happy late st. patricks day to my fellow irish!

boom.

we had a fun weekend, that included a fun st patricks party at the clubhouse.

presley ate AT LEAST 10 of those fruit skewers. i honestly lost count. she kept saying "can i have more fruit?" and i'm like, "yes baby!" (while patting myself on the back like i'm mother of the year, when i know good and well she had chips and fruit loops for lunch.) 😂

our church was giving out tickets to the "faith and family night" at the raceway for saturday night, so randy took eli, and also invited our neighbor, chih, and his son lucas! eli and lucas are less than a month apart in age and they are SO CUTE when they get together.

when they got home, i asked eli all about his fun night, and it went like this:

did you go see racecars?!

yeah, i ate POPCORN!!!

he really loved it, and also told me it was "so loud!" and the "cars went so fast!", but he never forgets to say, "and i ate popcorn!" at least 4 times 😂😍

sunday we had a mission lunch and auction at church. it was so fun! they had lots of stuff for silent auction(each home group donated a basket!), tons of raffles, a dessert auction, and even a live auction. they had about 4 tables filled with every dessert you could imagine, but presley had her heart set on a tray full of cake pops. what baby wants baby gets. so $18 later... and she didn't even like them. for the record, they were DELICIOUS. presley even won a raffle prize...three huge bottles of bubbles. i wish you could have seen her face, she was so excited that she won! "i won! i won a prize! i was the winner!" randy bid and won(and then forgot to bring home) a starbucks giftcard, and i bought the hyacinth flower centerpiece for $5 because it smells sooooo good. it was easy and fun to spend a little money when it goes to missions! so proud of our church.

sunday evening we spent a few hours in the backyard, as pioneer woman would say, "cleaning up the homestead." the weather was amazing (it's already 80 degrees! yikes!) so randy mowed, cleared the porch off, killed wasps, etc. i hosed all the furniture and the porch down, cleaned the back windows, and used the shopvac to suck up nasty little bugs. idk what kind of bugs they are, but they COVER my window screens. they cling to the stucco in weird little spots. and they just swarm around when you're outside. they are tiny, but ANNOYING. i don't remember them at all from last year, so i think its a new problem. presley climbed up to the top of the wall in the back ALL BY HERSELF! eli played with the water table and his t-ball set and was loving every minute of being outside.

our wall is filling in, FINALLY, and our grass is starting to turn green again too... hello spring!

after we picked presley up from school i asked her to go change into play clothes so we could go play in the backyard again.

what do yall think? much fashion, right? 

and of course, one more pic of my precious baby boy who is just content to be out of the house.

i am soooo tiiiired.

i still haven't quite caught up on sleep from this weekend and that ONE lost hour seems like a whole lost day when you're 34 and also a mother of two small kids.

we spent the entire day at church saturday... i'm talking 7am until after 8pm. literally, all day.
the youth were having their d-now weekend and randy was teaching and i was in the kitchen cooking for breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, and dinner...and snack. my babies LOVED spending the day at church and all the attention they got from the big kids. they spent a lot of time on the playground, and even more time up on the stage with the keyboard and microphone. well, eli loved the keyboard... and presley claimed the microphone, surprise surprise.

at the end of the day they were FILTHY. like, dirt under fingernails nasty. 😖 so they got a nice long bath and were ASLEEP by 9. it took approx 32 seconds once they laid down for them to pass out.
it was fun, but my feet are still hurting from standing all day. (sister, idk how you do it.)

the rest of the week is busy busy as usual. dance tomorrow morning, bunco tomorrow night (yeaaaaah for mom's night out!), st. pattys party at school on friday, st. pattys party at the clubhouse saturday, randy and eli are going to nascar saturday night, and of course the 57 loads of laundry and sink full of dishes in there somewhere.

my parents left bakersfield a mere 25 hours ago, and i am SAD.
they were here for a week and it was the best lazy week ever.

we did a lot of nothing, a lot of eating at our favorite places, and played a lot of games with alexa. if you aren't taking advantage of alexa's games, try "alexa, play feel the pressure" or "alexa, play song quiz". those are my two new favorites. we also play "animal workout" which presley thinks is THE funnest thing ever. even though we didn't do much outside the house (it rained a lot!), having my parents here was everything i love... and my babies got SO MUCH lovin. it really was a perfect week.

my sister is coming at the end of the month, and i'm counting down the days! having family here is my favorite favorite favorite thing.

anyway, a few little updates.

ELI IS OFF THE PACI. like, completely. and has been for a couple weeks!
i kept cutting a little off, and when it was too short to keep in, i just threw it away. he hasn't even asked about it. SUCCESS. now let's pray that potty training comes that easy. (not even attempting until JULY.)

i got presley registered for KINDERGARTEN. it was a very outdated and arduous process. lots of writing my address over and over and over. you'd think living in fancy california with all the tree huggers, paperless processes would be the norm. but not in bakersfield! the folder they handed me to fill out was a full inch thick and repetative as all get out. but it's done and that is SUCH a relief.