Mother's Day

Me and my girls

When I got home from work on Friday, Maria had helped the girls make me this beautiful card. So sweet of them and got my Mother's Day weekend started off right!

I was fortunate enough to be able to visit with my mom for a bit on Saturday because she came down to help my Aunt pack up some stuff to prepare for their move. The girls and I left Dada at home to work on the bathroom - yes, it's still in the works - and we drove out to Temecula. We got to see Grandma, my Aunt Kathleen, my Aunt Paula, and my cousins Justin, Georgie, and Austin. I felt like I was in the way with a two year old running around, getting into everything, and a baby to tend to, but I'm glad we got to see everyone for a little while. We brought Grandma her Mother's Day gift that was a total fail! I attempted to do one of those Sharpie decorated plates/mugs like this. J is obsessed with Grandma's banana bread [it's actually a requirement for Grandma to bring some when she comes to visit], so I thought it would be perfect to make her a special banana bread plate. 

I found a plain white rectangular plate at Target, picked up a pack of colored Sharpies [my first mistake - or maybe it was my second - I'm not sure if the plate is made of the right material for this project], and went home to try it out.

I followed the tutorial and used pencil to plan out my design and trace the girls' handprints and then used a mixture of black, royal blue, sky blue, pink, and purple Sharpie to complete the actual drawing/writing. 

The plate went in the oven - preheated to 425 - for 30 minutes. I took the plate out and let it cool down a bit, but not completely [this was probably my third mistake]. It looked horrible. The purple was now a muted gray, the pink was practically not visible, and the light blue was gray. 

BUMMER!

Since the damage was already done, I figured I'd test it out further and see if it was washable. And it was. Very washable. So washable that with a few light wipes with my sponge, the Sharpie was coming right off.

DOUBLE BUMMER!

Long story short, because I left the final baking to be done Friday night, I did not have time to start over before seeing my mom on Saturday. I wrapped the thing up and took it with me along with the explanation that I needed to take it back home and try to fix it for her. 

She loved the idea and she even had a loaf of banana bread for us to take home with us! I'll have to update you all with how my second attempt at this goes!

On to Sunday, Bobby decided that he was going to take me to breakfast at a restaurant that he was taken to that Friday. To be sure we missed the crowd, we got up and going right when the girls woke up and were there shortly after 7am. We were sat right away, had a wonderful breakfast and then we were off to Disneyland with a quick stop at Nana's house. 

My beautiful Mother's Day card!

Unfortunately, J was just starting to fall asleep in the car as we were pulling into the parking lot for Disneyland. I thought the surprise of going to "Mickey's House" would put her in a good mood, but it didn't last very long. My goal for the day was to see the new Disney Jr. Live show. By the time we got in the park, we would have had to rush to see the next show at 11:30, so we decided to do some other things, and hit the 12:30 show instead.
We played around in Bugs Land for a bit and then made our way to Disney Theater for the show. 

Disney had a flower for all the Mamas

 Once we finally made it into the show, I thought J was going to have a full on tantrum before the thing even started. Thankfully, she just stood right in front of me and did her own thing until the show started and then she was just amazed at what was going on in right in front of her!

Thank you for the photo bomb, little girl in the hat!

It's Captain Hook, Mama!

After the show, we tried to get J to take a nap in the stroller with the promise that we could go on The Little Mermaid when she woke up, but there was no chance her eyes were going to close for one second. So we went anyway. After that, we made our way over to Small World. Dada and J went on this together while I stayed back with B, who was taking a much needed nap in the stroller.

 Between the heat, the events of the day, and the lack of a nap, J was about toast by this point. She was full on screaming since we put her back in the stroller to make our way out of the park, but somehow managed to pull herself together when we came across Goofy! She was a little more apprehensive about taking a picture by herself this time, so Dada got in there with her.

Needless to say, she crashed hard in the car on the way home, but it was nice to be home early, get some dinner and get the girls to bed on time so I could still enjoy a low key evening.
Happy Mother's Day at my mom and all of the other moms out there <3

Disneyland

I can't believe how long it's taken me to get around to writing this post. It's quite embarrassing, really. 

Regardless, back at the end of February, we took the girls to Disneyland for the first time. My sister and her family decided that they wanted to take JP to see the new Cars Land and so we ALL decided to go. By all, I'm talking my sister's family, my brother's family, my family, and of course, Grandma!

Before we went, we decided to purchase season passes and make the best of the fact that we live less than an hour away. My brother and his family have passes as well and Grandma decided to buy one while we were there. This took away a lot of urgency to see and do for our first trip with the girls and I think this help tremendously. I wasn't so caught up in making sure we made it to certain things or saw specific characters cause I knew we'd be back again soon. I tried to let my sister and her family do what they wanted to do so that they could see as much of the parks as they wanted in one day. 

