Mother's Day

I had a really nice Mother's Day! We went to church and then the girls reluctantly took some pictures with me. :) Many thanks to Ross for knowing how important pictures are to me and trying his best to get the girls to cooperate!

The girls were very excited to give me their presents and I loved them! It was a framed picture of each of them and it was just so special. (Again, many thanks to Ross!) The picture of Lucy and I is Lucy's favorite and the picture of Molly is so sweet. They each gave me a card, too, and Lucy was so very excited to give me some of her emoji stickers. :)

After lunch I went shopping by myself and bought some new shirts and then later that evening we went to dinner with my parents. It was just a very nice day all the way around!

And to add to my special mother's Day, last week at school I had a Mother's Day lunch with Lucy. The kids sang two Mother's Day songs for us and gave us a present. You can watch Lucy singing here.

Happy Birthday To Ross!

Happy birthday to Ross who is 39 years old on Wednesday! We didn't do a whole lot to celebrate his birthday. He went to work and then we ate at Qdoba for dinner and got Andy's for a treat afterwards. He got a few presents from us and that was about it! Over the weekend, his parents were here to celebrate Lucy's birthday, and we celebrated Ross' birthday, too. Wanda made a yummy cake and had a singing candle with it. I had not seen a candle like this before and thought it was really neat. You can watch it here! Ross isn't one to like a lot of fanfare for his birthday and I've learned to honor that. However, next year he will turn 40 and that might have to change......

Molly's Backpack

This cute backpack was given to me when Lucy was born. It became the backpack she took to the gym with snacks in it every MWF when we went there for my class. Since Lucy is in preschool on MWF this year, it's basically become Molly's backpack and she loves to use it! We still bring it to the gym with her snacks and we take it to dance class with her ballet shoes in it. She also loves to play with it at home and pretends that it's the backpack she takes to preschool with her. Most days when I get it ready for the gym, I can't find it hanging up in its usual place. I've learned to look for it in the play room or living room and find it there because she has been playing with it. And, it always give me a chuckle when I open it to find what she's taken to school. :) I love Molly's imagination!

Family Pictures

Lucy had her five-year pictures taken a few weeks ago and I decided to have family pictures taken along with her. We went to JC Penney's for the pictures, where I've been countless times over the last five years for family and kid pictures. JCP calls themselves "professional," and although that's not the word I would use to describe them, I get what I want for a cheap price. :) I'm very happy with these pictures and think that we all coordinated very well!

8 Years!

Happy 8 years to me and Ross on the 17th! Our anniversary day was just a normal day, but it was fun to think back about what we were doing all throughout the day on 4/17/10! I absolutely loved our wedding day. Everything about it was so perfect and so much fun. I wish I could go back and live in it every now and then. This video of me right before walking down the aisle came up on my Facebook memories this week and I love it!

Ross surprised me on our anniversary with a Starbucks frappuchino, one of my favorites, waiting for me in the fridge that morning, and he gave me a bracelet, too. He bought me a bracelet on the last night of our honeymoon and I told him that he should get me a bracelet from then on each year for our anniversary. I think we've forgotten about it for a few years, so it was fun to bring it back this year!

The girls were really excited about our anniversary and each made us cards. :) We received some very nice cards in the mail from family, but I especially loved the hand-written message from my Gramma Ward in her card! I also tried to put on my wedding dress again because Lucy was asking about it. I was happy to still get it on, but I wasn't able to zip it up all the way. Maybe for #9 I can do that. :)