SUMMER TIME, SUMMER TIME! FUN, FUN, SUMMER TIME!!!

We have had an exciting summer break so far!  The day the girls got out of school, we went to a swim party.  The next day we went to another swim party!  Then we went to Meoshi's the next day for ice cream sundaes, a picnic, and a trip to the park!  The next day we went to another swim party at the lake and finished our evening up celebrating Kevin's cousins son's graduation from high school. 

I was able to attend Pink Impact a couple of months ago with a wonderful group of Godly ladies!

Kevin and I have the most amazing friends!  We just recently started having monthly theme night dinners!  The first was Kentucky Derby themed!

The next was a luau theme!

A few of Sarah's favorite things right now are rocks and wagons.  :) She has 8 teeth now. Noah is talking all of the time!

Over spring break, we went camping at Fort Griffin.  We went fishing, sight seeing, ate good food, chased an armadillo!, played in the sand, and had some good ol' quality time!

In the past 6 months we've celebrated 2 birthdays, drove to Massachusetts for my Grandma's funeral, gone on many hikes, I ran 3 5K's, went to the zoo a few times, hung out with friends, had an amazing baseball season with Ben, got 10 chickens, planted a garden, ate a lot of salads because of said garden, rescued a turtle from a dangerous road, had an eventful Spring Break hunting for fossils/fishing/exploring, had a paint fight, Kevin ate his first salad!, celebrated 10 years of being married to my God loving man, got a couple of guinea pigs, watched our kids grow like crazy!
They are growing into amazing, beautiful children!  Their love for God is pouring out of them.  The other night I went into the girls room.  They were sitting on the floor with only the light from their alarm clock, reading the Bible together.  It was precious.  It made me proud.  This is what parenting is all about.  It's about bringing our children up in a God loving home, teaching them everything we possiby can and encouraging them to research what we don't know about what the Bible says.
Tomorrow we celebrate Father's Day.  The kids are excited to celebrate their Daddy!
The day after that is our Kiley Girl's 7th birthday!!  We can't wait to have the entire day to show her just how special she is to us!

Shepherds & Monsters

We've been keeping up our advent calendar around here...how could I forget, when 3 kids are asking me about all day?  :)  Day 3 - I made Christmas cake pops for the kids and they The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.  Day 4 - We went to Benjamin's school and listened to all the kids sing Christmas songs and recite Christmas poems.  Ben got to dress up as a shepherd. 

Day 5 - We began reading the birth story of Jesus as told by Luke.  We read the first 2 chapters.  The kids had so many questions...I love reading the Bible with children.  Their hearts and minds are so much different than ours. 
Day 6 - Tonight we will ready 2 more chapters from Luke. 

Today I ordered our Christmas card!!  I am sooo excited!  Last year was the first year, in 8 years, I didn't send out our Christmas cards.  I admit...it was depressing.  I love having our family photo made and sending it to our family and friends.   :)
Noah turns 3 next Sunday.  He is having a monster party.  This years party will be a challenge because I started a cake pop business earlier this year and I have orders to fill as well as a party to plan.  But, I'm up for the challenge and the lack of sleep!
I'm enlisting the kids to help me this time with painting props for the party.  :)
Kevin painted the outside of our house today.  We picked out the paint color a year ago, so we were so excited to finally see it on OUR house!
I think Sarah might be getting her next 2 teeth because she woke up last night and stayed up for 2 hours just hanging out...like she did for 3 LONG weeks before she got her first 2 teeth.  So, I might have lots of late nights hanging out with my sweet girl. 

What is an Advent calendar??

We have done advent calendars since Kaitlin was 2.  I have always loved seeing the kids faces as they open up their little piece of chocolate for that day.  But, this year, I wanted to do something different...something to show the kids that this season should be more about doing good for others, spending time together, celebrating Jesus' birth and just being selfless.
So, what exactly does "advent" mean?  It means "coming".  We celebrate these days leading up to Christmas as a season of preparation for Christmas.  As Christians, we prepare for celebrating the birth of Jesus by remembering the longing of the Jews for a Messiah. We’re reminded of how much we ourselves also need a Savior, and we look forward to our Savior’s second coming even as we prepare to celebrate his first coming at Christmas.
For day one, we watched a Christmas movie, Charlie Bown's Christmas.  Later that evening we went to friends house to enjoy the Parade of Lights on Eagle Mountain Lake.  Then we ate chili and stew and hung out with great friends. 

Tonight (day two), the kids made chocolate covered pretzels with sprinkles for their teachers. They all did everything all on their own! Even Noah did!

Sarah got chocolate tonight...thanks Daddy!

We are loving Christmastime!  It's been in the upper 70's all week so we've been spending quite a bit of time outside riding bikes, raking leaves, jumping in leaf piles and going on walks. 

We got the 2 trees for the kids rooms put up the day after Thanksgiving and set up the big tree the next day.
November 23rd, Sarah got her 2 bottom teeth.  It's crazy that she's already 10 months old.  All of the kids are still completely in love with her!  She is the sweetest little baby ever.  She's very content, a great sleeper, great eater and the best snuggler ever! 

We had a fun Thanksgiving at our house.  Lots of food, quality family time and lots of leftovers!

In October we went to MainStay Farm!!  Kevin got to come this year and he loved it.  We went with the Roberts family again.  :)

My 10 year high school reunion was in October as well.  Here's me and my hot date!

The kids were just as cute as can be in their Halloween costumes!

Noah LOVES grasshoppers (aka "hahoppers").

