Goodness, it’s been busy. I feel like I say this all the time and maybe it’s just this stage of life with three little kids and school and sports and all the activities, but I am really, really ready for life to slow down.

Pizza movie night is still a big deal on Friday nights at our house! On this Friday, we got pizza from a local pizza place that I grew up going to and went inside to pick it up. There’s a place for the kids to watch where the people make the pizza. The kids LOVED it. They were like goading the poor employees into a pizza tossing contest. So fun. The guys working there that night were so cute with them.

Poor dog spends 90% of her day with a child on her. I know how she feels. 😉

Last day of Sparkies!! Nathan is officially graduated from Sparkies and got the coveted Sparky Award. He was SO proud.

Just because I like to make myself cry. First day of Sparkies, year one to the last day of Sparkies, year three. We LOVE Awana!

The kids saw these little “surprise Lego man” bags at the Target checkout and they were one dollar and that’s all I heard about the entire week until we went back to Target with their money. They each bought a bag and they were each disappointed with what they got. 😉 It was a good lesson in never buying mystery items. Ha!

One of the experiments Nathan had in science this week was making ice cream in a bag. So we waited to do until family dinner night at Gammy and Pops’ house. The excitement level started out high and then I’m pretty sure that Jon, Nathan and Uncle Bryant ended up shaking most of the bags until they were done. Ha!

Eisley: “Wow, dat was hawd work!” Riiiight. 😉

After a particularly trying day right at the end of the week, I was doing my quiet time the next morning and God gently (aka not gently) reminded me that my attitude for the day if often mirrored in my kids. This time of life is so emotionally and physically exhausting and I wouldn’t trade it for anything, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t hard. These three little people are the world to me and more than anything else, I want them to grow up to be kind, hardworking people who love Jesus and serve Him. It’s a good reminder that I need to be setting that example to my children, because what they see and hear is going to set the stage for what they become.

 

It’s been a full week of baseball, award nights and school days!

We had absolutely GORGEOUS weather at this game! It was so much fun. Parker is so cute to watch – he just runs with a smile the entire game.

Sidelines with these two. I fed Parker dinner before the game and packed it for the other two. A certain little miss sits a lot better for the games if she’s constantly snacking. 😉

Cubbies Award Night!! Parker was SO excited! They had a pizza party and handed out the awards. I can’t believe the Awana year is already done.

Another day, another baseball game. It was FREEZING on this morning. Everyone in the stands was just piling on all the layers we could find.

Hanging out on the sidelines. She was only content in the chair for about half of the game.

The stands were cracking up the third base coach in this game. Ha! Maybe the laughing kept him a little warmer. 😉

Someone discovered the Boxcar Children this week and he’s just been obsessed. I seriously was tearing up – I’m SO thankful that he’s come far enough in his reading that he can enjoy the bigger kid books!

It’s been a crazy week around here!

The other two went on an errand with Jon on Sunday afternoon, so Parker and I played a few board games together. Parker is all about games. And one-on-one time.

We had pancakes for dinner and Eisley managed to get syrup everywhere. I was laughing so hard at this – I looked over and she was just amazed at how her hands stuck to her cheeks. Ha!

Why does he look so old?? I go in to check on the kids every night before I go to bed and he just looked so terribly old to me. Such a blessing to have healthy kids growing up but I wish it wasn’t so fast.

The weather was gorgeous so I told them they could playing with the water sprayers in the backyard. Oy. So ready for the work to be done so we can enjoy it instead of only seeing what needs to be done!

Maila got fixed this week. Jon dropped her off on his way to work, so Parker came downstairs to tell her goodbye before she left. These two are buds.

Poor dog. She was so sad that night. She slept good, though, which was a huge blessing!! Probably thanks to Eisley playing her a song on the kazoo. 😉

Seriously, these two are just good friends. Maila adores Parker and Parker ADORES Maila.

Eisley loves Maila with all of her heart but Maila’s thoughts toward Eisley are a little more about tolerating her and not as much about loving her back. Ha! Someday Eisley will hopefully have a little more gentleness and then Maila’s thoughts might change. 😉

Parker’s first baseball game was absolutely the most beautiful day we had had so far this year!

He did so well! He was so cute – we had the best time that day. He ran every base with the biggest possible smile on his face!

Gammy, Pops and Aunt Cayce came to cheer him on too! So much fun – he was so happy!

T-ball is the best. Just saying. 😉

Everything is starting to wrap up for the year around here! April is always this weird mix of really nice and really HORRIBLY windy days in Albuquerque. We all start to get anxious for the warm, non-windy summer. Not to mention, in the summer, Jon only has one job. Always a plus. 😉

In Awana, Parker’s Cubbies’ student teacher has just been fantastic! She got him a little matchbox car for his birthday and he worked so hard to write his name on the card for her. I was so proud of him! He’s been trying so hard to be big and do school everyday. We started going through the learning to read book and he’s just doing amazing.

Must be spring. 😉 T-ball practice is officially underway.

This kid. He’s either extraordinarily happy or extraordinarily not. 😉 This ninja spoon came in a kid’s meal on one of our road trips last summer and its still one of his most favorite things in the whole world. The kids always teach me a lot about having joy in the simple things.

Someone asked how homeschooling was going the other day and I told them that we were just limping along to the end of the school year. 😉 The kids are doing well – it’s more that we are just running out of things to do! Nathan will probably finish up math and science by the first week of May. He’s doing fantastic. I’ve been having him do some pretty tough reading comprehension packets on top of his other work and he’s just been rocking it. We started this year at the beginning of first grade and I think he’s probably at a second grade graduate level now. He will have completed two years of math by the end of this school year! I’m so proud of the kids – they have all done so well this year! I started the year terrified of homeschooling and I’m ending it thinking we’ll probably never do anything else. 😉 The sign of a great year!

Easter is one of my favorite times of the whole year. A few years ago, we started doing a Passover dinner with the kids on Good Friday and it’s become such a fun tradition. This year, we were all exhausted on Friday from our week in the yard, so we decided to do our Passover meal on Saturday instead.

We never have red juice (EVER), so the kids were guzzling the cranberry-grape juice like crazy. Love the tradition of this meal! Love watching the kids connect the dots from the Old Testament to the New Testament.

Easter morning, we almost always go to the sunrise service at the football stadium. I grew up going to this every Easter and now it just feels like that’s what Easter is supposed to be like. Love this of Nathan and Pops! This service always means so much to me. Five years ago, right before we left to go to the sunrise service, I found out our second IUI was unsuccessful and I spent the entire service crying on my friend Leigh Ann’s shoulder. Every year since, I get teary at how much God has given us – we are so blessed.

We went to Ihop after the service for breakfast and then headed home for naps!

Our three biggest blessings all dressed up for Easter after a good nap.

Checking out the rings that were in her Easter basket. She’s become very obsessed with accessories. 😉

The boys got those little acrobats that flip down windows in their baskets and they were dying over them. Naturally, this turned into a race. Jon was getting all into it as well. So fun!

Then it was time to hunt for eggs at Gammy and Pops’ house. We kept this year a little more chill than years past – it was good.

They had the best time!

Love this one.

Pretty dress, pretty shoes, pretty bracelets, carrying a pretty basket and getting to hunt for chocolate? I think Eisley’s favorite holiday is officially Easter. 😉

Happy Easter everyone!!

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