Spring Catch Up

April is a pretty busy month for us. We have Jake's birthday, Easter, Marc's birthday, and then our anniversary. So, starting with Jake's birthday...we got him a Lightning McQueen bed since he loves Cars so much. It was Marc's idea and I thought it was a great one...so now I'm going to decorate his room in the Cars theme. Should be fun:)

We had an Elmo birthday party for Jake at a nearby park. The cake got a little melty in the car, but I was proud of myself for pulling it off. Has anyone ever tried to dye white frosting to make red? It's near impossible. I went through 2 bottles of red dye and it just kept being pink. After adding some other colors (and after several grocery store trips) I got it to this.

It was also my cousin-in-law Shannon's birthday, so I decided to make her a cake themed from one of her favorite t.v. shows...can anyone guess the show???

Here's my beautiful table spread...don't I throw an elegant party? I planned on having picnic tables there at the park, but mobs of people were there because it was also Easter weekend. So we set up some little tables and crammed all the food on it. At least I got some more use out of the Elmo I made at Christmas for the yard.

I just thought this picture was so cute. Here's Jake with his cousin Nathan.
Then the kids at the party fed the ducks at the pond...right next to the sign that said "Don't feed the ducks."

Easter was fun. Jake liked coloring eggs, and playing with the stickers.

For Marc's birthday, we went to Disneyland.

Jake's helping Marc out a little, both with blowing out the candle and adding more moisture to the pie while he does so...it's a win-win

This is on mother's day. I LOVE being jake's mama.

He fell asleep on the couch which he never does, and looks an awful lot like me when I sleep...don't ask me why, but starting in college I would wake up with my hand just like Jake is doing. I'm sure my roommates remember this:) And Marc makes fun of me all the time.

And I got to take advantage of a favorite mother moment...

Jake's had a lot of fun with his cousin Luke since we moved to the same city as him. I'm excited for them to be buds.

And he still loves his Torrance friends. He was so used to being around Emily and Lauren and Brody...it makes me sad he doesn't get to see them as much.

And here's my teaser:

We've been working so hard on redoing our fireplace for the last several weeks. Here's some before pictures...

Notice Jake working with his tools while Marc and my dad are working...so cute.

Stay posted for the after pictures! Hopefully they will be coming within a week:)

House Project #1...Complete!!

We decided even before moving that our first house renovation would be scraping off the popcorn ceilings. Before moving day, we took a Saturday and scraped it all off. Because of asbestos, we bought all the safety gear we needed to wear....the good news is, we can wear these again when we travel to the moon.
Finishing the ceilings is messy work...so our house has felt a bit like a construction zone. Between mudding, sanding, and painting, all I can say is...it's a dang good thing I don't care about the carpets. Here are Marc and my cousin Chris showing how dirty you get from sanding. It's a great look on them.

I insisted on having the ceilings be smooth (rather than textured) much to Marc's dismay. Doing them smooth takes a lot more time since you are trying to not have any imperfections. But I think it was worth it. They turned out great. I am SO HAPPY that this project is done!! I want to thank Marc, Chris, Kenneth for helping us work on it...and my grandparents, and Trina and Tim and Shannon for watching Jake when we needed it. Now, onto the next project! We'll be taking a sledgehammer to some walls...I'll keep you posted:)

Bring me two pina coladas...

So I realize I've had you "staying posted" for longer than should be expected...I've been unpacking still and planning and throwing Jake a birthday party. But here are the pics from our cruise. I can't believe only a couple weeks ago I was in the Caribbean!! Oh how I miss it:)

Our first port was Nassau, Bahamas.

This is the Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island (which is connected to Nassau with a bridge). We walked through the whole resort...I would definitely go back just to that resort for a vacation.

We planned to do the dolphin interaction as an excursion at the Atlantis Resort. I have always wanted to do this. It was as cool as I thought it'd be...I only wish it had lasted longer. There is just something amazing about being up close with a dolphin and playing with them in the water. It made me want to be a trainer:) I made Marc do it with me, which he wasn't all that excited about, and he was surprised at how cool he thought it was.

They have the dolphins jump and do tricks right in front of you.

And you get to rub their back, feed them fish, hug and kiss them, and do hand signals that tell them to do tricks, and just play with them in the water. I'm SO glad we did it.

Back on the ship, we had one day at sea until our next port. Here's a couple pics of the ship. We liked laying out on the chairs along the railings looking out to the ocean. We watched movies on this big screen at night.

The water slides were pretty fun too.

Here's a formal night
Our next port was at St. Thomas.

We went scuba diving. We bought an underwater camera that was lame...water got into it and messed up our pictures. But this one of us kind of came out. It wasn't as tropical looking as we thought it would be, but we still did see some tropical fish. And we were glad just to go diving again. We hadn't been in 5 years.

After scuba diving, we took a taxi to the world famous Magen's Bay. It's world famous, so we couldn't miss not seeing it. I'm glad we did. We got there around 4:30, and no one was there anymore. But the shop and food counter was still open...so we felt like we had the beach almost to ourselves. We had dinner there and went in the water. It really is beautiful there.It was so easy to float on your back in that water.
Our third port was St. Maarten. Here's us getting off the ship.
We did this excursion where you are on an America's Cup sailboat racing against two others. It felt good to be out sailing on the water. Everyone had assignments on the sailboat. The funny thing about sailboat races, is you can't just sail straight ahead. You have to tack back and forth in a zigzag pattern to the finish line. And so all three boats are doing opposite zigzag patterns and you have no idea who is winning or losing...kind of a funny way to race. So we came in 3rd and had no idea until they told us...oh well.

Seriously, look how blue this water is! It was my favorite thing about the Caribbean...I was constantly amazed at how blue it was.

After the sailing we headed to the beach for the rest of the day.
So I planned on gaining 5 pounds on the cruise, and I held true to my goal for reasons like this:

Seriously, the food and desserts were delicious! I think a cruise is the only place where there isn't shame in ordering two appetizers, two dinners and two desserts. Or should I be embarassed I just wrote that??

Speaking of food, the real reason Marc wanted to go on a cruise again was for the 24 hour soft serve. He's in heaven with that. He would get 5-7 a day...no lie.

You gotta love the towel animals waiting in your room every night.
So after St. Maarten, we had two days at sea going back to Cape Canaveral, Florida. We went to shows, the comedy club, karaoke, we played blackjack a little, and of course just laid out and read our books and relaxed.

We booked a tour getting off the ship that took us to see Kennedy Space Center since our flight home wasn't until the evening. I am so glad we did, because it was awesome. It is so worth going there. You are seeing real rockets and spaceships and lunar modules that have been on the moon. You just can't believe it while you are seeing it. And we drove out to the launch area and saw a rocket that was getting ready for launch. It was just really cool to see it all with your own eyes and take in the fact that astronauts leave from there to go to outer space.

It was such a relaxing and fun vacation. And while the day before we were home I started missing Jake like crazy, for most of the trip I didn't even feel like a mom. We went on a cruise for our honeymoon six years ago, and this time it felt exactly the same. We had to keep reminding ourselves that we've had 6 years of life together and a child back at home. But I think that means the vacation was a success, right?:)