Remembering 2 Years of Life

Hard to believe that 2 years ago today, I was in labor at the hospital getting ready to deliver our FIRST baby boy! After about 7 hours, Elijah Benjamin arrived into the world!

He seriously was just perfect! 

Here are a few glimpses of his first year of life!

Elijah's first Bronco Game- 2 moths old

playing with his best friend, Clara- 3 months old

Looking all handsome for church- 4 months old

Elijah's first Christmas

Learning to sit with Clara- 7 months old

Elijah's first birthday!

Happy Birthday, Little Man!

We are so blessed to have you in our family! 

You fill our house with love, SMILES and laughter!

We pray that you will grow into a man who loves and fears God! 

Hurray for Date Nights!

Last night was Date Night for Mark and I and it couldnt have come at a better time! 

Going on a date with my husband is something I look forward to more than anything.

It is SO nice to get away with your love to talk without any interruptions! 

It's wonderful and so needed for all relationships(especially if you have 4 kids)!

One of our favorite things to do is to try new restaurants.

I think if I was loaded, I would spend a lot of money on fancy restaurants:) 

We headed over to The Melting Pot in Littleton. It is a fondue place. It is very expensive, so we have never gone. But thanks to a VERY generous gift from one of Marks students at Valor, we went last night!

We started with a Spinach Artichoke cheese fondue- they make it right at the table in front of you and give you bread cubes, granny Smith apples and an assortment of veggies to dip.

We ate it all:) 

After that is the salad. 

Mine was a Spinach Mushroom salad with bacon, red onions and the best raspberry vinaigrette I have ever tasted! Mark got the Ceaser. 

After that came the meat- I got a sampler platter with shrimp, steak, salmon, chicken- and the sauces they gave you were amazing! You would throw all the raw veggies in the boiling broth and then cook you r meet on the skewers. It was delicious! 

Then came dessert- we got a Turtle Fondue- milk chocolate, caramel and pecans. They flambéed it right in front of you and served it with marshmallows, rice krispie treats, bananas, strawberries, cheesecake, pound cake, and brownies. AMAZING!  It melted in your mouth. oh, the creamy, chocolaty goodness!

It definitely was a wonderful night and a cool experience.

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to a daddy who...

is patient, loving and kind

makes the best waffles ever

loves to wrestle and fight with Elijah

reads and reads and reads and reads and reads to his kiddos

makes us all laugh

loves the gospel and the Word

loves others and loves having people over:) 

loves the church

works SO hard to provide for our family

is a GREAT teacher:)

is the love of our lives!

We Love you, Mark 

and are blessed to have you

 as a husband and father!

xoxoxoxo

Ready to Smile?

Seriously, is he not the cutest thing ever??

Dino Ridge

Every Friday, I try to take the kids on a little trip to area attractions,etc. Two weeks ago we went to Dinosaur Ridge. It was full of dinos and bones and tracks. Pretty cool stuff. 

We went on a shuttle bus up the ridge and a guide showed us all the tracks and bones. His talk was filled with "millions of years". I tried to explain to the girls that we do not believe the world is millions of years old, but they really have no idea what I am talking about. They are not good with time. Everything is "yesterday" to them- even if it happened last year. I told them that God created the dinos and they probably died out after the flood. Needless to say, it was a good trip and we enjoyed having Mark with us too! 

Friday Fun

In case any of you wondered- Elijahs eye is not that bad. It didnt bruise just was swollen.

We went to Littleton Historical Museum in the morning- its FREE and after one pic, my camera died.

At least I got one cute one of Ella Bella...

We had a BIG rain shower that evening and I got some pics of the kids playing in the rain- Auntie Emy gave them the idea and they LOVED it!

We had Emy and the kids over and Marcus joined us too.

 We ate a YUMMY new recipe I tried out- I will post it soon. Its a keeper. And we played card games-

Mark even pulled out his magic tricks- good times:)lol

Not Just Another Thursday Night

We had Grandma, Grandpa, and Miss Rachel over for a dinner of meatball subs, salad and a yummy fruit dessert. Of course, games were pulled out and Rachel and Grandma endured BINGO with the girls, while grandpa  read over and over to little Elijah.

After they left, the kids were a bit wound up and went downstairs to play a bit before bed. Elijah started screaming and of course, he hurt himself. Poor guy fell on a plastic bucket and cut his eye. I think it may bruise tonight. He's tough though and stopped crying almost right away. 

this was the same eye- that he hurt in the spring, just not as worse this time!

click here

Creation

My sweet friend, Katie, always drums up business for me in the cake decorating field. 

Here is a wedding shower cake I made.

They didnt want fondant, so I used a new buttercream recipe

 and a new double chocolate chip cake recipe. 

It was So yummy (I made a small one for me)

I need Mark to continue working on my website so I can start promoting my business 

and drum up some more customers!

20 random things...

1. This is my 304th post!
2. I have a nasty cold this Sunday morning, but still may go to church. I was in preschool church last week helping out and the week before we had sick children,  I miss the teaching SO much, so I will probably go.  Plus, a missionary from Italy will be there complete with a pasta lunch- cant miss free food and talk of Italy!
3. My bathrooms REALLY need a good cleaning.
4. Its supposed to be near 90 all week- ugh!
5.We have NO food in this house- I must go grocery shopping.
6. I want to paint my dining room red this week and make curtains with this COOL fabric I found at Joannes.
7. I miss my mom.
8. Mark starts summer school tomorrow- half days for the month of June.
9. Elijah's new favorite word- NO.
10. I cant wait to finish off our back patio- we are laying stones to make a larger patio, then off to Craigs List to find patio furniture. and I need to get mulch around all the Iris I transplanted- thanks Chad and Mel.
11. My legs are SO sore from my run yesterday. I can barely go down steps. My goal is to get rid of my belly pouch. Instead of eating less, I am going to try running daily. We will see if it works. I just LOVE to eat and cant imagine cutting foods out:)lol
12. Sophia just got new dangly cat earrings. She loves them.
13. Did I mention that I have a HORRIBLE cold? or maybe its allergies?
14. Our church plant is going well- core group meetings end in July and then we will start Community Groups. I am excited!
15. Arianna is getting so much better at reading. She is getting faster and enjoying it more.
16. Speaking of reading, Sophia got her achievement test results back and on the reading section she scored a perfect score- there were 100 questions and she answered every one right! It said she is at a 5th grade level(?) not sure how that works but I thought it was cool that she didnt miss one! (Both girls did really well on the tests)
17.  I really love my husband- he is such a good dad too- I thought of that this morning while he was changing the second poopy diaper of the morning. (and it was a cloth diaper- which takes on a whole new meaning) He rocks!!
18. Ella Bella needs a haircut. I am going to take her someplace special to get it done because she has never been anywhere to get it cut before. I've always cut it and I dont do a great job!
19. I am wearing a dress to church today that I got for my step-brothers wedding many years ago. Its shorter than I remember. Could I have grown?
20. I had to fix 5 typos on this post before publishing it.