Life Is Chaotic...But Wouldn't Change It For Anything

Time just continues to fly by. Tommy is approaching ten months old. When I hold him, his legs fall off my lap. Cyril is so heavy, I can barely pick him up anymore. They are both literally growing before my very eyes.

We had a fantastic Easter, what a happy time of year. I think it is my most favorite time of the liturgical calendar. My spirit feels very refreshed and my heart warmed by the love of God and his son Jesus Christ. Over the few weeks leading up to Easter we saw most of our family, my sister Beth, both of Cyril's sisters Meghan and Amanda, as well as his brother Evan. Just missed seeing Matt and David. Even though everyone came in shifts, and didn't overlap, it was nice to see everyone doing well.

As for me, I am keeping busy with work, the house, the boys etc. Meghan's wedding is fast approaching, we have ordered our bridesmaid's dresses and they are beautiful. We also did some cake tasting when she was in town, and that was delicious! It is all coming together and will be a beautiful day. Speaking of weddings, one of my life long friends Lauren, got married on Easter. It was kind of a spontaneous wedding, but I would expect nothing less from her. I am so happy for Lauren and Paul, they are true soul mates. I have never seen her light up the way she does around him, and I love it! I also love and admire the fact that they did what was in their hearts for their wedding. It was about the two of them, their commitment to God and each other. No worries about a big party, what to wear, what flowers to get, it was just them...amazing.

Cyril (my husband), has started his softball season. They had their first game last week, and he hit the home run that tied the game! They went into extra innings and won! Go Beheaders! It will be his turn next month to turn the big three-o, so we will be having a bar-b-que to celebrate. Hope the pollen count goes down by then because I am one big allergic mess when I step outside!

Little Cyril enjoyed his spring break and is now back at school. He should be visiting Glenwood soon, where he will attend Kindergarten in the fall. He has been helping me with some flowers, he likes to water them for me. I got two Hydrangea plants from church after the Easter service and we planted them in the side flowerbed. He is a huge help in remembering to water them! He is also still enjoying soccer, we take him early and he has dinner with his friend Carter Rose before practice. He is also continuing to thrive in Karate. He has been working on his Kata to get his second black stripe on his belt. Even though he is only able to go once a week while he has soccer, he is still learning a lot and seems to enjoy it.

Tommy just had his top two teeth pop through. We can see the tips of them :) So he will finally have four teeth. He is really pulling up on everything and tries to stand alone. He is up to about ten seconds before he realizes he is no longer holding on to anything so he drops down to the floor. He will be running before we know it! Which won't be too different, he already crawls faster than lightning! Tommy is also very interested in table food, and would much rather have what we are eating than his baby food. So we have tried to embrace that and give him as much of our food as we can (Thanks to the encouragement from my friend Lacey, because it sure makes me nervous sometimes). I am hoping this means we won't have another picky eater on our hands.

Hercules is doing well. He will be turning seven at the end of the month. Hard to believe we have had him for seven years, that means our seven year anniversary is coming up too :) Wow...  He still gets around pretty well. Some mornings are harder than others for him to get moving, but to be such a big dog I think he is in excellent condition.

Getting ready to sing in the choir on Palm Sunday

with Grandpa Meredith before the service started

A Bit of Everything

I know, I know...I am totally a slacker! I wouldn't dare blame my lack of blogging on having two children, one of which is taking Karate, playing soccer, and singing in the church choir. It seems like we always have something going on :) The time is just flying by!

