So, Ben had an amazing 7th birthday! He was sooo surprised! He knew we were going to go to Legoland at some point, but he didn't know that's where we were going on Saturday, he just thought we were going to San Diego to hang out. Here are the pictures that I did take, they didn't load in order and I don't feel like going back and fixing it...

This was actually as we were leaving the park, when we got there, there were just too many people around to get a decent picture of the kids in front of the entrance.

Ben at Dino Island. The kids are soo funny, they kept asking if they could go and touch everything made of legos...I thought all Legos felt the same. Also, Ben and I rode a roller coaster in Dino Island, it was soo fun! It wasn't super crazy or anything, but Ben was soo fun! He wanted to put his little arms in the air and then we would start to lean to the side and I couldn't help but grab onto him to make sure he wouldn't fall out, haha! We laughed the whole time, loved it!

These guys were outside the park as your walking up (there was a mom and baby on the other side) but at first glance they totally looked like real people, very cool!

This was one of our first stops. You could go in and build a little lego car and then race them down some ramps. The kids both built their own, Abby's was too short so it just went a little ways and then turned sideways and stopped. Ben's actually went all the way down, he did good. David decided to try his hand at it and built a good one, it went all the way down and pretty quickly. It was fun!

She was pooped! She passed out as we were walking to the car at the end of the day (right after we took that picture at the entrance)

Abby getting her drivers licese...she definitely needs a lesson on turning...she totally didn't get it, but she still had fun and they still gave her her license.

Ben getting his drivers licese. He did really good! They had stop lights, stop signs, had to drive on the right side of the road etc. He took it very seriously and earned his drivers licese!

This was cute, there were different instruments in the water and you could step on these censors on the ground in front of them to make them play music.

This was Abby touching that dinosaur

Abby and Wendy from Bob the Builder

Ben and Bob

Abby at the car building place

I thought this was too funny. I'm not a big Star Wars fan, so I don't know all of the characters, but I think I know the main ones. Well, they had a mini Star Wars land and at the end they have a bunch of these characters along the walk way. I figured the kids would want a picture with one of the more popular characters (like Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader or something) but no, they chose this guy, Boba Fett, who I have no idea who this is (sorry Star Wars fans). Just thought it was funny who they chose to take a picture with.

And this is my birthday boy building with the legos. He had sooo much fun and was very surprised! Happy birthday sweet boy!

So I am literally on my elliptical exercising while I write this, technology is kinda cool, frustrating at times, but cool.

We've been a tad busy to say the least. Last week was VBS and it was tiring but I just love it! I love the kids, decoration, smiles and especially all those light bulbs that go off in those little minds as they learn about their maker! Love it!! This past weekend I got a teeny tiny bit of my sewing done. I made 2 shams to go with my new quilt for my bed (picture below is the front side of shams in mustard chevron stripes, back side is the robins egg blue floral and the rest is the actual quilt). I have more fabric to make some more throw pillows and I'm gonna try my hand at making a bed skirt...but I gotta scrounge up some motivation for all that.

Yesterday was the 4th and we just hung around the house. I made my flag cake (that I failed to take a picture of!) and a taco salad to take to our friends BBQ. We swam and hung out with friends and then went to the firework show. Oh, and I painted Abby's nails all patriotic, I love having a girly girl!

Well, I'm sweating pretty hard now so I'm gonna concentrate on not falling off of this here elliptical. We've got lots more coming up so I'll talk at you soon!

I need to do laundry and clean house but I am sooooooo tired!!! I actually can't do laundry right now either (seriously!) A pipe broke under our house and they're fixing it right now. I really do need to do laundry, Ben has like 1 pair of clean pants and David needs socks, hopefully they will get it fixed today. Seems like we've been on a movie kick lately. We went as a family to see Brave on Sunday...not such a good idea. It was an okay movie, but man, it got intense! There are some big bears in it, fighting, growling bears, and on a huge screen. I had both kids faces buried in me a couple times and they were half crying...yah...a little much for kids. Also, our theatre is doing a summer movie thing where on Tuesdays they show oldish kids movies for $1. This week it was Kung Foo Panda 2. I guess I had never seen that one, Ben had, I dunno how, but it was actually pretty good (and didn't scare the kids!) So that was fun. Ben has been doing swim lessons with a friend of ours and is like a fish! I'm soo proud of him, he has picked it up really quickly. Our church started VBS last night also. I never really got assigned to any particular job, so last night I sold the remaining t-shirts they had (sold out of those) and then kinda roamed around until I made my way to the game/snack room and ended up staying there the whole night and will probably go back there the rest of the week. I have also succumbed (sp?) to Instagram and have to say I love it, makes the quality of my phone pics soo much better (I think). Abby was having bad dreams or something last night (the cause of me being sooo tired today) and at one point David put her in bed with me and I couldn't resist taking this picture of this little angel sleeping...

My latest food obsession! 1 serving of plain oatmeal, 1/2 - 1 banana, sliced strawberries, honey, slivered almonds and a little unsweetened vanilla almond milk. Yumm!! So good and filling. I calculated it to be around 300 - 350 calories (depending on if you use the whole banana, almonds and how much milk you use).

There's a wall at church decorated for VBS that has a bunch of hot air balloons all over it, and I didn't notice that the kids in the balloons were actual pictures of people from church. Someone asked me if I saw Abby in the hot air balloon and I was soo confused...until I saw this...

First night of VBS, they were soo excited!

Get ready for a random post...

