Sunday afternoon, Mother’s Day, I found out news that made my heart sink, and then just hurt. On what should be a day full of love and happiness for all mothers; my best friend from high school was having the furthest thing from a good Mother’s Day. At just 10 months old her son went to be with God. Her 1st and only child died on Mother’s Day 2012.

All I know is that at 4am Sunday morning he was in the hospital and not doing well. I was in total shock when I found this out. I can only imagine the pain she is going through right now. I know there is nothing I or anyone can say or do to lighten this pain, but I really wish there were. She now lives in Chicago and I live in Memphis so we aren’t as close as we once were, but I still love and adore her as much as I did when we spending our days gossiping about cute boys and going to friday night football games.

For all those parents, soon-to-be parents, and one day parents remember that everyday with your child(ren) is a blessing. Even the days when you  are at your whit’s end and are ready to give up….that day is a blessing too. The next time you are ready to pull chunks of your hair out because little Johnny just put foil in the microwave just to see the pretty “fireworks” remember, it’s just a microwave. People have lived thousands of years without them and still do to this day. But I bet you can’t find a single mother that’s lost a child and doesn’t grieve everyday, and would gladly live without that silly microwave, over the loss of her precious angel.

This news has changed the way I look at my little boy. I already loved him to the ends of the earth, but having something like this hit so close to home has really opened my eyes to the possibility that everyday could be the last day I spend with Grayson. So, go hug your babies, big and small, and smother them with slobbery kisses. And don’t forget to just sit and soak up all the sweetness and love they have to offer.

P.S. – I know I didn’t give my friend’s name or her son’s name, but would you please keep them in your prayers. Pray that her and her husband’s hearts receive some relief from this pain and sorrow soon, and that they find the strength each day to keep moving forward.

My Mother’s Day was started off by my boys waking me up and smothering me with kisses and a present. Grayson and Derek made me a super cute little card.

“Grayson” signed his name. My almost 21 month old is a total genius! I’m sure he had absolutely NO help from his daddy. Looks like he inherited my poor penmanship though.

(Anyone else notice the “a” is written backwards? Hehe!)

For my gift, my boys actually got me two things. One of them I got a few weeks early, because Derek someone couldn’t wait. This the gift he couldn’t wait to give me…

Now do you see why he was so impatient? Yep, because he wanted to play with it himself. It’s the New iPad, and I love it. So does Grayson…under supervision, of course. Wanna know the best think about this puppy? All we paid for it was $87. That’s right. Your eyes aren’t playing tricks on you. You didn’t forget how to read. I said we paid $87 for a new iPad.

We are constantly trying to save, especially if we ever want to move out of this house, so spending $500+ on a “unneeded” piece of technology just wasn’t in our budget. However, we do have a credit card that you earn points on and redeem for gift cards or other items. (I don’t think it’s the wisest thing to share with the whole world what kind of CC we own/use. I use to work with CC fraud back when I was working and it’s nothing to mess around with.)  Sorry, back to the card. We earn points, sometimes double or triple points, every time we use our CC. And since we only use our CC and never a debit/check card we rack up some serious pointage. We’ve been saving our points for quite a while now and were able to cash them out for Best Buy gift cards that just about paid for this new toy of mine. Woop! Woop!

My second gift was this adorable mug Derek (and Grayson) made for me on Shutterfly. I made one for Derek a few months back, just because, and he felt that I needed one too. Good thinking, sweetie!  I like surprising him with random little gifts from time-to-time just to let him know that I’m thinking about him.

Yes, my child thinks he’s British, and calls me “Muma or Mum.” It’s the strangest thing.

This is a photo of me holding Grayson for the first time. Love.

After church, Derek cooked us an amazing lunch, Gray and I napped, then we headed over to my parents house for dinner with my Mom. My little sister is quite the cook and treated my Mom to a day of meals cooked from scratch, and we got to join in on the yumminess. Score!

Here’s my little dude chillin’ on the couch, and messing with the remote. Playing with my parents’ TV remote and car keys are two of his favorite activities when he goes over there.

He looks so old here. He’s really growing up fast these days. He’s loosing every ounce of that babyish look he had and turning into a little boy. I can’t take it! I’m constantly telling him to “be a tiny baby again, pleeeease!”

For Mother’s Day Gray and I made my mom (Oma…that’s what Gray calls her) a terrarium for her office at work. She has a big window that brings in lots of light, so I thought this would be perfect.

I used some chalkboard paint to make a small area on the front that you can write something. I decided to let Grayson draw his Oma a little something instead.

Derek’s parents were out of town visiting his grandmother, so we wished her a happy Mother’s Day via phone. I hope everyone enjoyed their Mother’s Day. Wether you are a mom or not. I know I did. Although, I did have a nasty sinus headache pretty much the whole day.

