On Sunday, after spring break, my parents asked if we wanted to meet for brunch after church and in walked none other than this girl:

Another fun surprise!! I was so excited to see her! And the kids went nuts.

Three girls at lunch. 🙂 We spent the rest of the long weekend shopping and playing and having the best time hanging out!!

Eisley is head over heels in love with her bunny. And Bunny is the BEST bunny in the whole wide world. She is perfectly floppy and so so soft. We searched a long time and sent back a lot of bunnies that didn’t make the cut before we discovered her. And I’m so glad we did. They are basically inseparable. 😉

On March 30, this little dude finally decided to make his long-awaited appearance and I became an auntie again!! Little Campbell put my poor sister-in-law through the wringer, but he’s here and he’s adorable. We cannot wait until this summer when we will get to meet him!!

I think spring break this year became, in a lot of ways, our fall back response to things.

“We should build the kid’s a playhouse.” “Yeah, let’s do it spring break.”

“We should work on pulling out more of the backyard stuff.” “Yeah, let’s do it spring break.”

“We should organize the garage and build a work bench.” “Yeah, let’s do it spring break.”

Needless to say, spring break ended up being a on the heavy side of insanity. 😉

I cannot get over how beautiful this baby girl is. Such a sweet little blessing in our lives!! Those cheeks – if I’ve learned anything over my years as a mother, it’s to kiss those baby cheeks as MUCH as you can as OFTEN as you can because far, far, far too quickly they melt away and become big kid cheeks. So she gets smooched a lot. 😉

When we sold our house, the kids were just devastated to leave our old playhouse behind. And for this entire time since we moved, the kids will randomly talk about our old playhouse. Right before Christmas time, I told the kids we were going to be home for Christmas and Parker immediately said, “YAY!! Nathan! Did you hear that? We are going back to our home with the playhouse for Christmas!” And basically, I just burst into tears. 😉

We had been saving for other things, but we re-routed some stuff, re-prioritized some other stuff, lived as cheaply as we could and started setting aside all mine and Jon’s birthday and Christmas money and right at the end of February, we finally reached our goal and bought the kids the exact same playhouse we had before. It was delivered on the Tuesday before spring break, we started getting things ready on Friday, got it all laid out and a few things built on Saturday and finished it Monday after the LONGEST three days ever. So worth it though. The boys woke up early that Tuesday and were out there playing by 7:45 in the morning and they’ve been out there every day since!

We had a freak few days that were in the mid-80s over spring break, so we had to pull out some of the adorable summer hand-me-downs from our dear friends. LOVE this!

I was walking my friend Shannon out the door one night and the door opened before I got there and Nama walked in! I was so shocked, I’m pretty sure I just stared at her for a good 30 seconds before my tired brain finally computed everything. Ha! We were all so surprised!! We had the best few days with her in the midst of all our spring break insanity!

The Saturday of spring break we had Parker’s friend birthday party. I think he is likely the only three year old on the planet who wants a Where’s Waldo party so we had to get creative with the decorations, but we did our best. We did a birthday brunch, which is now our new favorite thing. Parker had the best time! Such a wonderful day – we had so many sweet friends come celebrate our boy and it just meant so much to us!

Naked baby before pizza night…it’s the only way I’m not spraying a bottle’s worth of Oxy-clean on her clothes afterward. 😉

I love this picture so much!! The boys’ favorite thing right now is “Family Waldo Night” where we put the book on the floor and everyone just kind of lays around it and we all look for the different things. Parker got a Waldo blanket from Gammy and Pops and that just upped the game a ton. 😉

Such a crazy, wonderful, exhausting spring break!!

Such a fun day!! I have to say, after Parker’s 2nd birthday, I was a little anxious to start this day because turning two was a ROUGH day on our little man. But we had so much fun!

