Still kickin...

We are alive...barely.

School, especially volleyball is kickin our butt. There have been early mornings where all 3 kids were crying over one thing or another and I wanted to just quit and stay home and snuggle with them all day..but this is literally just a season in our life..we will adjust.

We do love having our Daddy at our school. Goober always waves when he sees him on campus and he has been able to walk Ribbit down for boxtop treats..its pretty awesome when at least two days a week both your mommy and daddy get to walk you to class.

Baby boy has been teething which has meant some 4:00 mornings and many night of "sleeping" with mommy and daddy.

To top things off we have been slowly getting everyone settled in their new rooms. We bought paint today and looks like we are going to have one colorful house :).

Today was quite productive....baseball tryouts, birthday party, grocery shopping, preparation of 3 meals, desserts and some lunches for the week, more remodeling work done on 2nd bathroom, dinner at home and some cleaning up!!!

Oh, and today BABY BOY turns 18 months old!!!!He cracks me up with his jumpy run as his curls bop everywhere, his constant dinosaur roaring, his train "choo choo" and contagious laugh!!!

Here is a video of the kids dancing with Gramps!

Flip Flop

We spent the majority of our weekend flip flopping the kids bedrooms. Adam has already started remodeling the bathroom connected to what was the guest room so when a sweet school family gave us a brand new bedroom set for Goober we went for it.
    Soooo, Goober stayed in his old room but got new bunk beds----bed on top and Adam is putting in a hammock underneath! He also got a new solid wood dresser and bookshelves. We re-configured his room, put up new curtains and decided on a new paint color and theme (dark blue, gray and orange)...HE IS STOKED!
   Ribbit got moved into the bedroom with the attached bathroom (under construction) and got the old guest full bed, along with the 2 closets in there and a lot more space. We are pretty sure its going to get painted pink with some sort of white stenciling on the main wall where her bed is.
   Baby Boy moved into Ribbit's old bedroom and inherited Goobers old bunkbed..just the bottom twin frame with a railing (for when he is a little bit older). He also got a new toybench with a seat on top, dresser, rug and curtains. We are leaning towards a train/cars/truck theme...all primary colors with mommy doing some custom painting in there.
   All we have to do now is wait for Daddy to finish the bathroom...since he took out 1/2 of a closet to enlarge it. Then we will switch out all the closets and put in new shelves and then of course PAINT!!!

Friday I came home from school with a migraine and had it when I got up on Saturday too...however, when I finally stumbled out at 9:00 I saw the sweetest sight. The kids and Adam were all in the playroom together and the kiddos were sitting on the trampoline. Adam was behind the puppet stage putting on a show about a king who spoke about God to his wife every day. The kids were watching intently but Ribbit kept saying something about a dragon..who knows...regardless it made my heart melt. Later on that day Adam took the two littles to a birthday party (more points for Daddy) and me and Goober stayed home. We ended up watching the X Games and since then he has been setting up all kinds of ramps outside and attempting to fly over them on his bike...so far he has escaped with only a blister and small cut on his ankle.....I guess we better invest in elbow and knees pads as well :).
Check out this sweet video of Goober worshiping with his friends at VBS!!

I want to stay where you stay

Ribbit has been telling me at least daily that she wants to stay where I stay....how can you say No to a sweet little curly headed child saying that to you...YOU CANT!!! It always makes me think of Naomi and Ruth "where you go I will go and your people will be my people and your God will be my God"......EXCEPT when she says it right as we are entering her classroom and she wallers on the floor. Yup, waller is a word and a good word to describe what she was doing. She also says it after I have been snuggling with her for a good 20 minutes as she falls asleep and I slowly roll out of her bed only to find she is still wide awake. Oh well, she won't be this little forever.

