A Day of Play

Spring has been a little tricky this year--just when we think it's here, it goes away again!!! Who knows what it's going to be like in a couple days!! This morning we did our school work, but as soon as Lawson was done they were outside playing, eating lunch, then playing again! I went outside to try to get some pictures of them playing...

This picture makes me laugh because Lawson and Jordan had found a place where the training wheels were on the ground but the big wheel wasn't. They were pretending it was an exercise bike and spinning that back wheel as fast as they could but not going anywhere! They took turns and did this forever!
There are several of Jordan--she was in a posing mood tonight, I guess!! Also, my kids are going through this phase where they can just look at each other and start giggling--before I know it they are in full-out belly-laughs!! They think it's just hilarious. Sometimes I agree, but sometimes it drives me batty!!

Anyways, I am thankful for this day that they were able to spend playing together, and I'm thankful that they have so much fun together! These are definitely good times!

Baby #3's Baby Shower #1

Our friends at church had a Diaper Bag Shower for us yesterday!! We were so excited, and we shared the shower with two other families who are expecting babies soon. Our table is the one on the far right...
We had a delicious lunch, then got to come home and let the kids help us open all of the diapers and supplies our friends hooked us up with!! What a blessing!

The Jordan Show

Here are a couple of Jordan...The first one is her singing Have Thine Own Way, which is one of their favorite bedtime songs. She doesn't sing all the words just right, but that's part of what makes it cute! That and her crazy low, monotone voice--especially when she's being shy or a little bit embarrassed!

You can especially hear this low voice in the second video. At first, she's being very bossy to Lawson and it cracks me up, but then she decides she wants to sing a song that she made up (I'm assuming at that very second). I know that when she's all grown up, nights like these will be some of the memories that I cherish most!

Sing. Sing a song. Sing out loud. Sing out long.

For Christmas Jon and I struggled with what sort of gifts we wanted to get for the kids. In particular I was struggling with not wanting anymore big plastic toys to clutter up the floor, especially since we are preparing to move and will soon be trying to get rid of some of our excess stuff. I didn't want them to have "No Christmas" just couldn't justify buying a bunch of junk so they'd have stuff to open!

On Black Friday I struggled with what I was going to be shopping for...but finally decided that I would just buy them some games for their Leapsters then keep my eyes open for something else that would be suitable. While my friend Jamey and I were at Toys R Us, I saw something that I thought would be just perfect--not just for the kids, but for our whole family! It was a karaoke machine!!

How much fun could we have with this??? My kids LOVE to sing, and having a microphone to sing into only makes it more fun, right?? Plus, I thought it would be fun for Jon and I to play with, or to use when we have friends over... I snagged one on a great sale and crossed my fingers!

Well, the kids opened our gifts before our trip to Oklahoma and then we left the next day. They took their Leapster games with them, but we didn't really get to use the karaoke machine. Then we came back and had a thousand errands and field trips and other things to take care of. Then we went to Honduras for a month. I thought we were never going to get to use the darn thing!

Well, the other night Jon was working late so I decided to hook it up and let the kids play with it for a while. They had so much fun singing and being silly. We don't even have any karaoke CDs, they were just using the microphone to sing and talk. I took lots of videos, but here are just a couple of them.

The first one is of Lawson singing a Spanish song he learned while we were in Honduras. He doesn't quite have all the words right, but for memorizing a whole song in a language he doesn't know I think it's great! The second one is of Jordan singing Blue Skies and Rainbows.

Enjoy the videos....I may post more later!

Cousins in Green

Jon's parents came over and brought Maddison to visit during her Spring Break this past week. The kids had so much fun playing together, and we also got to go to the St. Patrick's Day Parade together! Huntsville puts on a great SPD Parade and the kids LOVED it! It was a beautiful day and I had some fun taking pictures of these kiddos in their green shirts!


Waiting patiently...

Still waiting...
The parade pics look like, well, parade pics. Fire trucks, police cars, dogs, marching bands, bicycles, dancers, etc...So I'll just wrap up with this one of my sweet girl:

They're lucky I didn't leave them there!!

Where??? At the zoo!! Some days these little monkeys drive me nuts, but I love them to pieces! We had a great day at the Nashville Zoo yesterday with our home school group and some of our good friends. It was a beautiful (and kind of HOT) day, and we enjoyed ourselves so much! At the end of the day the kids and I were all exhausted, but it was SO worth it!
The other kids we walked around with--my friend Amy and her 4 boys, along with Amy's sister-in-law and her 3 girls. The adults were definitely out-numbered this day!
I LOVE the flamingos!
My kiddos in front of the giraffes (wayyy back there!)

