March

March

March was a strange month for weather.  It was hot and it was cold.  I even woke up one morning to a thick layer of frost on my windshield.  I had to scrap it off before I could drive.

Dr. Seuss' Birthday
We started off the month by celebrating Dr. Seuss' birthday.  Growing up I never really cared for his books but now I love them and so does the rest of my family.  The week leading up to his birthday, we read lots of Dr. Seuss books, we watched the Lorax (on Netflix)and Horton Hears a Who (which was one of the shared gifts from us to the kids).  On his birthday, we had Carter over for a Dr. Seuss dinner of green eggs and ham (an mashed potatoes).  The kids loved it. I think both, Josh and Carter, thought I was a bit strange. But they both said they enjoyed it by the end of the night.  We finished up by reading all the our Dr. Seuss books (5) plus the 2 we borrowed from the library.

Lego Class
Our Lego class is still going strong.  Landon looks forward to it every week, as well as many of the other kids.  I love teaching it, every week :)

Lego Class

 Everyday life

Fun around the house

 Red Robin
Gainesville now has a Red Robin.  I had never been to one but people around here seemed pretty excited.  Josh and I didn't really have any opinion about it one way or another... Until our friend Michelle told me that they were allowing you to sign up for a free meal.  So... I signed up our family.  Josh met us at the mall for lunch.  We had a lovely, yummy meal that was a little over $55 for free!!  How awesome is that?  The food was really good too!  So now I think I get why everyone was excited about Red Robin.  They have great service and awesome food! Plus they gave us some free food and I am always up for that!

Red Robin Lunch

St Patrick's Day
 I love St Patrick's Day.  I always have.  I am Irish. I had an Irish maiden name.  I always get pretty into St Patrick's Day, well I wear green and since Josh and I have been married we almost always have corned beef and cabbage at least once in March.  I LOVE corned beef and cabbage.  Which is kind of funny because I remember it being a big family tradition things growing up and I hated it!  Oh well, I guess that is why it is always good to keep trying things, because you never know when you will start liking them.

St Patrick's Day fun and crafts

Painting
We have been working on the play area in the back yard.  Arabella and I painted the inside of the playhouse/fort.  We used left over paint that we have collected.  So one great part was the project was free :)
There is now a green, red, blue, and purple wall.  While I was painting, a little bird came to keep me company and sing me a song.  It was such a treat!

More Corks & Colors painting fun :)

Family Fun Day
We had to do some work in Niceville.  It was only going to take an hour or so but we could stay.  So instead of dreading a 8 hour drive to and from Niceville, Josh thought we should just make a family fun day out of it.  We went to the Florida Caverns.  Unfortunately, it was spring break so the tickets for the caverns (which you can not buy in advanced) were sold out by the time we got there.  We still had a lot of fun.  We walked on the nature trails and found caves to explore ourselves.  We will be planning another trip there so we can go in the caverns but for a family fun day it was a perfect outing!

Florida Caverns

Easter
The Saturday before Easter/Resurrection Sunday, we joined many other friends at Mrs Jean's house for a pot luck lunch, games and egg hunt.  She host this every year and it is always a blast.  This year was no different.

Lunch, Dancing with Daddy, and Games at Mrs Jean's

Eggs!!!

Enjoying wide open spaces and the goats.  Especially the mommy with her baby.

Anyone interested in a "Apple" that tastes a lot like a potato?!?

 Sally and Jeremiah came to visit for Easter weekend.  We were glad to have them visit although it was much too short of a visit.  Thank Sally for taking our pictures! :)

Resurection Sunday family pictures :)

November and our busy lives

Backlog-November 2012

Hope you enjoy reading about just a few of the things we were doing in November.  

My super awesome, super cute, little nephew turned 1!  And of course being the self titled "best" aunt and uncle we had to go to Owen's birthday.  You can see all the awesomeness of his birthday here at Owen's mommy's blog. 

I crafted a super hero mask and super hero cape for my super Owen.  I was a new craft adventure and I really had a lot of fun making it.  I think I added some black on the mask after the picture was taken.

Landon and Arabella had a blast at Owen's birthday.  They always have a great time with him.  They loved their dinosaur hats that Aunt Merry made them for party favors.  What an awesome party favor?!? A handmade hat made just for you that is super cute!

