Mother's Day Weekend

 Dave had to work this weekend but we both had Friday off so we decided to celebrate Mother's Day early! :) I wanted to do something fun as a family, you know, celebrate the little people who made me a mom. Dave joked that Mother's Day was like a birthday to the kids. haha We were all happy and had fun so it was perfect! We decided to go to Hollywood Connections. Oh, but before we left the kids gave me a gift.

It's a necklace with their birthstones and their names stamped on it. I love it!!

Now it was time to go out and have some fun. First up we played miniature golf.

After that we decided to try out roller skating... that didn't last very long. Dawson enjoyed it the most out of the four of us until he fell just right (or wrong) and really hurt his bottom. :( :(

Then we rode some rides. Ashlynn was sitting right across from me on the balloon ride and we were squished in there... the basket was barely big enough for the four of us so I couldn't get a good picture of Daws. He loved it, though!

Our favorite was the bumper cars. Ashlynn was just big enough to drive her own car, too!!

I don't think we did anything exciting on Saturday. Dave had to leave for work around lunchtime so me and the kids just hung out at home all day. On Sunday Dave made me strawberry cream cheese stuffed French toast. It was so yummy!!!

Oh, and they got me these flowers on Friday, too.

The kids filled out these questionnaires for me... this is the 2nd time Dawson has done it. I think the first time was two years ago. I need to look back and find it to compare his answers. Dawson filled his out by himself. He is such a good speller!!!

It'll probably be hard to read the picture so I'll type out what is says...

My mom is 30 years old
My mom weighs 60 pounds
My mom's favorite color is pink
My mom's favorite food is soop (Dave said he was talking about Kneader's soup and he's totally right!!!)

My mom always says I love you
My mom cooks the best chicn nugits
My mom's job is taking (care) of Collin
My mom laughs when I tell her fune stuff
If my mom had time, she would love to cuddle with me
My mom and I like to cuddle
My mom really loves me
I love my mom because she loves me
by Dawson

Does he know me or what?!

My mom is 20 years old
My mom weighs 30 pounds
My mom's favorite color is purple
My mom's favorite food is sandwich
My mom always says I love you
My mom cooks the best sandwich
My mom's job is making sandwich
My mom laughs when it's Saturday
If my mom had time, she would love to sharpen a pencil
My mom and I like to make a sandwich
My mom really loves me
I love my mom because I love her
by Ashlynn

I couldn't even read Ashlynn's straight through because I was laughing so hard that I was crying. I love her answers, she's so funny!!!

I sure love these two!!! Being a mommy is the BEST thing that ever happened to me!!!

I'm a little obsessed with the picture of Ashlynn. I took it a couple of days ago. Isn't she just perfect??? Seriously. I can't get over it.

This handsome little guy is perfect, too.

First Two Trips to the Zoo... This Year...

We will be going to the zoo a lot again this year! We love visiting the animals and taking a picnic lunch with us and just having fun! The first time we went to the zoo this year it was a little chilly and raining. Dave was about to go out of town for two weeks and we wanted to do something fun together as a family. We knew we were going to be renewing our membership so if we didn't stay at the zoo very long it would still be worth it.

The kids looked super cute in their rain ponchos. :)

We did have to stop by the Zootique (gift shop) to buy some mittens because the kids' hands were getting cold but we still enjoyed the trip. One of our favorite parts about this trip was how close we were able to get to the giraffes!! It was awesome!

Checking out the gorilla.

I sure love my little handsome.

I sure love this happy princess, too!!

Those are all the pictures I got from our first trip. Here are some from our second trip. They had just opened up the first part of the African Savanna which houses the lions!!! It's the first time in over 8 years that our zoo has had lions! And they put on quite a show, it was so fun to see. Definitely our favorite part of this trip! That's Ashlynn down there in the hat. She still had a bunch of glue/gunk on her head and hair from her sleep study from the night before.

