MOP's

This will be one big FAT MOP's post.

This was the first year I did MOPs and I hesitated ALOT.  Even the first time sitting at my table I thought what am I doing here...it turned out to be the best thing I did.  I am so glad I took all those steps and stayed.  I have the best table and have meet the best ladies.  One thing you may or may not know about me is that if you ask me pointed questions I am pretty open and will talk about most anything but I don't do this with just anyone.  You have to have a special gift which is either know how to read me and ask the right questions or be what I call a word vomit person.  A wvp is someone that anytime you are around stuff just flies out of your mouth before you can think about it, this can be good and bad depending on who that person is...This group of ladies happen to be both of these.  They are always checking on each other, reaching out, and you can tell them anything.  All of us are familiar with moving around and living in places without any help or family.  This is the thing that is key which took me a while to figure out.  We all need each other, we are each other's family.  This is new to me to have so many people that are all in the same place in life.  Now I have plenty of people from all of our past locations that I love don't take that wrong.  But all the cities I have lived in most friends have lived their whole life and they have lots of family and parents to be their at all times.  For me I have not lived near my parents in a long time.  And even I am guilty at not doing for others what these girls have done for me and I feel like I have been revamped to the girl/friend that I use to be that I want to be.  All that to say I love my ladies and sadly 2 of them are already moving, usually I am doing the moving.  I am very sad about this move.

 I made the cupcakes for our sprinkle.  

This should have said lots of precious cargo. 

We sprinkled 4 ladies at this shower.

 Gracie playing big sister to little Jonathan

this is my table ladies 

Adrianne(just had her baby on Sunday), Kate(has a 5 month old), 

Courtney our table mom(she has 5 kids), Kelly(due in August), me, 

Izzy(due in October), Lauren(due in June), not shown Lauren W(has a 4 month old)

a bunch of the mom's went to see Mom's Night Out

I had no expectations since it was christian based I also assumed it would be boring sorry but I did. 

It was hilarious I laugh the whole time and end cried it was actually very good and would see it again.  GO see it with another mom! 

 My friend Lauren has 2 kids Elenor and Griffin.  Are kids love playing with each other.  Lauren is just the definition of southern charm.  Sadly she is moving in a quick 3 weeks and we are all so very sad.  The morning before this last MOP's I decided to tell Gracie about them moving to give her a little heads-up.  She started balling and once we got to MOPs they were inseparable and now only refer to each other as sister, they no longer use each others names.  They will so be missed!

 Look theres Ana and Elsa oh wait...

getting ready

We have excitedly been gearing up for kindergarten.  We are all so edited and it is a whole summer away but I hate waiting to the last minute on this stuff so we got all of our appointments schedule and over with pretty quickly.  I was surprised at the lack of waiting we had to do for some of our appointments.

 Gracie had screen and her new school and I got her all registered

 Gracie's first eye exam which she thought was so fun

she had been to the dentist before but she thought this was so much fun, good thing she enjoyed it.

We are all ready to go and just anticipating the letter from school to tell us who her teacher is, she checks the mailbox everyday!

Out for a Hike

Well our weather like I think most has been weird, maybe its just chicago but we have gone from jeans to shorts and them back to hats and coats.  Although the weather is weird we have been very excited about all of our weekends that we have our daddy to ourselves on the weekend.  On this day Troy decided a hike was in order.

 the kids listening for sounds

 gracie explaining something to Nolan

i am sure he is not listening at all

 they all like daddy had to have hiking sticks

 gracie checking out all the swans and cranes

Nolan's "huge" stick

This trip was my first introduction to ticks.  Yikes!  Found one behind Nolan's ear and I freaked out, really freaked out.  So so gross and scary.  There is a guy from TIU that was bit by one and now is in a wheel chair.  Ticks are no joke and I have been scarred for life.

