Easter Sunday

"None so great has ever walked the earth. None other has made a comparable sacrifice or granted a comparable blessing. He is the Savior and the Redeemer of the world. I believe in Him. I declare His divinity without equivocation or compromise. I love Him. I speak the name of Jesus Christ in reverence and wonder. He is our King, our Lord, our Master, the living Christ, who stands on the right hand of His Father. He lives! He lives, resplendent and wonderful, the living Son of the living God." -Gordon B. Hinckley

The Big 0-3 and 3-0!

Well, the boys in our family just celebrated their birthdays this past weekend-- the big 3 for Zach, and the really big 30 for J-Man. Here's a rundown of the 2 day celebration, but first, my personal favorite, a walk down memory lane:

Zachary Jonathan Cardon, born 4/6/2009, 7 lbs. 4 0z. born @ 7:30 p.m. A VERY happy arrival!

Awwww, this picture both melts and breaks my heart. They grow up TOO fast!

Last year on his 2-year old birthday with his big blue eyes and curly blonde hair.

And one year later, as he turns another year older at age 3. A bright and cheery morning wake up to LOTS of presents. Hooray!

Zach has been super excited about his birthday coming up. When he woke up to all those presents he thought Santa had been here again.:) This is his new dinosaur hat Lucy got him.

Opening presents! He got a new Hot Wheels race track, a bunch of new Thomas trains, and some other fun boy toys to grow on. Luckily Jon had the day off so he got to enjoy the celebrations as well.

A delicious birthday breakfast of waffles, strawberries, whipped cream, and bacon. Actually, this breakfast was more for Jon's birthday than Zach's. His all-time favorite breakfast food is waffles, and as he recently pointed out, I've never once made waffles in our almost 8 years of marriage. Indeed, when I opened our waffle iron to use it, the wax paper was still inside. Whoops!

After playing with the new toys for awhile, we headed up to Asheboro to the North Carolina Zoo. Zachary LOVES the zoo, and was super excited about seeing all the animals again. We started in "North America" at the alligators. When you live in the South, who needs a zoo to see these guys anyway?

Lucy with the bison. I love bison. I think they remind me of those summer vacations to Yellowstone. I wish they still roamed the prairies.

Zachary fascinated by the honey bees! They had a glass "hive" so you could see all the busy bees making their honey. Pretty amazing.

We then found the carousel, and Zach knew right away he wanted the crocodile. Luckily we had to wait a turn or two, so when we finally got through we were near the front and got first pick.

Lucy picked the cheetah. What is it about carousels that kids LOVE?

We then made our way to the "Africa" section where the baboons fascinated us for a good 30 minutes. They had the zebras, giraffes, elephants, and ostriches all together in the same enclosement.

By about 4 p.m. Zach zonked out and since we'd had such a big breakfast we skipped lunch and were by that point STARVING, so we walked the 1.5 miles back to "North America" and headed out for some dinner!

Zach "picked" Cracker Barrel (more like it was the first place we saw off the freeway that we all liked) and enjoyed his mac and cheese and free birthday sundae. Yum!

Since we were so close to Greensboro, we drove the rest of the way and found REI for Jon. This is his mother ship. He got to spend all his birthday money while I entertained the kids with camping gear.

Even though we got back pretty late, we hadn't dug into Zach's Transformer cake-- which when we went to Michael's a few weeks ago to pick out a cake pan, he was ADAMANT that he wanted it, even though he has no idea what Transformers are, and they had Lightning McQueen, Buzz Lightyear, Spiderman, choo-choo cakes, etc. This guy knows what he wants. It looks awful, but he was totally happy with it.

Playing one last time with his new race track until 10 p.m.!! Only a birthday could justify such a late bed time...

The next day was Jon's birthday, so he got to pick the schedule. He decided to spend the afternoon hiking at Raven Rock state park, and then get dinner with us at Outback. He's pretty easy to please. We sure love both boys in our family and are SO thankful we get to celebrate birthdays with them. They are the absolute best, Best, BEST son, brother, husband, father, etc. a family could have. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

Ratatouille

Meet Ratatouille:

Meet Zachary:

They kinda look alike, right? Zachary has long ago decided that as well as being a train engineer when he grows up he would also like to become a little chef. As soon as he hears me rummaging through cupboards and drawers in the kitchen, he bolts in after me and asks, "What you making, mom?"

He then slides our big wooden step stool over right next to me (I have many a stubbed toe to prove it) and proceeds to be my little chef and add a little of this, a little of that into whatever it is I'm making. Mostly he helps add salt and seasonings to dinner, stir things that are on the stove, but his most, MOST favorite thing is when we work with flour. He LOVES flour...or making a mess with flour, whatever the case may be. Pizza dough, bread dough, cookies, and cakes-- this little man ends up covered head to toe in flour regardless.

This is what my poor mixer and counter look like after Ratatouille assists in the kitchen, but he is learning all kinds of things. He repeats every ingredient I name that he dumps in the mixer for me, so while he still speaks in broken English, he at least knows your basic ingredients for most dishes. I'm beginning to like my little helper.:)

Spring Break Stay-cation!