We started off heading straight to Cars Land at California Adventure, but came across Pluto right from the start and were able to get a few pictures with him.

I thought for sure J was going to freak when we tried to get her to take pictures with the characters, but she wasn't even the slightest bit hesitant. After we saw Pluto and I saw the excitement in her eyes, I had to keep myself from crying. I could have left the park at that point and still felt like the day was tremendously successful. I feel so blessed to be able to take my girls to such an amazing place and blow their minds with so much wonderment. It truly is so rewarding and special for me as their mom. 

While JP waited to go on the main ride there, the rest of us wandered around a bit and hit up a couple rides in Bugs Land.

When we met back up with Brian (my brother in law) and JP, we made our way over to Disneyland and were headed to meet my brother and his family for lunch. We ran into Minnie on the way and then had a wonderful lunch at a Mexican restaurant (where B tried her first taste of real food - a piece of cooked carrot), and then we were off to Toon Town.

On our way, we made a pit stop at Pirates of the Carribean.  J wasn't a fan of that experience, but B sat quietly strapped to me in the Moby with her eyes wide open taking it all in.

Once we made it to Toon Town, we let the kids play for a bit, went on the Roger Rabbit ride, saw Donald and got to give him a high five, hit up the Tea Cups and then we made our way to grab some dinner before heading back into California Adventure.

On our walk back to CA Adventure, the parade was going on and I think this was probably at least the tenth time I had to fight back tears when I saw J's face light up seeing everything in the parade go right past her.

My brother and his wife, Brenda, recommended that we see the World of Color show and we got so lucky that there was a gentleman wanting to get rid of seven fast passes to see it and there were seven of us that needed them! We snagged them from him and were then able to hit up the Little Mermaid ride before the show started. Oh my, did these girls love the Little Mermaid. J still talks about it and we had to promise to go on it again the next time we went back. B went on the ride with us still strapped into the Ergo and she had her head craned practically upside down trying to see everything!
The light show was very cool, but by this point, J was toast and decided she would rather sit in the stroller and play with Dada's iPhone before she passed out. B slept in the Ergo for most of the show as well. This brought an end to our first Disneyland adventure and I think we all enjoyed ourselves thoroughly!
Till next time Mickey!

March

Trying to think back to March feels like it was last year. I can't think of anything of too much importance that we did at the very beginning of the month. 

On B's 6 month birthday, we had family/6 month/2 year pictures taken and I posted about those here.

The week following that was filled with party prep and major planning for my mom's surprise 60th birthday party. I was able to put my Cricut to use finally and made a fun little St. Patty's Day themed birthday banner, along with making the same cookies I made last year for St. Patty's day, and some other treats. We headed up to Bakersfield after work on Friday, prepped for the party, went out to lunch when my mom was expected to arrive at my Aunt's house, and then went back to finish setting everything up while my two Aunt's took my mom out shopping. The surprise was perfect, the party went off without a hitch and having the ENTIRE family together was so wonderful!

Happy Birthday, Mom!

That weekend flew by all too fast, but luckily we came home to a three day work week. We worked Monday to Wednesday and took off in a rented mini van (Bobby is trying to convert me, but I'm standing my ground) and drove our way to Arizona for our friends' wedding.

Grandma was gracious enough to come with us so that Bobby and I could enjoy the wedding without the girls and she was a tremendous help! The guys played golf on Friday while Grandma and I took the girls to The Railroad Park, by a suggestion of the bride, Stefanie. Jordan had a great time and the park was so neat!

We had the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner that night and all of us were able to go together and enjoy that. We had to make it an early night because of the girls, but we had a great time. 

By mid morning, Saturday, J was about ready to explode with excitement about going swimming in the hotel pool, so my mom and I ventured down there with her while B took a nap. Bobby then brought B down to us and both girls enjoyed playing in the water for a little bit before J needed to nap and I needed to get ready for the wedding.

Bobby was the officiant for their wedding ceremony (this is the second wedding he has done now with a third in the books for September) and the whole thing was beautiful. I enjoyed being able to have a few drinks and and enjoy myself before getting a text at around 11:30pm or so that B was awake and out of milk. Duty calls! So we headed back to our hotel, putting our parent hats back on and enjoying the soft plushy pillows that our hotel bed inhabited! 

We were off pretty early Sunday morning to head home. It was a wonderful weekend with wonderful friends, but baby sleep is never the same when you're not at home! We looked forward to getting more solid sleep after being away two weekends in a row. Poor Grandma had to jump in her car and continue her trek back to her house Sunday evening. 

