Toy Purge.

Our house is always a nice, big, hot mess by the end of May--thank you, overloaded calendar. 

I present to you, Exhibit A:

My children get SO many toys each year, and I am quite horrible at keeping up with the "one in, one out" rule, so this weekend I set out to fix that and do a major toy purge. Bryan was also kind enough to take down those dang bunk beds because the words, "Oh! I LOVE making bunk beds!" has never been said by any mom, ever. (I did ask the boys if they were okay with this--which they surprisingly were--thank goodness.)

It took me several hours, but the room is now clean and we have four bags of toys out in the garage (I'm waiting a bit to sell them to see if the boys notice any "beloved" toy that is missing--so far they haven't). 

Hallelujah! So clean.

They still have a closet full of toys but it's all nicely organized in places they can actually find. Parker, in true Parker form, really wants to label all the bins and even attempted to do so with a RED SHARPIE before I caught him.

The boys were so exited about their new "woom" (as said by Hayes) and played quietly for hours (!) yesterday afternoon. This convinces me even more that less is more when it comes to toys. 

Parker came downstairs dressed as a cowboy (all picked out by himself) and we conducted many stick horse race videos that I recorded with the "slow motion" setting of my phone. This quickly became a new favorite for both boys and we will be sure to do it again!

I must go! Lily just handed me a skillet she dug out of the cabinet and is signing "more". I wonder where this will lead!

Memorial Day.

We spent most of Memorial Day crashing my in-laws empty house while wearing our red, white, and blue. 

The kids swam, played golf, and did their usual crazies with Bryan while I attempted to get some of our house cleaned up (mostly didn't happen) and made a trip to the grocery store (pick-up, of course).

Later in the afternoon we had a bunch of our friends and alllllll the babies come over for a hot dog cookout and swimming. It was the best and I'm glad my in-laws were kind enough to let us take over their patio and pool for the evening.

I'm just imagining her being this hilarious adult and it makes me so excited. 

We also made s'mores because duh we live in America and it's a summertime American holiday!

Lily right before she gagged on a marshmallow. 

Sometimes I sit in awe at the family we have made here through our friends and community. We are so very lucky to have these sweet people to "do life with". I am constantly thankful for them and I hope that they all know it!

We are also even more thankful for this great, amazing, beautiful country that we live in and for all those who sacrifice their time and their lives so that we can do little things like have pool parties and make s'mores and watch our babies sleep safe in their beds after a fun day. How blessed we are to be in the USA!

Weekend Happenings...

Gosh, y'all, I re-read past blog posts and feel like I'm covering 2% of our lives because I'm so terrible at keeping up! When will I learn? 

I did a horrible job of taking photos this weekend (are you surprised), but we managed to do some relaxing despite me having a nasty summer cold and Bryan having to work with the recent hail storms. 

I literally cannot even remember Friday night. What did we do? Where were we? What year is it? I don't know. 

On Saturday, we slept in and played around the house most of the day (post-school-detox over here) and then went on a "field trip" to look at lots and land. This is our new hobby, apparently. You think we can become country folk and live on 10 acres?

After we put the kids to bed, I got me and Bryan ice cream from J's Creamery which we ate on the couch until we fell asleep, all while watching The Royal House of Windsor. My obsession with the royal family is becoming a bit embarrassing, but I don't care. Really winning at Saturday nights at the ripe old age of 30. 

Today we went to church, went to Garcia's, TOOK NAPS!, and then picked up a pizza and went to Grammy and Bee's house to swim while they are out of town. 

The boys watched Nascar while eating their dinners naked (just the youngest two--aren't we so high class?) and I dodged Lily's golf ball throws on the putting green. Little miss also wore the cutest little swimsuit that finally fits! Bryan is only partially okay with the fact that it shows her belly. (Side note: "belly" is probably Lily's favorite word to repeat and favorite body part to point to.)

Also: Parker lost one of his TOP teeth! He has a little lisp now and it is killing me it is literally SO CUTE. I must also note how brave he is with this teeth-pulling business. He just yanks those suckers out like it's no thing. He's all in it for the cash and thankfully the tooth fairy remembered this time and didn't have to do a sneaky "Oh, here's your tooth fairy cash, it must have gotten lost under your pillow!" switcharoo like she did last time. :-/

Lily is a big girl now and drinks our of big girl sip cups and sits at the big girl table. She is obviously very proud and very cute.

Crazy May and Crazy Hayes and the End of Baseball Season!

Hayes has discovered a love of iPhone photography and is very adamant that all photos from here on out be taken by him. Mostly so he can make faces like this....

And make Lily look like she has a lazy eye...

And tell me to "LOOK AT ME, MOM!" 53 times. 

He also likes to catch candid shots, including 47 copies of the following photo....