Big Boy Owen turns 1!

While visiting Josh and I got a chance to catch up with one of our old college roomies. The kids had fun after they got over being shy of each other.  Niceville's community park is awesome.

College roomies and their little loves

I joined Merry and Owen on a trip to Mobile, AL for the Marine Ball which celebrates the Marine Corps birthday.  I had the well sought after joy of watching my little nephew so mommy and daddy could go to the ball.  It was Owen's first time with a babysitter.  We had a lot of fun.  We danced, explored the hotel we stayed in for the night, sang, and played with toys.  We also attempted to sleep.  Owen did miss his mommy but she is pretty awesome mommy so I don't blame him. I had a lots of fun.  I was really nice getting to hang out with Jon and Merry.  They took great care of me and paid me well with lots of yummy food ;)

Marine family

After dropping off Merry and Owen, I had lunch with my parents.  Being grandparents, they of course had to spend some presents to "spoil" their grandchildren.  Arabella got Dora sneakers and they both got blankets.  Arabella's is an owl and Landon's is a monster.  They were both vert excited for their gifts, Bella especially!







 FINALLY!!!! After living here for 11 years I finally made it to UF Homecoming Parade.  It was a really nice day out for the parade, cool and sunny but not hot.  The kids had fun but didn't last to the very end.  It was a good time to leave because I think we basically just barely beat the rush of people leaving.  We also got to see Landon's friend Noah, since he was in the parade with his grandfather.

UF Homecoming Parade

 Our favorite  this month was dinosaurs.
We did lots of dinosaur activities.  Landon and my favorite was without a doubt the dino dig.  I found these dinosaur skeletons at an online store for relatively expensive price.  To make it a little extra exciting i froze the skeletons in ice so Landon had to pick at them to free them.  This was well over an hour worth of fun.

Dino Dig

Lego class

As shout out to Jesse Strode for showing us how to us the flat legos vertically.  If you look at the green 12x12 board the white and yellow Legos are vertical.

A few of our activities for school

Arabella was able to balance her creation. She was so proud. But wouldn't hold still for the picture.

Landon's tower and handsome man pose ;)

Reesie trying to get in on the Lego action... or stop it.

So I have to share a little photo collage of my cute little lady bug.  She is quite the helper/ housemaid.  She is always helping me with my chores, sometimes the help is more productive than others but she always has good intentions ;)

Look at that long hair with those curls!

Cleaning the van

She was such a great helper!

It was  beautiful outside so many days in November, we tried to spend lots of time out enjoying the weather.

What a boy he is, loves dig in dirt.

She loves to swing!

A spiky little caterpillar hid in Josh's flip flop.  I found it when I went to borrow Josh's shoes. Ow!

I think they were waiting on Daddy

and having fun while they were waiting.

Love those eyes!

Yes my little loves are full of giggles, silly antics, and frequent comic relief!!

Super warrior just add safety googles? YES!

Undies as hats? YES!

Legos as face accessories? YES!

BIg huge bite? YES!

Copy my brother? YES!

 

My part job that I love- teaching art at Corks and Colors!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. we have so many, many blessings to be thankful.  A huge blessing is spending time with our wonderful family.  We were only missing one family member, Jessica, but we did Skype with her.  We had a delicious Thanksgiving breakfast at Jon and Merry's with the whole family.  Merry made so many yummy foods! Then it was back to Mom and Dad Williams' house to make the big lunch/dinner.  Dinner as always was amazing.  We all did our normal dishes.  I think almost everyone has one or more of their own.  Sally added to all our yummy traditions her own pumpkin cheesecake.  It was a big hit, as was the whole dinner itself.  The rest of the weekend was spent enjoying family, playing games, taking walks,goofing off and just having fun while enjoying each other.

Thanksgiving 2012

Documenting a record.  Kiddo passed out at 4:30 and stayed asleep until the next morning.  Even though we all had dinner and played games in the room with him.

ONe of the best parts of the holidays? Meeting up with college or high school friends.  Such as Ashlee!

Silly Grandpa

Silly Bella kisses

I love how she looks like she is praying

Boy, do I love those little smily kids!