Tommy is now almost nine months old, yes it is true, I know I can't believe it either. He has finally gotten his two bottom teeth, so we no longer have the gummy smile. He is crawling like there is no tomorrow, and pulling up on everything! We have to watch him because he likes to just let go, thinking he can stand by himself, then falls and cries out of frustration. We have had a lot of beautiful weather lately, and have been spending a lot of time outside. So Tommy has been able to learn about grass for the first time. He is also enjoying trying new foods all the time, he is even working on some solid grown up foods :)

Cyril is...well what isn't Cyril doing? He has just started his three week spring break and will go to Extended Child Care during the week. He is loving Karate, and has earned a black stripe on his white belt because he is able to recite his student creed. It is incredible hearing him say it, and how fast he was able to learn it.  He has started soccer practice and they have a scrimmage at the end of each practice. In his age groups there are no "real" games yet, they are just learning the basics. He is also doing a great job in the chorister choir at church. They sang again today and he did awesome! He is also enjoying the beautiful weather and constantly wanting to be outside. His class took a field trip last Friday to a local park where he learned to be a monkey on the monkey bars! We took him this weekend and he showed us all his tricks! We have also had fun playing with chalk in the driveway. Tonight I learned I can no longer play hop-scotch like I used to, but he sure is good!

As for the adults in the house, we aren't up to anything new. I have enjoyed the nice weather as well and being able to play in my flower beds. Luckily I have only gotten a small amount of poison ivy so far. I am continuing to enjoy my book club, we finished The Hunger Games series last month and it was a great read. Cyril has been keeping busy with work, and the boys want all of his attention when he walks through the door :)

Whew! I think that about covers everything! Here are some recent pictures, enjoy!

Ash Wednesday

Heard this on K-Love and had to share:
"You've got something on your Face."

Hate that. We’ve all been there. Walking around not realizing you’ve got something gross on our face, until someone finally points it out. As soon as you discover it, you wipe off the offensive item (sometimes you need a mirror to get it right) and try to walk through your last hour wondering who else saw you while y...ou had that thing on your face.

It’s embarrassing. Makes others think that we don’t have our act together.

There are a lot of people walking around today with something on their face, but it’s on purpose. It’s Ash Wednesday.

"When the ash mark sits on your forehead we feel marked because, well, we are marked. The ashes designate that we are real sinners and this is something the world refuses to hear. It’s embarrassing to go around town that way on Ash Wednesday, but that’s the point, isn’t it. And then, at the end of the day, do exactly what Jesus says: wash your face.” ~Rev. Karl Weber

You’re forgiven.

Happy Belated Valentines!

I found this video from last year and couldn't help but share!

Disney World!!!

We had a wonderful yet exhausting trip to Disney World last week. We split up the drive to make it easier on the boys, or should I say easier on us! On Monday we arrived around lunch time and the first park we went to was little Cyril's choice, Magic Kingdom (of course)! So we got to the park and our first purchase was an autograph book for him so he could get the characters autographs.

Our first ride was Pirates of the Caribbean, maybe a little to scary for the first ride, but he did well. Husband Cyril and I took turns with Tommy if he was unable to go on a ride. Which actually worked out well for little Cyril because we would get a rider swap ticket, which allowed us to trade off Tommy and the other person get back on the ride, so little Cyril would get to ride twice! We also went to the Magic Carpets of Aladdin, and The Swiss Family Robinson Tree house.

Lastly we watched the Dreams Come True show at the Castle. That was enough for our first day so we went back to our resort and settled in. We stayed at the All Star Movies Resort in the Toy Story building. The staircases were inside the buckets of army men and the army men were on top of the building. In the courtyard they had it set up like Andy's room. Complete with a HUGE door and window. There were also HUGE Buzz and Woody characters that were three stories tall!

We had a little bit of time to explore this after dinner, but then we were off to bed. We were all pretty tired!

The next morning Cyril wanted to go to Hollywood Studios to meet Phineas and Ferb. The first thing we did when we got there was look for a hat for me so I could keep the sun off my face. Of course I was unsuccessful, but little Cyril decided on R2D2 mickey ears and some cars silly bands! Then we headed over to the PIXAR area where he and Cyril rode Toy Story Mania while Tommy and I cruised around and found Phineas and Ferb. So after I rode with Cyril we were off to meet some characters!

While waiting in line to meet Buzz and Woody there were several photo ops!

