Phone Pictures

To say that Rett is obsessed with the Cars movies is kind of an understatement. He loves them sooooooo much! For birthdays and holidays you can't go wrong to get him a car truck or plane from the movie so he has amassed quite a collection from us and family. Some of them we found at garage sales or thrift stores. It makes him so happy and excited we just can't say no! One morning we were cleaning up his room and wanted to see just how many we had. It is quite the collection!

One day after school James wanted to go check on the toy motorcycle outside of the bike shop around the corner. They both wanted to pretend to ride it.

Rett making faces through the window:

This is Rett right after I gave him a haircut. Look at that face!! He looks so different without his curls.

I had to take a picture of James asleep with this blanket. It is a special blanket that used to belong to Anthony's dad, then Anthony and now James.

This is the James' class picture, he is the one on the front row with a light blue shirt. One of his best friends that he loves to play with is the little girl next to him, Harmony. James tells me stories of all the different games they play during recess. Sometimes they run around looking for "squirrel eggs" (seed pods from the trees) and other times they play police officer and run around giving pretend "tickets" to any kids or teachers that are walking or running fast. James said he even had to give himself a ticket for running!

His school had an art night fundraiser where each student had a piece of artwork framed and displayed for purchase. All the kids made invitations to take home to their family and I was so impressed with James' invitation. You could actually read what it said!

House Projects

We have been having a lot of fun working on projects for the house! We finally got our rain gutter bookshelves back up that we had at the old house. As I was putting the books back in them, I was complaining to Anthony that there were too many...I just can't resist buying more children's books!

I finished our gallery wall in our living room. A lot of the pictures I already had, but I asked my favorite vintage furniture store to make us the Lagana sign. It turned out exactly how I wanted it! (When I first went to pick up the sign, I noticed they accidentally put est. 2015 instead of 2005. We all had a chuckle about how it didn't seem correct that we had only been married 2 years :)

The shoe situation by the front door was driving me crazy! There were always shoes everywhere with dirt all around them. I got these shoe cabinets from Ikea and they are the best thing ever! They keep the shoes off the ground and the dirt off the floor.

I found an old wooden piece of furniture under a pile of leaves in our yard and decided to salvage parts from it. There were two cabinet doors and a few big pieces of wood that I was able to save. I repainted the doors and turned one of them in a picture holder with some chicken wire we had left over from building the chicken coop:

The other one I hung over the snake/tortoise cage and made a magnolia leaf wreath to hang on it.

I took one of the large pieces of wood that I saved, lightly painted it gray and put a quote on it to hang over our TV. It is so nice to not see bare walls everywhere now!

I finally framed a cross-stitch that I did while I was pregnant with Rett and now it is hanging over his bed. It only took me 3 1/2 years!

I want to replace all the ceiling fans in our house with something more my style. The ones in the bedrooms are $25 builder fans that are way too small for the space, but since there are four bedrooms that is a lot of them to buy at once! I decided to start with the living room and kitchen ceiling fans. They are actually pretty nice, but still not my style. I was looking at them one day and starting thinking, "Hey, I bet those blades are reversible..." Anthony helped me turn them around and I actually really preferred the darker wood color that was on the other side. The globes were a very cloudy yellow which I hated, so I took them off and replaced them with wire cages from home depot. I couldn't get over the difference! I love my $20 fan makeover, so much cheaper than replacing the entire thing!

James' school had a recycled art fair and every student had to turn in an art project made from recycled materials. I decided to try making a pallet sign from some wood from our wood pile. Anthony helped me cut the wood and put them together. James' sign he painted with a bunch of different paint colors in an abstract pattern. I made two others to donate to the fair (they sell the art pieces as a fundraiser) and I was really happy with how they turned out. I lightly painted the wood and when it tried I used mod podge and a design printed from the computer to transfer the image to the wood. Both of these sold for $15 each at the art fair, so I was excited that I could help with the fundraiser without actually having to pay for stuff :)

Easter Fun

We did quite a few local Easter egg hunts this year. I usually avoid these things like the plague, but we had a good time at the first few, so I thought some other ones would be just as fun. It was definitely hit or miss! I think that the organizations putting them on sometimes don't realize the large level of crowd control you need at these things!

Anthony got to go with us to a few of them. Our first one was at a local church that we go to every year. They do such a great job at making it fun for the kids!

A full basket! Most of the kids filled up their entire basket and didn't have room for more even though there were lots more on the ground.

Immediately after the first one, the city had their egg hunt a few blocks away. We decided to brave it. Have a mentioned how much I hate crowds???

Chatting with a friend from his kindergarten class.

Since James and Rett are in different age groups, I went with Rett and Anthony went with James. Rett had fun, he definitely has gotten the hang of it. Last year he kept trying to open each one right away and see what was inside instead of looking for more eggs.

The next weekend Anthony was working, so I took the boys to two egg hunts we have never tried before. The first one was in a reeeeally fancy neighborhood. I felt kind of out of place in my jeans and t-shirt. All the other moms had fancy clothes and expensive strollers. When I parked the car I noticed that mine was the only car older than 3 years...

Pretending to get eggs so I can get a picture:

Later in the afternoon we decided to try going to an egg hunt where a helicopter comes and drops the eggs! The boys were so excited to see the helicopter! We got there about 30 minutes early because I hate being late and missing the eggs. Once we got there, they told us that it didn't really start for another hour! The boys were pretty restless waiting. They had a stage with an MC with a microphone playing games with the audience to pass the time. A lot of people were just standing by the eggs waiting (they had a lot on the ground in addition to the ones coming by helicopter), but we couldn't hear very well that far away from the stage. As they were playing the game, the MC yelled, "1, 2, 3, go!!!" All of the people on the far side of the field thought it meant time to get the eggs and stormed the field!! They grabbed up all the eggs in a couple of minutes before any of the people in charge knew what was happening. They tried to get everyone to clear the field so that the helicopter could drop more eggs, but no one was listening.

When the helicopter came, it couldn't drop the eggs because of all the people on the field so they dropped it at a different field way far away from everyone. We tried to go over there and get some, but all the big kids got there first and cleared it out. James and Rett didn't end up with any eggs at all, but at least two bigger kids offered to share their eggs with them. It was so sweet! They collected so many eggs earlier, I tried to remind them that it didn't matter. And they got to see a helicopter!

Easter morning the boys were excited so check out what the Easter bunny brought them. James told me a few days earlier, that he didn't want any candy at all, just toys. He said that he doesn't like candy. Who is this alien child?

My mom couldn't be here this year, so she sent the boys personalized "snuggle bunnies". They loved them!

More nerf guns!

After church we got to visit with the cousins and Mimi and Papa. The baby quail chicks were a big hit! Dallas and Nevada even got to take one home with them.

Dyeing eggs:

Snuggling:

We decided to grill hamburgers and hot dogs outside, so instead of going back and forth we brought the kitchen table outside! Once Anthony builds me my new kitchen table, we will probably leave this one outside for good.

For dessert we roasted marshmallows. They were a little bit sandy, but still good :)