Spring Saturdays...

This spring we spent our Saturdays cheering on two adorable little ball players! 

Griffin played baseball again and enjoyed every minute!

It was so much fun to see him continue to develop...

He LOVED running the bases, sliding into home, and getting people out!

We loved cheering him on and seeing how proud he was of himself!

This was the first time my little Anderson buddy has been the one playing instead of cheering on his big brother!

He was so cute out there I had to fight the urge to run out on the field and squeeze him :)

He was a bit nervous before his first game, but after that he had a blast!

Mother's Day and More...

I had the awesome privilege of going to a Mother's Day Brunch at Anderson's school...it was precious!  He made some adorable presents for me, but please prepare yourself for my favorite...

Excuse me while I go eat him up...

His teacher apparently dressed them up and took these pictures, and they were made into Mother's Day cards for us...priceless!  Another keeper...Griffin made me a book at school--this page was my favorite--it's me screaming as he chases me with a green bug.  Notice the smile on his face...

Speaking of Griffin, have I mentioned what an INCREDIBLE big brother he is??  His little bro and sis are super blessed :)

I think I'm going to have to go snack on these precious pink cheeks now...can't even take it!

Nana and Poppy created some cardboard sleds and the boys had a BLAST sliding down a hill in their backyard...

My grandmother's sister (who lives in San Diego) has been visiting my grandmother for awhile, and they came to visit us for a week! 

Final Note:  please excuse all the snack references.  I'm on Weight Watchers...

do u need to laugh today??

Popsicles, Pigtails, and Pretty Blooms

Do all kids LOVE popsicles?  It's amazing how still and quiet five busy children can be with a popsicle in their hand.

My little princess has decided she wants to wear pigtails everyday!  When I get her out of bed in the morning she says, "I wear pigtails today!"  She loves to run and feel them bounce!

I am in love with hydrangeas...they are my absolute favorite flower and I had to take a few pictures of my favorite pigtail princess with them while they are in bloom!

My tree-climber...

I really LOVE flowers, and yet, I seem to be one of those people who just doesn't naturally have a green thumb.  Even my indoor houseplants die.  I never know if I'm watering too much or not enough--it's quite confusing.  So, you can imagine how ecstatic I get when things actually bloom around my house.  A couple weeks ago a lot of things in our yard were in full bloom, things that I haven't done anything to--maybe that's the secret?  I don't know, but I had to take a picture to remember that it is possible!

FIESTA!!!

I just want to throw out a disclaimer before I share this:  I in no way mean to portray on this blog that I am a perfect mother that is always doing creative, spiritual activities with my kids.  I really am not very creative and don't do many cute things with my kids, but I just blog about the things I do...mainly because I love getting ideas from everyone else's blogs! 

Okay, so last year I found some adorable Cinco de Mayo decorations at the Dollar Store, so I thought it would be fun to have a little family Cinco de Mayo party! 

We decorated the kitchen with our dollar decorations and each wore a very goofy looking sombrero--may I just say that I think it's hard not to have fun when everyone you're sitting with is wearing a sombrero--people in Mexico totally had a great idea with that one!

We had a fiesta (party) with arroz (rice), maiz (corn), papitas (chips), queso (cheese dip), and quesadillas (quesadillas). 

It was fun hearing all of us attempt to use the Spanish words throughout the meal! 

While we were eating I read some info about Mexico that I found on http://www.operationworld.com/ (great website for praying for other countries).  Here's some of the stuff I found:
18 million people live in poverty in Mexico City - one of the biggest and most polluted cities in the world. 7 million live in filthy housing as squatters. As many as 600,000 children sleep on the streets each night.
I haven't been able to get that number out of my mind....600,000 precious children just like mine will be sleeping in the street tonight.  And tomorrow night.  And the next.  It's heartbreaking. 
We spent some time praying for the people in Mexico and these precious children.  Our little fiesta was both fun and meaningful for us...think I might make it a tradition!

If you dare....

For the past two years we have been extremely blessed to sit under the most incredible, biblical teaching I've ever heard.  Michael and I both feel that God has used our pastor, David Platt's teaching from His word to make more of an impact on our spiritual growth than anything else in our lives.  Really, he just preaches the Word--straight up--and makes no excuses for it.  The crazy and unexpected thing?  He's only 31 years old.  And when you first listen to him you notice a little bit of a speech issue (not sure if it's a lisp or what...I don't even notice it now).  Of course the Lord would choose to use someone you wouldn't expect to make such a HUGE impact for His kingdom!  The reason I'm rambling is that David just wrote a book that is in stores today--the title is Radical.  If you read one book this year--think about choosing this one.  We picked up a few copies at church this past Sunday to give to people, and that night I decided to flip through it.  I couldn't put it down.
Here's a super short video about the book...WARNING:  he doesn't fool around (scroll to the bottom of the pg to pause my blog music)...


Radical by David Platt from Taylor Robinson on Vimeo.

The proceeds from the book go to help people in great spiritual and physical need, so you can feel great about ordering it :)  If you want to read more about the book, click here.  You can order it on amazon and other places.  And if you read it, let me know what you think!!

Hawaii!

We just got back from a trip to the most incredibly beautiful place on Earth!  It was seriously like God's majesty on display!  Here we are after the very LONG day of travel...

Our State Farm trip this year was to Hawaii (the Big Island), and it just so happens that we are celebrating our 10 year anniversary later this year, so we were thankful to have this trip together!

We both caught the snorkeling bug, and it was amazing seeing all the wildlife!

We were able to snorkle with dolphins, sea turtles, tons of beautiful fish, and we even saw an octopus!  We took lots of pictures of each other with an underwater camera and were SO excited to get it developed and show the kids.  You should have seen our faces when the sweet guy at the Walgreens photo lab told us the camera hadn't taken one picture.  Crushed!  I'm still trying to get over that one, but at least we got some neat shots from the shore.

I totally felt like I was on the set of Lost...I was looking for Jack and Hurley, but they must've been on the other side of the island :)

Akaka Falls

One night we went to the same hotel where my parents stayed on their honeymoon many years ago!  At night they shine lights in the water and you can watch the huge manta rays swim in to eat plankton!  It was such a neat experience, especially since I knew my parents had been to the same place!  I know this picture is terrible, but you can sort of make out the manta ray...

We saw this huge tiger shark from the shore...

This was our last dinner and it was our favorite!  We were able to watch the sun set over that gorgeous water and shed many tears that it was time to leave!

The kids had a WONDERFUL time with my parents while we were gone, and we were of course so happy to come home and see them.  We were just so thankful God blessed us with such a wonderful trip and were blown away at His amazing creation!