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.

Ten Years

Today, Lance and I have been married for TEN years. Time really flies! It is crazy to look back on these last ten years and all of the things that have happened. Our life is so much better than I could have dreamed on that day ten years ago. I was so naïve and really was just living in the moment. I had known my whole life that I wanted to be a mom who got to spend the days with her kids but I truly didn’t know if that would happen. Ten years later, Lance has worked so hard every day to keep that dream a reality.

 

One year in…Lance wanted to know what it would look like to shave his entire head with a straight razor so he did it right before we left for a cruise. Needless to say, that hair-do has never come back.

Two years in…pregnant with Reese

I could not find a single picture of the two of us from around our third anniversary…that is what happens when you have kids…this was taken in July and it is looking up my nose…you’re welcome.

Quite honestly, there are no more pictures of us alone for a long time after this last picture. Ha! When we do have date nights or alone time, we don’t think to take pictures of ourselves.

And here we are ten years later!!

And just for a little comparison…

February Happenings

A couple of weekends ago Reese and Sam earned having a sleep over with some friends. Sam chose his friend William to spend the night. I gave Sam a heads up that William might decide not to sleep at our house because it was his first attempt at a sleep over. William did so great but when it was actually time to get in bed I saw the fear in his eyes and told him it was ok for him to go home. That made him relax and we got him home to his own bed. When I told Sam that William was going to go home he was totally fine with it. Reese chose her friend Harper to sleep over and I think Hayes might have been as excited as Reese.The whole night he would follow her around and say, “Ah-per”. Hayes was jumping on the trampoline and Reese and Harper were playing basketball. Hayes kept yelling, “Ah-per, lean!”…asking her to jump on the trampoline with him. She was really so sweet and patient with him. That night we had our usual pizza and a movie night. The kids chose to watch “Wreck-it Ralph”.

After the movie the kids got to make themselves ice cream sundaes. They were messy!!

The night that Reese had her Daddy-Daughter dance, Kristin and I met up for dinner at CFA and took our boys to a movie. Sam and Dylan were being silly when I tried to get their picture.

When I asked the babies if I could take their picture, they did the same thing as their big brothers. It was so cute and silly. Our four boys are so good together!

We took the boys to see Paddington. It was such a cute movie and I am so glad we got to see it. The boys really loved it and it (mostly) kept the attention of the babies.

One Sunday Claire was out of town so we asked Bryan and Hadley if they wanted to join us for a hike at the mountain. It was a beautiful day and we tried out a new trail. We loved our hike through the mountain and saw a family of six deer!

That morning I had stayed home from church with Hayes because he had a mild fever. We decided he would still like to get out of the house and we put him in the carrier. I knew he really didn’t feel good when he fell asleep on Lance’s back.

The next day he still wasn’t feeling well. He fell asleep on the couch watching Curious George. That boy never sits still long enough to fall asleep somewhere. He never showed any other signs of not feeling well other than a fever. I gave him a bath before his afternoon nap and when he woke up his fever was gone and he was back to his normal tornado self.

I got to help out in Sam’s classroom on their 100th day of school. They did a lot of fun activities. These two boys are some of his favorite buddies from class.

Sam’s class had a Valentine’s day party and he wanted to wear his bow tie to his party. He was so handsome.

Hayes and I ran to Target one day to buy the kids some small Valentine’s day treats. Hayes thought he was so cool in this hat and sunglasses. He kept saying “Hollywood!”.

Hayes LOVES dogs! Every time we are at Claire’s house he is constantly trying to pick them up. This day we set the kids up with a movie and Hayes wanted so bad for the dogs to sit in his lap. He cried every time they got down. At one point we saw him spooning with one of the dogs. The dog was being a good sport but we knew he wasn’t going to let that happen for long. Hayes pitched a huge fit on the floor when he ran off. We have no plans to ever get a dog but I imagine this little dog lover will eventually do a lot of begging for a dog of his own.