Life Lately

Hayes started taking gymnastics. It has taken him several weeks to get comfortable with going out on the floor with out me. Each week I have to walk him out there and he will just stand on the edge of where his teacher is and watch. I am hoping soon he will just run right out to her.

Hayes LOVES dogs. Every time we are at Claire’s house he wants to hold them.

Baseball has started back! Sam is really enjoying it and doing really well!

Because of conflicts in the kids schedule and Lance getting home from work, Sam has been able to spend some special time with his best buddy. So thankful for friends on the same team!

Soccer has started back as well. This is what it looks like with us trying to get us all to the field. Unfortunately, there are many weekends where there are game conflicts so we will have to divide and conquer. Lance is an assistant coach for Sam’s team so it looks like he will be doing baseball and I will be doing soccer.

Reese looked awesome on the soccer field this past weekend! She had great ball control, passing skills, and was aggressive! Lance is bummed that there are so many conflicts this season because he said he really enjoyed watching Reese play last weekend.

After many days of rain, Reese had soccer practice and the boys found their heaven. I am pretty sure half of this dirt hill came home on the boys.

Reese and I got to serve at a Women’s Shelter on Sunday. We served dinner, did a Bible lesson, held some precious babies, and played outside with the kids.

Claire watched Hayes for me one day so I could be the mystery reader in Sam’s class. While I was there I got these super sweet and funny pictures. Claire said at one point she couldn’t find the kids and was calling their names.  All of a sudden she heard some quiet giggles and found them hiding from her in this box.  They just love each other and are best buddies.

Hayes seems to be a good sport when it comes to dressing up too…

Sam got to bring home his class “pet”, Toad-ally Awesome. He was super excited. That same day we met his friends from class at the playground to play.

That night little brother kidnapped Toad-ally Awesome.

The first half of this week has been so beautiful. We have tried so hard to take advantage of this spring like weather. We have eaten on the patio.

Taken walks…

Showed our bellies…

St. Patty’s Day

He said he was going to school…he loves to pretend like he is leaving for the school bus. He will tell me bye and give me kisses and hugs.

The kids took a get well bucket to their sweet little cousin. They all love each other so much.

Hayes and I spent some sweet time together taking a walk in the neighborhood yesterday. He loves to go “see pool” so we walked to the pool and then played on the playground for a little while.

I usually do my Bible study while Hayes is taking a nap in the afternoon. After seeing that it was going to be rainy and cold today, I decided to enjoy the beautiful weather outside while I did my Bible study yesterday. It was a nice change of pace. I am loving this study. It is so challenging and convicting. I imagine it is something I am going to need to refresh myself on often.

When Reese got home from school yesterday she had her report card. She couldn’t wait to open it and see how she had done. I am always so proud of her and she was so excited to see good marks. The thing she was most excited about was her report card from her Target class. They only do P’s (progressing) and S’s (satisfactory). In the area of creative thinking she has always received S’s but with critical thinking areas she has gotten P’s. Obviously, we are totally ok with that because that is exactly who she is…she loves any and all creative outlets. Well, yesterday she had all S’s in every section and she was so pumped up. She couldn’t wait to tell Lance and was finally able to FaceTime with him so she could show him. Way to go, Reesey-bug! We are so proud of you!

a WICKED good time

Reese and I had a girls night last night that has been in the making for three and a half years. She has been asking when she could go see Wicked since Lance and I went in 2011. We kept telling her we would take her when they came back to town and if they didn’t come back to town we would go to NYC to see it…which I totally still plan on doing one day.

When we saw that it was finally going to be back in Atlanta, we snagged a couple of tickets. Lance really wanted to go with us but when we started adding up the cost of tickets and a babysitter for the night, we decided to make it a girls night instead. Reese and I started our night off at dinner together. It was a fun dinner because we talked about the Wizard of Oz so that we could trigger her memory about all of the characters.

Then it was off to the show. She was soooo excited. She kept saying over and over how excited she was.

We stopped for all of the perfect memory making pictures.

