We haven’t hardly sat down, so I guess that explains the speed of the days, but I cannot remember a faster summer. And here we thought this summer would be all easy-going. 😉

We knew we wanted to do some major work on our yard this summer. When we bought our house a year ago (HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE), we had saved up a bit of money to use for the backyard and ended up spending it in the kitchen. So, we’ve been using our spare time over the year to simplify as much as we could in the yard.

Earlier in the week, my friend Eryn texted me and told me they were bringing lunch and Thomas was going to help Jon in the yard. We saw our friends Jamie and Justin at church and they were like, “We’re coming too!”

Our dear friends. These kids have been friends since before most of them were born. 😉 Love how they all crammed onto one tiny table still.

The guys worked the entire afternoon and got our gazebo completely out and a lot of the lava rock around it!! It was in really sorry shape and we decided it would be better to just take it down since all it did was attract all kinds of spiders and wasps and little friends. Jon and I were just so overwhelmed that night – our friends are so wonderful to us! God has blessed us so so much with them.

Monday morning, Nathan had his orthopedic appointment and swim lessons started. Busy morning! Gammy and Cayce went with me and Nathan and Pops went with Jon and the other kids to the swim lessons. And great news! We found out Nathan’s arm wasn’t actually broken – he had joint effusion (basically swelling) which often happens with hairline breaks so urgent care likely casted him just to be safe. The doctor said he didn’t need a cast and he could even go to swim lessons!

So we ran home real fast, grabbed Nathan’s suit and happened to make it right as the lessons were starting. 😉

Three little cuties – Nathan and Parker LOVED it. Eisley was not really a fan. 😉

I asked her where her belly button was and she couldn’t find it and then looked up at me like this. Ha! I was laughing so hard!

She was super attached to this Minnie Mouse that day. She shared her snack with her and everything. Ha!

Swim lessons plus playing outside plus summertime has made this kid very, very, very tired (and grouchy) most afternoons. Jon was working and Parker just climbed in his lap and fell asleep.

Friday, we started taking down the shed and Saturday, our friends all showed back up (with lunch again!) and finished the job and took 6 truckloads of stuff to the dump. They are amazing. Seriously, Jon and I are just so incredibly blessed.

Little Miss is cutting a back tooth and has been pretty sad about it, so we made some cookies and medicated with some cookie dough covered beaters and ibuprofen. Nothing like a little cold metal covered with delicious to make teething feel better. 😉

Stay tuned for the book club book coming soon!!

 

First off, YAY. I am so excited to hear y’all are up for a little book club! Let me think through the options and I’ll do a post this week with some ideas. 🙂

On Saturday, Aunt Nicole and Hudson came in town for a little bit while Uncle Caleb was off doing a dental mission trip in Jamaica. So fun to see them!

Eisley was a super big grouch the whole day on Saturday and Saturday night, she started running a 103 degree fever right at dinner time. She ran one Sunday and woke up with one on Monday and just looked miserable, so I took her in to the pediatric urgent care Monday morning and we found out she had strep.

Poor sweet girl. She was just so sad. She finally started to feel a little bit better Monday night with the antibiotics and after a four hour nap, but I’ve never seen her so sick before. It totally broke our hearts.

She finally started feeling better and we got to see Nicole and Hudson Tuesday night before they left. Then, yesterday, Nathan was running through the house (something he’s not supposed to do), slipped on the kitchen floor, caught himself weird and immediately started screaming.

When he was still crying off and on 20 minutes later, I knew it was bad so I took him right to urgent care. They did x-rays (which were AWFUL. He was sobbing, I was crying, it was awful) and the first doctor didn’t seen anything but the radiologist decided he had a fracture.

SO sad!! We made it almost seven years without a break. I don’t think I really processed what happened until he went to bed last night and then I just couldn’t get over it. 🙁 He’s doing okay – right now, the cast is still kind of cool to him but I have a feeling that sentiment is going to end pretty quickly.

