I think we always hit the middle of July and start panicking that we haven’t done everything we wanted to do over the summer. 😉 So then we just pack in the days with ALL the fun.

We started getting school stuff together! This year, we’re going to be doing Classical Conversations. It’s still homeschooling, but once a week, we’ll go to school for the day and learn all the material we’ll be working on the rest of the week. Eisley needed a lunch box and she was THRILLED with the Frozen one I found her.

We celebrated this cool dude at his military party at Gammy and Pops’ house. He wore those aviators the entire night. SO cute.

Nathan had a basketball game and the gym was severely lacking in air conditioning power. We stopped to get slushies and we let Eisley climb back there while we sat in the parking lot with the A/C blowing. She was so happy to be back by the boys.

Quiet summer mornings playing army guys are just the best.

We have a very special trip coming in a few months (yay!), so we had to practice some special princess hair for it. Little Miss just has the best, prettiest curls! She sat so well for me to fix her hair and then was SO proud of it. So fun to watch her. Such a girly girl.

Ah, New Mexico and our sunshine rain. Such a weird thing that happens in the summer time but it’s also so fun and unique. The kids ran out there and danced in it after dinner and it was just so cute.

We love summer.

The very next day, we had a basketball themed party for our basketball loving boy!

July is usually monsoon season for us, so every year, we try to avoid the rain and every. single. year, it rains. Like POURS.

By the end of the party, I had like 47 soaked, loud and crazy kids in my house and Nathan THRIVED on it. He lives for crazy so this crazy basketball party made him feel so loved, even if Jon and I were cowering in the corner of the kitchen with the other adults. Ha!

The next day, we woke up super early and hopped in the car and drove to Trinidad, Colorado, so we could see our dear Greg, Jen, Noah and Emma. BEST day! They drove down from Colorado Springs and met us by the lake there. We spent the whole day playing baseball, visiting under the shade tents, eating a picnic lunch and just catching up with precious friends.

Beautiful girls! They were SO cute together!

The kids just jumped right back into playing together. They explored all over the area and had the funniest pretend games going on. We spent a lot of time laughing at them. 😉

After we were all sufficiently worn out, we packed up the site and headed to a Mexican food place in town for dinner. The kids loved it. It was pretty good!

We told them it was Nathan’s birthday that weekend and at the end of the meal, they popped a sombrero on his head and the mariachi band sang the LONGEST birthday song ever to him. And I spent the entire time trying not to think about lice. 😉

We gave our dear friends the biggest hugs ever, piled all our exhausted children into the car and headed for home. Parker and Eisley were out before we even got out of town. Such a wonderful day!

We rarely ever eat out or do things like play places on a regular day, so when we ask our kids what they want to do for birthdays, they always pick to eat out and go to Chuck E Cheese. 😉 I think it makes it extra special!

We always have the kitchen table decorated and all their presents and the birthday banner up when the birthday kid gets up, so they are always SO excited to come downstairs and see it!

Nathan LOVED his hunting themed birthday! We had pancakes with whipped cream and bacon, per the birthday boy’s request! We enjoyed breakfast and got dressed and then it was time for everyone’s favorite part – opening presents. 😉

Sweet boy. He looks SO old to me right now!

This was the year of all big kid gifts – he got a FitBit (aka, the Garmin Vivofit Jr), his first pocket knife and several other things that just made me want to rewind back to the days of Mickey Mouse presents. Time is flying. We finished up with the gifts and headed to Chuck E Cheese, where we met Gabriel and Sammy!

Nathan spent most of his time there playing basketball. 😉

Next up, Freddy’s! Nathan LOVES Freddy’s – he picks to go there for his birthday lunch basically every year. Uncle Bryant and Aunt Nicole joined us for lunch there too!

We came home, I got Eisley down for a nap and the rest of us watched a movie. I may or may not have fallen asleep for a bit during it. 😉 Birthdays are exhausting in this house. Ha!

Nathan picked Texas Roadhouse for dinner – he loves it so much! Nothing like all the attention of the whole restaurant while he’s being sung to on the saddle for my biggest boy. 😉

Sweet boy!