We started the day with a Paw Patrol themed breakfast in our jammies with Dad before he went to work and maybe finished breakfast with a ring pop. 😉 I mean, you only turn three once, right? 😉

Next up, we headed to the zoo with our dear family and friends!! Gammy, Aunt Nicole and Gabriel, Miss Eryn and Junie and Miss Shannon and baby James all came. We had the best time! Parker was just SO HAPPY the entire time there.

Attempting to get a group shot on the weird chair that everyone has to get a group shot on. Apparently it was hot on Parker’s legs, so he wasn’t super excited about this part.

Mr. James. Such a sweet baby – Parker doesn’t care for him much yet since he can’t play, but Eisley is just in complete infatuation with the “BAY! BAY!” 😉

I packed some cupcakes, a candle and a lighter in the lunch box and we all sang to him. He was so cute. 🙂

We dragged our sleepy selves home, took a little rest time and Eisley took a nap. Jon got home soon after and then it was time for our very early dinner reservations for Red Robin.

Cuties wanted to sit together on the same side of the booth. Which was SO WEIRD to be sitting next to Jon at a family dinner. Ha! Usually we are on man-to-man defense with the boys and we stick Eisley on the end of the table so we can do zone with her. 😉

This pumpkin loves to eat out. LOVES it.

I love this picture!! The waiters all came and sang to him and he just thought it was the coolest thing ever, especially when he got a sundae out of it. 😉 The theme of the day was basically Sugar.

Then we had to go home and dig into those presents he’d been staring at all day! He was SO excited about them!

He got a teepee, a bunch of books and a new water bottle. Parker is SUPER into Where’s Waldo right now – he spends hours reading Waldo books every day! We even went to the library and hunted down the only copies in the whole city. So he was SO excited for a new Waldo book! This just made me laugh so hard – we were busy setting up the teepee and he just climbed in the box and started reading.

Hanging out in the teepee!! It’s such an adorable little thing!

They quickly discovered this was a great place to read. We put the teepee up in their room and I find them in there ALL the time. Such a fun fort for them!

Little sugar during his birthday song. Goodness, I just love those sweet little cheeks!

And, of course, we had to lick off the whipped cream from the candle. Such a fun, fun, exhausting day for our big three year old! Love my Parker Bear so much – I can’t believe he’s already three!

Sweet boy,

Today you are THREE years old!! I just cannot even believe it. You are growing so fast!

You are just such a fun character, Parker Bear! You are so sweet and so snuggly. You love to be at home and you would prefer to spend your entire day in your jammies. 😉 You love NOTHING more in this life than your brother’s time and attention and if Nathan can’t or doesn’t want to play with you, there is very little that will console you.

You love to read. You would read 100 books a day, if I had the time and voice for it! You love to color and you love to “do school” like Nathan. You are starting to get so imaginative when you play and I love seeing the worlds you create in the playroom with your cars and dinosaurs and action figure guys! You love to make giant messes and you do not love cleaning them up. 😉 We’ll have to work on that this year!

You still have your short list of approved friends, but other than that, you’re not a huge fan of hanging out with people. But, you’ve gotten so much better this year at trying new things! You did Bible Study School and loved it and you did Puggles and LOVED it! You are growing and changing so fast!

When Nathan is home, you still want to do everything Nathan is doing EXACTLY like Nathan is doing it. But, when Nathan is gone, you really love being in charge. 😉 You love to pick the show to watch after rest time, you love getting to build blocks and make garages and you love to tell Eisley what to do and exactly how to do it.

You are so funny and you say the most hilarious things! Your dinner prayers are some of the funniest parts of our day. You come up with the most random, weird things to talk about and you rarely stop talking when it’s just us around. Your laugh is so loud and awesome and it’s just my favorite thing when you just bust out laughing at something. You laugh with your whole body!

This year was such a HUGE year for you – we moved houses, you exchanged your own room and a crib for sharing a room in a big boy bed and you started wearing big boy underwear. You are growing so quickly – and sometimes faster than you like. 😉 You are beginning to handle things so much better the older you get – moving was so tough for you but you quickly stepped up into the role of being a big helper as we fixed up our house! You have completely become our little jokester and if you notice that someone is sad, you will crack the most random, weird jokes just to try and get them to laugh. I love that about you!