"Mom, take a picture of me!" :) :)

Dave's Surprise Weekend for his 40th Birthday!!!

Dada turned 40 last Friday!!! I knew I wanted to make his 40th birthday extra special. I actually started planning it clear back in October (I made an evite and I went back to see what day I created it... October 12th to be exact. Whew!) I think I talked to his friend Vicki about it right away... I figured people would think I was crazy if I started inviting them to something that was 6 months away!!! I knew it was going to take a lot of people to help pull this off. My plan was to have a bunch of his friends and family show up to celebrate with us. Understandably, not everyone that I invited were able to make it, but we still had a wonderful turnout and a weekend full of surprises!!

It started on Friday, his birthday. Me and Ashlynn had slept overnight at Primary Children's Hospital for her sleep study, I'll post more about that as soon as we have the results. I knew Dave's parents were flying in that afternoon and the zoo was also opening the lion exhibit (yeah, we totally renewed our membership, we love the zoo!!) and I knew we wanted to check that out. Since me and Ash were already up in Salt Lake I thought if the boys could meet us up there so we had two cars (so I could pick up his parents!!!) it would be perfect. I tried to stretch out our zoo visit as long as I could. Poor Ashlynn still had glue all over her head/hair from all the stuff they had hooked up to her at the hospital. I had Dave bring a hat but her hair still looked pretty bad. We had a good time, though. We finished up at the zoo a little sooner than I wanted to but we had to make it work. Dave and Ashlynn went home so he could give her a bath and me and Dawson went to the party store to buy some balloons for daddy's birthday and to kill time. We had almost an hour before Mema and Pepaw's plane landed plus it would take extra time to get their bags and stuff. Eek!

I was super excited once we had picked them up!! When we got home Dave and Ashlynn were upstairs in our bed, relaxing. I asked him to stay up there because Dawson wanted to surprise him by decorating. I finally went upstairs to get him (it felt like forever but really we had only been home for a few minutes lol). When he came downstairs Dawson jumped out and yelled surprise and then his parents came out. yay!!! That night we all went out (with some of my family, too) and had dinner at The Old Spaghetti Factory to celebrate Dave's birthday.

His next surprise would come the next morning as we were getting ready to leave for the walk. His friend, Aaron and his family, drove here and got to their hotel at like 3am!! They were at our house a little after 7 to head to the walk with us. Aaron was in a gorilla suit, complete with mask and walked up to Dave. I can't remember what he said to him but Dave was so confused and didn't know who it was. When Aaron took off his mask Dave was so surprised!!!

So then we went to the walk, came home and had a little lunch and then went to Leatherby's with Dave's parents and Aaron's family. While we were there Dave's sister, Kelly and her husband, Pete walked in to sit down with us. Dave was super surprised to see them!!! Yay!!! 3 surprises in less than 24 hours and I still had one more to go!

After ice cream I pretended I was sick and me and the kids and Dave's parents came home. Everyone else went to see the Great Salt Lake. We quickly picked up the house and my mom brought some food that I had ordered (Brandee also brought some drinks and cake that my dad had ordered and picked up for me) and we got ready for his surprise party. A couple of his friends from work came and my family and all of the guests that we had here. :) Dave said he saw my dad's truck and thought something might be going on but he was mostly surprised. I call the weekend a huge success! We had a lot of fun and got to see and spend time with people that we don't get to see a lot. I hope Dave felt super special and loved because he IS!!!

I really wish I was better at taking pictures when we have a lot of people together!! My mom, thankfully, took most of these pictures. I'd love to have more pictures of us with Dave's family!!! Dave's sister took this picture of her and Ashlynn, I love it!

I am so thankful for everyone who helped make Dave's 40th birthday a memorable one! It took a lot of planning and I've been so excited that it's about killed me to keep it a secret!! I couldn't even tell Dawson!!! haha I love you, Dave, I hope you had the best birthday ever!!!