Spring Break 2012

We stayed super busy this Spring Break. We hung out with friends and stayed on the go pretty much the entire time. We had tons of fun, but by the end of the week, we were all pooped! These pics are all mixed up and out of order. Actually, they're pretty much completely backwards. There were so many, I just wanted to upload them the easiest/fastest way possible. So there you have it...Spring Break with The Starks...backwards :-)

We took the majority of our Spring Break naps (on the days we actually got one) on pallets in the living room watching NickJr.

We hung out in the front yard most evenings riding our bikes and playing EVERY.SINGLE.SPORT imaginable. My 2 boys are sports fanatics!

We had picnics in the living room

We stood in our backyard. Sounds fun, huh? As you can see, our backyard is nothing but pool. We LOVE being back there during the summer...we grill out and swim just about every single night. But when it's not swimming season, our backyard is borrrrrrringgggg. So we hang out in the front :-)

We hung out at Nommie and Poppies

We went to the park with several of my girlfriends and their kids for playtime and a picnic.

We went to Creative Hands with most of those same friends to do some painting. If you're wondering why he's on the floorboard of my car...well, you'll have to ask him bc I have no clue :-) After Creative Hands, we met Chris for sushi. For some reason, he was hanging out on the floorboard while we waited for Daddy.

Not sure why I uploaded this pic, but I'll leave it here in case anyone wants to buy me some. I want the green ones :-)

We spent a lot of time doing artsy stuff. Paints, stamps, markers, crayons, playdough, you name it, we did it. I have to keep these three busy at all times or they'll start fighting. Sibling rivalry is out of control these days!

We baked some goodies.

We spent one morning at The Ft. Worth Children's Museum. Have you been there? It's awesome!! We have had memberships/season passes for the past year, so we go pretty regularly. This particular day was OUT OF CONTROL crazy crowded!!! I will NEVER go back during Spring Break. When you are spoiled to the museum with barely anyone there during the week, an overly crowded day sucks! I'm surprised I even made it home with my children. I lost them every 5 seconds. Anyhow...aside from the crowds and the whiplash I have in my neck from constantly whipping my head around trying to keep up with my 3, we had a great time with our friends :-)

Our anniversary falls during Spring Break every year. We've been married 8 years now!! 8 amazing years :-) Chris is the most loving, caring, even-tempered, patient, hard-working, generous, kind, and hilarious man ever! He would do absolutely anything for me and our children. I fall more and more in love with my husband every day. We decided to share our anniversary date with Landon this year. We thought about going as a whole family and bringing the girls along, too...but they are NOT fans of restaurants. Or eating at all for that matter. They can not stand to sit in a high chair and be forced to eat, so we spared them the torture and left them to play with the babysitter :-) Landon, on the other hand, loves going out to dinner! We went to Maggianos (spelling?) and I didnt get a pic of Chris and I, of course :-) grrrrrr!!! I've gotta start being that person who asks randoms to take a pic of us :-) Here Landon is doing some sort of balancing act on the fountain while we wait to be seated.

Family fun, concerts, and monster trucks

Last wknd, we went out to Southlake to have dinner and hang out with Grandma and Grandpa, Aunt Steph, Uncle Shaun, Keagan, and Uncle John-Michael. Fun times!

Well, this is pretty sad, but I seriously cant tell which pretty is sitting in Grandma's lap here! I think it's Allie, but not 100% sure :-/

Uncle John-Mike and Landon messing around with swords. Uncle John-Mike is your typical 25-yr-old bachelor. He lives in Dallas, dresses in the latest trendy fashion, works out all the time, dates hot chicks, likes to party till the sun comes up, ya know...that type. BUT, he is also a VERY hard worker and cares deeply for his family. He is an amazing guy and Landon ADORES him :-)

The boys playing some catch in the street.

My perfect nephew, Keagan, blowing a dandelion.

About to take the ol' tractor out for a spin.

