Rockin' the Mid-Week Date

This is me and Joey on a hot mid-week date at what they call here a "Walmart Shareholders Meeting". This was just one of the many free concerts they put on when they have these so-called "meetings".

This is REO Speed Wagon entertaining us with songs I didn't even know I liked, like, "I Can't Fight This Feeling Anymore" and "Heard It Through A Friend Who Heard it Through A Friend Who..." and other awesomely 70's songs.

This is REO Speedwagon's drummer, who kept me in giggle fits with his pursed lips, wife beater, and American Girl Doll hair. Classic.

These are the Skinners, our bestest buds and neighbors out here, who weren't fortunate enough to find a school night sitter. Love this candid of them. That little cute guy Connor is Luke's best friend. They can't seem to get enough of each other.

This is The Bare Naked Ladies, the reason Joey wanted to go. And before you size my man up, it's a band people! They sing that "Chickity Chine of the Chinese Chicken" song and "If I Had A Million Dollars". Arkansas didn't seem that into it, but were.

This is a video of the sign language interpreters that were signing & dancing their hearts out to every song. I've never seen anything like it, and man could they groove. The Bare Naked Ladies couldn't get over the fact that they were, and I quote, "deaf people's favorite band".

And to top off the night, the newbie babysitter, who just so happens to live a few houses over, had a glowing report! Good Times.

We (He) Did It!

Lucas Dale Hobson is officially potty trained! Phew.  I promised myself I wasn't going to stress over potty training him because trying to train Kaela just about sent me over the edge.  So, I figured I'd let him figure it out on his own.  Only that wasn't happening.  Joey finally had had enough and encouraged me to at least get this boy started a good month ago.  So I did.  And 4 Weeks Later we dare leave the house in BIG BOY UNDIES!  So nice.

Turtle Crossing

Little Graduate

Preschool is officially no more for Kaela. Her graduation was Tuesday and it was adorable, funny, and sweet. Kaela is one who revels in the spotlight and made a million faces and poses while sitting in the front row to prove it. All we could do was laugh at the little ham. We were so proud to watch her walk up and get her diploma! She couldn't run fast enough to the cake afterward, but we did manage to get a few pictures:
Miss Sheena has been the perfect teacher for Kaela and she is rarin' and ready for Kindergarten now.

Our Own Private Vacation

We spent two nights and three days in Branson, Missouri this past weekend. I love that we are only 2 hours away from such a unique place. Branson has shows galore, fabulous shopping, and water/theme parks to boot. So we went ahead and bought season passes to Silver Dollar City, the local theme park. It will be a little hot spot for us while we live here.

It really was as Joey put it a "stress free" and a fun family bonding time. The down side was no sleep. Even when we turned out all the lights in our little hotel room and lay still, one of the kids would make a noise and the other echo it, Emmy being the biggest culprit. The sleeping part was hopeless but our days were filled with lots of fun, good food, silly rides, and laughter. Definitely a tradition we will continue to uphold.
A big shout out to Joey for braving most of the spinny rides. It may not look like it but I promise I was there and did go on my fare share rides with the kids!

Mother's Day Attempt, Take 5

Yes, my 5th official Mother's Day and it was a success. I woke up to beautiful Red Gerbera Daisies, a scrumptious German Pancake puffed to near perfection (the best Joey's made to date), and ended the day with an incredible steak and potato meal (Joey's cooking is one of the things that stole my heart when we were dating). The highlight of the day was playing with my goofy kids whilst Joey was cleaning up the kitchen! Below is our attempt at some pictures before we whisked them off to dreamland:


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I'm indebted to my own mother who taught by example the joy in motherhood and who never raised her voice, except, of course, when I trotted off to girls camp once with one of her nice forks :) I try hard every day to be the calming and loving mother that she was to us rascals. I love you mom!

Nostalgia

We finally reveled in a warm Easter this year! Amazing. And it brought back memories of Easter's past. I bought sucker molds and made chocolate suckers with the kids. It was very nostalgic for me as it is one of my favorite memories of Easter when I was a wee lass. My mom would create a homemade candy masterpiece each year for us kids, that probably took her hours to make and that we devoured in seconds. One year she broke out these amazing sucker molds and her tupperware full of colored chocolate wafers and let us help her make some. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. So, above is my Easter Bunny attempt at a homemade treat, the exact mold I remember the most. Yum!

Coloring the Easter eggs is always a highlight. They colored and crafted 18 of those babies and still wanted to create more! Hard boiled eggs are in high demand at our house.
Easter morning was a delicious adventure. The Easter bunny always tends to overdo it at our house. The kids even got a couple of non-candy surprises that brought giddy excitement. Kaela and Luke went to town eating to their hearts content and Emmy was thrilled just to shake her plastic eggs over and over again. It was nice to stay home and watch conference. What an uplifting and inspired conference it was! So much talk about strengthening families. It was perfection.