We do this to ourselves every year. Spring break comes around for Jon and Nathan and we spend the entire time working in the yard. This year, we did a TON and Jon and I could barely move by Friday. We kept saying how next year, we’re going to set up a hammock on our new grass and drink something with a paper umbrella in it the entire spring break. Ha!

One of Jon’s coworkers was SO sweet and let us borrow their giant dump trailer. We spent all week preparing for it and all day on Thursday filling it completely to the top with most of what was left. We filled it so full we didn’t have room for the last couple of loads! Jon took it to the dump early Friday morning and came home with Starbucks because we had taken just over 15 THOUSAND pounds to the dump. No wonder we were both barely walking!!

After that insanity, we declared Friday a fun day and spent the entire day playing with the kids. We went to the aquarium first!

Someone is in some pretty desperate need of new shorts. 😉

I like this guy. We were both SO tired. I think we needed an IV of caffeine instead of just a grande cup.

We finally turned Eisley’s car seat around – I have been putting it off since she turned two. She was SO excited!

She kept pointing to everything we passed and yelling “I CAN SEE IT!” Ha! It was SO cute. She looked so big. I may have gotten a little bit emotional when we put away the rear-facing mirror for the car seats. Our car is full of big kids now.

Since we used our backyard budget to overhaul the kitchen when we bought the house, we have just been slowly saving and trying to deconstruct the backyard as much as possible over the last almost two years. (Also, HOW has it been TWO years since that crazy summer??!) We’ve taken countless trips to the dump, just clearing out all the overgrown chaos in the yard.

Spring break is in a week or two and we are planning on starting to tear out the final stuff before we can start putting everything back in. Our goal is to have grass by the fall!

I was outside watering our trees one morning and Eisley really wanted to come out with me. So, I told her she could if she stayed on the mat by the back door since she was still in her jammies. Every time I turned away, she inched the mat closer and every time I looked over, she hopped back on the mat. When I finished watering, she was almost to the grass area. I said, “What are you doing, Eisley?” And she was like, “I stayed on the mat.” She’s too smart for me.

Parker has been planning his Yeti birthday party for MONTHS and it was finally the day! We worked so hard to get the house and yard ready for it! It was so much fun. We ended up doing an Expedition Everest theme (of which I got basically zero pictures. face:palm). I love how weird he is. Waldo for turning three, Yetis for turning four. I’m honestly scared for what five is going to be.

He was very specific that he wanted a Costco cake – which I think turned out to not be as delicious as he thought it was going to be. 😉 We pass those cakes every week on Costco shopping day and he has been telling me he wants one for his birthday for months. We had SO much cake leftover! Ha! We served donut holes on skewers as little snowballs and I think those were more of a hit. 😉 We had hot dogs and fruit and individually packaged chips and little gatorades – basically, everything that Parker loves with all of his heart.

The board behind Parker has pretty much been at every single party we’ve ever thrown. Ha! I printed out articles of Yeti sightings and stuck them on there. On the story in the middle, I photoshopped Parker’s invite picture (the one of him in his snow coat) and did a little story underneath it. Parker about died when he saw it. He got the BIGGEST smile and just wrapped his arms around my neck in the tightest hug. SO sweet!!

We had a full house and a full yard and it was the best time!! I know I say this a lot, but we loved, loved our old, tiny house and it was just the best place for us at the time, but we LOVE that we can now have friends and family over and there’s room for everyone. This house and yard have just been such a blessing to us.

Sweet little Sammy was so tired after the party started winding down that he fell asleep eating. Ha! We were ALL cracking up. He is SO cute. Little brothers are seriously the biggest troopers in the whole world.

After everyone left, I did a little bit of cleaning up and then walked upstairs and found this. Ha! Apparently Sammy wasn’t the only one wiped out. Ha! Happy birthday (again!), Parker Bear!! Can’t wait to see what you come up with for your fifth. 😉

We had the best time celebrating our new big boy!!

I love this – when Nathan was little, he was asking to chew gum and I just randomly threw out that he needed to be four, because four seemed like so far off. Well, Nathan latched onto that idea and then it became the house rule. Ha! So, on our birthday shopping date before Parker’s birthday, we stocked up on LOTS of gum for him. 😉

Parker had been planning his birthday for like six months. Ha! He very specifically requested a Yeti birthday party and a Star Wars themed day for his actual birthday. 😉 So, we did our best to deliver!! He was SO excited to come downstairs and see this in the morning!!