Benja, as he calls himself now (& actually everyone calls him that now, haha!!), turned 5 in September!  We had a super fun camping/fishing themed party for him.  I think everyone had a great time.  We even roasted our own hot dogs and made smores.

In September, Noah got to meet his favorite people ever, Bob & Larry!!

I hope to keep you up to date on our advent adventure...as well as the rest of our fun times!

Texas Traditions

In Texas it's tradition to take pictures in the beautiful bluebonnets!! We found a huge field this year and got some cute pictures of the kids.

On April 2nd Kiley was in the car talking to Sarah and Sarah LAUGHED for the first time!!  It was so sweet and Kiley couldn't have been happier!!!
Kaitlin, Kiley and Ben are all signed up for baseball.  Kaitlin hit a homerun at her first practice!!  She also did so good catching and throwing.  She's the only girl on her team too!  Kiley did really good at her practice too!  She hit the ball off the T and fielded ground balls like a pro.  :)  Ben has his first practice tomorrow.

Our beautiful girls.

Ben loves to pose with all the treats I make.  He is my biggest helper in the kitchen!  :)







Kaitlin drew a picture of our family!!

We had an Easter egg hunt at our church.  Kaitlin and Ben were so happy that they each found a prize egg!  I love our church!!

We also went to an egg hunt at another nearby church.  They had the coolest petting zoo ever!  It had a camel, huge turtles, baby chicks and so many other animals!  They also got their faces painted, rode a carousel and rode ponies!

We went to my mom's on Easter for lunch and an egg hunt. Neil and Tiffany came too. It was so cute watching them all run around trying to get all of the eggs.  

Then, we went to Kevin's cousins house for dinner and another egg hunt.  Every year we do a silly string fight.  The kids LOVE it!!  This was Noah's first year to squirt people and he had such a fun time!  Here's the big kids before their hunt.

That next Friday, Tera, Makynli, the boys,Sarah and I went to the zoo. It was fun and I can't wait to go back again with the girls!

I made my first fondant bow!  And, I finally started my own cake pops/cake/cookies business.  It is going fantastic and I love it!!





We were having a ridiculous amount of caterpillars for a few weeks.  Noah kept picking them up!  GROSS!!  But, now we have beautiful butterflies everywhere!

Ben loves to pick flowers (actually, they all do)!!!

And blow bubbles!



Everyone's growing up so quickly and it's making me so sad!! 

Sarah started rolling over from belly to back 3 weeks ago, and now she is doing it all the time.  I love the look of "whoa" on her face everytime she does it!  She smiles so BIG everytime anyone talks to her.  She sleeps between 12-15 hours every night.  She is such a great "go with the flow baby"!!  She loves to suck on her hand.  She'll spit her binky out and put her fist right in.  :)

Noah is really starting to talk!  Within the last month he just suddenly has so much to say...sentences even!!  He can tell me when he's hungry, wants a drink, wants to go potty and so much more!!  When he wants juice he says "apple boof".  LOVE IT!!!  He loves to dance.  He really likes to dance with Kaitlin to all the Disney channel songs.  Ernie, Elmo, Mickey Mouse and Cars are his favorite right now.  When he sees planes flying he points and says "Mommy,Mommy,Mommy..." until I acknowledge that he sees a plane (or whatever is in the sky that he sees)!  He's noticing tractors on the side of the road now too.  His favorite color to spot is purple and he says it so well!  I get so excited every time he talks to me or anyone else!!  He (well, all of us!!) is just so much happier now that he's talking!  And, since he just feels like being super awesome all at once, he is finally potty trained...at home.  He won't tell me he needs to go when we're out.  Probably because I put him in a pull-up.  But, with 5 kids I just can't convince myself to take him out in underwear.  In time, I'll be brave and just get over it!  He also loves to be outside.  Everytime I make him come in, he crys.

Benjamin is so smart!  He can add, knows his letters, he's learning the sounds they make, he listens so well at church and answers the questions about the stories!  His favorite thing to do is play outside.  He's such a sweet boy and loves his Mommy so very much!!!  When he's not being good he likes to say he learned it from boys in his class at preschool so it's not his fault...haha!  Crazy boy!  As silly as he is, he's also very shy.  :)  When people he doesn't know too well talk to him, he acts like he can't hear them!!

Kiley is still the sweetest thing ever!!!  She loves her baby sister with all her heart.  Even after 3 months she still wants to hold her everyday.  :)  She's a girly girl, but loves to get outside and play.  She'll sometimes change outfits a couple of times a day.  She can read so well!!  And she loves to read me the books she brings home from school.  I remember how frustrated she was when she was learning to read, so it's so great to see her proud of herself!  She's my little bundle of joy!!

Kaitlin is still very in to reading.  At her school they have a program called AR.  She is in the top 10 of the entire school for AR points!  After kids read a book they take a test on the computer and receive AR points.  We are so proud of her!!!  She's such a big help with all of her brothers and sisters.  Without her help I would go crazy some days.  Kaitlin has such a kind heart.  All of our kids do.  They genuinely care for other people.  She loves to draw too.  She always has loved drawing!  Time is flying by and she is growing up quicker than I ever imagined!  :(  Here's a picture Kaitlin drew of Daddy, hahaha!!

Kevin and I are so blessed!!  Can it get any cuter than this?!

I am so thankful for each and every day I have with my kids and Kevin.

I can't wait to see my 3 munchkins play their first baseball games this weekend!  We are all super excited!

I'll leave you with a thought from pastor Andy Stanley.  "Love is a verb, not just a noun."  What are 2-3 ways you can show your spouse you love (verb) them?!