AR Trip

I'm a bit behind on my pictures from the girls' weekend in Arkansas - it was so nice to get to spend some time with my mom, aunts Patty & Jean and cousin, Becki - I so miss seeing all of them but am going to get a double dose with Julia's wedding coming soon! Yippee for Graf girl get togethers, we need to plan another soon. It was nice to see Grandpa and Garnett at home too- they are an amazingly active set of 80+ year olds. Seeing them reminds me of how lucky I am to still have ALL of my grandparents and even some bonus grandparents - I'm one lucky girl!!

Happy Birthday Dad

We celebrated my dad's birthday last weekend when they visited - we kicked off the weekend with crawdads and oysters - 2 of his favorites, Carter even ate the crawdads (until he got a bit too much spice!). We hit the Relax the Back store where the boys fell in love with massage chairs (oh no, what have we started, oh wait maybe they could go for pedicures and just sit in the chairs!). We did a shrimp boil and had some delish GiGi's cupcakes (the champagne was a BIG hit for my local cupcake fan friends). It was lovely to have them but the weekend went WAY fast!

Here Fishy, Fishy!

We have our first set of pets! 4 fish that Mimi and Papa bought the boys for Easter. Their names are Carter (Carter names everything after himself first we've met Carter kitty, Carter frog and now Carter fish...just realized he could be named after our friend Carter Fish!) Hester (Carter's Bears jersey is Hester) and Lincoln's fish are Pinky (my Mii name, but the fish is pink) and Cutler (his Bears' jersey name).

They seem to be doing fine, we were sure that Cutler would be floating because he has a funny swim but have been reminded that maybe some fish just swim differently (although I have yet to see him go to the top for food which concerns me, I don't think he can get there and I'm hoping the little orange fish are letting some drop down for him).

They have a fun fishy home complete with color changing lights, we will see how much I love them in a week when I get to clean their tank - this brings back memories of my fish the Beta that lived on and on and on in a bowl that had to be cleaned and cleaned and cleaned - hopefully their legacy will be a long life and a clean tank!

We survived the first t-ball game, it wasn't pretty but we survived it!

T-shirts done!

They aren't perfect, but they were a great start! Even got a picture with Carter for finishing - too bad I didn't wash my hair today!

Happy St. Patty's Day!

We celebrated with green cupcakes - yumm-o!

First practice of the season

Well we are officially playing t-ball, should be rather interesting for the Hogan-clan! To say that it is more intense than our soccer experience would be an understatement - starting with, eek - real practices! The kids had a great time yesterday learning their first t-ball fundamentals and chit-chatting while they did it!

We took a mini-spring break this week and headed to Frisco, TX for a few days - had a lovely adventure just the 4 of us - think we determined the little men aren't yet ready for a long vacation because by day 3 they were D-O-N-E, done! Lincoln threw a lovely fit that sent us quickly out of IKEA - so quickly I only got to experience 1/2 the store (I should have opted out of lunch and toured the other half alone, in hindsight!).

It was kind of funny to be the parent in this adventure because I could totally relate to being the kid again and only wanting to stay in the pool (which was a smidge cold for the adults...) and stay inside the hotel because that was the fun thing to do. Our room overlooked Dr. Pepper field and the boys thought that was super cool - wish they would have started the season so we could have caught a game from our room! We hit the Dallas World Aquarium - super cool, super busy (yeah, I know S.B. - we waiting in line about 30 minutes but the boys did really well) and we enjoyed the visit even though it was wall to wall people - would like to go back on a normal day to visit again with a little more breathing room. We also got to catch up with Sean's buddy Myles.

Overall a good few days away from home and good to be back home as always.

The Return of the Elephants

After nearly 2 years of waiting the OKC Zoo's elephants have returned from their "date" with Sneezy the elephant in Tulsa. Soon we should have another elephant. Their new home is impressive - it must be 20x the size of their old one, maybe more plus they have this awesome barn that you can see down into. Super cool, glad we got to see their new home.

Our Kitty Friend

Ms. Kitty visited in the house yesterday, she must be lonely these days she was

in the garage when we came home from taking Carter and then as I made lunch I saw her on the back window and a little while later she was on the front porch clawing at the mat - can you say stalker kitty!

Growin' boys

Carter's current saying is "sure thing, mom" we cleaned out the garage yesterday and every time I asked him to do something it was "sure thing, mom" - cracks me up! Do notice he is wearing work gloves! We found out for certain that we have too many toys in the garage but did get the shuffle board table set up in there rather than letting it sit against the wall like it has for the past 4 years - maybe some day it will have a proper home.

We've been in cleaning mode and moved some business around - including putting the shelves in Linc's room with hopes that he'd play with his toys more & less with things like scissors, dental floss and lotion - so far I think it might be working, fingers crossed it stays that way!

Projects 2 & 3

Sewing class is over - Jen and I did it, we passed, got our licence to sew (really... our teacher is cutesy like that and gave us a licence to sew). On our last night we finished our pillows - well everyone but me finished, I finished and then realized I'd made a MONSTER mistake and had done it inside out so I spent some time ripping out the stitches and our teacher felt so badly she did most of them while teaching. I finished on Friday without incident (she was super worried because she'd had a student quit the class based on that mistake before!). We also made a cosmetic bag which was fun and easy, and I realized I have enough fabric to make 2 more so hoping that today I'll whip those up and maybe have enough time to finish the book I'm currently reading - Jodi Picoult's "House Rules" for those of you who read - love the book, but I love the author too.