Meal Plan Monday!

Saturday-Lasagna and salad
Sunday-Cinco de Mayo fellowship dinner with church care group, Mexican style!
Monday-An unusually early 5:30 teeball game=dinner on the fly.
Tuesday-Chicken noodle soup, it's gonna be a rainy day after all.
Wednesday-Burgers on the grill, farmers market fruit/veggie of choice for sides
Thursday-Spinach tortellini...this is becoming a Trader Joe's staple
Friday-Breakfast for dinner, blueberry pancakes with oven baked bacon

You'll notice two new additions to this week-Saturday and Sunday. I rarely if ever plan weekend meals, but am trying to start. We do usually have one built in "go out" night during the week, but often veer off course on the weekends. Our grocery budget may squeeze into a new belt hole, but I know it's much cheaper than eating out and will save money overall. Unless you're talking Little Caesars that is....we are SO doing pizza for lunch this week!

My little Tumbler

Almost every time we drive past the Y down Airport Rd., I hear a not so tiny voice from the backseat yell "Gymnastics!!!!"

We have had an awesome time at gymnastics class over these past few months. In addition to excising his little muscles, the gym has been a great environment to exercise those oh so important listening and take your turn skills. We've also made new friends along the way, and could not have asked for a better class.

This has been Evan's first real "teacher-student" structured activity, and we love Miss Sandy!!! It helps that we're all good and familiar friends to start with. :-)  I've loved seeing him learn knew things and conquer the obstacle course with excitement and ease. He's a great little tumbler, and has added few donkey kicks and forward rolls to his resume. If you asked him what his favorite part of class would be, it would probably be our parachute time or freeze dances.

This above photo may be the most attentive I have ever seen him EVER...I'll have to file it for future reference! lol

Bennett's trick of choice by far is the trampoline-his face lights up to jump on it! It was fun to see him get more involved over the course of the class, though he's technically just my sweet tag-a-long. He loves copying big brother and let's face it, an open gym is pretty much a little boys wonderland. After we get all of our wiggles out, Thursday afternoon naps are a dream!

 Actually though, this isn't our first time in a gym. Remember this?

Way back when, a baby Evan took a "bugs" class at the Little Gym in Raleigh. He was 5 months old in this picture...my how time flies!

Strawberry Icing

Strawberries, spring, and sunshine on my shoulders, oh my. On Friday we celebrated Evan and his friend Kylie's birthdays with a fun strawberry picking, park and picnic-n' playdate. It was the height of delight and deliciousness. A true sign of a good time, both my boys enjoyed amazing afternoon naps(and so did I!). The pictures tell a happy story so I'll let them do the talking!

 

  

It was icing on the cake to a wonderful birthday week! 

Birthday Boy

On Thursday, April 25th, my sweet baby boy turned THREE years old. Where does the time go? This year has been a big one for him, exploding with new words and expressions, full of friends and imagination, a jump in jeans sizes, gymnastics classes and our first splash into a a team sport-teeball.

We began the birthday celebrations with a special dunkin donuts breakfast and Skype date with Grandma. Chris and I burned the midnight oil the night before building his very special present from us-a train table! Of course, he was beyond excited to open some fun trains to go with it-thanks Grandma Sharon!

Later that day we had dinner with my parents at Chucky Cheese and then headed home for some delicious dinasour cake. The cake is a story for another blog, but suffice it to say it did not turn out the way I imagined, and so I threw together another last minute. It was not nearly as pretty and perfect as I would have liked, but a tasty plan B nonetheless.

Fun at Chucky Cheese with the family...We have extra tokens so we'll be back soon-Evan is still talking about it!

 

Gigi, Poppi and Aunt Sami had an awesome dinosaur table set up, complete with birthday banners, balloons and fun little dino's to decorate the table with. 

 

Evan had an amazing third birthday with family-truly we could not asked for more! Just a few days prior we were able to have dinner with Chris' aunt and uncle where he was also showered with some birthday love. And then on Friday we enjoyed a beautiful day strawberry picking with friends, where Evan and his friend Kylie(who are three days apart) enjoyed a fun joint birthday picnic and park playdate at the strawberry farm. We are so blessed to be surrounded by such kind, thoughtful and loving family and friends.

I'll post our strawberry pictures on my next blog, but for now I stumbled upon this gem of a blooper from our birthday photo session...love it! Happy birthday to my sweet, silly, three year old-I love you stinky face!