- my kids are crazy! They climb on EVERYTHING! I swear Abby got up here all by herself, and Ben helped by bringing her a blanket and pillow in case she couldn't get down before bed time...

- We are sooo having a yard sale this weekend! How do 4 people accumulate this much junk?? Actually it's not all junk, there's some pretty good stuff in there...yard sale at our house Friday and Saturday morning from 7-11, come buy my stuff!! (why friday you ask? I guess it's the thing here to go to yard sales on friday morning and buy stuff to take to the swap meet on saturday)

- Tonight is date night and I told hubby I would cook something yummy and we could stay home and watch Gone With The Wind! I'm pretty excited about this. I decided to cook chicken alfredo (love!) garlic bread and salad, easy and yummy! And I love that movie! It's where my name comes from (Melanie) and David has never seen it, so of course he has to watch it with me. We will probably only get half way through considering it's a 4 hour movie.

- I HATE making Ben clean his room! It's ridiculous!!! He whines, complains, cries, procrastinates, "forgets", etc.

-Sunday is my last week to do crafts at church, and honestly I'm kinda excited! Don't get me wrong, I love working with the kids, but it's alot of work to come up with and prepare a craft for 60+ kids every week.

- I'm trying to find a super cute dress for a friends wedding in July...

- VBS is next week, kinda looking forward to it, don't really know where I'm helping, they just told me they could use me...

- I really miss my family and need to pin my husband down on a date we can go out there...late July or early August...

- It's hot outside! 108 hot...

- I have some sewing projects that I really want/need to get done, but I made myself leave them until after this yard sale and last week of crafts

- On the upside, I got my sewing/crafting area cleaned out and semi organized as I've been getting ready for this yard sale.

Well, back to cleaning out stuff, hope everyone has a good day!

Trying to get back into a routine...a fitness and healthy eating routine that is. Just to give you an example of the eating we've been doing around here, fathers day menu: BBQ brisket, crock pot Mac n cheese, biscuits, salad, and apple pie and ice cream! Yum!! It was worth it, that's my kind of splurging! But my body is feeling it. I started today off with a spinach smoothie (I need some new recipes!!), had a yummy blackened chicken Caesar salad for lunch, and had spinach topped with scrambled eggs, avocado and homemade salsa and fruit salad on the side. I ate better today than I have been, and I'm happy with that. I also finally got my butt in gear and did 20 minutes on the elliptical (kicked my butt) and then 10 minutes of weights (kicked my butt even more!) I was sweating like crazy when I was done but it felt soo good! That's something I don't understand, if it feels so good to get some exercise, why don't I do it on a regular basis, or stick to it when I am on a roll?? I dunno, maybe one day I will figure it out!

I needed the kids to keep busy for a little while last week while I cleaned and prepped for people coming over for dinner, so I gave each kid a canvas and some washable paint and let them go at it! They had fun and made some really cute pictures! I'll have to take pictures of the finished product and I'm pretty sure I'm gonna have to try my hand at some painting soon too! More projects to come!

So, a little later than I had planned, but here are some pictures from the last day of school and such...I'll be back within the next day or two to tell you about my projects and plans for this summer...

Ben at his end of year awards ceremony, he got his certificate for completing kindergarten (and may I brag for a second and say that he was the only one in his class to get 100% on his final test! proud mama moment) and he got an award for high GPA! So proud of him and how well he did in his first year of school, very little complaining about having to go, didn't get into too much trouble, and made good grades!

Just a cute one of Ben and Abby with their hats and shades on the way to church...

I made these for Ben's teachers, thought they were just perfect for the end of the year (found this idea on Pinterest (duh) HERE)

And because Pinterest makes me an overachiever (hah) I made these for Ben's class mates, too cute! Found this idea with template HERE!

It feels like Friday! I think mainly because Ben's last day of school is today!! Woo hoo!!!

Back up a couple days to Monday...we got the yearbooks in for Ben's school and all the yearbook girls came over for a little preview party. They turned out super cute. Better than what I expected really. But I guess it's hard to get a good idea of how it's really gonna look when the whole thing is done on a computer screen. But, that was alot of fun and I'm looking forward to working on next years.

Tuesday was my sweet Abigails 3rd birthday (but she usually tells people she's 6...) She woke up to her room filled with balloons (Pinterest idea). I've started doing a little questionaire each year on the kids birthdays and take a picture, just to see how they change appearance wise and their likes and dislikes and personality. The funniest answer I thought was to the question "What do you want to be when you grow up?" and her answer was "Big!" haha, sooo cute!! Next she had some birthday money to spend from my Nana and Papa so we headed to the mall. We went to the Disney store and she picked out an Ariel baby doll and an Ariel beach towel almost imediately and was done! I was surprised, I thought she would look around forever and want everything! But she loves that baby doll! Thank you Nana and Papa! After that we just came home and played until it was time to get brother from school. We didn't do much else, just had a small party for her with Grandma. Here are some pictures from the day...




This was the best picture I could get her to take...




Are you noticing all the outfit changes...


Lots of Barbies!


I'm not even gonna talk about this Barbie cake...geez...did not come out as I imagined it would, but she loved it, that's what counts...but I think I'm going to have to attempt it again just to see if I can get it right...

And yesterday was David's birthday. We had some friends over for dinner. I thought it was funny how different their birthday tables were...Abby's full of pink and girly stuff and David's was kinda plain...poor guy! I think he enjoyed it still.

Like I said, today is Ben's last day of school and I have several pictures and stuff already for it, but I'm going to wait and post about it tomorrow, so, see you tomorrow!!