He’s in a temporary cast until Monday which was the first appointment the orthopedic doctor had available. Since it’s not a permanent cast, he was told to sit down and watch Netflix for the next few days since this cast isn’t as stabilizing (or as water-resistant) as a permanent cast. Looks like we might have a long weekend ahead. 🙁 So thankful though – if he had to break an arm, I’m very thankful it was his left and not his right.

In other words, Mom is sort of all-done-urgent-care around here and I’m totally turning into that mother on Little Giants and wrapping all three kids in bubble wrap for the forseeable future.

So, now that we are finally feeling a little more put together after all the transitions (um…a YEAR ago almost…good grief)… would anyone out there be up for reviving the book club??

I have some ideas in my that we could do, but if anyone has any suggestions, I would love to hear them! I’m thinking particularly doing it over the summer. My initial thoughts are we pick two books, read one over the month of June and then do a Facebook Live or something like that to discuss it and then do another one over the month of July.

What do you guys think?? If you’re interested or have any ideas for books, please leave a comment so we can get things rolling for June!

Also, I hinted to this on my Instagram, but I’ve got some FUN news coming very soon!! I can’t wait to share!!!

Yay!

FOREVER. Seriously, I think I’ve spent the majority of our spring at these fields. Half of the season, we’ve had between three and four games a week. Just a TON for a bunch of six, seven and eight year olds.

Not to mention their siblings. Parker and Eisley are pretty much ALL DONE BASEBALL.

Summer time, but I’m still up early. If I’m not up by six or six-fifteen, the whole day just goes bad from the start.

For Nathan’s kindergarten graduation, we gave him a fidget spinner (along with the rest of the world). He picked out a blue one on Amazon and it said it would be delivered Friday. So, this is how they spent Friday. 😉

We have been attempting to cut Parker’s nap because if he sleeps during the day, he doesn’t at night. On Saturday, I told him to do rest time in my room, thinking maybe that would deter him from falling asleep in his bed. And maybe not…

End of the year party!! He did a great job his first year in rookies!

Sunday, we went to church, had lunch with our dear Beechems and then came home and started working on our sorry excuse for a backyard. Probably the thing that stings the most about our move last summer was we had JUST put our backyard in the year before we moved!! We spent the entire afternoon on one tiny patch of red lava rock that we are getting rid of and the boys dug up a ton of roots underneath. Nathan suggested they they all pose with their “serious faces” with the biggest roots they dug out. Parker’s face is killing me – and so is my back. I’m not as young as I was last time we landscaped a yard. 😉

I know I need to make a summer plan because it’s going to be gone before I even realize it! We have so much we want to do this year – now to get it all scheduled. 😉

Happy kids to have Nathan home and no schoolwork to do! 🙂

My new favorite lunch – avocado toast with strawberries and balsamic! When I happen to find everything on sale, it’s a very happy day!

After a game played in the freezing cold breeze after a long day of constant rain. The team raised the money for their sweatshirts and they all think they are pretty cool. 😉

“Hey, Mom! Wook! I’m wooking just like Master Shifu from Kung Froot Panda!”

Bring on summer!!

I have NO idea how this happened, but somehow, we are already at the end of kindergarten.

He’s so big. I had to do it to myself even though it kills me:

Please excuse me while I go weep in the corner.

Nathan and his amazingly WONDERFUL teacher this year!! We LOVED her – she was hands down the best teacher for Nathan!! He loved her so much! We are really going to miss her.

The kids did a little performance where they quoted a few of the things they learned and sang a few songs for us. They did so good. We have truly enjoyed our time at this school. Then his teacher handed out all these booklets she made of all the things they’d done since the first day of school and I basically cried the rest of the time we were there. Time is just going too fast!

Parker found the old water table a few months ago and he’s been begging me to let them use it since. I kept telling him he was going to have to wait until summer. We got in the car to go home after Nathan’s last day of school and I made the mistake of being like, “Hey! School’s out! It’s summer time!” Parker was SO excited and started yelling, “WE GET TO USE THE WATER TABLE!” It was not warm that afternoon, but I let them use it for a little bit. 😉

Attempting to warm up before the frostbite sets in. 😉

So thankful for a wonderful kindergarten year for my biggest boy!!