Baby Boy is having fun at his new childcare house. He is usually sitting on a stool in the kitchen having a snack when Adam or I pick him up in the afternoons. He has been giving BIG kisses lately which means lot of drool....except when he kisses his sister which turns into a bite and big ole ruckus. With our new earlier schedule for school we have had to wake him up almost daily ....he is a good little sleeper (night sleeper....not so much for naps). He's also starting to use Mommy and Daddy for the right person...which is great for us since we both answer to Daddy as of lately.

Goober is loving 3rd grade...he tells me daily that it may be his best year yet and he wants to stay in 3rd grade forever. He is on top of his scripture memorization and RIGHT now he is in his room writing a song he made up. Its about how he wants to touch a star, NO MATTER WHAT. He sang it to me about 10 minutes ago and I remember one stanza " I would sell my house or cut off my leg just to touch a st-ar-ar". Now you tell me how NOT easy it is to laugh at that line while your sweet boy belts it out loud and proud to you ...like 2 feet in front of your face making eye contact without blinking for the whole song?....its not easy at all but boy is it cute!!! I encouraged him to not give away our home and he said "no, not yours, my home without my wife and kids :)"....he's already planning!!!

Volleyball for me is in full swing....BUT, I had to make cuts this year and that is NOT FUN!!! I have never had this many girls try out but I had over 30 girls looking at me in a huddle on Wednesday morning. So Wednesday and Thursday they tried out and I am down to 25 now...13 on one team and 14 on the other. That is still freakishly HUGE for teams....especially since only 6 go on the court at a time. However, its so stinking hard to cut a girl that you love to death and have a relationship with..it came down to effort and serves....I'm just praying that they all find something they excel in this year..like tomorrow!!

Last weekend before school

We miss summer.....well mainly the naps that come with summer.

We had a great week of Inservice, as far as production goes, but as far as rest goes....NADA. Today we went tax free shopping and scored big on some new duds for Adam and his new job. I also bought tons of birthday presents because my children go to at least 25 birthday parties a year and I never have time to run out and buy a gift and a corresponding card....so after today BRING IT!!!

We also had Ribbit's "Friend birthday" at a Pottery Painting store....she loved it. They all wore tiaras while they painted, chose different animals to paint, devoured cupcakes, fruit and cheese and then had fun watching her open presents....she mainly got dress up clothes which is PERFECT for her sweet little imagination.

This morning when she woke up she walked straight into our bedroom and said " Good Morning, I slept well, (then laid her head next to mine and said ) I don't want to ever grow up"....Adam and I lost it. We agreed with her and said " but then who is going to cook for us when we get old?". She said " no way, I don't want to cook!".

Goober can barely contain himself at how excited he is to start 3rd grade. All of his buds are in his class and he has had his eyes on Mrs. Myers for a while....why?...she gives out Dr. Pepper as a REWARD.....woooooo, rule breaker :).

Baby Boy is walking around like a wrecking ball, hitting and smashing everything in his path. When he is told to say sorry and give love he normally says "orry" and then bites you while he is giving you love. I think this behavior deserves our well loved phrase of "good thing he is cute". He has also started saying "bike" in the most southern accent EVER....it cracks me up, who in the world is that child emulating? :)

Here are more pictures from our time in Alabama ...on to a drive thru petting zoo...the kids loved it, momma not so much!

We started out easy with this little guy

Yup, its an albino deer

I'm with you bud, I don't want to get close to that thing!

They weren't one bit scared to come up close to the car.

Some of them would stick their whole head into the van.

Beautiful

This camel threw us for a loop...Goober was ready to feed him but momma and Ribbit got scared :)

See how my hand is on the window making sure that it would stay up the entire time?...yup, there are permanent scratch marks from me slapping that button!

Riding the turtles

Do you see hot hot it is? Steamy on the bottom.

Petting turtles afterward

BIG GIRL

Ribbit turned 4 today. She asked all day today " is it still my birthday now?". She chose Chic Fil A for dinner and then she opened her presents and was giddy! We already took the kiddos to the circus on Saturday and we are going to a waterpark tomorrow night. Her "friend" birthday party is on Saturday and she is looking forward to that as well.

