Hunter and his Easter egg

Hunter decorating an Easter egg, take 1:

Hunter decorating an Easter egg, take 2:

Marriage Retreat

Husband and I went on a marriage retreat to Houston this weekend. It was great! The army paid for our hotel and all the food we could eat. Even better, husband and I really got a lot out of it and it opened up some good dialog between us. Not that we don't already talk eachother's ears off. The kids got to come, too, but they were in a child care room while we were in session. We had one session Friday night, two Saturday, a date night Saturday night, and then a quick session in the morning on Sunday.

The seminar was called Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage, and it's by a pastor named Mark Gungor (he wasn't there personally, although that would have been fun). We laughed so much! Here's one video that we watched. You have to watch the whole thing. It's so funny and just 100% true!




If you've ever read Men are Like Waffles, Women are Like Spaghetti by Bill & Pam Ferrel, you'll recognize a lot of what Mark is saying. Husband and I joke about the "nothing box" all the time! My problem isn't that I want to be in the nothing box with him, my problem is that I want to stick the kids in it! He's watching TV, obviously in his nothing box. I say "Honey, the kids want to go to the park." ....... no response. "Honey, can you go out and play ball with Hunter?" ....... no response. Then I tell Hunter, "Go jump on Daddy's lap and ask him to take you outside." hehe. That works, but not always very well!

Here's another video we saw from Mark:





I loved this video! Husband and I laughed SO hard! This is all just so true, but it's very funny. Husband and I are awesome about making a joke of everything, laughing things off, not taking eachother too seriously. So this marriage retreat was right up our alley.



On Sunday we went to the zoo in Houston because it was free for military families. (Thank you, Houston Zoo!!) There were babies gallore at that zoo! Baby elephant, baby giraffe, baby tamarin, baby bongos, baby lemurs... I could go on! Hunter took this picture of the baby giraffe.

So check out more Mark Gungor stuff. He's great! And I think it really helped a lot of couples open up that communication. Here's the website for his Laugh Your Way to A Better Marriage seminars, and his radio show.

Yummy April Fools

I got the kids pretty good yesterday. Well, I got Drew. The other two weren't really "fooled". A few weeks ago I came across these Hamburger Cookies on Allrecipes.com. I thought it would be so funny to play a trick on the kids with these on April Fools day. Our April Fools days usually just consist of "There's a spider on your shoulder! ........ April Fools!" So this year I wanted to get a bit more sophisticated.

Husband distracted the kids while I put the mini-burgers together. I used two 'Nilla wafers for the bun, a Hershey's Almond Joy cookie for the burger (they were out of chocolate mint cookies like the recipe suggests and for some strange reason all of our Thin Mints are gone), red frosting for the ketchup and yellow frosting on the bottom for mustard (or cheese on Louisa's because she doesn't like mustard! ha!), and green tinted coconut for lettuce. To make the sesame seeds stick I added a touch of corn syrup to some warm water and sprinkled it on the top "bun".

I put two on each plate at the dinner table and called the kids in for dinner. Drew ran to the table and gleefully yelled "All right! Mini-burgers!" He paused for a moment and stared at the burgers. Finally he says "What is this?!" I didn't say anything until Hunter and Louisa had a chance to look over their "burgers". Louisa figured it out right away, and Hunter just didn't care. The fact that there was a cookie, and more than that, two big cookie sandwiches on his plate at dinner time gave him the excuse to eat first and ask later. You just don't question an event like that! Louisa was worried because she gave up chocolate for Lent. I told her it would be okay this one time.

Real dinner was super yumm-o pork tacos. The kids got to eat one buger before dinner and one after. I told Hunter he had to eat one taco before he could have his other burger. He ate one taco and when we asked him if he'd like another he just jumped off his chair and headed straight for his burger. He's like an elephant, especially when it comes to food. He does not forget.