This Mother’s Day hit on the day when Eisley was probably the grouchiest cutting her back teeth. So, plans were pretty fluid. 😉

The kids and Jon made me breakfast and a few cards, which was so sweet. We hung out for a little bit since breakfast went through church (and Eisley was in no mood to be in the nursery anyway) and then got dressed and then headed over to Mom and Dad’s for lunch. We had a great time and even got to see Aunt Cayce for a little bit! 🙂 She’s back in town with some health problems, so we have been praying really hard for her.

We tried to take pictures there since we were all dressed nice and looking pretty but seriously, 121 pictures later and we had nothing. Oy. It’s the joy of multiple children. 😉

Jon took this picture after rest time. Everyone had changed except for Parker and Eisley was still fussy. But I love this picture. It’s just life right now.

There’s a Starbucks within walking distance to us now and we never, ever go but Mother’s Day was the last day of their half-price Frappucinos (which I’d found out about on Friday), so we walked up there and everyone got a special drink. Eisley is holding mine – she got a cake pop instead of a Frappucino, much to her dismay. 😉 She was basically inhaling it – I had to wrench it out of her hands. Ha!

We walked back home, the kids talked the entire way there and back and then they made me a spaghetti dinner after we’d played outside for awhile.

Such a fun, low-key Mother’s Day!

 

Everyone is FINALLY well in my house!! I’m so thankful!!

Back to happily trashing the playroom. 😉

I thought it was so cute how she was sitting in a pile of toys quietly reading and as soon as she heard the click from the camera, she popped her head up and did this. Ha! I was laughing so hard. Such a cheeser.

I had just gotten Eisley to bed and as I was coming out of her room, I heard the boys talking in theirs, so I stood in the hall for a second to listen. Parker: “Nathan, you should be a firefighter or a policeman when you grow up, Nathan.” Nathan: “You can’t pick what you are going to be. God decides and that is just what you get to be.” Parker: “Well, when I grow up, I’m going to be a rock and roll ZEBRA.” Nathan: “Parker, you can’t be a zebra. There is no way.”

Meanwhile, I could barely breathe I was laughing so hard and trying not to make any noise in the hallway.

I always go check on the kids before I go to bed. This is hands down, without fail my absolute favorite position they get themselves into as babies. Love it so much.

We babysat little Gabriel on Saturday night while Bryant and Nicole went to a concert. Little dude was not super happy about the other kids having an earlier bedtime than himself, but he didn’t seem to mind hanging out in between me and Jon for a little bit. 😉

It has been a LONG ten days. Basically, this what our first ten days of May have looked like:

Both boys got some awful stomach bug (not at the same time, of course) and Nathan actually got it twice. And both of them started throwing up at 2am when it hit them. Poor little guys.

We dragged a mat into our room, set up the TV and they just laid in there with their sprite, gatorade and toast for three days at a time.

Somehow, Jon, Eisley and I escaped the madness (thank you Lord!). But Little Miss was NOT happy to have a brother quarantined upstairs every single day. I think I pulled her off the stairs about twice an hour. I even tried putting her own Mickey Mouse on and she was only entertained for about three minutes.

She’s a fan of “Memie” and her “BOW” but as soon as she leaves the screen, Eisley is pretty much over it.

All that free time left her finding some mischief – I’m not sure she totally understood how the marker ended up all over her hands. 😉 Ha!

Hi friends!!

I have a new special in the bookstore – but if you want it, you’d better hurry because I only have a *VERY* limited supply left!!

Get the whole Paige Alder series – autographed!! – for $45 and FREE shipping to anywhere in the continental USA. (I’m SO sorry international friends, but this special is just for the USA!)

When ordering, please be sure to specify the name you’d like them autographed to! 🙂

Yay!!! Like I said, I only have very few left, so hurry! 🙂 I will take the special out of the store when all copies have been sold!

Happy Tuesday!!!