In Honor of the Royal Wedding

I'm slightly disappointed in myself for having zero Royal Wedding posts until now, the day before the main event.  I've always been fascinated by the Royals.  Since high school I've said I wanted a white fluffy dog named Princess Ferguson.  Seriously...it's Fergie's registered AKC name.  If I wasn't lazy I'd scan in the certificate to show you.  (This, of course, was before the Duchess of York scandal.  Now I tell people she's named after Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas.)

I digress.  Anyway, I stole this off of someone's Facebook status and thought it was hilarious:

In honor of the big wedding on Friday, use your royal wedding guest name. Start with either Lord or Lady. Your first name is one of your grandparents' names. Your surname is the name of your first pet, double-barreled with the name of the street you grew up on.


Cordially Yours,

Lady Margaret Fergie Prestwick

Happy Easter

Our Easter activities began last Thursday with a practice Easter egg hunt after boot camp.  We wanted to make sure our kids were pros by Sunday.

Love this one...there's a bunny on the back of her outfit.

Our attempt at a group picture

Madeline and Samantha...guess who was the egg hunting pro.



On Saturday we went to my parents house for what I'll call the first Noto pool party of the season.  We had crawfish, boiled crabs, boiled shrimp and my dad's famous grilled oysters...YUM!

As you can see, Madeline was a little less than thrilled with the seafood.  Her delicacy of choice was Sponge Bob cheese crackers.  We obviously have some work to do.

WASSUP!!

(A certain little someone refuses to wear a hat, which explains the sunscreen mohawk)

On Sunday morning, the Easter bunny visited our house. 

The thing with the monkey is a bathing suit. We were shopping at Target and she started saying, "MiMi! MiMi! (toddler translation: Monkey)  I handed her the bathing suit and she kept loving on it like it was her baby doll...too cute.  After she went through all of her Easter goodies she spent the rest of the morning in her "MiMi" suit. 

Opening her present from Mommy and Daddy

Mmmm, puffs!

My parents, sisters, Jon's parents and brother Ben came over for Easter.  We all went to the Co-Cathedral for 11 am Mass.  We arrived at church early, so Maddie and Granny took some pictures to stay busy.

After Mass we came back to our house for lunch.  Since this was the first major holiday that we had at our house, I decided we should break out our china.  After 5 1/2 years of marriage we finally used it, and I'm happy to report it was so much fun!  I felt like we were having a grown up tea party, although I questioned my sanity by choosing IVORY placemats/napkins and wine glasses that would be more appropriate for shots (or maybe I just like alot of wine!).  Of course I forgot to take a picture before..I pushed my sister out of the way to get this one and the shot, I mean wine glass was already being used.

After lunch we had an Easter egg hunt for Madeline in the backyard.  We put a goldfish in each egg and she was very excited.  If our neighbors were watching through the fence they probably thought we were crazy: we had 4 cameras, 2 cell phones and one video camera documenting one child collecting eggs.  It was hilarious.

I hope all of you had a very Happy Easter!

Here's Your Sign...

Let me start off by saying we haven't had rain at our house in WEEKS...

Yesterday, I'm sitting at a stoplight when all of a sudden there's water drops on my window and windshield.  They keep coming, and I get so excited about the "rain" that I pick up my phone to call Jon.   Right as I'm about to dial, I look over and notice the person in the car next to me is cleaning their windshield.  20+ mph winds yesterday were creating the "rain drops" on my car. 

Nice.

Too much TV?

You know your husband has been watching too many episodes of "Extreme Couponing" when...

You're leaving Old Navy and he says "that was a good haul." 

Ha.

(Disclaimer: The show is my choice, not his.  He just so happens to be a very good listener. :)

Cracking Up

Madeline went to Hunt's house this morning while I had a doctor's appointment. I'm not sure what's so funny, but these two crack themselves up! We are sure going to miss the Harris family when they move in a few weeks.

Ducks

Jon spent the weekend at Luke's bachelor party, so Madeline and I spent some time at my parents house.  They live in a subdivision with a golf course, so when the weather is nice my dad will take Madeline on the golf course to feed the ducks (which she loves...and she'll say "duck" about 541808486 times).  I thought these pictures were so sweet!

What a very lucky girl Madeline is, because on Sunday afternoon Aimee and Gabe took her back to feed more ducks!  Better than Disneyworld for a 16 month old.

Emily's Surprise Party

Saturday night I attended a surprise 30th birthday party for my friend Emily at Lucky Strike Bowling in downtown Houston.  Her husband Derrek had been planning this party since January.  It was SO hard to keep such a big seceret, but she had no idea!  It was great!  Derrek did such a good job of planning everything.  There was a photographer, a slideshow, an awesome cake, and even pre-assigned teams already loaded  at each lane. (PS - the food and drinks were great...not something you usually expect at a bowling place.)

Gotcha!

Emily, Johnna, Kim, me, Colette

Happy Birthday Emily!



Happy 29th Birthday Jon!

On Friday we celebrated Jon's 29th birthday!  He was busy with work most of the day (which is a good thing) so he rushed home at 5:30 so we could open presents before dinner.

I told Jon that part of the fun of having kids is that they can open your birthday presents for you. 

We got him a new GPS, a bluetooth and Ralph Lauren Polo shirt.  Madeline was obviously hoping for books or bubbles. :) 

After presents we went to eat at the downtown Aquarium. 

Paul, Dayna and Ben met us for dinner.

This restaurant is great for kids.  The fish were instant entertainment.

When the fish are no longer entertaining, there's always the IPhone!

Birthday Boy

We had such a fun evening!  Happy birthday Jon!!!

Puppy Love

Froberg's

Yesterday we went with our friends Valerie, Brock, Kim and Hunt to Froberg's in Alvin to pick fresh strawberries. 

If you've been reading this blog for awhile, you might remember this post and picture from last year. 

(We missed you, Ayse and Bella!)

Oh, what a difference a year makes.

Cool Cat

We hit the jackpot this year.  The berries were huge and there were tons of them!  Once Madeline got the hang of it, it was a holy mess.  We came home with lots of strawberries with little finger holes.  The original plan was for her to wear a white outfit with red polka dots and strawberries on it (dress for the occasion, right?).  Luckily I came to my senses before we left the house. 



What a good helper!  She loved carrying the bucket around, and it was heavy.

                                                              Mommy, look what I got!



Mommy and Maddie

Kim and Hunt

Valerie and Brock

Brock loved the strawberries.  I think he devoured 3 while we were picking them!

Kiddos



It's a good thing my kid loves to eat these things.  I made strawberry shortcake last night and will be devouring strawberry smoothies this week.

On a similar but unrelated note, I think Madeline set a new record for messiest eating yesterday.  A dinner of BBQ chicken, black beans and strawberries required a bath directly afterwards!