Once inside we headed straight to the bathroom which was a great idea because when we came out the line was twice as long. She had seen the shirts on the way in and asked if she could have one. I text Lance to see what he thought and he said to go for it. Well, if I had known how much I was going to actually spend on a tee shirt, the answer would have been NO. But she was so excited and put it right on. It is a little too big so hopefully we will get our monies worth.

After buying some popcorn and drinks, we headed to our seats and they were amazing. I am so glad Lance and I spent the time to find the right seats for Reese to watch this show. We were just left of center stage in the balcony. I grabbed her a booster seat and it was perfect. While waiting for the show to start we look at the huge map of Oz hanging up on stage. She told me about the things that were listed on the legend and we talked about different areas of where things would happen in the play.

Finally it was time for the show to start and she had the biggest grin on her face. She just sat in awe the whole time. She ate her popcorn and drank an entire bottle of water. Right before one of my favorite parts she said she had to go to the bathroom. I told her she had to wait until “Popular” was over because she loves that song from the sound track and I was not about to miss it. As soon as that act was over, we hightailed it to the bathroom. There was  not a single other person in there so we were speedy quick. It actually worked out perfectly because we didn’t miss any big part of the play and we didn’t have to go and fight the crowd during intermission. Shortly after we got back was the final scene of the first half and it is when they sing Defying Gravity…best part of the show!!

During intermission we just stretched our legs and recapped the first half. I thought this Glinda was hilarious. She put on a great show and even ad-libbed a few spots. During one line she is telling Elphaba to “let it go” and she looks right at her and says “let it go” again to play off of Frozen (if you don’t know, Idina Menzel played Elphaba on Broadway and is the voice of Elsa in Frozen). Reese’s favorite part is when Glinda is teaching Elphaba how to flip her hair so the boys will like her. One of my favorite lines is when Glinda decides that her name no longer sounds like Guh-linda and she tells someone her name is “Glinda, the guh is silent”. She really was hilarious. I am always amazed at the singing and how well the two sound together.

After intermission was the final 45 minutes of the show. I could tell Reese was starting to get tired because she kept leaning in to me but she did great. It is a long show especially for a seven year old but she held on to every word. I even told Lance I was surprised at the parts she picked up on that were more subtle. The only part she just couldn’t figure out (without ruining too much of the show) was why Elphaba and her sister didn’t have the same dad if her mom was only married to one man. I decided to just let that question go for now and told her we would figure that out when she was older.

Since the show ended at 9:30 and we had to wait a while to get out of the parking lot, Reese didn’t get in to bed until 10:30 last night. This morning when my alarm went off I knew there was no way either of us was going to wake up easily. I decided to break the rules and just let her sleep in. Sam is usually my alarm clock but he didn’t come in to my room until 7:45 (thank you time change). I woke Reese up at 7:50 (when school is actually starting) and told her it was time to get moving. That is so against my rule-following nature but I knew it was best for her. I checked her in to school an hour late with a smile on my face and then went straight over to Sam’s school to drop him off. She wanted to wear her Wicked shirt to school and it was so cute.

I had such a great time with Reese. She was so well behaved, didn’t complain one time, and really enjoyed the whole night. I am so glad we got to do this together and we can’t wait to see this show again!!

Rockstar

This week Reese’s school had a spirit week of sorts. Each day was a different theme. The day she was looking forward to the most was “dress like your favorite teacher day”. Reese chose her art teacher. She is a fun, loud, silly teacher and Reese totally loves her. For a week or so I had Reese watch how she dressed so we could try to replicate it as best we could. She said that she wore school spirit shirts almost every day (the PTA president is always making all of the teachers cute shirts with their school initials on them) and an apron every day. The day before she told us that her art teacher always wears a microphone around her neck and will walk down the halls, set her frequency to a classrooms frequency, and whisper “Rockstar” through their speakers. She said you never see her art teacher do this but will always hear her. That just cracked me up so we made a microphone to hang around Reese’s neck and she carried an art pallet and paint brushes. She was so excited for this day and couldn’t wait to go see her art teacher. When she got to the art room she said her teacher took a picture of her. Reese said she was the only student to dress like her that day.