Easter Celebration

This year we made a brave decision to stay in Chicago and spend Easter with friends.  Our past holidays at home we have always wished we would have just traveled.  It's just not the same not being home with the family.  Troy's always up for anything but I am the one who has been disappointed in the past.  I thought we would try again and just see.  It turned out to be a wonderful and a great weekend.  We spent Saturday night with friends cooking out and coloring Easter eggs with the kids.  The girls made a last trip to the store for an eventful shopping trip to get some last needed items for Easter Lunch.

This was an exciting weekend.  After lots of prayer our friends found out they were going to be parents, not my story to tell but it made the weekend together that much more precious and it aaas special to get to celebrate with them.

Anyway it was a lot of fun, the kids all had a blast playing together and the adult talked, it was very nice and the food was yummy.

 Saturday morning started with a Sylvan Lake Easter Egg hunt

 looking through their Easter goodies

 Saturday we had egg coloring

 I love when other people take on this projects

 the tie-dye machine

 Nolan looks a little ticked off about the result of his egg

 arggg

 a smiley picture

 of course who doesn't want to make a silly face

 the girls

 Easter cupcakes

 after church Easter egg hunt at a friends house 

followed by great food and wonderful fellowship

 the kids in there Sunday best before there clothes got destroyed

this is the best of the 2 of them and we forgot all about family pictures oops

Validation

I think I promised to be better at the blogging and I have failed to keep my promise.  I will not recommit to it because I am sure I will continue to fail at it being up to date all the time but I can only try.  So I am going to try and validate the lack of interest in my blog, other blogs, and Facebook.  Not because I don't love doing it or reading them I just don't have them time to always check or read.  I may skim at pictures but thats it.  SO I don't think I have posted since before Easter yikes right.  I think I missed the whole month of April, yikes.  Between MOP's, playdates, family visits, 6 spring showers, and friends moving it has been busy.  I have done A LOT of crafts and most of them I do not have pictures of therefore no proof they exist but I will start with the crafts because they do take a lot of my time.  

Below is a post I started in April and finished today, wahoo for updates right!

I have been working on a lot of back craft projects that I have been meaning to work on.  You can see all my projects below

As I was going through the fabric Nolan found the football fabric I bought for him a while back.  So I made him a blanket.  The back of it is yellow and green.  It turned out pretty cute and Nolan loves it.

a little back pack for nolan.  gracie has a few bags and 

I wanted him to have one he could put his special toys in 

 this project was for gracie but really for me

my friend has something similar hanging in her kids bathroom

i loved it so i made one for gracie.  she has accumulated lots of bows

some will have to remain in the basket but the favorites will go one here

it was supper simple no sewing just glue, 10 minutes 

from start to finish and that included my kids 

my nephews aided and logan live in cali and we don't 

get to see them often very sad.  so I sent them a little something

capes and they loved them. also updated Gracie and Nolan's because

of course they wanted theres to be as awesome

 he had to test it out

yes another quilt.  I love making them but mine are very contemporary  

this one was for my BIL and his wife Jess.  I hope they love it as much as I do. 

This has been on my list for a while and this has been

a verse that is one I cherish to get me through the long

winter months and i am inside a lot. 

it turned out pretty good.  i like it 

 Remember the sprinkles i mentioned.  all my MOP's girls in the past year have either just had babies or is pregnant so I have been busy making gifts, lots of them.  nursing aprons x2, blankets x2, 4 onesies with 3 snap on bow ties x4, i have no idea how many burp clothes but it has been a lot of machine time.  they all turned out really cute.  I also made all my MOP's girls from my table 

make-up bags for the last MOP's meeting of the year.  Plus I have helped with the sprinkles so its been busy.....there's my validation  lol!

this was for my friend in Canada who had her first and last and since I was not able to make it to her shower I wanted it to be something special.  I am not even sure if she is a quilt kinda girl but I made it anyway.

If there were any other crafts I don't remember them half of these I took pictures of at the sprinkles because I forgot too and I love keeping pictures of my work especially the quilts.