Sunday, March 27, 2016

Easter surprise

Happy Easter!!  Alex woke up and the first thing he said was - "Happy Easter Mommy!" - it was soooo sweet!  And Makenna was all business......Easter story, easter egg hunt, presents - GO!



We had a little extra fun this Easter morning learning about God's grace. Makenna has been working on some respect and obedience issues at home and to help her along the way we came up with a plan that involved getting tokens for each good day. The promise was that once she filled her jar with all 25 tokens we would start planning a trip to Disney...

Well, we are planning on going with the neighbors and they were telling their kiddos today, so it was time to share our plans with our kids BUT remember those 5 little pesky tokens?!?

Sounds like the perfect opportunity to combine Easter morning with a little lesson about Grace!


So this overtired overworked tax season mama took FULL advantage of the opportunity on Saturday night to stay up late and procrastinate my "real" work that needed to get done and had a blast planning this out instead. 


This was waiting for them as they woke up.

Only I promise it wasn't up & down.... ha - I just can't figure out how to flip the darn thing!


They found this one pretty quickly. 




"The cross mom, the cross!!!"


And to keep things interesting, they also found their first little surprise on their Easter baskets. 
Beanie Boos!

And then the next clue.....


Bahaha - get it, the timeout step.  Ok, I thought it was REALLY funny though.


Found it!


And with this clue I included the 5 remaining tokens she was trying to earn. #grace

By the time she found this one I think she was kind of starting to figure things out, but still too excited to find the next clue to think too much about it.  


The last clue was in her bedroom by her token jar. She actually spotted it as soon as she woke up but thankfully I put it high enough that she couldn't reach and made her wait until we got to that clue. 

The best part was that she had NO idea what was made of stone in our house - the kitchen table?  Nope.  The end table.  Nope.  Finally she spotted that little frame behind Minne and said - mom, that is made of stone!!  She never did realize we were talking about the fireplace.  Ha!!





In Makenna's bag I put a little note that said "We're going to Disney...... with Ben & Maddie (the neighbor kids) - she was SO excited to find out they were going with us!  I also put in a Minnie Mouse shirt for each of us.

And in Alex's bag I put a picture of the Dumbo ride and a Mickey T shirt for him & Daddy.  He keeps seeing the commercial for it on Disney Junior and every time he says "I ride on dat mom?"  He was VERY excited to find it and even more excited when I told him he could ride on it.  Now to figure out how to explain to him every day for the next month and a half that we aren't going today.  Yikes.  



I think they are  **little** excited to go.  

Happy Easter everyone!!  The countdown is ON at our house!!













Thursday, December 3, 2015

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was a little bittersweet this year..  Makenna had a bad cold which meant at the last minute our plans to go up to mom & dad's house changed and we decided to divide & conquer.

We decided to make lemons out of lemonade and invited Brad's family over for a Thanksgiving breakfast before Alex and I hit the road to head to my parents.


Cousin love


She loves her some baby Laila!

We had a nice morning with Brad's family and even got to squeeze in some snuggles before mama and Alex hit the road.




Macy's day parade fun

Happy Thanksgiving Kenna girl!

Alex slept on the way.....

And we made a pitstop to visit Cookie Beek!

She love, love, loved seeing this little cutie



Makenna was sure to send us with a sweet card to give to Papa



He was SOOO uncomfortable that day.....he didn't even join us for Thanksgiving dinner at my sister's BUT it was great to be able to spend some time with him and 


Alex loved loving on his Oma


We made sure to facetime these honies, too


A little Dunkin Donuts at Oma's house...... yummy!


And maybe a pit stop at the outlet mall for a little Black Friday shopping:) 

Home sweet home


Alex was very excited to show Sissy our black friday deal - matching Snowflake Jammies!


A good game of hide & seek


And some special one on one time with my Kenna girl on Saturday


Love decorating for Christmas


And on Sunday we headed to the Dells for our annual tax seminar




Crocodile!


So blessed



Woah, look at all those tickets!


Coolest mom EVER when I won her this Elsa doll!


Makenna LOVED riding on all the waterslides this year.  One night just she and I went down to the waterpark after Alex was in bed and we rode the slides until they closed.  She was FEARLESS!


Be still my heart....


We even stopped in Madtown so daddy could show off his old stomping grounds