looooooooong week

This has been such a loooooong week!  Ava has had practice every night for her ballet recital, Graig was busy getting ready for the opening day of Little League (which is today!), Brock has had baseball practice every night after school and I have been super busy with end of the year stuff at work.  To top it off I got sick on Tuesday night and ended up going to the doctor on Thursday because I thought I had strep (thankfully I didn't have it!) 
Last night Ava and I went over to my friend Allison's house for a Royal slumber party.  It was really fun!  We stayed about an hour and then we left to come home and sleep and then we went back this morning.
Allison posted her super cute party favors and decorations on her blog. Here is a picture of the favors she gave us. 

Tonight was Ava's ballet recital.  Here are some pictures of her from the dress rehearsal yesterday. Ava's  is a "Puddle Jumper" in this ballet.

I cut off her head but I love this picture of her leap.

Here is Ava with her BFF Anika's little brother.  I love this picture of the two of them!

Hope everyone has a good weekend!  We have Little League opening ceremonies in the morning, followed by Brock's two basketball games, followed by a town festival, followed by Ava'a recital.  It will be a busy Saturday for us!

Easter Sunday!

We all had a blessed Easter.  I ate my weight in cadbury eggs and Reese's peanut butter eggs.  Graig spent the day working in our yard and cleaning the garage (his Easter tradition), and Brock and Ava spent the day getting on each other's nerves since I told them that this was a family day and they couldn't have friends over.

Graig snapped this one picture of us before Mass this morning. B and A look THRILLED having their picture taken.

Yesterday we went to an Easter Egg Hunt with Grandma Jan in Cooperstown. When we got home Ava, Brock and I made Resurrection rolls.  Here is Ava posing with one of her rolls. 

Thursday night and Friday I worked on this stencil above my fireplace.  I got the stencil free at the  Jones Design Company Blog.   That window is the one I got for free a few weeks ago.  I didn't even paint it I just scrubbed it down because it was nasty.

Another project I recently completed was this mossy E.  You know I love anything and everything that is a monogram!

I also wanted to show these cute little gifts I made for my Sunday School class.  I got these tags at the eighteen25 blog

Today we had a delicious Easter lunch with ham, Au gratin potatoes, baked beans, macaroni and cheese, deviled eggs and rolls.  I ate WAY too much.  
Hope you had a happy Easter!

Brock's trip

At 11:30 this morning Brock left on his trip to the Grand Canyon.  He was so excited to go!  He was up and showered at 8am.  I went to work for a couple of hours and then I went home to get him and he had both of his suitcases ready to go in the kitchen.  We stopped by the grocery store to get him some snacks and then we got a quick bite to eat at Subway and then I dropped him off at the school.

Brock was embarrassed but I wanted to take a few pictures of him before he left.  Here is Brock with his friend Willy.    Brock packed all by himself so I hope he remembered everything-ha ha!

Here is Brock with his 3 roommates-Willy, Austin,and Noah.  I know they are going to have a great time!

Today they are flying to Las Vegas and they will start their sightseeing tomorrow.  I called Graig and as soon as Brock's bus pulled away from the school and he picked up the phone  said "you're crying aren't you"  I am proud to say that I didn't cry at all! I am happy for him and I think he'll have a great time.

Thursday, Thursday

This has been a busy week at our house.  I have had a busy week at work with a lot of events and poor Brock came home from school on Tuesday sick.  I took him to the doctor yesterday and he has strep throat and a sinus infection.  He has been sleeping a lot and sneezing a lot. Tonight (thankfully!) he is feeling better.  Tomorrow he leaves for his 8th grade trip to the Grand Canyon!  He is SO excited!!  He packed all of his things tonight so he's ready to go!

Monday night we had our annual Easter Egg Hunt with our neighbors.  It was so fun! 

Here are all the kids before the hunt.  Ava has the white hat on and seems to be scratching her forehead-ha ha!

Here are all the kids lined up ready for the egg hunt!

Look at all the eggs they found!

This weekend I hope to get a lot of spring cleaning done (exciting I know!) and on Sunday Graig, Ava and I are going to an indoor water park with some friends to celebrate our spring break!  It should be fun.  

Weekend fun with friends!

Yesterday Ava and I got up and got ready so we could go to a craft show with my friends Sabrina and Allison.  We all thought we were going to make a stop at the craft show then stop by the one garage sale in town. We decided to make a few more stops and have lunch together so it ended up being an all day trip.  It was a lot of fun!  I got some really cute things.  We went to this great craft store that Allison suggested.  I am SO glad we did I found a tone of great things at that store!

During our first stop at the craft show Allison and I got these matching bird baskets.  I added moss and a little bird that my Mom gave me. 