And just in case we hadn’t had enough sugar, we finished up the day with Oreo Smush. He’s officially eight! I just can’t believe it. It was the best, best day for our biggest boy!

Nathan,

Today you are EIGHT! How in the world has it been eight whole years since you first made me a mama? In some ways, it seems like months since you were born and in other ways, I have a hard time remembering life before you. I remember right before you were born being so anxious to meet you that I couldn’t even handle it. My arms ached to hold you! I wanted to find the fast forward button so I could just have you in my arms already. And now, I am wishing I hadn’t found that fast forward button. Your sweet little life is just going by too fast.

This year was SUCH a big year for you. You changed so much and grew a TON. You went from sort of reading to flying through books. You busted through two years of math in one year and excelled at it! You won in a Lego competition at the State Fair and got so excited.

You are such a huge helper. You live for backyard projects and helping me around the house. You are very much my right hand man and I know I can always count on you to help me out!

This year, you basically had teeth just falling out of your head. 😉 You also broke your first bone, which was devastating for me but you thought the cast was extra cool. You did not let the cast stop you though – you just kept on playing and riding around and being daring and crazy. Which only scares me more now.

You are crazy. Ha! You have the funniest, loudest, biggest personality EVER. You never, ever, ever, EVER stop talking – you even talk in your sleep! You love to make people laugh, you love to be loud and obnoxious, you love to play hard.

You are such a sweet big brother. You are so kind with Parker and Eisley and are (usually) so encouraging of them! You and Parker still have the most special connection. I love watching it grow and mature. Parker and Eisley LOVE you with all their hearts.

You are SO excited that you have been able to do more “big kid” stuff lately. You’ve gotten to stay up late for movie nights with just you, me and Dad, you can read bigger kid books and you’ve just grown up so much this last ear. I feel like you have moved off that middle ground of Little Kid and Big Kid and you’re firmly in Big Kid Land now and it’s so fun and makes me tear up at the same time. Life moves too fast!! You love all things Lego, all things super heroes, all things sports and you are BEGGING to play football (that’s a hard no, sorry). You sing all the time and if you’re not singing, you’re whistling. You want to be a firefighter when you grow up (I’m not too thrilled about that, either. Ha!). You are super interested in the hunting that Dad has gotten into and you can’t wait until you’re old enough to go too.

You are the best, sweetest, funniest eight year old I know. I love you with all my heart, Nathan!! I cannot believe that God gave me the honor and privilege to be your mom. I pray for you every single day and I always will.

Happy birthday, precious boy!!

Love,

Mom

We got home just in time to help celebrate our sweet little Gabriel turning three!

He had the CUTEST Mickey Mouse party that Uncle Bryant and Aunt Nicole threw for him. So so adorable for our Mickey obsessed Gabriel!

Even sweet little Sammy got in on the theme! I loved it!

Happy birthday, sweet boy! I can’t believe you’re three!

Nothing like a slow morning at home breaking out all the fun new stuff you bought at Bass Pro. 😉 I was laughing so hard. They did this for hours.

Sweet Maila missed her buddy while we were gone. She’s pretty much just followed Parker around since we’ve been back home.

I truly think that American Girl hacks into the Social Security website and when they see that a girl in America turns about 2.5, they just pop a catalog in the mail for her. 😉 Eisley was SO excited when she got her first American Girl magazine! She had to run go get her baby doll, Charlie, (that we got when she was a baby in New York City visiting Aunt Cayce when she lived there!) and show her her picture in there.

And the day we love (which Eisley apparently hated), COW DAY! We love CFA Cow Day! I think we’ve gone every year!

Summer time is the best time.

On our way back from Nama’s house, we had to make a stop, even if it was a little bit out of the way! For the past year, I’d been reading the Little House books with the kids and so we were all SO excited to see Laura’s house in Missouri!

It was absolutely everything the kids could have hoped for. We went on the tour, we went through the museum and we all got little souvenirs. They were in HEAVEN. And I will never forget the look on their faces when they saw Pa’s fiddle. I love seeing these books come to life for them!!

It was an absolutely gorgeous day and we stayed until we had seen everything about four times. 😉 The kids did not want to leave.

The Little House books were some of my favorite books growing up, so I have just loved sharing them with my kids and seeing how much they love them too. What a wonderful trip!

