Easter 2013...better later than never!

I know it has been almost a month since Easter,
but I need to catch up on all the fun things
we have been up to!
It's been a while since I've blogged,
thanks to finals (ugh!).
Thank goodness those are over.

Anyways...

We had such a wonderful Easter this year!

I remember being pregnant with Kaiya last year
and thinking to myself, "Next Easter, I will have a baby!"

The thought was so unreal.
Yet, here she is.
More perfect and beautiful than I could have ever imagined.

We started our Easter morning with some delicious
Apple Cinnamon Muffins and Greek yogurt.

We also gave Kaiya an Easter basket filled with some goodies:
*cute headbands
*a new dress
*a cute, stuffed lamb
*an egg coloring kit
*and DARK CHOCOLATE
(Ghirardelli, of course...that was more for Joshua and I than for her haha)

Aren't they both SO adorable?!

We also all wore matching outfits for Church!

Then we ended our wonderful Easter with a
nice dinner with my brother-in-law and new sister-in-law!

Recipe here: Crockpot Italian Chicken

C

This meal is SOOOO good.
Probably not the healthiest, but SO delicious!
Plus, it is extremely easy to make.

Essentially, I threw chicken breast, cream cheese,
 a can of cream of chicken soup, and a packet of Zesty Italian Dressing mix
into the crockpot, cooked it for 4-5 hours and it was done and ready to eat!

It was the perfect Easter dinner.

Tired and Teething

So, the past couple of days have been reeeeallly hard.

I haven't gotten anything done that I need to do to get ready for finals.

I have a final on Tuesday that I haven't been able to study for
and I literally have no idea what will be on it!

I have gotten maybe 2 hours of decent sleep in the past two days.

My house is a disaster.

Can you tell I'm a little stressed...and tired?
I am.

Part of why I haven't been able to get anything done or get any sleep
is because Kaiya has just started teething.

Poor thing.

Just yesterday she started to get sick and drool everywhere
and today she has been miserable most of the day.
She just wants to snuggle up to mommy,
which is something I absolutely love,
but it makes it difficult to study for finals or clean my house
or eat or anything really.

Sometimes, being a mom is really hard and really exhausting.
It's on these difficult days that I like to watch this and this.

These videos remind me why I chose to have a family and be a mother.
I love being a mommy.
Even though it is difficult at times, it brings me so much joy
and is so rewarding.

Life is hard, but God is good and helps me through these times.

Ooey gooey goodness!

What do you get when you place a
Russell Stover chocolate covered marshmallow egg on a
graham cracker and microwave it for 15 seconds?!

You've got this!

And boy were they messy!

Does that look yummy or what?!

Did you know that marshmallow expands SIGNIFICANTLY in the microwave?

Well, it does!

So microwaving it any more than 15 seconds would have resulted
in a very messy, marshmallowy clean-up!

Joshua and I had SO much fun making these microwave s'mores,
even though we ended up with very sticky fingers and mouths!
I ended up with a huge glob of marshmallow on my lip
that did not want to come off!

Ooey gooey goodness!

Kaiya was already in bed, so we
watched The Hobbit, gobbled up our s'mores,
and just enjoyed our time alone together.

Don't get me wrong, I love our sweet Kaiya,
but I need alone time with my hubby to communicate (and cuddle)
together and have a cohesive conversation without
any distraction (no matter how adorable that distraction may be!)

A J-Dawg Day

Last Saturday, the weather was beautiful!
Like absolutely perfect.

So even though I had a huge Philosophy paper
that I was supposed to be working on,
I had to take advantage of such a nice day and
spend as much of it outside with Joshua and Kaiya as possible.

Joshua and I had been wanting to go to J-Dawgs for a while,
so we saw this as the perfect opportunity to go!

Nothing like the best hotdogs in the world
(seriously, they are the only hotdogs I will ever eat, EVER!)
to make a beautiful Spring day even better!

Do you see that line?! It ended up wrapping
all the way around the store and into the street.
That is how good these hotdogs are.
Except I am not going to call them hotdogs anymore,
because they are on an entirely different level of
food awesomeness than hotdogs.

They are J-Dawgs. Not hotdogs. Haha.

While we waited for our J-Dawgs, Kaiya decided to be super cute.
What's new?

I just can't get enough of her giggles and grins!

Joshua and I each grabbed our delicious J-Dawgs and
headed outside with Kaiya to sit on the grass.

The following occurred:

Kaiya tried to steal daddy's J-Dawg...

...used daddy as a jungle gym...

...tried to steal mommy's J-Dawg...

...and proclaimed herself queen of the world!
(Yeah, a lot of our life revolves around this little one)

We sure had a lot of fun enjoying the weather and
chomping down our J-Dawgs.
I love days like this.