Washington DC

Ben and I went to DC for a weekend in the middle of March.  Our first stop was Cafe Rio which is becoming a tradition whenever we visit.  It has been our first or last stop several times now.  The places we visited were the Holocaust Museum, and the National Archives.  Both places were pretty amazing.  We picked the PERFECT weekend to go.  It was great weather and signs of spring were everywhere!

Hands down one of my most favorite meals.

 

We stopped at a disc golf course on the way home to finish up a fun weekend.  

SURPRISE!!!!!

My family came to visit.  I had no clue they were coming and couldn't figure out why Ben was making me clean my already mostly clean house.  He wanted me to do laundry on a Friday and pick up my crafts.  Huh?!  It was all for a good reason!  My family left Florida early Friday morning and got there just as I was going to leave to go to basketball with Ben.  I opened my door to this cute little guy!

 On Saturday we went to an Irish festival, had lunch at a delicious Chinese restaurant, and DUHHH had to take the family disc golfing.  My mom and sister were good sports and played all the holes with Ben.  I was done after the third hole and took the kids to play on the playground :)

On Sunday we went to church and then spent the day doing crafts.  Here are some of the things they took home with them.   

 Monday I had to work because no matter how much Ben had begged me to take the day off because it was his Spring Break before I knew my family was coming I wouldn't do it.  Boy did I regret it when I woke up Monday and had to leave everyone behind to explore Richmond without me.  They went to Maymont where they climbed trees, looked at animals, and explored the different gardens.

 When I got home from work they were back from Maymont so we went to Krump Park to play on a fun playground and visit an old house.

Makes me happy watching Ben with my niece and nephews.  I love that he loves them so much :)   He'll make a great dad someday!!!

                        Before                                                                             After

This is my mom at the park!  When my family showed up I was soo excited to see them, I was equally as excited to see how great my mom looks!  She is working out and eating right and has a lot to show for it.  The entire weekend I was staring at her.  Kinda weird but I've never seen her look so good!

These are DEFINITELY my favorite kids in the entire world!  We loved all the cuddling we got from them!

LION KING

For Valentine's Day, Ben "surprised" me with Lion King tickets.  We went on February 23rd and loved it.  Ben was pretty bored and I don't blame him.  The show was at times word for word what happened in the movie so there were really no surprises in the story.  The things we enjoyed were the props they used for the animals and we loved the woman who played Rafiki!

Craft-aholic

I think this is Ben's favorite that I have made :)

Got the idea for this here.

Can't get enough of my Silhouette!!!

Valentine's Day

For Valentine's Day Ben and I kept it REALLY simple.  He had planned on surprising me with tickets to see The Lion King (we go this Thursday!!!) but I ruined the surprise when he saw me looking at tickets and was afraid I would find a good deal and just buy them.  He really shouldn't have worried though because I never buy anything without running it by him and I NEVER find good deals...  My gift to him was a promise to make more home cooked meals.  We eat at home most nights but our dinners often consist of spaghetti, mac & cheese, grilled cheese, etc.

On Valentine's Ben studied all day and I went to work all day so by 6 that evening we were pooped.  We hopped in the car and drove to pick up our fancy dinner :)  (Note: I had onion rings but they didn't make it through the car ride home.)

Crafting with my silhouette!

December, January, and February have been awesome!  I've made lots of crafts and I am having tons of fun with my new Silhouette CAMEO.  Here's some of the crafts I have been making!!

One of my favorite quotes!

I got the temple picture from here.

Paige found these conversation blocks here and we copied!

I like my conversation blocks so much that I decided I needed to make some for every holiday!

I've had several "crafting" days with friends but this is the only one I remembered to take a pic of!

January

 Ben had his birthday in the beginning of the month.  His birthday was on a Friday but I was sick so we celebrated it on Saturday.

He put on his new Hawaiian shirt from my mom.

To celebrate we went to dinner with the Tracy's.

After dinner the Rainey's joined us and we played games.

After games we had a brownie trifle.  Ben was getting sick at this point (not such a great birthday
present from me) so we didn't let him get too close to the trifle.  

At the end of January we went on an awesome date we found through living social.  They had a coupon for comedy sportz.  It was an improv show where 2 teams are competing to be the funniest.  We loved it!