bike at home.

And they're off...

My Papa and Lil came to visit us this weekend. We first met them at Oaklawn for the day. I still remember my first time going there with my Papa when I was probably in 3rd grade. I had no clue why we were there or what we were doing but I remember Papa always coming back with money. Now I just wish I had some kind of strategy that could bring me back money nowadays!

Me, Papa, and my brother, Brant

I love this picture of Papa and Lil! Don't they look like they have some great strategy? I bet there were probably just looking at the pretty horses. Ha!

Guess this was just kind of a pajama kind of day to hang out with Papa. Who cares? We still had fun! The kids entertained Papa and Lil with an instrument concert. If you've never been to one, you'remissing out! You actually get to participate...no musical talent requited!