spring break

i have to say i'm really enjoying our spring break. so nice to have a week to really slow down. most of the time i like to travel and pack in as much fun as i possibly can...i love that, i'm all for that, and it looks like most of my summer will be just exactly like that...but i'm enjoying this change of pace. a much slower pace and a very light schedule. time to sit, catch up, go slow, and take a deep breath. ahhhh!

thankfully Harrison is in FL right now packing in loads of fun with his Aunt Vonda and her girls. i asked him if he missed me this morning and he said, "mom (in that drawn out tone that kids do when they are kind of aggravagted you've asked) of course i miss you. BUT you said you wanted me to have fun." yes, yes, yes. i did say that and i'm so thankful that he is so close (emotionally, we're not close physically) to his grandparents and his Aunt, Uncle, & cousins that he is not thinking about getting back home quite yet. it's truly a blessing. he and i will be refreshed and ready to finish up our school year when he gets back in town!

here are a few things that have gotten me excited this week...

a storm door for our back door. just got installed today and i have been looking forward to this for a long time. it took some convincing but Anthony finally agreed and i don't think he will be disappointed! it will be so nice to have the back door open. i love sunlight coming in and i'm a huge fan of storm doors.

and this one is fancy schmancy...if you can say that about a storm door...at least it is to me. :) it has the pull down screen that is part of the top portion of the door. i'm excited to be able to use the screen in the spring and fall for a breeze as well being able to really hear what the kids are up to. :) and i won't have to worry about any children pushing the screen OUT as is what happened to our neighbors nice new door. boo.

and another thing that has really got me going is the arrival of a little house for Addison. our friends, the Barbours, had out grown this little house and offered it up to Addison. that little girl was SO excited when we got it all set up and she realized what it was...

oh how she loves it! and i love that she loves it. she fills the house with all her babies and has a ball!

and what else you might wonder??? all this excitement, could there possibly more??? :)

my cutie umbrella for our picnic table had been ripped to shreds by a little doggy we used to know. poor thing chewed up a lot of our things and i had to replace the umbrella and the water toys to Addison's water table. it was fun to get those replacements in the mail this week.

so you see, i can find such fun in the littlest of things. doesn't take much to make me happy or relaxed these days! :)

we still have most of our week left and i'm going to make the very most of it, in the very smallest ways possible!

the Zoo

Yesterday we took the day and went to the Zoo. It's a little less than 2 hours from us so you kind of have to plan for it. We planned to go with three other ladies and their kids. Anthony was able to take off work last minute...which is a HUGE thing. He just doesn't get to do that so we were even MORE excited when we realized he would be going with us!!!

The weather was perfect and we loved it! The membership was just a bit more than we were going to pay to get in so we went that route and look forward to going back...the place is HUGE and we just couldn't get it all in. AND, we can go to many other Zoo's across the country and the Aquarium so we think we have more fun trips in our future!


Flamingos...they were so pretty.

I don't have a ton of pictures of the animals. I don't really like having lots of pictures that don't have someone I love in them so I mostly took pictures of the people! :)

the gorillas

everywhere you turned there was something to climb on. I think the kids enjoyed that just as much as anything else!



we were kind of bummed that Mr. Lion was such a sleepy head.






see, I told you everyone love climbing on things.

except for Addison. she is finally on some allergy medicine now and feeling better but she was out of sorts for most of the day. poor girl!

it was such a blessing having Anthony with us. Daddy just always makes everything more fun and it also helps that he is so great at being a blessing. he was so helpful with ALL of the kids and helped the other mommy's too. he knows I have to do a lot of stuff on my own so he's very sensitive to that kind of thing. love him!

our favorite exhibit was most definitely the Polar Bear! He was SO big and SO beautiful. What a sight!

record setting green YUCK

well, it's official. it's gross outside. the pollen count is at record highs. something like the worst it's been in over 6 years. i can believe it. it's everywhere. i was outside yesterday with the kids and looked down at my feet and they looked like this...

completely covered in the stuff. gross. i was only out there maybe 30 minutes! Anthony's feeling it, i'm feeling it and poor little Addison is feeling it too!!! (thankfully the boys are doing well) see my pitiful little girl...


she's just struggling. runny, coughing, whiny, and just completely out of sorts.


this is a little smile i got...

praying for rain!!! to wash this stuff away! so we can all breathe again.

Spring and Sticks

there are many, many reasons i LOVE Spring! warm weather, a cool breeze, flip flops, blue skies, longer days, picnics and playgrounds...i could go on and on. flowers, however, top the list when it comes to the reasons I love Spring...especially the ones in my yard! i really do love planting and gardening flowers. i'd love to be more knowledgeable about gardening and landscaping. i'd love to venture into some vegetables some day....

but for now, it's flowers. each year i seem to find another spot that needs to be filled and i get SO excited each spring as i look forward to things popping up and peeking through the ground. although, there are two things i'm not sure about...maybe you can help me out. there are these two sticks in our yard...well, I don't want to get too far ahead. let's start with the good.

it's only a sampling of what's out there and it's so fun to look back on previous years and see how much things have really grown!

my cherry trees

these trees just make me smile!

my purple phlox...love this stuff! comes back every year and keeps on spreading

drawing a blank on this one but i love it's little pink flowers

my yellow bell...or forsythia. love it but only half of it bloomed this year. anybody know what i should do about that?

peonies are getting ready and the day lilies will be blooming soon!

can't wait for the yellow blooms that will cover this beauty!

Hydrangea...anticipating that gorgeous blue color!

OK... some new additions to the yard thanks to the City of Raleigh...

don't know the name of this tree but i'm enjoying it's little blooms

now. for the sticks...

these two trees below leave a little to be desired. look at them. can we even really call them trees??? they look more like sticks to me! :) they ARE sticks. plain and simple.

Anthony said we'll give them a year and if we don't like what we see we'll yank them up! the guy who dropped them off said sometimes they cut off the branches for shipping purposes. well, i can see were that may make sense. i guess.

i didn't even want to plant them. they look ridiculous! but, maybe we'll be surprised. :)

so it's definitely looking like Spring around here...except for the sticks!