The cousins were here!

This week was our niece and nephew's spring break.  Since their parents had to work we had them over to our house for a few days to play.  My mother in law went to pick them up and brought them to our house on Wednesday and they left yesterday afternoon.  

They were super excited to see Blakely but nothing could come close to Blakely's excitement when they got here.  We sat by our dining room window and waited for them for about 20 minutes.  When the car pulled up Blakely sprinted outside to give Syble a hug.  I mean full sprint.  Lots of hugs and kisses were given.  Which is a little crazy because she is in a phase where she doesn't always want to hug or kiss us.  But anytime Collier or Syble wanted one she was like heck yeah!  

I'm not going to lie but Syble pretty much took care of her the entire time.  They sang songs, played on Syble's iPad, danced, had tea parties, played on the swingset, brushed each other's hair, played in makeup and rode on the scooter.  Collier would join in occasionally and help her build with her Lincol.n logs or read her a book but mainly he wanted to hang out with Uncle Lonnie.

On Thursday, Lonnie Fred (who my Lonnie is named after and he is Lonnie's dad's cousin) and Linda drove up from southwest Arkansas to have dinner with us.  We haven't seen them since Thanksgiving before last so the kids had definitely changed since then!  We had great weather so we were able to sit on the deck all afternoon.  GLORY!  We made a huge crab leg feast and ate before they headed back home.  We had such a great time with them and we hope to make it down to their house very soon.  

It was amazing to see how Blakely looked at and watched Syble.  She was just in total awe of her.  I have never seen her like that.  She would do anything Syble asked and she only wanted Syble to take her to the potty.  Syble even got her to go down for a nap!  Lonnie and I joked at how cute it was now but in a few years we were going to have to keep an eye out because then Syble will be a teenager!  But honestly I think Syble will be the perfect role model for my little girl!  

I love every little thing about this video.  But you can see when they fall back on the chair and are laughing Blakely even puts both of her arms over her head when she notices that is what Syble is doing.  Gahhhhhh.....

Collier loves to build things and put things together.  He is extremely smart and I bet he will be an engineer...his brain just works in that way.  Anyway, my mother in law bought him a wooden go cart and she was going to help him assemble it since we have a great place to ride it here at our house.  Well Bob quickly realized that it was going to require a lot more than just a hammer and screwdriver and she was not prepared for that.  So Lonnie took Collier to Lowe's and they got the few things they needed.  Then they spent the next three hours in the garage putting the thing together.  Collier got to use the power drill and the saw and he loved it.  For three hours the kid didn't even come inside to use the bathroom.  I was so proud of Lonnie for doing that with him.  :)

It has been a super busy week for us so we are planning on taking it easy all weekend.  My birthday is Monday and I have a massage and a facial planned.  So I guess I'll be relaxing Monday too :)  Happy weekend!

A big birthday and a family weekend.

My honey turned 40 last Thursday.  We had a pretty low key night.  He had to work (and had a horrible day, I might add) and he isn't into big celebrations just for him.  One day I will talk him into a party but this just wasn't the year.  

When he got home from work I had Blakely in this shirt that I made.  I can't tell you how long it took for me to get a picture of her where she wasn't either scowling at me or had her mouth wide open yelling.  What is it with the yelling these days?

These were the best I could get.  

yelling

pouting

We enjoyed some nice wine since it was a special occasion and I cooked a super yummy dinner of chicken, spinach and white bean quesadillas.  It is a pretty healthy recipe that I found on P.interest...the recipe is here.  I love it because you can do so many things with it.  I have made the quesadillas multiple times.  You can put it on spinach and eat it as a salad.  I have also eaten it cold, straight from the bowl the next day for lunch.  Blakely is a fan as well which is always good!  Since we are trying to eat healthier around here I decided not to make a cake.  That always means that we have an entire cake leftover to eat..not good.  I got Bett.y C.rocker individual chocolate molten cakes and stuck a candle in it.  They are actually really good!  

We were having my brother in law, Marshall, his wife Kristen, and their 7 year old twins down for the weekend so my mother in law came on Friday to help me clean my house.  Yes, I totally won the MIL lottery.  The others weren't coming until Saturday so me, Bob (MIL), and Lonnie played monopoly on Friday night.  Lonnie isn't really a gamer so I was surprised he agreed to play.  We only had the "updated" version.  The only difference is the properties have different names and the money is larger (think 1 million instead of 1 hundred).  After a few cocktails the math got a lot more difficult for everyone for me!  

Saturday morning the family arrived.  Bob does a treasure hunt for the kids each year at Christmas.  This year she decided to do it at our house.  Basically they start with a clue which leads to another clue.  They does this through 4-5 clues and then at the end is a present for each of them.  There are a total of 5 treasure hunts so they each get 5 gifts.  Bob was making the clues on Friday night and Lonnie and I were telling her how easy they were. So we decided that Lonnie would make the clues for the 5th treasure hunt.  His clues were super fun and made them think and work together.  It was hilarious to watch!  Just to give you an idea about the clues....one of them was frozen inside a block of ice and another one was hidden in the fireplace which had a "child proof" lock on it.  They loved Uncle Lonnie's hunt!  I would have taken more pictures but it was total chaos.  Collier and Syble were running around the house and I was just trying to keep Blakely out of their way and also keep her from falling down the stairs because they kept leaving the door open.  I was actually quite happy when it was all over!  

Here they are trying to unscramble the letters to mailbox..which is where the next clue was hidden.   

Our tradition for this weekend get together is to drink excellent wine and eat excellent food.  We decided a few years ago not to buy gifts for each other but to spend the weekend eating and drinking together.  A few years we made crab legs, sometimes we have caviar, but this year we decided to make lobster.  I must stop here and say that I do no cooking.  Marshall is a fantastic cook and would put any of those Food Netw.ork cooks to shame....like seriously.  He cooks the food for sure.  So he cooked some wonderful lobster and my MIL made potatoes for a side.  Lonnie and I are responsible for the appetizer each year.  This year we ordered some cheeses and made a cheese plate.  It was amazing if I do say so myself!

We had 5 different cheeses, 2 types of salami, grapes, crackers, jam (onion garlic blackberry!), pickles, wasabi almonds, and honey.

I can't believe I didn't take pictures of our lobster dinner!

We all slept in the next day.  Well, except Blakely.  Although she did sleep until 745 so that was good.  Bob and Lonnie got up with her so I did get to sleep in.  When I finally made it upstairs this is what I found.  

I am not sure there is anything more adorable than cousin love.  Syble was completely happy pushing B around on her tricycle and playing in her princess castle.  It was awesome and made me tear up more than once.  I am so glad Blakely is going to have such great role models in Collier and Syble.  Blakely was just giddy to play with the big kids.  

Marshall made brunch for us on Sunday with the leftover lobster.  I mean....there really are no words for how that turned out.  Lobster scrambled eggs, crab and corn bisque and mimosas?!?  You're crazy if that doesn't sound amazing!  

Lonnie is off this week so we are looking forward to a week of relaxation and family time with just the three of us!