April 23, 2016

I had a great morning with Owen! I surprised him with a trip to Art in the Vine to paint BB8, then to Steak and Shake for lunch afterwards. He was so excited to get started with tracing and painting, and the end product turned out awesome!! Owen said 'this is my biggest, and probably my best, painting ever!' And he wants to take it to Faith for Show and Tell this week because he's so proud of his work : ) At lunch, he ordered his first footlong and ate the whole thing! I love getting to spend one-on-one time with the boys and wish it could happen more often!

Garrett was a little jealous that Owen got to paint BB8, so, not to be outdone, he hand-drew and painted his own. It turned out great! Eli painted a giant squid fighting a sperm whale and Dylan painted a panda bear (mostly on his own). I LOVE that these boys love art!!

February 17, 2016

Convicting much? : /

February 14, 2016

This was favorite Valentine's Day EVER!! I received these two cards - in the mail! - the day before, so I knew they had big things planned for the day. Owen and I went to Natchez Trace and ran a couple miles together, then he me to Braum's for ice cream, and he paid! We sat outside the restaurant and ate ice cream together and just talked about life : )

Then I had almost a full afternoon to myself while Charlie took Eli grocery shopping and they prepped dinner. He came up to my room in his dress clothes and invited me to the Eli Cafe, he escorted me down the stairs, read me the menu, brought a color page and colored pencils to keep me and his brothers busy while they plated the first course, and then he carried the courses in and out of the dining room, being the perfect gentleman the whole time. Caesar salad, spaghetti and meatballs, grilled bread, lots of Italian desserts, Italian symphony music and all my favorite boys. What a special night!!

February 2, 2016

About three years ago on Easter, Owen said to me 'Mom! I really like your big green shirt!' It was a dress... guess they don't see much of those! But now... three years later, I saw that he wrote SH for the beginning consonant blend instead of DR. Guess he still can't tell the difference. Ha!!

January 29, 2016

Oh, the joys of homeschool!

December 29, 2015

"Stop copiting me!" -Dylan

December 5, 2015

Deck the Trails!!

Last year, I ran with Owen and Charlie ran with Eli. This year, Charlie wanted me to go all out, so he started with both boys and I started close to the front of the line. Owen wanted to run by himself, and he did for more than two miles! I finished in 23:53, 1st place for my age group, 7/420 women and 36/677 overall!! The first ten places for women were all between 23:05 and 23:59. Unbelievable!

I waited at the finish line with Grammy, Pappy, Garrett and Dylan and we watched Owen come in (on his own!!) at 30:15 (last year he and I ran together and he finished in 31:40!) and Eli and Charlie finish together at 34:04 (last year they finished in 31:30). Owen said that he ran around the first field with Charlie and Eli, then took off on his own. 'I didn't walk at all, I didn't stop at the water stop and I ran right through the water in the Splish Splash zone!' He looked so strong and confident running to the finish line : ) Eli has been sick with a pretty terrible cough for about two weeks. It was a race-morning-decision for him to even run! So proud of both our competitors!!

Sleeping with Santa ; )

November 25, 2015

Going for a three mile run with this turkey on Thanksgiving ; )

October 13, 2015

Owen was so proud of himself for this tooth, and we were so proud of him too!! This was the first one that he got out all by himself, and even though it was an accident, he still did it by himself! It had really loosened up during lunch that day and he flicked it while he was watching a show and it popped right out. Way to go, Owen!

 

September 26, 2015

Owen and Eli's 2015 Soccer Team : )

September 1, 2015

How cute are these cookies?! My friend Michelle made them for all the kids in our home group and they loved them! I would have taken a picture of Garrett and Dylan's too, but they ate them too fast : )

August 31, 2015

Birthday cupcakes from Barnes and Noble... one of our birthday traditions : )

August 30, 2015

Happy 7th Birthday Owen and Eli!!

We started the morning off with birthday donuts!

We celebrated with a day at NRH20 and the boys (all of them!) were in heaven! They were so brave and rode everything they were tall enough to ride, including Dylan. At one point Dylan had been riding the small yellow slide in the kiddy area and he looked at me and said 'you wanna watch me ride the red one?' Yes! It took him a couple tries to figure out how to get to the top of the slide, but he yelled to me from the top 'can I go now?' At the bottom he simply said 'that. was. amazing.' and he rode it probably 20 more times! Owen, Eli and Garrett loved the Viper, Black Falls, Blue Twister, Great White and the Green Extreme and they rode everything over and over again. Dylan wore himself out and actually fell asleep IN the wave pool during the wave sequence! Passed out! Garrett's most favorite thing was the lily pads and he crossed them about 50 times. He was like a rocket running across them!

After the water park we ate dinner at In and Out, then picked up a Key Lime Pie (their request!) and headed home to open presents and sing Happy Birthday. They are cRaZy into art right now, so they got some new supplies from Grandma and Grandpa and projects from us, two perplexus balls, Nerf guns from Aunt Elise, sticker books about Warriors and Explorers and new PJs. Seven was a success!