Rare Friday Night Off

Marty has begged for over a year not to have to work Sundays. He finally convinced them to let him have them off, except for a few occassions when the restaurant is known to be busy for special events, etc. This weekend a huge art festival was in the downtown area, which creates a very busy weekend for Parkshore Grill (be sure to click on 'our events' then 'our gallery' and look at picture 33 of 59 of the slideshow. It's a real special treat!) , and in turn creates a Sunday work day for Marty.

His boss is now so respectful of Marty's requested time off, that he gave him Friday night off, knowing he'd be working at least 12 straight hours Saturday and Sunday (he's still working as I write this at 9pm Sunday evening and he's been there since 9:30 this morning).

Since Marty knew that he'd be home when I get in on Friday, he set up a little surprise for me.

You see, my parents volunteered to watch the kids while we could go out to eat. Just the two of us. But, I knew about this. I asked Marty to bathe the kids before I got home so 1) it'd be done and 2) my parents wouldn't have to mess with it. I walked in at 5:30 from work (parents coming at 6) and the first thing Marty says to me, is start the bath water and I'll undress them. I kept my cool even though I wanted to go crazy and ask why the kids weren't bathed yet. But I didn't, because I know that anything could go wrong around here with 2 toddlers and nothing could get done as planned.

So, I walk in the bathroom and there is.....




......An entirely new bathroom set! Much more kid friendly for a kids bathroom than the previous palm tree theme.

And look at the adorable crab toothbrush holder and octopus soap dispenser.



My weekend has never started so wonderfully!

Thanks babe, you are so thoughtful and truly care about our quality time with one another!

For the Easter Weekend

The weekend started with a half day of work for me. Any weekend that begins that way will be a good one. And of course with Easter, this one was a good one!

We decorated some eggs with my parents, we went to our church's first ever Good Friday service (props to Dad for singing in the awesome choir special), I met up with one of my best friend's that was in town, and I was thrilled to have nursery duty for Sunday morning worship with at least 10 snot nosed kids that weren't mine (enter sarcasm). Oh yeah, and the kids had 2 easter egg hunts and got plenty of candy.


Sharing the stool, but not the cookie

Decorating eggs with Mimi

In the meantime, I took plenty of pictures with kids and baskets. Eggs and kids. Grass and candy. And kids and candy.



And don't worry. No terrifying poses with the easter bunny at the mall this year.

*You may click on the collage for enlargement.

Howell Reunion

Marty recently reconnected with some good college friends who played football together and also happen to have the same last name. He found out that one of them lives in Orlando so they planned a time to meet up.

Last weekend we headed to Orlando for the Howell boys men to reunite. I guess it had been close to 10 years since they last saw one another.

Dan, my cute husband, and James

We hung out all day Saturday and even stayed the night. James had a very nice house so we got the luxury of the guest room's king size bed. Bernie slept pretty well in the pack 'n play and Arianna slept rolled around all night in the bed with us.

Since we returned from Orlando on Sunday, we've met Mimi and Papa at Candy Kitchen to thank them for letting Lunchbox out while we were gone.

And we had some time for some pictures around the house. Hope you don't mind.

Some people like to see pictures of these blue eyed babies of mine on every blogpost.

Hope everyone has a nice Easter weekend!

Bracket is Broken

We have a small family competition going with March Madness brackets.
I chose Memphis and Syracuse for the final.


Therefore my bracket is broken. bruised. buried.


Oh well, I'll come back strong next year.
In the meantime, I have my own basketball boy.



Isn't he a cute one? I think so too.


I wish everyone good luck on their final four.

Except those in my friendly competition.

Wordless Wednesday