If you know me well, you know I LOVE Drake. He made a stop at UTA on is college tour he's on right now, so Kara and I went last Friday! You had to have a student ID to get tickets, so I had to dig deep to get those dang things! And it sold out in less than 2 hours...but I still ended up getting us floor seats! It was our 3rd time to see him, and once again...he was amazing :-) I'll spare you the 10 million pics I took, and just share my favorite :-)

A couple of wknd's ago, Chris and I took Landon and his little buddy, Mitchell to see the Monster Truck rally at the Cowboy stadium. Chris got us great seats, but too bad we didnt get to sit in them!! When we entered the stadium, a lady scanned our tickets and said "Have yall already entered once before?" I told her we had not, she looked at us and our tickets strange, and sent us on our way. When we got to our seats, there was a family of 4 sitting in them! After comparing tickets, we realized the ticket broker person on StubHub had double sold our seats! And after chatting with a lot of angry people, we realized the same thing happened to the entire row we were on! The guy who sold us our tickets was a scam artist. UGH! Anyhow...after talking with customer service and many ushers at the stadium and playing musical chairs for a while, we wound up just standing on this landing thing. The boys had a blast and never really knew the difference. Im pretty sure they just think the monster truck rally involves a lot of seat switching :-) On a good note, we ended up getting reimbursed 100% plus an additional $100 for our trouble! NICE :-)

I just wanted to include these 2 funny pics of the girls. We stopped for a hot dog at Costco the other day while we were shopping. Emily was NOT having the photo shoot I was trying to do, so this is the face that stayed put during our entire lunch. She is a bit naughty at times, I tell you!! And the other one is just so cute to me. Landon likes to dress his sisters up in his sports attire (hats, cleats, whatever they'll let him dress them in) and pretend they are going to baseball practice. He pretends to be the coach and they are his players. So cute :-)

Rainy Day

Our plan today was to head to the mall with the kiddos for a day of shopping. Landon and Chris need some new tennis shoes and us girls need whatever we can get our hands on :-) But, Mother Nature had different plans and has decided to dump rain on us all.day.long. So, we decided to stay in our jammies all day, play, and be lazy. I LOVE days like this! This post is just mainly about what we've been doing lately :-)

Here's my hubby and my kiddos snoozing away this afternoon. I know its really dark, but I had to record this special event and I didnt want to wake them with a bright flash. This is the VERY FIRST time the girls have slept in our bed! Being that they were in the NICU for 2 solid weeks, they learned to sleep in a crib alone right away...and we learned to sleep without them right next to us, or even in the same house for that matter. When we brought them home at 2 weeks, they slept in their room that very same night and we havent looked back since. They have always been amazing sleepers in their own room, so we just never tried putting them in bed with us. Chris is always wanting them to sleep with us, and I'm like "Heck no! Why ruin a good thing? There are millions of parents that cant get their kids out of their bed and would do anything to have their bed back!" I figured they would be confused when we put them in our bed for nap today. Im pretty sure they think our bed is used for jumping and storytime only :-) But they did great...went right to sleep.

Watching the pesky raccoon eat catfood at Nommie and Poppy's last night. Nommie is my grandma (my Dad's mom) and Poppy is her husband of about 15 yrs or so. They LOVE my kids as if they were their own. Poppy picks Landon up from school every Friday and heads to their house. The girls and I head over there right after their nap. My dad also meets us there every Friday afternoon. It is a great time for the kids to see their grandparents and play outside in their huge yard. We've been doing this for several years and I cherish this time!!

Landon started baseball on Thursday!!! Being that Chris has been working with him on baseball from the day he was born, he is actually really good! Chris played baseball in high school and for a while as an adult (until it started messing up his golf swing, he says :-/) so he has a passion for the sport. I cant wait to watch my lil slugger in action!

Chris and I got to go out on Valentines night this year!! We went to Piccolo Mondo, the same restaurant we shared our first date and had our rehearsal dinner. Its a very special place to us. Unfortunately, we never got a pic of us...but I snapped a pic of my yummy dinner :-) Red Snapper with white wine cream sauce, sauteed spinach, and roasted potatoes. YUMMO!

No Valentines Day would be complete without making a Valentines mailbox out of a shoebox and addressing Valentines for all your classmates :-)

Just a cute pic of the pretties in their pink boots.

I do not remember making a big deal of the 100th day of school when I was little AT ALL. But these days, they act like its a national holiday. One of the projects Landon had to do was make a posterboard with 100 things on it. We went to Hobby Lobby to pick stuff out, and he chose shells. They smelled like the ocean. Stinky.

We made some yummy iced Valentine cookies for Landon's class and teachers. We bake in our underoos. Well, not me, but they do :-)

We spent some time at the park the other day. It has been the warmest winter ever, making for lots of great outdoor afternoons!