P.S. – I’ll be back later this week with a how-to on the easy little terrarium Gray and I whipped up for Mother’s Day.

The Wednesday before Easter was a very busy day for my little man. My friend, Emily, had invited Grayson over for a egg hunting party, and that afternoon my mom’s work was holding an Easter egg hunt at their office for the kids and grandkids of the employees.

We started off the day at Emily’s house. The kids (well, the big kids) dyed eggs, and then we all went on an egg hunt.

My son spent most of the time riding the various toys on the back porch.

And the other portion of the time pushing around Emily’s 10 month old in her walker.

Last year Gray was only 7 months old so hunting for eggs was kind of out of the question, but this year, this year was different. Armed with his “putting things in buckets” skills he picked up at Halloween this boy was ready to find him some easter eggs. I wasn’t quite sure if he would keep with the whole egg hunting thing and instead drop the bucket and venture off in to a neighboring yard, but the boy totally surprised me. He was totally into it, and kept at it until all the eggs were found. He even attempted to knock on Emily’s front door as if we were trick-or-treating. Hilarious!

Once all the eggs had been collected all the kids headed to the deck to count how many eggs they found. Here’s how Gray decided was the best way to count his eggs. On his belly. Have I mentioned he loves doing things while laying on his belly? His Daddy taught him this and this child thinks it’s the coolest way to do just about anything.

After all that fun at we had to go home and take a nap, because at 4pm he had another egg hunt to attend at my mom’s work. It was so sweet. They had little easter baskets for the kids to use and take home, goodie bags filled with lots of fun toys, easter bunny shaped cakes, snacks, and the Easter Bunny was there too! And of course there was the egg hunt.

Even though he had some big kids to compete with Gray collected quite a few eggs.

–> Sorry, I just noticed I didn’t take out the gray background in these photo collages. Ooops! My bad.

Of course, my son went for the pink basket first. Everyone laughed and then sweetly encouraged him to go with a “manlier” color. The bottom right photo is of him stunned when the easter bunny came to visit. Gray kept trying to give the easter bunny high fives and fist bumps. He just followed the EB around with his tiny little had out saying “hi fi!, hi fi!”

How cute is his little pirate outfit? I just love it. It’s classic due to it’s JonJon nature, but not too frilly due to the pirate ship. I love the mix of traditional and edgy. See those shoes on his feet? They are Keen’s (Newport H2). Do yourself a favor and buy your son some. They are rugged, cute, and water proof. Just throw them in the wash and those bad boys are spick and span! They do cost a bit more that I like to spend on shoes, but they are well worth it. My little guy is hard on shoes and sandals. These allow him to have the coolness of sandals, the grip of tennis shoes, and the cuteness of expensive shoes. And they never look scuffed or worn. We will be using these for the beach this summer. I just can’t bring myself to put him in those weird looking water shoes.

He even stopped in my mom’s office to do a little work. What a work ethic that kid has. He must get it from his dad. No, I know he gets it from his dad. This child actually threw a fit when we tried to make him leave “his” office. He wanted to keep working. No joke.

Grayson really enjoyed his 2nd Easter. Can ya tell?

I was still getting ready for church with the little dude found and tore into his Easter basket, so I didn’t get any photos of him opening/digging into it that morning, but I guarantee he loved it. I did snap a photo of it with my phone the night before. After the easter bunny dropped it off, of course.

His easter basket pail is in there somewhere. I took a nod from a super cute little children’s boutiqe here in town called Itty Bitty Bella, and used the Bilibo I got him for Easter as a makeshift basket. He loves sitting in this thing, spinning himself around, and squealing “weeeeeeeeee!” It’s to cute.

This is about all the easter/springtime decorating I did this year. Like I said the other day, we are crazy busy around here these days and decorating for the season is the last thing on my mind. I did take the time however to make a little carrot garland for the fireplace. It didn’t take much time at all to make when you add it all up, but if you would have seen the span of time it took me to make it, 2 weeks, you might have guessed otherwise. Oh well, I got it done…the day before. *blush* See my precious little bunny? He’s a recent Goodwill score for $.99 thankyouverymuch.

I’m not loving the lines I added to the carrots. I think I used to thick of a brush to paint them on. I think I’ll go back and thin them out. I mean, I have a whole year to do it. Which probably means I’ll get ‘em fixed mid March 2013.

We went to church after the basket opening and Grayson “demanded” (like how I used demanded instead of threw a mini-fit?) to walk all the way in from the parking lot by himself. And let me tell you…we park in the BACK.

Look at this kid, can you tell he’s a people person by the way he’s pointing, walking, and greeting people on the way in the door? He’s awesome!