Lucy's preschool has been on spring break for the last 2 weeks, from March 12-23, so we've had a LOT of extra time on our hands. You tell me: What 5 year old needs TWO weeks for spring break?!? Poor Luce gets really disappointed when there's no school (and she can't see her best friend Brooke Lynn), but we decided to make the best of it anyway. Because we just came back from a big vacation we weren't able to travel anywhere so it was a true stay-cation.

The first week went really smoothly and was actually a lot of fun. We were able to sleep in and have some late-starting mornings which was nice, especially for me because I get tired of always cracking the whip. I usually go to the gym in the mornings anyway so Lucy just tagged along. By the time we got home it would have been time to get Lucy anyway, so she didn't miss school too much. We have had AMAZING spring weather (80 degrees and sunny) so we spent a couple mornings enjoying the park.

Zach LOVES the park! He loves to dig and run and get dirty and eat his picnic lunch. We met some friends one day and he had a blast running around.

That weekend my sister in law was nice enough to drive up with the cousins and spend the weekend with us in Pinehurst. Lucy was ECSTATIC and Zach always loves to see baby Sophie. We bought a wading pool at Wal-Mart (best $15 I ever spent!) and the kids had a blast outside!

Sophie wearing her green shirt on "Ben Patrick's Day!" (as Eva dubbed the holiday).

That night we decided to get Chick fil A for dinner despite a MONSTER thunderstorm/downpour, and the kids had a blast playing on the equipment. Jon was nice enough to then let Sarah and I check out the brand new Kohl's (hooray!) during the grand opening sale kid-free...at least for a few minutes.

There was an incredible double rainbow (but we didn't cry over it; check youtube.com if you don't know what I'm talking about) and a misty sunset that night as we crossed the lake to get to our house. Very appropriate for leprechauns and pots of gold!

We drove by this guy crawling towards the road near our house. He was HUGE! Snapping turtles are pretty freaky creatures-- sure makes you think twice before jumping in the lake!

Take a guess at what this is.... Sidewalk chalk?? Nope. Paint?? No again. It's POLLEN! The pollen here is CRAZY! I've never seen anything like it in my life. All the pine trees in the area go crazy at the same time every year for about 3 weeks, and there is literally an inch of yellow pollen everywhere.

You can see how much pollen was knocked out of the air when it rained. All of our patio furniture is covered in dust; when you drive down the road and there's a gust of wind huge clouds of pollen fly off the trees. It's wild! Allergy-sufferers BEWARE.

Week 2 was not as smooth as week 1 unfortunately, and we all started going a little loopy! Lucy was "bored, bored, bored" (she expressed that repeatedly)-- I guess there's only so much playing at the park and in your wading pool before you've had enough. I spent most of this week sitting at the computer and finishing up our Cardon blog book for 2010-2011!

My kids (and I) love to make treats, but since I usually end up eating 3/4 of whatever it is I rarely do it. Lucy got the coveted job of cutting the peanut butter cups for me on this one.

The first week I decided to go all out and try a recipe from Pinterest-- Reeses Peanut Butter Cup Cheesecake Brownies since the missionaries were coming to dinner. One of the elders couldn't finish his so he wrapped it in his napkin and stuck in his pocket to take home. It was cute.:)

Tuesday was the official first day of spring, and if you live by a "Rita's," you know what that means: FREE WATER ICE FOR EVERYONE! We stopped by after the park with some friends and enjoyed our cool treat.

Zach's new pose: The Fish Face. Maybe it's from his Swedish Fish flavored water ice?

Eating water ice with our friends Milo and Oliver and their new baby brother Sullivan. Hooray for spring (and freebies)!

We are SO lucky because although our ward boundaries are enormous and everyone is way spread out, we lucked out and got some neighbors who are LDS and who happen to have a 5 year old girl named Sophie that plays GREAT with Lucy! They play Barbies for hours.

Fish-Face helped me make another treat for week 2 which was also delish. We made devil's food cupcakes with fresh raspberry frosting. YUM! Perfect for the spring weather.

Luce had to get creative a few times with Zach as her most loyal (and obnoxious) playmate and invent a few games. They played school, library, and "Top Chef" restaurant.

In honor of Jon's upcoming birthday we hired a babysitter (2nd time in our marriage) and went to "The Hunger Games" movie for a much needed date Friday night. It was definitely worth the extra money for the sitter and to see it in the theater!

Saturday morning Zach helped me make pancakes and bacon, I taught my Body Pump class at the gym, and we spent the afternoon shopping in Cary for birthday presents for the boys in our family who almost share a birthday in 2 weeks! Zach is VERY excited for his special day.

In addition to Fish-Face, Zach also walks around with this bucket on his head and says, "I am a Ro-Bot. I am a Ro-Bot" in a monotone voice, which in addition to being hilarious is also the only time he refers to himself in first person. Usually he starts every sentence with "Zachy wants," or "Zachy says"-- so maybe he's onto something there. All in all we enjoyed having Lucy home with us during spring break but I think we are all pretty relieved school starts up again tomorrow. I better start planning some things to do for summer break!