But don't you worry! She was back at our house the following weekend to watch my cousin Georgie play soccer in La Jolla and enjoy Easter/her actual birthday with us. This was the weekend that B came down with Roseola, so the weekend was a bit stressful for me, but being able to spend time with family was great.

Trying to keep her cool with a wet washcloth on her forehead

Seeing J interact and enjoy her second cousins/Aunts is so heartwarming and neat. Because B wasn't 100%, I didn't venture back to the games on Sunday, but my mom took J with her and they ended up going to the Scripps Aquarium in between games. J had SO much fun and my mom documented their time wonderfully through these pictures.

Easter wasn't much of a production this year. It really hasn't been much of a production the past few years, but I think as J gets older and understands more, we will put more into it. I made one big Easter basket for the girls and also got them each a beach towel and a set of sand toys. Inside their Easter basket, J got some new Minnie Mouse pajamas and sidewalk chalk, while B got some new bibs, and a sippy cup. Yes, I will continue to avoid the sugar rush as long as I can!!!

Because J took off with Grandma for the day, Bobby and I were able to get some stuff done around the house; clean up the garage, laundry, clean up the kitchen, etc. I actually thoroughly enjoyed the low key events of the day!

February

Back to catching up on happenings in the Flood household...the beginning of February was fairly typical. On the 9th, I was invited to run in the Dirty Girl Mud Run with a group of ladies from the bootcamp that I interned with last spring. I was a little hesitant to join because I have not run since I herniated  a disc in my back almost 4 years ago. But....I went signed up anyway and I am so glad that I did. I had the three most adorable cheerleaders there and although my running stamina was pretty much non existent, I had a ton of fun and loved getting out there, breaking a sweat, and getting dirty!

The middle of the month brought Valentine's day, in which I was greeted by J with a beautiful, handmade card when I got home and dada had one to match waiting for him. J was so excited to give them to us and say "Happy Balentime's Day, mama!" and I was melting over my first piece of artwork from my daughter.

From mama and dada, Jordan got some new slippers and Doc McStuffins jam jams!

I was also one lucky wifey and was given Country Mega tickets for this summer. Five awesome country concerts are calling our names. Having these tickets and spending summer afternoons tailgating before country concerts is a favorite pastime of mine and Bobby's. We spent a good portion of our initial friendship at them and then pretty much all of our dating relationship as well. I am so excited to get a few nights out on our own and I think we may actually bring at least J, if not J and B, to a concert or two. We'll see! Such a great gift. Thank you, Bobby! 

I can't forget about our adorable little cherub. She helped celebrate the day of love as well and was a perfect little model for mama's photo shoot. This is one of my favorite pics of her yet!

And then there's DooDoo. He finally, FINALLY got a haircut. The poor guy was spending more and more time outside because he smelled - from being outside - and was full of those pesky little foxtails and burs - from being outside. The guy can't win. But alas, he is so fresh and so clean clean!

Bobby and I continued our Valentine's Day celebration that Saturday and took off for dinner and a movie at the local Cinepolis. We saw Identity Thief and we both thought it was very entertaining. While the price tag is a bit much for this date to be a repetitive thing, the food was great, the seats were so comfy, and the company was, of course, PERFECT! We both had a couple cocktails, ordered a few different appetizer plates to share for dinner, and then splurged on this amazing candy corn to take into the movie with us. MMMMmmmmMMmm!

With the cherry stems from my sangria, we both had to prove ourselves to the other, cause, you know....any person that can tie a cherry stem with their tongue is a great kisser, DUH!

February also brought about some new threads for our bed. It was about time. Actually...it was way past time. Our old comforter was getting pretty gnarly and Bobby said the matching curtains reminded him of a grandma's house. Awesome. So, out with the old and in with the new. Except....the curtains are still up! HA! In due time, folks! Anyway, Here's B modeling the new, still creased and lacking a couple more throw pillows, bedding.

New paint for the bathroom is also on the docket and Bobby took advantage of me in a weak moment and also convinced me to start the remodel on our bathroom. While we're not going all gung ho and knocking down any walls or ripping out our tiny shower, we did finally rip out the carpet (WHO, in their right mind, puts carpet in a BATHROOM??) Ewww! 

 

To round out the month, we spent a weekend up at Grandma's for a Meet the Baby/Baby Shower for my sister and baby Teagan. Because she was having a girl this time around, we knew she deserved some sort of "shower", but we weren't able to do so until after Teagan was born. It all worked out great though because my sister and her family were also wanting to go to Disneyland (a post on that will come soon!) after JP turned 3, so we were all able to join in on the fun for one extended family weekend of fun! The shower was great, Disneyland was fabulous, and getting to see all six cousins together was so incredible!

Next up is MARCH!!