Back on the road again – the kids were SO excited to get to Nama’s house.

Nama lives in Cape Girardeau, Missouri (I totally based the small town in the Carrington Springs series off Cape!). It’s such a cute town. We love it!

We got in just in time for dinner, got the kids fed and off to showers and bed and then Nama pulled this out of the fridge.

Guys. My grandmother completely knows the way to my heart. This is her famous peach pie. It’s incredible. The best summer pie ever.

The next day, we woke up, played around the house for a little while and took some pictures on the front porch. The kids think Nama’s house is so cool because it has a basement (sweet little desert children). Then we drove about an hour to Lambert’s, home of the “throwed rolls”.

It took basically no time at all for the kids to get the hang of throwing their hands up when they wanted a hot roll tossed across the restaurant at them. 😉 I have the best memories of going to this place as a kid – so so fun taking my own kids there!

I’m pretty sure they would have just stayed there forever if we’d let them. Ha!

After lunch, we drove to the place where my Tapa is buried. Nathan was very insistent that we go there. He’s heard so many stories about Tapa. It was super special to go.

The kids brought American flags to put in the vase to decorate it for the 4th of July. Such a sweet time. At one point, I just sat down on the floor right there in front of it and got to tell the kids all about how Tapa was with Jesus now. Considering Jesus was one of my Tapa’s favorite things to talk about, it meant so much to me. I wish so much that he could have met my kids, but I know he will someday!

We rounded out our busy day at a park and these poor children who are used to a negative amount of humidity were just drenched. It was disgusting. Ha! Parker also was pretty much all done with everything by this time, so blowing off some steam at a park was a good idea. 😉 We went back to Nama’s and he had a full-on meltdown. My little introvert can only extrovert for so long. 😉 A good night of sleep was just what he needed and he woke up significantly happier the next day!

The next day was the 4th of July! Cape does an AMAZING display of American flags in town, so we dressed up in our patriotic clothes and headed to the park.

So so much fun! So amazing to see so many flags!

As we were leaving, this couple drove up in this old army truck and Nathan of course sweet talked them into letting the kids try it out. The child can talk anyone into anything. They LOVED it.

We ended the night at my aunt Carolyn’s house and celebrated the 4th with an incredible meal (per Aunt Carolyn’s usual!) and the BEST apple pie ever on the planet. There’s a church that sells them as a fundraiser in town and so every time we go, we have to eat at least one. There was a point in time where I vowed to marry someone from that church so I could eat apple pie anytime I wanted to. Obviously I didn’t stick with that. 😉

Such a wonderful visit with Nama! We were all sad to leave.

Be prepared for a TON of pictures. 😉

We took a break on the yard and packed up the car and headed toward Missouri! We have been talking about going to see Nama for years and we finally made it happen. We left before dawn so we could try and make it to Springfield, Missouri for dinner. It’s about a 12 hour drive – so long, but the kids did great!

These kids have had so much practice on long drives now that they just do awesome. So thankful for that! FYI, the key is having LOTS of activities planned. I seriously schedule out the road trip day so they are constantly doing something.

The main reason we wanted to get to Springfield for dinner – the Bass Pro Shop! We got there early enough to check into our hotel and still have a few minutes to look around the store before our dinner reservations. The kids were in complete, total awe.

Dinner was delicious! And it was so fun to look out over the store. I highly recommend the restaurant!

We went to Bass Pro often when we would drive to see Nama when I was a kid, so this was so fun to me to show it to my kids!

We looked around the store until closing. Eisley was not a fan of the roaring bear. 😉 The boys immediately took off with Jon to the hunting section, so Eisley and I just wandered around, looking at all the displays.

This bear seemed kinder. She was more of a fan of this one.

But she was REALLY a fan of the pink hat she found. She immediately wanted to wear it through the store. An employee walked by and was like, “Oh man, has your daddy seen you in that hat yet?” Needless to say, we left with the hat. 😉

We spent a good chunk of the next day at Bass Pro again! The boys spent their money that they’d been saving for about a year on some really fantastic toys. Then we packed the car back up and got back on the road for the couple more hours to Nama’s house!