Spring Break 2013 - Aunt Mary's House

We arrived in Las Cruces on Sunday afternoon. My Grandma, Aunt Mary and Aunt Maureen had been planning on our arrival, AND my other cousin Emily, who lives in San Antonio was arriving at the same time. So Aunt Mary offered to have all the local and visiting families over to her house for one big party!!

Let me just tell you, it was SO MUCH FUN! We all had such a blast! Uncle Steve, Mary's husband grilled up some super yummy hot dogs and hamburgers. All my aunts and cousins brought different dishes, they were all so good! It was quite a feast!

All the kids, (my son's second cousins) could care less about the food though! They were running around and playing, and for kids who don't see each other very often, they all got along so well! We truly wish they could see each other more!

Then, my Aunt Mary and Aunt Maureen put together a very fun art project for all the cousins to do! My Aunt Mary is an elementary school art teacher so this is right up her ally! We all had so much fun!





At Mary and Steve's house! It is such a beautiful home and perfect for our huge family!

Jaden and Jonathan are a year apart in age! They got along so great! They both miss each other already! Jaden is my cousin Jeanette's oldest son.

My cousin Jeanette taking a picture of Benny! He had no problems posing!

My cousin Emily just arrived with her new little one Calum (she has 2 other kids too)! He is so precious! Grandma loves her Great grand babies!

Ben and Jonathan loved Mary's keyboard!

All the cousins loved the keyboard! Lainey (up front) and Lance (far right) are Emily's kids that I mention above and there is Jonathan and Jaden!

Mary and Steve got all the kids Easter treat bags! They basically spoiled all the kids and the kids loved it! ;) 

I LOVE this pic! Sweet Cal, 7 months old, with his mommy Emily!

Jeannette, Calum and Emily!

The second cousins all lined up by age, from right to left: Lance 7, Jaden 6, Jonathan 4 (almost 5), Lainey 4 (almost 5), Aubrey 3 (Almost 4), Eli 3 (Almost 4), Benny 1 (almost 2) and Landon 2. Landon is with his mommy, Melissa, he was a little shy for the photo. Some of the kids are making scary faces, in case you were wondering! Also, the only other second cousins we are missing are, Calum (who was inside nursing!), Amy's kids, Scarlet and Will and my cousin Joe's son, Owen. So there are 12 total! (We have a lot of Spring babies in the family, so in the next month, most of these kids will have Birthdays!)

The kids loved running around in the backyard!

Ben and Lainey are petting the doggies. Mary has 2 black Cocker Spaniels.

Now it was time for all the Great-Grand kids to go to Mary's Art Barn!

Maureen was leading the kids in a snake to get there. The art barn is where the truck is parked to the left.

Once we got in, the kids took their place at the table and Great-Aunt Mary taught all of them how to make a clay hand print!!! So cool!

I loved this shot since Grandma and Michael are the only ones posing!

I asked them to do it again!

Jaden, Aubrey, Lance and Landon are concentrating on what Great-Aunt Mary is saying.

I love how the kids are watching and listening!

Apparently I did something funny, but Emily was the only one who saw it!

There is proof I was there!!

Ben was having fun! (I did most of his for him!)

This was so funny! He was just watching her as she pushed his fingers into the clay!

Then later, they did it again! Ben thought it tickled!



Jonathan wanted to hold Cal. Cal wasn't too sure.

Jonathan and Lainey are only 10 days apart! So they were sizing everything up! She is such a cutie!

Great Aunt Maureen and Cal!

Maureen and Cal again, then my cousin Jeremy with his son Landon and Michael with Ben!!

J and I were having fun on his!

Even MORE gifts for the kids!!! Grandma, Mary and Maureen out did themselves!!! Thank you so much!!! Great memories of a very, very fun day!!!



Spring Break 2013 - The Trip

This Spring Break 2013, Michael and I decided to take the kids to visit my family in El Paso/Las Cruces area. My Grandma lives in Las Cruces and has requested us to come visit for a while, but she keeps coming here to visit instead! ;-) Also, 3 of mom's 4 sisters, 1 of her brothers and 3 of my cousins, their spouses and children live in the area too. So there was no shortage of people to visit with.

I wanted my boys to know El Paso/Las Cruces and at least have a memory of visiting family there. So I am very happy that we were able to go and we had such an AMAZING TIME! Thank you so much to all of my family for making us feel so welcomed and loved! Jonathan has already been talking about his return trip!

I took 1,200 photos of our 5 day trip! So it has taken me a little while to sort through them and organize them. I have sorted them into groups! First up is the trip in the car! It actually wasn't too bad. We had to make lots of potty stops which turned a 10 hour trip into a 12 hour trip both ways. But as long as everyone was "comfortable" we had happy passengers!

