Happy Birthday to Josh, GiGi, and Reese

This past week we celebrated 3 birthdays in the Floyd family.  Tuesday was Josh's, Wednesday was GiGi's, and today we celebrated Reese's.  For Josh's birthday we celebrated by having a cookout at his parent's house.  We ate great food and had lots of fun.

Josh, we love love you so much.  You are the best husband and Daddy in the world!  You mean the world to the boys and I.  Thanks for always making us so happy.  Hope you enjoy your last year in the twenties!! 

Wednesday was GiGi's birthday!  This year we celebrated her birthday and Mother's Day together on Sunday with a nice meal after church on Sunday.  We love our GiGi!

Today we celebrated Reese's 2nd birthday at Chuk E Cheese.  The boys and Reese had so much fun running wild and playing all the games.  Reese, I can't believe you are turning 2!  It seems like just yesterday your Mommy and I were pregnant with you and Parker while dreaming of the day you both would be born.  We love you SO much, Reese.  We can't wait for you to come spend the night with us next week!!

This is Reese today after eating her Princess cake.

Mother's Day

I am so thankful God has chosen me to be the Mom to my two precious boys. I couldn't imagine my life without them in it. They make me smile and laugh everyday and I LOVE them to pieces!!! Josh did a great job helping them pick out gifts for me. They gave me beautiful flowers and a giftcard to a spa.

This was taken yesterday before we went to church.

Below is a picture of my Mom and the boys last summer in Watercolor, FL.   I love her so much and so do my boys! My Mom is one of my best friends and I know I can ALWAYS count on her. She does so much for us, too much to list here! Thanks Mom for everything and for being such a wonderful Nana to our boys!

Below is my Mother in Law, Jeana, with Parker. I have the best MIL ever! She is so sweet. I am thankful we are so close and always have a great time together. Jeana, thank you for raising Josh and doing such a great job. We love our GiGi.

The month of May always involves a lot of celebrating at our house. Tomorrow is Josh's birthday (#29!!!), Wednesday is my MIL's birthday and the following week my niece, Reese, will turn 2! It's always so much fun and we eat way too much birthday cake for one month!

The Hubby Can Cook

*Picture from Pauladeen.com*

Yesterday, Josh decided he wanted to cook some BBQ. I do the majority of the cooking at our house but it is a nice surprise when he wants to cook us a meal. Not only because it gives me a break but because he is such a great cook! This time he tried a new recipe, BBQ pork sandwiches, from Paula Deen. It was so good and I thought I would share the recipe for your next summer BBQ. You won't be disappointed. We bought the pork from Richard's Meat Market, it's always the best.

Ingredients:

Dry rub:

2 tablespoons salt
2 tablespoons black pepper
2 tablespoons dark brown suga
2 tablespoons paprika
1/2-tablespoon cayenne

4 pound shoulder pork roast
2-cup apple juice
1-cup apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons Worcestershire
1/2-tablespoon liquid smoke
1/2-tablespoon garlic powder
6 soft hamburger buns with seeds
Paula Deen’s Original BBQ sauce
Coleslaw

Directions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

Mix the dry rub ingredients in small bowl. Sprinkle dry rub all over the pork roast, pressing into the pork.

Cover with plastic and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Combine liquid ingredients and the garlic powder in a medium bowl and pour into a large Dutch oven. Place pork in the oven and tightly cover with aluminum foil then lid. Roast for 4 hours or until fork tender and shreds easily.

Brush the roast with cooking liquid every hour.

Remove from oven and let stand until cool enough to handle. Shred the pork with a fork or tongs into bite size pieces.

Serve on hamburger buns topped with BBQ sauce and cole slaw.

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Inactive Prep Time: 2 hours 20 minutes
Cook Time: 4 hours
Ease of Preparation: Easy
Yield: 6 servings

It always seems to taste a little better when the hubby offers to go to the store and buy all the ingredients, with both kids, and arrive back at the house with everything plus my favorite, yellow tullips. =) Thanks honey, you're the best! I know I'm blessed.

