Our Weekend - Wrap Party, Hunger Games and Angry Birds Party!

This weekend was rather busy, but fun for the most part.

Friday night I went to a "It Works" wrap party. I was pleasantly surprised with my results!

Saturday morning, we dropped Jake's truck off for an oil change and took Jackson back to the doctor for a follow up visit to check his ears and to see about some congestion he woke up with on Friday. Thankfully his ears looked fine and she said to continue using lots of saline for his congestion. I also ran our warm air humidifier the last 2 nights and that has seemed to help bring the congestion out. He does have a runny nose now, but as Shrek says, "better out than in". ☺

Then after picking Jake's car up from the oil change, we dropped Jackson off at Jake's mom's house so we could go see a movie. Jake had won free movie tickets at work, so we decided to go see what all the hype was about and see The Hunter Games. Neither of us have read the books and only knew a little bit about it from friends of ours that have read the books/seen the movie. We expected the "kids killing kids", but weren't really ready for how disturbing that would be. We left the movie feeling sad and well... disturbed. I'm sure there is so much more to the story than we know and I do want to find out more about it because I hope there is some revenge down the road. It was just so hard to wrap my head around the whole idea of "Hunger Games" and it made me sad to think that things like this probably actually do happen, on a much smaller scale, in other parts of the world.

Saturday evening we went to a Trivia Night with Jake's mom. She had been asked by a co-worker if she'd like to go and she then asked us if we would like to go. Jake and I love a good trivia night, but this one was one of our least favorites for sure.  The questions were okay, but we didn't really know anyone there or even at our table, so that made it a little awkward. Oh well.

Sunday morning we went to church and then Sunday afternoon we went to my nephew Landon's 5th birthday party! Gosh I can't believe he's 5 already. I was privileged to be in the delivery room when he was born, its crazy that this little baby is now 5!!!

He LOVES Angry Birds, and well what kid doesn't??  So my sister threw him an angry birds party!! She did such a great job! She made everything, including the cake, cupcakes, banner and all the decorations!

This was the table for his gifts. She (and my mom) made the banner hanging up behind the table using the Cricut.

The cake table.

A close up of the cake my sister made. She's so good at making cakes!!

She also made these super cute angry bird cupcakes!

For the table centerpieces, she made balloon angry birds and put brown shred around them, as their nest!

She had a fun egg hunt with golden eggs and a cute angry birds game where she painted cans to look like the pigs and had a red ball that looked like an angry bird (sort of like bowling). I think Landon had a great 5th birthday party!

This is a picture of the kids getting ready to go find their eggs.

The birthday boy with his angry birds shirt on!

The kids searching for eggs.

Landon opening some of his presents.

And I don't normally get my camera out without taking a picture of my sweet boy. ♥

After the party, we went home, had dinner and tried to relax before starting the work week all over again. We got to bed fairly early and I'm so happy we did. I hope you all had a great weekend!

Liebster Blog Award

Yesterday I was awarded the Liebster Blog Award by Melissa at Bless this Voignier Nest and Morgan at Short Sleeved Pants. I am honored to have been chosen for this award. Thank you Melissa and Morgan. ☺

The Liebster Award is for up-and-coming bloggers (200 followers or less) that you think deserve recognition for their fabulous blogging abilities.

Here's how this award process works...

Each nominee should:

Choose five blogs to give the Liebster Award to.

Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.

Post the award on your blog.

List the bloggers you gave the award to with links to their sites.

Leave a comment on their blogs to let them know they've received the award.

Share five random facts about yourself.

1. I have a soft spot in my heart for animals. I mean to the point where I can barely kill a spider if its in my house. I don't really like spiders, but its hard for me to kill one.

2. I love to scrapbook, but lately have not had the time, energy or motivation to do it. I really need to get working on a book for Jackson. I don't want to be putting it together a few months before his graduation!!