You are just the best middle to this crazy train I could ever imagine! We love your spunk, we love your goofiness and I pray so much that God uses your strong will to His glory. You are our favorite Parker Bear and we could not love you more!!

I love you, sweetheart! Happy birthday, my big three year old boy!

Mama <3

So nice to be back in our own beds! And I know two kids who severely missed their sister, even though she was only gone a couple of days…

Ha! This girl – she has the whole family wrapped around that tiny pinky finger. 😉

Wednesday morning, Nathan had a character parade at his school which just meant we all had to be up, dressed, fed and walking out the door by 7:15 that morning. Thankfully, I’d done his costume before New York, but we were still running out the door in a rush that morning. He looked so adorable though. They had to dress up like a character they’d read about this year, so Cat in the Hat was the obvious choice for Nathan. 😉

Wednesday was also our ninth wedding anniversary – cannot believe it’s been nine years! In some ways, it seems much less and in most ways, it seems like much more. I have a hard time remembering life before Jon and all these silly heads. We are definitely in the shoulder-to-shoulder stage of marriage where we spend most of our time together next to each other tackling the day. On this night, we put the kids down a few minutes early and had a late dinner just the two of us. We decided a stay-in-date might have to become a tradition. 🙂 Our anniversary has become a little more difficult thanks to an event three years ago tomorrow – our little Parker Bear was born!! So good to have time with just us though. Love my Jon. I’m so thankful for him!!

Oh my goodness, last week was SO much fun!!

My sister, Cayce, moved to New York last October for work. It was SO sad. I’m so excited for her and I love that she’s living in a city she’s always wanted to, but I hate her being so far away! My mom was planning on going out to see her on March 10th and like six days before that, she called and said she had extra points and asked if Eisley and I wanted to go with her and surprise Cayce.

Cue the panic. 😉 Ha! I talked to Jon, Dad offered to take the boys on Friday, my dear friend Eryn said she could watch Parker on Monday while Nathan was at school and all of a sudden, we were packing and getting ready to leave! I told Jon I was so thankful that we had basically NO time to think before this trip, because too much longer and I would have talked myself out of it completely since this was the longest I’d ever left the boys. But they did FANTASTIC and everyone had a great time!

Our travel did not go as planned – thanks to some pretty massive New England storms, we ended up having to switch flights in Chicago and fly into Newark instead, then we took a train to NYC and then took a subway to the hotel. I think we basically hit every form of transportation on Friday. 😉 But the surprise was so worth it!! It was FREEZING COLD in NYC. I have not been this cold in I don’t even remember how long but it was so so cold!

We went to this awesome Italian restaurant the first night. So, side note, after being there for the weekend, I am convinced that Eisley was possibly the only baby in Manhattan. People just fawned over her the entire weekend. And she totally ate it up. This place was so cute – the waiter and the busboy just could not stop talking to her, the chef came out and declared her to be the most beautiful baby he’d ever seen and brought her out homemade Italian gelato with strawberries before dinner even came, they had live music and the singer dedicated a song to her… it was just ridiculous. 😉 Meanwhile, Eisley was just totally milking it and smiling and waving and clapping after every song and dancing to the music. The busboy kissed her hand as she left and the chef gave her his business card on our way out. So funny.

Cayce had to work the next morning, so Gammy, Eisley and I took our time getting ready, went to Starbucks for breakfast and then took the subway down to the Financial District where Cayce works so we could meet her for lunch. We walked around a little bit first and saw a few different fun places from some of our favorite TV shows. So fun to see in person!

It’s so tiring to perform the whole day. 😉 She slept the whole way on the subways back up to the hotel.