Boys Will Be Boys

Last night we took the boys to Shiloh's baseball game.  A parent of one of the players sent these pictures to us today.  Both of these pictures sum up there personalities pretty well.

Parker is trying to decide if the Cheetos or dirt taste better.

Peyton is being his normal crazy self.  Notice the dirt pile in the background.  They spent 2 hours digging, rolling around, and whatever else they could do with all the dirt.

What messy boys we have but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Easter and Sick Parker

Easter morning Parker woke up sick.  Luckily, we didn't have to miss church on Easter because my Dad had gone to an earlier church service and was able to watch Parker for us.  My Mom was singing in the choir for both services.  I'm so glad Dad came to the rescue!  Church was awesome and I'm so thankful we didn't have to miss it.  My brother-in-law, Nick, preached the last service and did so good.

This is what Parker did while we were at church.  My poor baby.

Here's Peyton and cousin Reese after the service.  They were getting ready to head to Poppy and Gigi's house for a big Easter lunch.

For Easter lunch Josh's parents had my parents, my grandparents, Nick, Meredith, Reese and the four of us over for lunch.  It was a lot of fun.  Here are my boys.  Parker wore his outfit for just a few minutes so we could get a few pictures.  Doesn't he look pitiful?  =(

The boys with cousin Reese.

Easter lunch at their new kid table.

Gigi put this little bunny in the kid's baskets and Parker loved it.  This was the only time he smiled all day.

I wish Parker had felt better and could have enjoyed the day hunting eggs and other Easter activities like his brother did.  Parker is now feeling much better and back to his normal active self!

Happy Easter

Tonight the boys dyed Easter eggs and helped me make a cake.  My friend, Angela, has asked us to link our Easter baking projects to her blog for a contest.  Ang, below is what Peyton and I came up with.  What do you think?

I hope everyone enjoys tomorrow and remembers the real reason why we celebrate Easter.  Jesus is risen!

San Diego Mission Trip

Last week Josh and I help lead a group of Shiloh high school seniors on a mission trip to San Diego.  We went to help a new church plant called Cross Church.  Our friends, the Graves, started this church from scratch about a year and a half ago.  We were gone for eight days and so busy the whole time.  We were blessed serving with a GREAT group of students and sponsors!  We had a lot of fun, a lot of laughs and good times together.  The first couple of days it rained which made it chilly but the rest of time it was perfect weather-sunny and in the 70's.  The Lord did great things while we were in SD.  Ten teenagers gave their life to Christ.  We helped with Sunday morning set up, youth events, shared our testimonies at FCA clubs in the high schools, and passed out 5,000 door hangers throughout neighborhoods.  It was great to see God working through all of us everyday while we were there.  The last day we had a free day and went to Disneyland.  Peyton and Parker would have LOVED it.  Speaking of the boys, they had so much fun getting spoiled by all four of the Grandparents.  I don't even think they missed us one minute while we were gone.  Thank you Nana, Grandaddy, GiGi and Poppy SOOO MUCH for watching our kids last week.  Peyton's already asked, "When are you and Daddy going back to San Diego so I can stay with my Nana and GiGi again for a long time."  Ha!

Here are some pictures from our trip...

Our group with Brad & Becky Graves with their twin boys.  Notice the seals laying on the beach behind us.  There were so many of them!

Here are more seals laying on the beach.  Isn't that crazy!?

Another look at a San Diego beach...beautiful.

Brad preaching at a youth event....

Our mission team with Trevor Davis (in the middle with the brown hat).  He sang during a youth event. 

I learned you can't go to CA without eating at In-n-Out Burger.  We went twice while we were there.  So good!

Sneaking in a little kiss before dinner at the Fish Market with my love.  =)

This is kinda blurry but it still turned out okay.  

I hope we get to return to San Diego again soon.  I loved everything about it!