After church we went to my in-law’s for some egg hunting and lunch.

We did our best to get a decent family photo, but he refused to let either one of us hold him. This is the best we got. Not to horrible.

Grayson with his Doogle and DeDe.

After a wardrobe change and lunch Grayson moved to the front yard for a little egg hunting and gathering.

Every time he found and egg he would squeal his version of the word egg “Eeeeeeeegg!!!!”

Later that day we had my parents and our newly pregnant friends EEEEEEEKKKKK!!!!!, Jeremy and Rachel, over for a little cookout. Oh, and we watched our neighbors light a massive, and pretty certain not meeting any fire codes, bon fire in their backyard. May I remind you, we live in a semi-urban neighborhood….NOT the country. Our homes are decently close together. Like my house can catch your house on fire close.

So that was our Easter, nothing to exciting, but lovely just the same. How was yours? Did anyone else use the ever so popular burlap to make Easter decor? What did you make?

I just realized I never posted about Valentine’s Day. Derek and I aren’t really into the whole V-day thing over here. Don’t worry ladies, he didn’t trick me into it. I came into this relationship with this mindset. Big romantic gestures make me feel awkward. So awkward in fact that when he proposed I sprung a nosebleed. That’s how much my blood pressure shot up.

Like I said, around here we keep iheartyou day pretty low key. Since we have a little one around I don’t want to give him the wrong idea about Valentine’s Day, and totally ruin him for his future wife, so I stepped up my game.

Check out how blonde this kid’s hair looks in the sun. I love it. Coming from a family of brunettes blonde hair is totally foreign to me. And I love it. I can’t wait to see how light it gets this summer.

To show my tiny tike just how much Mommy and Daddy love him I made special animal crackers for him. Basically, I just dipped them in white chocolate. I also filled one of those cute little mailboxes from the Target dollar section with other fun little goodies I found in the dollar section. The crayons I’ve had for months, but never pulled out for him to use. I figured he could use them to draw on his cute little robot pad.

In his mailbox I put some suckers (he was only allowed to have one sucker and it was his 2nd sucker ever…you could totally tell too), a toy clacker, and a squeeze ball.

For Daddy, I made some kiwi dipped in white chocolate, and Grayson drew a Valentine. I threw in a few suckers in there for good measure. I decided to make Derek something too, because I didn’t want him to feel left out since I decided to and will continue to give something to Grayson.

It just so happened I found something at the Pottery Barn Outlet a few days before, and mentioned it to Derek. He walked in the door on Valentine’s Day with it in hand. So I ended up getting a gift that day too.

Does anyone else out there not do much for Vday, or are we the only anti-Vday folks out there?

It’s that time of year again. The time of year when the masses gather together on the streets of New Orleans to let loose, and on occasion be a little loose, in the hopes of building their plastic beadcollection. That’s right, it’s Mardi Gras!

My family moved here from New Orleans when I was in elementary school, but went back to visit multiple times a year when we were growing up. To say the least, King Cake is in our blood. And every year when Mardi Gras rolls around I pray that either Derek and I get to make a trip down or my parents do, in hopes that I might score me some “real” King Cake. Yeah, a few bakeries and grocery stores in Memphis sell them, but it’s just not the same. The ones up here are so bland and jelly filled. Nasty.

As luck would have it Derek’s co-worker just happened to be in NO for a training seminar a few weeks ago, and saw my post on FB about wanting a King Cake. Erin is amazing, because when she saw my post she offered to buy me a King Cake and sneak it into her carry-on bag. That’s right, she smuggled one onto a plane for me. This girl is golden in my book.

My parents always talk about the King Cakes from Gambino’s Bakery, but since beggars can’t be choosers I didn’t care where she bought it from as long as I had one heading towards my belly. Erin picked one up at Rouses, and I have to admit…Rouses makes a mighty fine King Cake. BTW…this thing was filled with cream cheese! I was in love. All of those fruit fillings they put in there I do not care for. I tend to eat around that part.

When I opened the box I did my typical scan of the cake to scout out the most likely location of the baby. I didn’t have to look very long, because the baby appeared to be escaping from the center of the cake.

Of course, I cut my piece so the baby was in it. It’s not cheating. At least not in my rule book.

This cake made my day week. I can’t wait until Gray is old enough to bring to parades. Maybe next year.

I wonder if I still know anyone on a Krewe. That would be awesome! (reminder to self: call all relatives)

I don’t want to brag or anything, but I’ve been in a few Mardi Gras parades myself. Okay, so the float was a pickup truck, and the Krewe was my girl scout troop, and we were riding through my Great Grandmother’s neighborhood, but it still counts. I swear!