Little Miss at the Disney Store in Times Square. We probably spent almost two hours here and she just went from princess to princess to Minnie and then latched on to this suitcase and dragged it around the entire store. Ha! It was a really cute store and made us so nostalgic for Disney. 😉

Snuggling with Auntie Cayce before bed. 😉 Love this!!

The next morning, we were up and ready to go by 10. Ha! Such a nice, slow morning! Eisley was not super excited to get back in the Ergo but she was still so happy to have us all to herself.

Trump Tower!

Me and my best girl. <3

We had lunch at The Plaza and Eisley and I split a dark chocolate crepe from the crepe store there. Oh my goodness. SO messy and SO worth it!

I mean, we had to get a picture of Eisley by the Eloise sign, since she’s named after an Eloise. 😉

And we had to check out the American Girl store with our hat-haired baby girl. 😉 She LOVED the Bitty Baby floor and just yelled, “BABY” and pushed the strollers around the entire time. Since we never are in NYC, we had to splurge just a bit and Eisley got her very own Bitty Baby, even though she might be a bit young for her now. But, I figure we likely won’t be back before she’s a year or two older and it’s such a fun souvenir from such a fun girls’ trip!

On the escalator at the Disney store! I thought it was so fun that it was modeled after the scene in Tangled!! Gammy was so sweet and bought Eisley the suitcase that she fell in love with – so fun. She loves her “backpack”. 😉

After I’d given her the baby – such a sweet little love.

Thanks to the blizzard, we ended up having to switch our flights to leave a day early and we didn’t get home until after midnight on Monday. Eisley slept the entire second flight from Houston but was up the entire first flight, so it made for a LONG day for me and Gammy. But I’m so thankful that we got to go! Thank you, Gammy, for such a FUN, wonderful girls’ trip!!! And HUGE thanks to Jon, Dad and Eryn for taking care of things back home – the boys had the best time too!! 🙂

Oh the joy and gladness that it is FINALLY getting close to warmer weather!! Ha! We have been feeling so cooped up.

Nathan’s class is studying Russia and one of their optional assignments this week was to make pretzels like I guess you can buy at street vendors there. WELL. This was not the “30 minutes of familt fun!” that was advertised on the pretzel recipe page, but they were delicious. Delicious and destructive – it took me almost an hour and a half to clean my kitchen afterward.

One of my sweet friends lives in our neighborhood and she had a baby girl a few weeks ago! We walked down to meet her and Eisley was just in AWE of her – she loves, loves, loves babies. It’s so cute. 🙂

Nathan’s best friend in school is Daniel and Daniel does taekwondo, which means that taekwondo is about the ONLY thing we hear about right now. For Valentine’s Day, Daniel gave little valentines that were coupons for two free weeks of lessons and Nathan about DIED. We finally got the time to do it this week and he was so hyped up and excited. It was hilarious. He loved it so much!

Little Miss discovered a VERY fun trick this week! 😉 On Friday, I was trying to read with the boys and noticed her quietly walking over to the couch with all the clean laundry on it, pick up a couple of socks, quietly walk out of the room and then return empty handed. I finally stopped reading to see what she was doing and found a whole pile of clean socks in the trash can. Those third kids, man. Sneaky little ones. 😉

Pushing little sister around the yard. They are so cute. 🙂

Aunt Cayce bought this outfit for Eisley before she was even born and it finally fits!! Her expressions just crack me up. Ha! She LOVES this sweatshirt and finds it all the time and just carries it around the house yelling at me until I put it on her. 😉 Someone is getting FEISTY in her old age. 😉

We were playing one afternoon after rest time when Eisley was still sleeping and Jon had Nathan and he was just so funny. He is really at a very fun, super imaginative stage and it’s just so cute. I rarely have time when it’s just me and Parker but we soak it up when it happens. 🙂

Crazy head got into the box of winter stuff. 😉 Notice that she is basically naked and yet she still has on her shoes. Because #shoes.

Poor Kody. Parker LOVES him and thinks that Kody is his best friend. I really wish the feeling was mutual. 😉