Star Wars birthday!! With chocolate-chip waffles, whipped cream and all the rest of the healthy breakfast options. 😉

Sweet boy. He was already tired of pictures by this point. Ha!

We all got dressed and he opened presents He LOVED his gum!! I love this still from the video I took. He seriously chewed like 43 pieces that day.

Next up was Chuck E Cheese! Pops, Aunt Nicole and the boys met us there. Gammy wasn’t feeling the best that day, so we made sure we stopped by so she could get a birthday hug in. 🙂

Parker was actually pretty good at a lot of the games!!

When he was first planning his birthday extravaganza, Parker said he wanted to go to Sweet Tomatoes and then have ribs for dinner. The it changed to Red Robin, but then he found out that he really meant the Cheesecake Factory. Ha! Then as we were leaving Chuck E Cheese, we passed Chick-fil-a and he decided maybe that would be more fun. So, we did CFA. They totally spoiled him – he got a balloon, a free sundae, free cookies and a free awesome nice plastic plate that says “It’s my birthday”. So fun!!

Love this. By this point, we were all exhausted. We got everyone showered so we would hopefully not contract typhoid fever from all the play places we had been at, I got Eisley down for a nap and came downstairs to find Parker like this. SO cute. He got a new bike and rode it around the rest of the afternoon.

Cheesecake Factory for dinner!! It was so funny because he was VERY excited about the people singing to him, which just made me laugh because he typically hates to be the center of attention.

He was very happy with his key lime cheesecake. Parker is an old soul, friends. We went home, did another little cake and candle and fell into bed after our long day. Parker was so sad to go to sleep because he didn’t want to wake up and it not be his birthday anymore. So sweet.

But then, two days later, it was his birthday again! Ha! We had our family party at Gammy and Pops’ house and he was SO happy with another Star Wars party. Such a fun time celebrating our big four year old!!

Sweet Parker Bear,

Today you are four years old. FOUR. How is this even possible when I can remember the moments you were born like they just happened last week? I will never forget those precious, short minutes that I got to hold you as a brand new life. And now, you are this big, silly kid and I just can’t believe how fast time passed.

You have changed so much this year!! Four is such a milestone year. You go from being part-baby, part-big-kid to all big kid. You have grown up SO much this year. Looking back at your pictures has me all teary for how fast it has happened.

I can’t even believe this is you only a year ago! Look at those chubby baby cheeks! In so many ways, you grew up this year. You started doing more and more on your own and now, for the most part, you can pretty much do everything on your own. There’s still a few exceptions (which you LOVE to remind us of – you still need to be babied sometimes!), but you have become fairly independent.

You LOVE Awana. Love it with all of your heart. You graduated from Puggles this year and moved up to Cubbies and loved it even more because you got to have weekly homework like Nathan. Anything that makes you feel big like Nathan is always a big thing for you!

You have become slightly more brave in new situations. We’ve been so proud of you! You are still our more introverted one. You tend to disappear by yourself and that’s when I know you need a little bit of downtime. Nathan and Eisley are both incredibly loud and extroverted. You are the perfect balance to them. But, you also can get VERY loud and crazy too – it just has to be in your own home with your own family, most of the time. 😉

You LOVE to swim. You live for swim lesson day. You are like a little fish in the water! You have learned so much over the last few years swimming! We are so proud of how you always try your best in the pool. You just started t-ball and you are doing great! You love to do anything that seems like something a big kid would do. We’ve been doing some Pre-K work at home and you absolutely love it. Your favorite thing to do right now is color. You could color all day, every day.

You HATE the camera. With all of your entire heart. The second I pull out my phone to take a picture, you are immediately either trying to hide your face or telling me no or making a weird smile so I’ll leave you alone. Ha! You would be insanely happy if my camera shattered into a million pieces overnight. 😉 It’s SO sad to me because you are absolutely adorable and I love catching you in those rare moments when I get one of your real smiles!!

