Nakita Grinie

I am finally getting around to doing our Easter recap!
Late Saturday night when the girls were in bed, I put out some Bunny Tracks with flour.
Imagine my surprise when we woke up on Sunday morning & it was raining!
There was NO rain in the forecast!
Needless to say, my flour "bunny tracks" that were not covered by our porch turned into a flour-y sludge and it won't scrape off.
Kevin needs to powerwash our front walkway now. Oops!

The girls didn't discover the Bunny tracks until AFTER we got home from church.
Our Easter Bunny comes after we get home from church (while Kevin loads the girls into the car to go to church, I run back inside & put out their Easter Baskets. Sneaky, sneaky)

The girls were thrilled that the Easter Bunny left bunny prints.
But, Kate wanted to know why the Easter Bunny has flour paw prints.
She is smarter than I give her credit for... (and she helps me bake a lot, so I guess she recognized the flour...who knows!)

I loved their reaction when they saw their Baskets filled up:

Here is their loot:

Every year, in their basket, I give them things that I would normally buy them anyways:
(a book, stickers, chalk, a new swimsuit, a new sun dress & a pair of sandals)
And, of course....the best Easter candy ever: Reeces Peanut Butter Eggs!
This year they also got a new swim towel & a personalized placemat.

Hooray! A picture of both of them smiling! It's an Easter Miracle!

Oh yeah, and notice how my girls are wearing short sleeved sun dresses.
It was NOT a warm day. I had no idea it was going to rain & didn't have sweaters for them.
I figured since Easter was so late this year that the weather would be warm. WRONG!

Right after our mini indoor egg hunt, we loaded up the car & headed out to Kevin's sister and brother in law's house. They host a huge Easter party every year, but we only go every other year (we rotate with my family)
They have a winery & live on 10 acres of grapes...this is part of their backyard:
Lots of grapes = wine! We got to sample my brother in law's 2011 releases:

Jeff, Mike & Kevin:

It was a great weekend spending time with family celebrating Easter & all that Christ has done for us!

And, just a reminder....the Cupcake Carnival starts this Sunday, May 1st!

I'm in the mood for a weekend project!

Settling into a routine with our newborn has freed up some spare time, and I'm not completely exhausted every afternoon since the baby has a (slightly) better sleep schedule at nighttime. So, I'm ready to put all my nursing session Pinterest finds to good use! Outside our front door we have a large brick wall that's begging for some decor. We don't really have a front porch that I can decorate; our entrance is an odd shape. I think I can use that brick wall's space to hang seasonal decorations. I'd like to make a simple wooden plaque and attach some cute knobs. Something like the picture below but with cute Hobby Lobby knobs.

Hopefully my creative energy continues through the weekend!

On Saturday, we headed out to Lodi to help with the bottling for my brother in law's wine, McCay Cellars.

This is his third year bottling, but the first year that we have been there for it.
It was totally fascinating.
The bottling process moves quickly. Luckily, my job was to take pictures & keep the girls out of the way.

I should have taken a video of how fast all these conveyor belts were moving.
About 9,000 bottles of wine were bottled, labeled & packed into cases in less than 4 hours.

All of this takes place in the back of a Big Rig. Mobile Wine Bottlers are the easiest way to bottle wine.

Every thing happens in the truck & then the cases go down the conveyor belt, ready to be shipped.

My brother in law's friend, Kevin, helping "catch" the wine cases.

This is a true family winery!

I had fun taking pictures inside the warehouse where they store all the wine before it is pumped into the bottling truck.

The girls had fun checking out the stainless steel wine barrels, where Kate exclaimed, "Yum! Smells like grape juice!"

The last bit of the Zinfandel had to be drained out by hand because the pump couldn't get it.

It went straight into wine glasses of the people helping bottle.

Good old fashion Family fun at the Winery.

After we bottled, we headed back to the McCay house for a celebratory dinner.
My brother in law invited some fun people to the dinner, including a wine blogger and the chef from Wine & Roses.
It was a fun day & I am so glad we got to be watch the bottling process, it was really neat.
If you are a wine lover like us, it was fun to see how it all works, from vineyard to your wine glass. Cheers!

its been since the beginning of summer that we made a trip to the zoo and it seemed like the big girls had completely forgotten about what they had seen before..and Baker has entered this entirely new world of toddlerhood and so every second of it was FUN. lunch was Texas BBQ over a giant baked potato, fruit, chicken nuggets with about a gallon of ketchup a side of chips.. and sugary soda, duh. $41 later we were full to the brim and ready to see some more animals. Parker would not stop talking about the alligators and Jolie wanted to see the zebras but decided that the alligator was the COOLEST thing she had ever seen. Baker basically had a stroke over the zebras and the wrestling baby elephants (which was absolutely darling) and hated every second of the bat cave and bugs.  I feel ya. girlfriend.