Jordan chose the carousel animal with two baby gorillas, and she was the middle baby gorilla!! Lawson had been saying all day that he wanted the giraffe, but in the end he chose the flamingo.

I was excited when a passer-by asked if we wanted a picture with the three of us in front of the sign! What a great way to end the day!

Retreatin'

Over the past several years, Jon and I have gone on many trips and retreats with the youth group at church, and we have always arranged for someone to come stay with our kids or for our kids to go to someone's house. We just want to make sure that we are going to spend time with the teens, not use up all of our time taking care of babies/kids.

The weekend after we returned from Honduras, however, was the last big retreat that we will get to do with the youth group and we had just spent a solid month with the kids. We didn't want to ask family to come watch them, and we didn't want to just leave them, so we decided they were big enough to take.

They did GREAT!!! They sat quietly during the quiet times, and they played like big kids during the playing times. They slept great in the bunk rooms, and they had a ton of fun! We got several compliments on how well-behaved they were, especially how they sat quietly during the worship times. I was SO proud of them! One thing's for sure, though, this is a definite sign that they're growing up!!

On the bus ride there...they had talking to the teens and playing their Leapsters...
During one of the class times for the teenagers I took the kids out by the campground's lake. They had fun walking around on the dock and then playing on this huge muddy hill. I cringed at first, but hey, they're just kids, right?! And clothes will wash. Mostly clean.

We were supposed to be playing "Mud Football." The kids were super excited about this and we brought special clothes just for them to get muddy and gross. When we got to the field, though, it turned out that it was just going to be "Wet and Cold Football." They were a little bummed, but they still had fun squirting each other with the hose and getting wet on this wonderful 50 degree day!

Jump Zone

We went to Jump Zone with our home school group, and the kids always have fun at any place where they can run, jump and get sweaty!! I had fun because I got a chance to use my new camera!



This was a busy day! We had our field trip, then I had to get ready to go to a fun girls-get-away weekend with some of my closest friends, then Sunday night when I got back it was time to do some hard-core packing to get ready for our month-long family trip to Honduras! Busy, busy!

New Camera!!

While we were at Fall Creek Falls, our camera died on us. Even with a freshly charged battery, the shutter wouldn't come out and we couldn't see or take any pictures. I was so sad that our camera had broken, but I was also super nervous--Our big trip to Honduras was only one week away!! How could we go spend a month in another country with the kids and not have a camera to document it all?

I had finally decided that I was just going to ask a friend if we could borrow their camera for the month, and I was okay with that. I just really wanted to come back with some pictures! I was shocked when some amazing friends who knew about our broken camera surprised us with a brand new camera that they had bought for us!!! It totally caught me off-guard and I couldn't believe that they would be so generous and thoughtful to recognize what a blessing that would be to us! Thank you, special friends, and thank you God for giving us such special friends!

This is one of the first pictures we took after we got the new camera--we were just messing around at home but this one came out pretty cute!

Fall Creek Falls

We were so excited when we asked our friends Sunny and Jason if they wanted to go on our church's Family Get-Away at the end of January! I had always wanted to go, but our kids have always seemed so small that the whole trip would just end up being a hassle. With us moving later this year, and the kids getting so much bigger, I thought it would be the perfect year to experience this trip, and it was GREAT!!! The weather was BEAUTIFUL and we all had so much fun together--kids and adults!

We drove up to Fall Creek Falls on a Friday afternoon/evening. We spent some time playing some board games while everyone else was arriving, then we went back to our cabins to get settled down for the night.
Abby Kate and Jordan were super excited to be having a slumber party in the floor! We did have some excitement in the room as there were hundreds of ladybugs fluttering around, as well as one pesky wasp that we finally murdered!!
The next morning we got up to eat breakfast then tried to plan out our day. We decided to spend some time at the park in the morning, then we had to go back and make lunch for everyone. We decided to hike the trails in the afternoon.

Me and Lawson at the playground.
Jordan showing Jackson on the map where she thought we were going. So cute--they always end up paired together.All 5 kids in front of the Fall Creek Falls sign...
Lawson and Joshua. They're best buds...
Love this little guy...
My boys...
Sunny took these pics for us at the smaller waterfall...Love them

The four big kids...can you tell they're used to their mommas making them pause to pose?? :)
We went on "The hike that never ends." It seriously took FOREVER and it was pitch black when we came out of those woods!! When we got to the parking lot, ours was the only car left! I'm glad we took flashlights, and I'm glad we didn't die on the Indiana Jones bridge!! We had some groaning, some crying, some laughing along the way...it really was quite an experience!!

Here's the big kids taking a rest...
Taking another rest with the hiking sticks they'd gathered.
We had such a great weekend with some of our very best friends...I'm so thankful we had the chance to make these memories together!