Mother's Day 2010

We typically go to Louisiana for Mother's Day to celebrate with our moms, but because Anna had a special gymnastics performance this weekend, we found ourselves in unfamiliar territory - just the three of us here in Houston. We did a lot of running around on Saturday, so we decided to keep things very low key on Sunday.

Poor Derek got a really nasty stomach virus, so Anna & I celebrated Mother's Day as a true "girls" day. I decided it would be fitting to start our day by taking my early Mother's Day present (my awesome new lens!) out for some fun in a wildflower field I've had my eye on. . .

Anna really didn't care much about my camera, but she just loved being in all of those flowers!

When she picks them, she always just pulls the head of the flower off of the stem. I've tried to explain to her time and time again that she needs to pick them down lower - both because they'll be easier to hold and so that we can put them in water - but she likes her way better.

Then we spotted the dandelions! She thought they were so cool. . .

I showed her how to blow on them, but she couldn't seem to blow hard enough, so she usually would resort to pulling it apart with her hands.

After pictures, Anna and I ate lunch outside on the patio at Cafe Express (one of my favorite little casual places), then headed over to Barnes and Noble to browse the childrens books. We ran several errands while we were out, and she was such a sweet little angel. She even spontaneously said, "Mommy, I love you forever" while we were in the middle of Kirkland's, for no reason at all.

This Mother's Day, I'm just so grateful for the immense blessing that Anna is to me, and for the fact that I get to experience this wonderful journey of motherhood with her.

I'm grateful for my husband, who (even sick!) did a ton of laundry while Anna and I were out gallavanting. The lens is amazing, but clean laundry is an extremely close second to that in my eyes.

And I'm so very grateful for my mom, who I have always loved, admired and appreciated, but do even more so now that I am a mother myself.

Happy Mother's Day!

Somebunny

Somebunny had a really great Easter this year!

Anna really wanted to see the Easter Bunny when he came, but I explained to her that he only comes when little boys and girls are sleeping. She wanted to know why, so I told her it was because he is "sneaky." She liked that, and told anybody who would listen about the "sneaky" bunny.

The first thing she said when she woke up was, "Did the bunny come to my house?" So we all went out into the kitchen, and boy did he come!

He ate all of the carrots she left for him on her special Easter Bunny plate (from Too2Cute), and he left her quite an impressive spread of goodies!

After letting Anna play with her loot for a little while, we jumped in the car and headed to Louisiana for our traditional Easter whirlwind. . .

First, an early morning Easter Mass in Baton Rouge. Then, off to my family's park gathering in New Orleans. Anna and her cousin Seth got to blow bubbles, play with sidewalk chalk, play on the playground, and score a ton of eggs in the egg hunt! Then, it was on to the crawfish boil at Tio and Mimi's house, where Anna got to play with her cousin Caroline and do another egg hunt, and Daddy got to get his annual crawfish fix!

She had an absolute blast, and was nice and worn out for the (pleasantly quiet) drive back to Houston.

Happy Turkey Day!

Last Friday, Anna's class had a Thanksgiving lunch that the parents were invited to. MawMaw and Anna helped me make these cute little turkey cupcakes from the book "Hello, Cupcake!" to bring to Anna's friends in her class.

They were so adorable, but by the time I got them to the school, the icing was softening and some of the heads were falling off! To that, all I can say is Oops! But hey, nobody's perfect. I'm no exception to that - and neither are my turkeys :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Rest of the Story

As promised, here is the rest of the story of Anna's Labor Day fun. . .

It started off as a little last-minute get-together at our house: my parents, Cesar's gang, & Ross and family. When everyone arrived, we ate some delicious barbecued pork roast that Paw Paw made along with some yummy sides, and the kids quickly moved on to Maw Maw's fabulous bag of tricks.

If anything can be said about my mother, it's that she is an amazing entertainer of children. She has the patience of a saint, is tireless, keeps them engaged & focused, and never ever ever runs out of fun things to do! On this particular occasion, she brought her face painting gear, and each of the kiddos got to pick a design out of her book.

Anna was my little rock star. . .

Emma went for the floral look. . .

While Arianna, the wiggle worm, opted for the snow princess. . .

Here are the girls together in their face-painted, cookie-eating glory. . .

(And no, Emma was not posing with the cookie. She truly got tired of me asking them to smile, and decided it was time for a bite of sugary goodness.)

