Countdown to Easter

Em has had a really fun week. Egg hunts, Easter themed tea party, new surprises! She's had so much Easter fun already, hopefully she won't be too disappointed if this yucky rain ruins everything for tomorrow! Here's what's been going on!

Her school party was really cute, as always, but Clinton surprised Emma by showing up!

The set-up! The moms are so clever!

Ready to hunt!

Showing off her BIG egg with Daddy!

With Ms. Hiner (and blue teeth!)

I had to go back to work after the party, so Em had to go to Mother's Day Out. She wasn't pleased, and really, I felt bad about it. Thankfully, I got all caught up at work, so I was able to leave a little early. I picked her up and we stopped by the bakery for some Easter treats. I had a plan.

We had a little tea party, just the two of us!

Real tea (iced sweet tea, that is!) Ha!

Little bunny cakes!

It's the simple things in life...

Em and I talked about Easter, and read the story from her children's bible. This is where she learned that we celebrate Easter because in her words "God alived himself". Can't beat that. 

After our party, it was time for dance. While we were gone, her daddy got ANOTHER surprise ready for her! She had lost her TV in one of our battles over cleaning her room. (We had taken it away a few weeks ago.) She had earned it back using her reward chart, but we had decided it was time for her to get a new one. The old one didn't work that great. We talked to Em about it awhile ago, and told her if she let us sell her old outdoor toys that she had outgrown (playhouse, car, etc.), we'd use the money to buy her a new TV. I can't believe she agreed! Everything sold and Clinton had been bargain shopping. Em didn't know that he'd found her a new one. When we got back from dance, he had her new TV set up in her room, playing a movie! She was so excited! AND I have a new bargaining chip to make her clean up her room! Ha!

Yesterday, was the annual MOPS egg hunt. I can't believe this is the 3rd one we've been to! We were so happy to be able to spend some park time with our friends! I helped hide eggs while some of the moms told Easter story using resurrection eggs. Then it was time to hunt!

Haydon, Em, and Payton. Don't know what is going on with that grin!

Then we watched the big kids, they were so fast!

Ace showing off his loot to the little kids!

We had a nice picnic lunch afterwards. Just hanging out, chatting, letting the kids play! Oh, I love springtime!

Here's hoping the rain moves away, so we can enjoy the rest of our weekend!

Practically Perfect

Emma has loved Mary Poppins since... well, since I MADE her watch it. Mommy knows best! So when we saw that the Broadway musical was coming to Dallas Summer Musicals, we had to take her!

We picked her up early from school Tuesday, and headed straight for Dallas and the hotel. We stayed at the Hilton Anatole, which was beautiful! Emma was just as excited to stay at a hotel as she was to go to the play! We always have to unplug the phones, so she can work!
 

Em had informed me that she didn't want to go to a kid restaurant. She was dressed up, so she wanted to go to a FANCY restaurant. We were skeptical, but we came up with a good compromise. Texas de Brazil is a Brazilian steakhouse, but it feels a little more fancy because the meat comes out on these sword things. We thought she'd get a kick out of that! Plus, it was helpful, with an active 4 year old, that there is little to NO waiting for the food. She gets bored just waiting for us to finish eating, so I wasn't looking forward to making her sit still during a multi-course dinner. It was delicious and fun. Win/win! 

And of course, it was a special day, so she HAD to have dessert! (Me, too!)

Look at all those chocolate teeth! Ha!

Then it was time to head to the theater! Emma kept saying "I'm SO excited!! But I'm a little nervous!"

This picture tugs my heart, she looks so grown-up here!

Waiting, waiting, waiting!

Terrible phone pictures! 

The show was really good! All of Em's favorite songs, plus lots of new ones! She, of course, was dancing in her seat! AND in mine, I kept freaking out, thinking she was going to KICK the lady next to me! But we made it. By the time the first act was over, I was exhausted from her wollering (is that a word?) me to death! She was banished to Daddy for the 2nd act! Only downside was the length of the show, it was almost 3 hours from start to finish, and Emma was TIRED. She stuck it out, though. Didn't melt down until we were back to the hotel!

Here is a little tidbit of what we saw! Enjoy!

Weekly Wrap-up Post!

Sounds better than yet another catch up post. And let's just ignore the fact that it's been more than one week that I'm catching up on!