I got this little cloche from the Craft store.  We stopped by the floral department of our grocery store and bought this little plant to go underneath the cloche.  Allison got one of these too and she came over last night so we could re pot the plant into a smaller pot so it would fit under the cloche. 

I also bought this mason jar wire vase.  I love it!  I can't wait to get a bunch of flowers to put in it!

My favorite find of the day were these (free!!) windows that we found!!  We actually drove by a house and saw these outside.  We left a note and said we would buy them and the guy called back and  said he was going to trash them so Ava and I went this morning to pick them up!  It will be fun to craft with these!

At the craft store they had a mix of old and new things.  This platter was old.  I liked the shape of this.  I put this in my hutch but I think this platter would look good with chalkboard paint. 

Tonight we had taco night and we are getting ready for the week ahead.  This is the last week of school and work before spring break!!  I am going to watch 60 minutes and go to bed early-such an exciting life I live-ha ha!  Hope you all had a good weekend. 

During my blogging break...

I worked on a few cute projects that I wanted to show you.  I really enjoy quick and easy projects so these were fun to do.  One night my friend Sabrina, Allison and I had a craft night we made some rosettes.  OK they made rosettes.  I mainly messed mine up and they fixed them :)  I had one good one that I put on this basket that I covered in reindeer moss for spring. 

I also made a terrarium which I think turned out really cute.  As usual this wasn't my idea but I got the idea from a soft place to land.  Kimba did a great tutorial on making them. 

I have been going through our old family pictures and I found this baby picture of my Mom.  I think it's SO cute so I put it in a frame and it's now in our living room.  I think my Mom looks a lot like my baby niece Ainsley!

 My sister Shelby got this cute tart warmer at Wal-Mart in Iowa.  She showed it to me one night when we were talking on face time.  The very next night I went out and got one for my kitchen.  I love it!

Happy Thursday!

Being healthy

I wrote a few weeks ago about the green monster drink that have a few days a week for breakfast.  It's SOOO good and he keeps me full until lunch time and I get 4-5 servings of fruits and vegetables in each green monster!
Here is my recipe, I know I posted this a few weeks ago but I have been tweaking it and this is the one that I use
1/2 cup orange juice
1/3 package of frozen chopped spinach
1 banana
1 cup of frozen fruit  I use a mixture of strawberries, mango, peaches and pineapple from Wal-Mart(I thaw this overnight in the fridge)
ice
I mix this all togehter and it fits in my large 21 ounce starbucks cup.  I mix this up before I go to the gym in the morning and then I drink it as I am getting ready for work. 

I have been taking morning classes at the YMCA since the beginning of the year.  This morning I have my hardes class of the week.  It's called dynamic interval training and it's HARD.  The dynamic interval is 3 minutes of cardio, 3 minutes of strength, and 3 minutes of core then repeat that pattern for an hour doing different exercises.    During my first class in January I thought I was going to throw up thankfully I didn't and I stuck it out.  I actually look forward to going to this class now. 

Our instructor has started adding Tabata intervals during our cardio portion.  These are a killer but really effective. I thought I would mention them here because they are raise your metabolism for 36 hours after you complete one and you can do the exercises at home if you want. 

Each tabata takes four minutes and you do 4 exercises for 20 seconds as hard or fast as you can and then you rest for 10 seconds before continuing on to the next exercise.  After you complete a set you do a second set which equals 4 minutes of hard cardio. 

Also Brock and I have started doing 100 sit ups and 100 push ups each night...OK we did it last night and I hope we continue again tonight-ha ha!

Brock Aaron

Brock is getting SO big.  I know I say this all the time but he is getting huge.  He's way taller than me and he's already a little taller than Graig.  He's growing up waaaay too fast.  Next Friday he's going on his 8th grade trip to the Grand Canyon and he'll be gone for a week.  He is really excited about this trip and getting to be with his friends for a week. Graig heard from another parent that Brock is planning to sit next to a GIRL on the plane-Brock NEVER talks to us about girls so this was a surprise to us. We have  known the girl and her family since kindergarten so we approve of her and tthankfully Brock doesn't read my blog because he would DIE if he knew that I wrote about that on my blog-ha ha! 

Lately Brock and I have been bonding though cooking dinner together.  The boy LOVES to cook which is SO funny because he will only eat about 5 things-hot dogs, pizza, hamburger, tacos and spaghetti.  He told me that he might want to be a chef when he grows up!  He has also talked about being a pilot, a police officer and a gym teacher so he is keeping his options open.  Last night we made poppy seed chicken over noodles.  He didn't eat any of the chicken but he loved making it-ha ha.  

Tonight after work I tried to get a good picture of Brock for this post, if you think it's hard to get a good picture of a baby try getting a good picture of a 13 year old boy! Ha Ha  I do   love the one I took at the top of this post.  Happy Tuesday!