Now Nico, who just started the second grade, would like for us to think that he's getting too old for most of our "fun", and he had me believing that he didn't get anything painted - until I totally busted him after catching a glance of his superhero-esque palms!

(And yet another testament to my mom, she actually made a trip back to her house to retrieve my nephew Seth's massive transformer collection to save Nico from all things pink and girly at my house. She earned some major "cool points" with Nico there!)

Little brother Santi wasn't so lucky as to get an escape from the all pink, all the time, girly-girl-land. Didn't bother him any, though - and he cooked quite a few mean (but fake) microwave dinners in that pink kitchen. With pink bowls. And pink mixing spoons...you get the idea.


So then the question. . .what to do when you still have plenty of face paint left, but all willing facial real estate is already occupied?

You give the kids creative freedom, of course. . .with their feet! Totally like letting the inmates run the prison, but only just a little less dangerous.

Here is what Ari came up with. I have to say I do think that the blue nail polish adds a little something as well. . .

And here is sweet Olivia, oblivious to the mess the older kiddos were getting into, but having no trouble finding her own fun nonetheless. She's also oblivious to the fact that she's a mere week (or less!) away from becoming a big sister, but I have a feeling she's going to get wise soon enough! She played a lot with Anna's babies, so we'll consider it practice. She's gonna be a great little helper, Mommy!

Then we find ourselves in this predicament. . .what do you do when your kids are fed, literally covered from head to toe in face paint, and clearly in need of something else to do? Um. . .give them sugar?

Anna wanted "pink" (strawberry), and Ari went with the cookies 'n cream, as you can probably tell from the oh-so-lovely moustache.

Then, as all sugar highs usually go, the kids just started running out of steam. This was my filthy little monkey, covered in dirt and smeared face paint, right before she passed out on my shoulder. . .

Then all the kids left, crashed in their respective beds (or couches), and all of the parents of the world rejoiced (and maybe possibly took a little nap, too).

The End.

Bunny Time

This year was Anna's third Easter, but it was really her first year of being somewhat aware of what was going on and being able to participate in all of the festivities. I don't know who was more excited...us or Anna!

It all started with an Easter Egg Hunt at school on Thursday. They put all of the eggs out on the playground and let the kids at 'em. Anna was kind of tentative at first, but she had a blast once she got the hang of it.

Then, Friday Anna decorated some eggs. We dyed them, then painted them, then put Sesame Street stickers all over them. I gave her full creative freedom, so I take no credit for how pretty (or "interesting") they were!

That night we had to get ready for EB to come. (We left on Saturday for Baton Rouge, so the Bunny was nice enough to come see Anna a day early). Anna wrote a letter for EB, and left her basket along with some carrots out on the table. We told her that the Bunny only comes to see children after they are asleep, to which she promptly replied, "I go nigh-nigh".

The next morning, Anna got to check out all of the goodies EB brought her. I have to admit that I'm kind of sad that my little girl now knows the word "candy" very well. I don't look forward to her starting to ask for it and the fits that will undoubtedly ensue when I have to say no.

After that, we loaded up and headed to BR to celebrate Easter with our families. First stop, though, was a visit with our friends Michele & Matt. Anna and Ryan played together so well - blowing bubbles, sliding, and easter egg hunting. They played and played with those eggs, so much so that Anna got pretty attached to the basket Ryan let her use and was not happy to leave it behind when it was time to go.

Eskimo Kisses

Easter Sunday started, as tradition dictates, at a park on the Westbank with my family. Aunt Katie even made it in from France for the week. We visited with family, flew kites, played on the slides, and Anna even got another chance to hone her Easter Egg hunting skills.

Next stop was at Jeff & Amy's house for their annual Easter Crawfish Boil. Caroline had just gotten an adorable new swingset, so that kept the kiddos very occupied and happy most of the day. The crawfish kept Derek (very) occupied. Later in the day, we went to the levee to attempt to fly kites, but the wind died down. So we opted for some wagon rides down the levee instead. Doesn't get more "New Orleans" than that!

And last but not least, just in case the kids hadn't yet ingested enough sugar to put them in a coma, we went and got some snowballs! It was Anna's first, so I got her a CLEAR strawberry. This turned out to be a good idea because she did spill it not too long after she got it in her grubby little hands. In true New Orleans style, the ice was gloriously finely shaved, and mine was pure heaven with condensed milk on top. Let's just say I'm glad that Houston doesn't know how to do this right, or I'd be at least 300 pounds!

All in all, we had a wonderfully exhausting time, and we wouldn't change a thing!