Yay policeman!

This blog post is WAY overdue! This event happened almost 3 weeks ago! I'm the worst blogger ever. Sorry for the delay all you faithful readers.

So, about three weeks ago, I experienced one of the scariest moments to date as a mom. Looking back, it seems kind of silly to have had the reaction that I did. But as the everything was unfolding before me, I did indeed freak out a bit. Ella was on Spring Break that particular week and I wanted us to do something fun and memorable. Well, it was memorable alright, just not the way that I intended it to be!

We were down in Fayetteville since my aunt and uncle who were in town for the day. We went out to dinner. I drove the girls in my car and my parents and aunt and uncle drove in another car. After dinner, my dad helped me take the girls to the car and then left to take everyone else home. I finished buckling the girls in their carseats and shut the door. I went to open my door and it wouldn't open. I tried opening Maddie's door and it wouldn't opened. I tried to open the trunk and I am sure you can guess what I am about to say...yep, it did not open. I had locked my keys (and the the girls!) in the car.

My parents were just driving out of the parking lot, I was able to flag them down with my frantic arm waving. Not to mention the fact that I ran after them. They came back, my parents helped to calm me down and my mom called 911. A sheriff showed up within a couple of minutes. As he tried to unlock the car, my aunt and uncle entertained the girls. Thankfully, the girls had no idea what was going on. They just sat there smiling and waving like nothing was wrong. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity (it couldn't have been more than three or four minutes) the sheriff had the doors unlocked. The girls were fine, just a little sweaty. It also just happened to be 80 degrees that day.

I definitely learned my lesson and my keys will always stay with me. I have become almost neurotic about it now. I am grateful for my parents and aunt and uncle who were there to help calm me down and I will forever be grateful to that police officer.

As we were driving home, I explained to the girls that mommy had locked her keys in the car and that I was very sorry that they were stuck in the car. Ella said, "It's okay, Mommy." Maddie then went on to say "Yay, Mommy!" Ella chimed in and said, "No, Maddie, not Yay, Mommy. Yay, policeman!"

We did end Spring Break on a good note by going to the zoo. The girls would go here every day if I would let them. Good thing we have a season pass! If you asked them, Ella would tell you that her favorite animals to see at the zoo would be the giraffes, followed by the gorillas and Maddie's favorites are the monkeys with the "mingos" coming in at a close second.

Here are the girls checking out the "mingos".

And the train ride is always a favorite.

Happy Birthday, Chris!

Happy Birthday to the most amazing and wonderful man that I know - my husband!

I think one of the hardest parts about Chris being gone during the week for work, is that we miss out on a lot of special days as a family. And today is one of those days. It just doesn't feel right that he is away from his family on his special day. Birthdays were always a pretty big deal at my house growing up. My mom would always make our birthdays really special. Actually, she still does and I'm 33 years old! I hope I can do as good of a job at creating those birthday memories for my girls as my mom did for my brother and I. So, I guess that's why it's a little hard for me when we aren't all together on a special day.

At least Skype was there to help save the day and to help up all be together via the internet. The girls were able to talk to their daddy and sing Happy Birthday to him. Ella and I have been singing Happy Birthday for the past couple of days in the hopes that Maddie would pick it up. She did pretty well. She definitely had the "happy birthday" part down. I think they were just excited to see daddy on the computer.

Chris and the girls planted flowers around our one little tree this weekend. The girls had a blast! They even picked out the flowers. Can you guess which color Ella picked? Her favorite color, purple.

Happy Birthday, Chris! All of your girls love and miss you!

Easter bunnies

Let me just start off this Easter post by saying that I am SO happy that Easter is finally here and gone. Why? I seriously don't know if I could handle Ella asking me for the 300th time when Easter was going to get here. It was really cute at first and I thought it would wear off after a couple of days. Nope, that didn't happen. She would literally asked me at least 10 times a day if it was Easter yet. That is no exaggeration. From the time she got up until it was time to go to bed, she had Easter on the brain. She definitely amazes me.