I'm going to skip forward and write about the past few days first. Feel the need to whine a little. Don't tell Emma, to her that is a NO NO! I've been feeling bad all week. Clinton came home sick Tuesday, and gave. it. to. me. I, finally, went to minor emergency Friday, and I have STREP! It is turrible, turrible I tell you! On top of that... my insomnia has reemerged big time! I know it probably started out due to me feeling so bad, but I started waking up at 3 am and not being able to go back to sleep. Last night, I never went to sleep. Well, I'm lying. I went to sleep sometime between 9-10 am and slept for a couple hours. Feeling exhausted, I was confident I'd be able to sleep tonight. In fact, I took a sleeping pill to make sure. Laid down, closed my eyes... then started having what I'm describing as anxiety attack symptoms (mild ones. I've had an anxiety attack before, I remember :(...) I jumped out of bed and ran into here (Man Cave, where the desktop is), calmed myself down. I think I was just so stressed about getting sleep, I caused anxiety about it. So... here I sit. Blogging. Not sleeping.

Ok, pity party over. I'll sleep when I'm dead, right?

The past couple of weeks have been pretty boring and routine around here. But here is a couple of pictures of my cute kid to make reading about my terrible ordeal through my whine fest worth it!

Em and I cleaned out the craft closet, and she found some of the printable activities that I had stored in there. Of course, we had to do them!

I think my storage for these little games is SO CLEVER, don't you?

And now some random phone pics!

We spent as much time outside as we could last week when it was nice out. 

She dressed herself. Don't judge me.

It's ELECTRIFYING! Name that movie! Ha!

My ballerina at dance class!

Pretend cooking with real ingredients made a resurrection.

Yesterday, loaded up on antibiotics, I snagged a last minute (like within an hour) Mini Easter Photo Shoot at the local baby store!  Hope I didn't infect anyone! :/ I tried to stay away from everyone and was in and out as quick as I could!

My pretty girl!

Em has been busy coloring pictures for me to make me feel better! Sweetie!

 

All caught up, so now I'm going to go give my bed a second chance! Night!

Lib Lou & Caw-Caw's Birthday Party

I'm way late posting this. Hopefully, I get on writing about WHY soon! Worst blogger evah!

Our niece and nephew (on Clinton's side) share their birthday! The Ides of March. Or March 15th. I just can't help myself, every time I hear 3/15, I immediately think "Et tu, Brute?" But I digress.

Em was so excited to celebrate Libby's 4th and Cawyer's 1st birthdays! That is until we got her ready and began begging her to wear these glasses...

She wasn't having it, but we thought she looked so nerdy cute! BTW- they are just clear glass ones from Claire's.

Once we got to the party, she was back happy again. It was at a bounce house place called, Leapin' Lizards.

The party was cute and the kids had fun! The more I see them, the more I'm convinced location parties are the WAY to go!

Happy Birthday to my super cute niece, Libby and nephew, Cawyer!

It's so Rewarding...

Parenting, that is. Or it is when you are not constantly bumping heads with a whiny, headstrong 4 year old. It's been bad, people. Really bad. I, even, took her to the doctor yesterday for some really mild symptoms, hoping that I was missing something and her behavior was due to her not feeling well. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with her. Besides being so spoiled and stubborn and whiny and headstrong and on my nerves.

Last week, I spied this little reward chart on Pinterest and thought we'd give it a try. It works! And it doesn't. 

As you can see, some of the tasks are going great!  Some not some much. See the little lonely sticker on the "No Whining" task. Sigh. The chart is helping, though! She has brushed her teeth with no fight all week, and she got her last "keeping her panties dry" sticker today! AND the "Sleep in Her Bed" task is going pretty good! That's one we didn't expect to happen, that's why we put the biggest prize on it! Our scheme backfired a little, but that's ok!

We are still working on this chart until she finishes everything (Please, please, PLEASE let her get the "No whining" stickers!) But I just added a second one, with the same tasks, except the no whining since she still has so far to go. I added "Set the table" in that place. We all sat at the table and discussed her jobs and rewards. I even let her pick the rewards for the second chart. Please pray, for my sanity, that this works!

Here's what's been going on in my neck of the woods...

Sorry, channeled Al Roker for a minute.

Emma has started a new dance class that she loves!

She is such a diva!!

She loves her "sister" Livi!

The Valentine's Party at her school was a big hit!

I am super excited about my newest follower on Twitter!! Clinton better watch out!

Speaking of Clinton, we've made the decision to be more diligent about our date nights! In fact, we've already picked out one weekend a month to go (of course, we know that things come up!). I took a cue from Pinterest and made a date night jar!

The single hearts are dates that require little to no planning and are pretty cheap! The double hearts take more planning and more moola! Then there are triple hearts! We've planned TWO triple hearts for the year, our anniversary weekend and one other weekend away! 

Emma's friend Kinley turned 5, and had a princess party a local salon! Em LOVED it!

Nails!

Hair!

Make-up! Her Daddy was SO happy about this part. Sarcasm font! Ha!

The finished product!

We went to get a movie after this and the guy said "How are you, Princess?" She never skipped a beat and said "Good!" Ha!