I'm not really in the best frame to post tonight..inservice kicked my booty today....and I'm foggy.

So here's my post for my precious 4 year old princess.

Today my sweet little diva will turn 4. Ribbit, you bring more laughter, kisses, hugs, snuggles, bows, unicorns, and fingernail polish to my life then should be allowed. You are BEAUTIFUL , smart, sassy and have such a sensitive heart. Mommy and Daddy love you so much and we will be glad to give you birthday spankings tomorrow but no pinches to grow on!

Our school

Adam had his first day of new staff inservice at school yesterday. He came home proclaiming his undying love for our kids education and gratitude that we can send them. HE'S HOOKED....I knew he wouldn't need any convincing...heck, he was already 99% there from just listening to me talk about my job :).

Speaking of my job, over our beach trip I got to see my favorite teacher ever....MRS. JOHNT!! I already had a love of art from my dad and two grandmas but Mrs. Johnt sealed the deal for me. I was 100% sure that I wanted to be an art teacher, and not just any art teacher, but JUST LIKE HER!!! She has written a book for first year art teachers and you better believe its highlighted, bookmarked and looking very loved in my desk at work. The great thing is that I have been able to keep up with her ever since graduation, even though she moved.

I owe a lot to this sweet sweet lady....I quote her all the time in class and I'm sure my students are tired of hearing about "when I was in art class, my teacher would....":)

The kiddos are all sleeping....we are getting back on school schedule...but we are also super tired from running back to school errands. This weekend alone we have 2 birthday parties, 1 pool party and the CIRCUS!!!

Bucket List

We are slowly checking things off of our summer bucket list....good thing since In-service starts Monday and we go "back to life, back to reality".
Soooo.....we drove to Dallas today to grab our Circus tickets....exchange vouchers really that were given to us by a sweet school family....and we went to the local waterpark. This waterpark isn't your normal "Marathon Waterpark"....where you pack everything you may need since you have to stay all day to make up for the amount you just paid. It's small, you can see every thing from everywhere and for residents of our city its super cheap. So we invited a friend for Goober (momma has to stay in the kiddie area and he gets bummed there...so buddy system makes it safe for him to go do the "big kid" things without me) and off we went.
I planned on staying in the toddler area the whole time but Ribbit and Baby Boy had different plans. They were ready for the BIG KID AREA...and they did great. They had their floaties on and did great at keeping their heads above the water and out of the spray and misters. Baby Boy pretty much lunged and jumped his way through the water and I followed. Ribbit followed close behind me spouting off what kind of baby animal she had just morphed into and how beautiful she had become....for example, " mommy, look at your beautiful baby unicorn cracking out of its egg...2 seconds....mommy, now I am a beautiful fluffly pink baby bunny and I bounce and you will say "look at my baby bunny coming out of the egg"...2 seconds....mommy, I love being a fairy princess sea horse with pink polka dots and wings." It takes an advil or 5 to keep me from going insane on days like today :).

Best part is...Baby Boy only napped 20 minutes after all that....Really?...come on, don't I at least get half an hour after all that? Oh well, it was enough for a shower and to get the mini cooler cleaned out :).

More catch up from summer pictures ...

After many attempts and many distractions this was the best family picture we got :)...Its true of us so we like it :)

You can see how strong the wind was on our last couple of days there from this photo...It was nice to not be constantly drowning in my own sweat though!

One of my absolute favorite things to do is to sleep at the beach....I love falling asleep to the sound of the waves and waking up to the view....I would sleep so well if we lived on the beach (hint hint Adam). So, after sitting down for 5 minutes I was off in la la land and Goober found my phone :)

Then this sweet little thang climbed up in my lap and fell asleep too and my cousin found my phone ;)..I'm so glad he captured this moment, regardless of how foggy it is...I don't get to hold this one as much as the others so I relish anytime he will curl up in my lap!.......Oh, and I am not nude, my swimsuit is strapless.