We had Easter at our house this year. A first for us. We usually go down to Fayetteville and spend the day at my parents house. We decided to change things up this year and have my parents come up to our house. And Chris's brother, Erik, who is a freshman at Georgia Tech, was also able to spend the day with us. It was so nice getting to spend the day with our family.

Chris and Erik made an awesome team in the kitchen. It's kind of funny how both of them really like to cook. They made a great feast; peach bellinis, lamb, orzo salad, a green salad, and yummy swiss chard. To steal a line from Maddie's favorite TV show at the moment, Yo! Gabba Gabba, there was definitely a party in our tummies! Thanks for the feast, boys!

This picture was taken two days before Easter. I was only able to get this shot before Maddie took the Santa hat off. We thought it was hilarious. Ella with the bunny ears and Maddie chanting "ho, ho, ho."

All of these pictures were taken the day before Easter at the egg hun in our neighborhood. The girls are now egg hunting pros after going to this egg hunt and one the previous weekend. Maddie is an egg hunting machine. She was focused and on a mission; to get as many eggs as possible.

Hope everyone had a great Easter!

Inspired by Jamie Oliver

Jamie Oliver is my new favorite person. He isn't actually new to me but my love for him has grown over the past couple of months. And no, Chris doesn't mind my love affair with Jamie because he loves him too.

We were first introduced to him almost seven years ago, when a friend of ours gave us a Jamie Oliver cookbook as a wedding gift. Our friend is British and I just thought he was trying to push his British lifestyle on us. I think we may have flipped through the book and then tossed it on the shelf. He definitely wasn't getting much love back then. Then a couple of years ago, Chris got another one of his cookbooks as a gift. Ever so slowly, Chris would make some things from it and they were good. Later, he received another one of his cookbooks and again, practically everything he made from it was awesome. So, this past Christmas I gave Chris Jamie's newest cookbook, Food Revolution.

For the past three months, Chris has pretty much been making all of our dinners from recipes from this book. Everything that he has made has been AWESOME. Seriously, some of the stuff tastes like something I would get in a restaurant. Let me just take this opportunity to say that I am so lucky to have a husband that loves to cook. Not only does he love to cook but he wants to make healthy and nutritious meals for our family. How did I get so lucky? He's a great cook and I love it that he cares so much about the kind of food that we put into our bodies. It's really due to him and his cooking that I have starting to have an appreciation for eating healthy.

Anyway, so I love Jamie for coming up with this cookbook and I love my husband for making us tasty dinners from it. In case you didn't figure it out, we're pretty big fans of Jamie. Well, last Friday Jamie's new show, Food Revolution, debuted on ABC. Jamie set up shop in Huntington, West Virginia, the unhealthiest city in our nation, to help reform their eating habits by working in the schools and educating the community. It's a great show and you should definitely check it out, if you haven't already. Fridays at 9 pm on ABC.

And while you're at it, head on over to Jamie Oliver's website and sign his petition to get better food in our schools. He hopes to get one million people to sign his petition by the end of his tv series (there's only 5 more shows!). He wants to take it to The President and show him that this is an important issue. It takes 20 seconds. So, please click here and sign up. My two little princesses will thank you for it.

Part 2 of Ella singing

Here's the second video of Ella singing at her school concert. Yes, it took me this long to upload it to You Tube. Not sure what was going on - probably operator error. These two songs were sung by the entire school.

Part 1 of Ella's public singing debut

Here is the first installment of Ella singing at the Happy Hearts Dinner. This is her singing with the other 2 1/2 year olds. I apologize for the shakiness of the video. I'm no Stephen Spielberg! There is one more video to come. Seeing that it took me three days to get this one on here, I'm guessing it'll be up here by the middle of the week. Maybe?

Technical difficulties

For some reason I am having some problems uploading my videos. Urgh! I have spent way too much time trying to get it to work. I promise to keep working on it and get it figured out. I am sure it's just me and I am doing something wrong. So, to my faithful readers (all five of you!), the video will be up here some time in the near future.