heading home we had a carful of sleeping babies. we decided that a drive thru starbucks for a shot of caffeine to hold us over through the evening was a great idea as we chatted about how relaxing and fun  the weekend was.  even if it was filled with a whole lot of nothing, we were together. We have come to this point in our lives/relationship that gifts and celebrations fall backseat to actual time spent together, both as a couple and as a family.  I kept telling Jordan that I was sorry for not having a stack of birthday gifts for him to open but he reassured me that this weekend was everything he wanted it to be.

he’s the best.  and we couldn’t ask for anything more.

my back is killing me today from all the walking, but that's what I get for thinking that being 9 months pregnant and going to the zoo was an excellent idea.  Monday always comes too quick.

Our weekend plans got rained out.

I was supposed to have 3 photo shoots this past weekend, but they got rained out until next weekend.
I was bummed at first because I wanted to get all that editing done this week while I am on Thanksgiving Break.
But, based on how crazy last week was, it was a good thing it was a Rainy weekend.
We needed a couple days to just relax as a family & get Kate healthy.
So, I declared Saturday a "Rainy-cold-stay-in-your-pajamas-all-day-kind-of-day"
And, that we did!
So, a lazy day it was. And, it was much needed.
You see, we thought Kate was over the stomach flu.
She hadn't gotten sick since Wednesday morning.
She was fine on Thursday and Friday.

At 4 on Friday my new washer & dryer arrived.
Aren't they pretty?
I couldn't wait to try them out, but I needed to get the right kind of detergent for them since they are front loaders.
So, off to Target we went (but I dropped Claire off with Auntie Bots because she is awesome)
I was going to drop them both off, but Kate wanted to go with me.
We go to Target & then to Starbucks to get " a buy one get one free" holiday drink special that they had going on. I got myself & Beck a Caramel Apple Spice (YUM!) and Kate asked for a Horizon Organic Vanilla Milk. She hadn't had dairy since Wednesday (I always wait to give them milk/dairy when they have upset tummy's)
Starbucks is less than 5 minutes from out house. And as we were driving home, Kate starts crying, tells me to pullover because she is going to get sick. I was in the middle of an intersection and couldn't pull over, so I grabbed her raincoat that was on the passengers seat and told her to use that as a bucket. Well, that didn't work and Kate's carseat became the bucket.
I am STILL trying to get the smell out of my car. *shudder*

Kate was fine the rest of the night & was feeling good on Saturday, which is why we decided to just lay low and hang out in pj's while it dumped rain outside. And, there was even lightening & thunder which is rare for us!
After dinner, we decided to snuggle up & watch "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving"

I made the girls Hot Chocolate & let them drink it in the Family Room!

I love this movie!

And, I let them eat popcorn while we watched it.

It was a fun evening!

How do you like your Hot Chocolate?
Kevin is a marshmellow guy , but I am all about the whipped cream.

We had a good day, we thought Kate was better, but about an hour after she went to bed, we heard her crying & I knew what was about to happen. I ran upstairs & but I was a few seconds too late. I guess her tummy wasn't ready for the hot chocolate.

Kate wanted to sleep in our room after that, so we gave her a bath & I made a "nest" for her in the office area of our bedroom:

Let's just say I am SOOOOOO glad my washer & dryer arrived. I have done 10 loads of laundry over the past 3 days and they are quick & efficient!

We skipped church on Sunday & had another semi-lazy-rainy day.
Kate acted fine & seemed back to normal, but I learned my lesson...no dairy for her for a few days.
I cleaned out closets because the Good Will truck came this morning.
It feels so good to get rid of stuff!!! But, I must admit, I was a little sad with this batch of items because Kate's crib bumper was in one of those bags. So sad to part with it (I kept the quilt) but there is no reason to hold onto it anymore.
We went to my parents for dinner to celebrate because it was my mom's birthday.
Happy Birthday, Mom!
Kate picked out these "party outfits" for them to wear to her birthday dinner.
You can see the tile that Kevin & I put in last month in that picture! It looks much better than the orange tile!
Speaking of orange, check out Kate's turkey that she made at preschool. She is so proud of it.
I hope this week is much more uneventful for us than last week, especially because it is Thanksgiving and we have a lot of fun family things planned. Hoping and Praying we stay healthy!
Our week has already started out good..Both girls slept in until 8am today!
And, we had fun morning making the Pioneer Woman's Cinnamon Rolls with friends...more on that tomorrow!
(Speaking of the Pioneer Woman, did you see the Thanksgiving Throwdown between her & Bobby Flay last week? LOVED it!)

Happy Monday & Happy Thanksgiving Week!