3. I tend to be a bit of a pack rat. I am so sentimental and have a hard time throwing anything away. I do, however, keep my stuff organized. I use my organization as a way of justifying not throwing anything away. ☺

4. I really don't like to cook and therefore, Jake does all our cooking. Before we got married, Jake knew this and thankfully he likes to cook. He even does all the grocery shopping for us. ☺ Baking is different and I do like to bake. Which leads me to #5 of this list...

5. I love sweets. Soft sugar/chocolate chip cookies right out of the oven, brownies, cake, ice cream (chocolate chip cookie dough, cookies n cream), pie (pumpkin, apple), donuts... I love it all!!!!

The blogs I nominate are:

Holly @ Where We Can Live Like Jack and Sally

Alexis @ Life's Sweetest Little Blessings

Jennifer @ Our Love and Our Blessing

Mrs. Howard @ The Howard Bunch

Catie @ Tales of a Real Housewife

These 5 wonderful blogs are written by 5 wonderful women! I enjoy reading these blogs daily. ♥

Embrace the Camera

We took several pictures together on Easter. I posted these already, but decided to do some photo editing to make them a little different.

Wednesday Loves and Pins

♥ I'm loving that we're half way through the week already! 

♥ I'm loving that we'll be celebrating mine and my dad's birthdays tomorrow evening at my parents' house. My dad's birthday is today and mine is tomorrow. Our family gets together every Thursday evening at my parents' house, but it will be extra special because of our birthdays. :-)

♥ I'm loving that the Enfamil AR formula I switched Jackson too last Friday is helping SO much with his spit up. He isn't spitting up near as much now, only every great once in a while and even when he does, it seems to be a lot less than what it used to be. I am so happy!!

♥ I'm loving this sweet boy and the cute onesie he's wearing. It was a gift and I love it. It says, "Son of a Scrapbooker." Though its been forever since I scrapbooked, I do love it and really need to get started on Jackson's scrapbook.

♥ I'm also loving that when I got home from work yesterday, Jackson gave me lots of sweet baby kisses. He kept pulling my face close to his and opening his mouth to kiss me. It was about the sweetest thing EVER!!

♥ I'm loving this song. I know its kinda weird and the video is way weird, but I really like the song for some strange reason. :-)

♥ And as always, I'm loving my super awesome family. ☺

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Here are some of my favorite pins recently.

S'mores Bites

Bobby pins in a tic tac box. Great idea!!

Planter Umbrella Stand

Tin Can Hanging Planters

I love Jennifer Aniston's hair cut and color in this picture.

Love this summer look.

This playroom is so cute. I'd love to have a playroom for Jackson (and siblings) someday.

Easter 2012

We had such a wonderful Easter this year. Jackson looked so cute in his little outfit. :-)

We started the day with giving Jackson his basket at home. Its kind of hard to put an Easter basket together without candy, but I got him some little Gerber Puffs and some yummy flavors of baby food. I also got him a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse C.D. for us to listen to in the car. :-)

Then we went to church for breakfast and a beautiful morning service outside. After the morning service we had our regular Sunday service, followed by an Easter Egg Hunt outside. It was a beautiful day. The weather was PERFECT!!

The kids singing down front during our regular Sunday service.

Jackson outside for the Easter Egg Hunt. He loved playing with the eggs.

Daddy helping Jackson with his bag of eggs. He loved his bag of eggs and wouldn't let go of it. Ha.

After church we took some family pictures. This is a tradition that we do every year.

Our little family of 3! ♥

My parents with their grandchildren. ☺

My Uncle Mark and Aunt Karla with their 2 boys Tyler and Travis and Travis' girlfriend, Nadine.

My Mom with her Dad and brother.

The boys... Mason, Landon and Jackson.

During our little photo shoot, we had to take a short break for a bottle. ☺

Jackson is getting better and better at holding his own bottle.

After church we went to the graveyard to visit Grammy. It was the Thursday before Easter, last year, that she passed away. My Papa Reg had bought a pretty hummingbird to put on the tombstone next to her name. :-) I miss her so much, especially during the holidays. I wish so much that she was here to see Jackson. I just know she would have loved him so much and he would have loved her too. 