One thing I NEVER had on my childhood annual road trip to El Paso, a DVD player. We debated on whether or not to get one, but to be honest, I am SO GLAD we did. I know that it is the reason we had a good trip in the car! Madagascar 3, aka "Afro Circus" at our home, was the movie of choice.

In addition to movie time, we also did other fun things in the car. I used Pinterest.com to find some fun things to do to help the kids (and us) not go crazy!

I found these shirts at Target the week before we left. I just couldn't pass them up! This is the start of our second day on the road. We stayed the night in Pecos, TX, which is the half way point between here and EP.

I made the boys "binoculars" out of toilet paper rolls and duck tape, so they could spy things on the road. A fun thing from Pinterest.

We were dodging storms on our way to El Paso. Thankfully we never saw anything severe. But it gave us beautiful clouds to look at the whole way. We all enjoyed looking at all the hundreds of thousands of energy windmills.

They look deceivingly small from far away, but up close they are MASSIVE!

I learned from our road trip to Florida last summer that the night time in the car is the worst! I found on Pinterest of course, to bring glow sticks! The kids loved it!

 

It's drawing time, and Jonathan has drawn about what he has learned at school recently, Hibernation - this is a squirrel hibernating underground. I thought it was super cool.

As we got close to El Paso, we stopped in Horizon City. My father had purchased 3 lots of land here almost 20 years ago. Amy and I now own it, so I wanted to show Michael.

This is pretty much it...nothing happening just yet. But hey, we own that! ;-) 

The not so good part of the trip was the sleeping part. We thought it would be a good idea to bring a blow up mattress for the boys to sleep on together, but Ben has never not slept in a crib, so the poor little guy didn't know what to do with himself. Thankfully my cousin Jeanette let us borrow her pack'n'play for our 3rd and 4th nights and things got a little better after that.

The boys loved staying in a hotel!

When we were in El Paso, we stopped to visit my Granny and Grandpa at the cemetery.

We had lunch at Arby's just a few blocks from where my mom and dad grew up. It was just J and I at the table and I was reminiscing about my parents. And he sighed and said, "I just wish they were right here with me so I could hug them." ...It made me a little emotional. He is just such a sweet boy. I snapped a quick pic since his sweet kind eyes seemed even bigger, sweeter and kinder right then.

We had such a great time on our trip!!!! This is on the way home and they are CRASHED out!

The Bake Sale

This past school year I have been the Co-Chair of the "PTC" (Parent Teacher Committee) for the Day School, that they boys attend. It is similar to the PTA. My Co-Chair is my dear friend Kathryn and I am so thankful she has been my partner on this fundraising adventure...as we have found out the hard way...FUNDRAISING IS HARD! Our first semester was trying to say the least, and we started this year discouraged, but ready to try again!

We had been told previously that we could not have a Bake Sale, but we decided to try asking again and to our surprise we were told YES! So we got to work quickly; we made signs and put them all over the school, we sent home flyers with all the kids, and recruited lots of baking volunteers. In 1 weeks time, we were able to put on one pretty awesome Bake Sale! Another mom had the great idea to have it be donation only, and with that we made $312!!! A nice deposit for our little fund has really boosted our spirits and we are ready for other fun projects and fundraisers! And we have had several requests to repeat the Bake Sale before the end of the year!

We will have at least 3 or 4 other opportunities to raise money this year. One of our goals is to replace the book shelves in the school office. They are at least 40 years old, and bowing under the pressure of all the books. So we are excited that we might be able to fulfill this request! We also hope to buy new bikes and trikes for the kids to play on! Hopefully I will have more success stories in the next few months!

Kathryn setting up the Bake Sale table. She is an awesome task manager!

The bake sale was only 2 days before we went out of town, so I opted to not "bake" something. I went to the Popcorn Shop and bought a bag of "Tutti Fruiti" popcorn. I divided them up into little bags. They are in the red tray in the middle of this picture. They were a big hit! And super yummy and fun for the kids! 

We placed our table right outside the main door, so EVERYONE saw us as they picked up their kids at the end of the day! It was a BEAUTIFUL day, like it was made for our Bake Sale! :-)

Ben and the twins next to him were the official greeters. Ben loved it. "HI!" He would call out to anyone who walked by!

Just some of the goodies that were donated: Oreo truffles, chocolate chip cookies and donuts!

Hershey Kiss/Pretzel/M&M yummies, Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies, Pumpkin Muffins...

The kids LOVED helping with the Bake Sale! They loved even more that we let them pick a couple items from the table!!! Ben, Jonathan and Kathryn's daughter Avery.

Now Brady has joined the kids! I was very thankful to Brady's mom Shelley, who took care of my kids while I ran the Sale!!!