You are kind. You are very tenderhearted. You are a great big brother to Eisley and an adoring little brother to Nathan. You guys can get into it sometimes, but you are all very quick to forgive and move on. You have been such a big helper with Eisley this year as we dove into homeschooling and I’m so thankful for you! You love peanut butter and strawberry jelly. You love Honey Nut Cheerios for breakfast except when you hate them and have never liked them ever. You want to grow up to be a million and a half different things. You absolutely, one hundred percent ADORE Maila and you two are constantly getting into trouble. 😉 You love to climb in my lap and you love when I hold you. You love dessert and Legos and action figures and everything and anything that is green. You are going to buy the house next door and live in it and drive a green truck when you get old. And you told me you will still come have lunch with me every day. I plan on holding you to that. 😉

I love you with all of my heart, Parker Bear! You are my precious son, the answer to countless prayers. Happy fourth birthday, sweetheart!

Love,

Mom

Ten years ago, last night, I went to bed for the last time as a single girl. Four years ago, tonight, I went to bed very pregnant and woke up not too much later in labor.

This week has changed the trajectory of my life in so many ways!!

We have plans to do a big celebration at some point, but our actual anniversary fell on an Awana night this year. So, we dropped off the Little Miss with Uncle Bryant and Aunt Nicole, took the boys to Awana and Jon and I went to Chili’s. 😉 Fancy, I know. Fun stories though – we got Chili’s takeout on the night after our wedding and took it back to our apartment for dinner, since we were busy packing up to leave for our honeymoon the next morning. And we went to Chili’s for our anniversary the night before Parker was born because I had this intuition that it was going to be one of our last nights as family of three, so we took Nathan along with us and went somewhere kid friendly.

So, it was kind of fitting to go there for the night of our tenth. 🙂 We had the best time and Jon totally shocked me and gave me the anniversary band that matches my wedding ring.

Love him. So so much. Here’s to ten more and ten more after that and ten more that and even more after that.

On our way to our honeymoon in 2008.

And today. I am so blessed! Thank you, Lord, for my wonderful husband. I love you, Jon!

In Albuquerque, spring means wind. So, basically, it’s warm but nasty, so you still can’t play outside. And everyone in the city’s allergies start going ballistic.

I told her she couldn’t stand on something and I looked over and this was her silent fit she was throwing. Ha! I’m going to start laying on the ground like that when I’m mad.

Because nothing says “it’s baseball season” than freezing cold days and more wind. 😉 Parker is SO excited for his first year of t-ball!! Nathan decided basketball was his thing, so we’ve just got one playing this year. It’s kind of nice scheduling-wise.

Jon and I were cracking up one night after the kids went to bed because Maila was seriously just copying everything that Kody did, including laying the way he was. She’s busy growing like a weed. All in all, she’s been a good dog. It’s VERY different puppy training with kids around. I’m a little scared that she’s going to turn into a crazy dog with how many different commands she’s given in a thirty second timeframe.

Well, we went in to get Nathan’s cast off and we were all so excited and so pumped and then the doctor did more x-rays and said he would feel more comfortable with him in another cast for two more weeks. SO lame. Two more weeks, here we go.

She’s my little sunshine girl. Always has been, always will be.

Well, we’re finishing out the month of February the way we started it – with a visit to the doctor.

I took this one in for a rash she had developed, thinking she was having an allergic reaction to something and we left with a positive strep test and antibiotics. Poor baby. The doctor said the words “scarlet fever” and I may have freaked out a little bit because we’re reading through the Little House books and I vaguely remember someone going blind from that. 😉 The “pink medicine” was a big hit. So was snuggling up with blankets and a movie with Mama.

Every so often, we are reminded of how tender this little boy’s heart is. We watched the movie Bolt for pizza movie night and there’s a scene where Bolt feels rejected. There are so many other scenes in the move where he’s hurt or scared and those didn’t bother Parker at all, but the scene where Bolt’s heart was hurting made Parker start crying. We looked over and he was just quietly wiping away tears. My sweet boy.

Little Miss will rarely sit still for an entire movie but she could watch “Kate movies” (our favorite beauty blogger’s how-to videos) all day. 😉

These two are pretty much inseparable. Now that Nathan’s arm is in a half-cast, he’s been outside with Parker every single day. It’s still freezing outside so I always make them put on jackets before they go outside. Notice them all piled on the bench behind them. Boys.