After visiting Grammy, we went to my Great Uncle Don and Great Aunt Judy's house for lunch. We had a great time visiting with family. ☺

My aunt Lisa made these lamb cakes covered in marshmallows. They were really cute. Landon enjoying a lamb.

My sister had this cute bunny hat that Landon wore for his first Easter. We took some pictures of Mason and Jackson in the hat and their cute little Easter outfits.

I just love Mason's smile! So cute.

My 2 boys relaxing after lunch. ♥

My sweet boy on his first Easter.

Jackson and I. He was not thrilled with taking pictures at this point.

Daddy getting Jackson to laugh. I just adore that smile!

Jackson eying a few glasses of soda on the table. He looks so big in this picture. ☺

We had a great Easter. I hope you all did as well!

Jackson is 24 Weeks Old!

Jackson turned 24 weeks old this past Thursday. 

He is getting so big and is such a happy baby! I just hate leaving him in the mornings because he's always so happy and fun. 

He's started rolling his hands like we do in Patty Cake. He'll "roll it up" with his hands. Its way cute!!

He had a great first Easter. He looked so cute in his little outfit and hat. A post on that is following shortly. :-)

We started him on Enfamil AR to try and see if that would help with the spit up. I had heard that this formula really worked for spitting up, but that it could be constipating for some babies, so I was hesitant to try it and just bought it this week as a last resort. I'm pleased to say that no other formula or even the Zantac has helped as much as the Enfamil AR has so far. I'm loving it!! I'm also pleased to say that there have not been any constipation issues! Yay! We just started it last Friday, so we're still in trial mode, but so far its working great. He still spits up on occasion but its only about 3 or 4 times a day as opposed to so many times I would lose count. Its also almost always shortly after a bottle. Before he would spit up from the time he took a bottle to 3 and 4 hours later. I almost hate to get my hopes up, but so far this new formula is working like a charm. :-)

I was off work yesterday, so I decided to take him into work to show him off to my co-workers. He hadn't been in to see them since he was around 6 weeks old. He was such a little charmer. He smiled for all of them and was so happy while we were there. I dressed him in his little "tie" onesie so he'd be dressed for the office. :-) My co-workers got a kick out of it.

Good Friday

I took the above picture while we were on our honeymoon in Maui. I saw this while we were in Hana. It always makes me think of the day Jesus was crucified because the sky is so dark and cloudy. 

My aunt posted this poem on Facebook this morning. It makes you stop and think about what Jesus did for us on that dreadful day. So I thought I'd share it here on my blog. 

 

On that wretched day the soldiers mocked him,

Raucous laughter in a barracks room,

"Hail the king!" they sneered, while spitting on him,

Brutal beatings on this day of gloom.

Though his crown was thorn, he was born a king—

Holy brilliance bathed in bleeding loss—

All the soldiers blind to this stunning theme:

Jesus reigning from a cursed cross.

Awful weakness mars the battered God-man,

Far too broken now to hoist the beam.

Soldiers strip him bare and pound the nails in,

Watch him hanging on the cruel tree.

God's own temple's down! He has been destroyed!

Death's remains are laid in rock and sod.

But the temple rises in God's wise ploy:

Our great temple is the Son of God.

"Here's the One who says he cares for others,

One who says he came to save the lost.

How can we believe that he saves others

When he can't get off that bloody cross?

Let him save himself! Let him come down now!"—

Savage jeering at the King's disgrace.

But by hanging there is precisely how

Christ saves others as the King of grace.

Draped in darkness, utterly rejected,

Crying, "Why have you forsaken me?"

Jesus bears God's wrath alone, dejected—

Weeps the bitt'rest tears instead of me.

All the mockers cry, "He has lost his trust!

He's defeated by hypocrisy!"

But with faith's resolve, Jesus knows he must

Do God's will and swallow death for me.