Cyril was wearing his Buzz Lightyear shirt to meet Buzz and Buzz was thrilled! So they were posing like the Buzz on Cyril's shirt.

Then we headed off to watch The Beauty and The Beast show which we all really enjoyed. And of course we had to go back and ride the Toy Story ride one more time before heading back. Then as promised I took Cyril to Downtown Disney to the Lego store. He was so excited because he found the exact Lego set he wanted. It is a police set "where the crooks escape into the forest." He also had fun looking at all of the life size Lego sculptures.

As you can see he is petting one of the dogs, I think he liked them the best!

On Wednesday we headed out to Epcot, and our first stop was to get Fast Passes at Soarin' because that was the one ride Cyril and I did not go on the last time we were at Disney because it was a two hour wait and I had regretted it ever since. After we got the fast passes we had some time to kill so we went over to the Finding Nemo ride and rode it twice per little Cyril's request. Then we looked around a bit and Cyril had his picture taken in Bruce the sharks mouth!

Next we went to Turtle Talk with Crush, which is an interactive experience where all of the kids sit on the floor in the front of the room by a screen on which Crush appears. The kids are then allowed to ask questions and he answers them. We knew Cyril would have a great question, and wish we had recorded it! He asked how many turtles live in the ocean, and how he came up with that question I will never know! Crush was stumped and asked Cyril how many humans he thought lived on the land, his response was "85."

Then it was time to head over to Soarin' which is a simulator ride. It feels like you are hang gliding all over the earth. You feel the breeze and smell the aromas in the air. It was pretty neat, it had a lot to live up to though because I have been wondering about it for six years!
After that we were off to meet some more characters and get their autographs!
Even Tommy got in on the action, coming in for the last picture with Goofy!

Next we headed to the Test Track, where only Cyril and Cyril took part in that adventure! Tommy and I cruised through the shops! Then we decided to head back to the Magic Kingdom because little Cyril really wanted to ride Splash Mountain. So we did! And he rode it twice and still says it was his favorite ride. He also rode Space Mountain which he wasn't a fan of because it was dark. Then Cyril was ready to go back to the resort and go to the pool. I think he was just as excited about the pool as he was about being at Disney!

Thursday morning we had breakfast reservations at The Tusker House in the Animal Kingdom. It was a huge buffet and the characters were there.

After a filling breakfast we headed off to see The Lion King Show, which is one of our favorites! It was great, it even put Tommy to sleep :)  Next we went on the safari which has to be my favorite ride out of all the Disney parks. We rode it twice, back to back and had two totally different experiences. We saw hippos, nile crocodiles, giraffe, elephants, you name it, we saw it!

Next the boys headed off to ride Expedition Everest, a rollercoaster. Little Cyril was again less than thrilled because there was a Yeti at the end of the ride and it scared him. So needless to say, we didn't use the rider swap for that ride. And we got soaked on Kali River Rapids. Then off to Dinoland we went. Cyril and I rode Triceratop Spin which is like the Dumbo ride (which was closed due to renovations). Then we met up with some more characters!

Then it started to sprinkle, so we watched the Jammin' Jungle Parade and headed back to the resort. That was a long, but fun filled day!

Then Friday morning we packed up, put everything in the car and headed back to Magic Kingdom for some last minute fun. The sky was grey and we knew it was only a matter of time before the skies opened up. We got in a few rides, Buzz Lightyears Space Ranger Spin (several times), The Lilo and Stitch ride (forgot the name), and a car ride. As we sat down for lunch, it started to rain, but luckily it stopped by the time we were finished. We then decided to head on back and start the long drive home. We had a great time, and can't wait to take the boys back again!

Bathroom Sneak Peak

Here are some pics of the bathroom! ALMOST FINISHED!!! YAY!!!

I CAN CRAWL!!!

It might look like he is trying to swim, but Tommy is almost over the army crawl and is using his arms!