And 36 copies of this photo...

Oh! And he's been in a "booty" phase, where everything about anyone's booty is hilarious. He took a five minute video of Lily yesterday that purely consisted of her booty and the sound of him laughing maniacally.

He's crazy, but I love my Haysie! 

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In other news, May has continued it's craziness around these parts, to the point that attempting to catch up on that last week would take me a few hours so I'll just hit a couple of highlights instead:

All three kids finished school last week and Parker graduated from St. Luke's! We loved our time with that precious school of course with our friends at SNS. I cannot believe we have moved on to summer!

Parker and his buddies--all the boys in the class! (He had a few "girl" friends as well, including a certain "Emmy" who he smirks at the thought of anytime we bring up her name. First girlfriend? We may never know.)

P and his wonderful teacher, Mrs. Chance!

Lily Mae and Mrs. Ellen, who coincidentally enough, was Bryan's baby girlfriend when they were growing up in Grapevine! Full circle.

I didn't get a photo of Hayes with Mrs. Stephanie whom we dearly love, BUT, I did get photos of Hayes after his disastrous and somewhat traumatizing nosebleed that included many refusals to wipe or clean any of it up, which resulted in a ruined outfit and many stares from passersby as we walked out of the church. It was so fun! (I'm kidding.)

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Parker had his last two baseball games with the Royals this weekend! It was sad, but also awesome because little league baseball is a TRUE commitment for everyone involved, y'all. He loved having his Dad and his Bee coach him this year (and give hime rides to practice and games--hallelujah!) and I am so so thankful Mrs. Dana suckered me into signing him up again!

Go Royals!

I can't leave without noting the fun that we had at our end of the year party for MOPS leadership on Thursday night. We had the treat of going to an old print shop downtown and making custom posters. We also got to eat amazing food from Marketstreet....it was super super fun and I will miss these girls over the summer!

That's a very limited recap but I am TIRED. Good night!

May is CRAZY!

Hello! It is Mother's Day night, and I am sitting here in my pajamas with a blanket while Bryan puts the boys to bed (an hour late!!!) It has been a good day. We got the treat of having my parents in town for the weekend so we made plenty of memories, plenty of messes, and ate a lot of food. Parker came down with stomach big last night (we actually originally thought he made himself throw up on purpose so he wouldn't have to go to church--sorry Parker!) so that has been our only bummer. Also our house is a mess and I can't bring myself to clean it up.

We had something every night last week and will continue to have something every night this week. May is crazy. But fun.

Last week:
Monday: Dove Group
Tuesday: Bryan went to Midland to see Jason Witten speak
Wednesday: Church
Thursday: Baseball game/Bryan went to the driving range
Friday: My parents were in town! Date night! (We saw the new Avengers movie!)
Saturday: Went out to Blue Sky with my parents and the kiddos! Such a fun night.

Lily has learned to take off her footie jammies so that is super fun. She also thinks it's super fun to go down the stairs on her own. (I beg to differ!) 

We had the most beautiful weather last week (before it got hot as Hades over the weekend) so me and the littles spent a lot of time outside blowing bubbles, drawing with chalk, eating snacks, and killing ants. (Hayes is now traumatized and wants to protect all bugs from the bug-killer, Lily.) 

I ate three cheeseburgers last week. They were all greasy and delicious. This is one of them. I mostly took this photo to document one of me and Parker's very last Tuesday lunch dates of the school year. I will miss them so much! He is such a sweet and easy little boy and a very patient errand runner.

Also, would I even BE a millennial if I didn't take a picture of my food? #ithinknot

Aaaaand snuck in a batch of my mother-in-laws chocolate chip cookies. Really winning at the healthy eating lately!

Parker had Field Day at school on Thursday and had a lot of fun, although I would be lying if I said I was there for all of it! Bryan went to the first part of the morning and I walked in as they were sitting down to eat lunch. They got snowcones from the snowcone truck and Parker has slept with his medal every night since. I think he was a fan of Field Day.

Parker also busted his lip open on Wednesday night from being too crazy sliding a blanket around on the floor. There was lots of blood and it was kind of scary but all teeth are in tact (although loose--he will look so different when he loses his top teeth and it makes me want to curl up and cry!). You can see a bit of the resulting fat upper lip. Poor bud!

Alright! I have more to blog but just realized that my photos from the rest of the week aren't uploaded to my computer yet and my phone is dead. More later!

Our Week In Photos.

We had a good and busy week last week! Here is what I got in photos.

Last night I made some banana chocolate chip muffins with my favorite recipe for Bryan to take to work this morning.

We also finished the Dallas Cowboys season of All or Nothing. It was really interesting! Bryan gets to see Jason Whitten speak in Midland tomorrow night so this made him even more excited.

Yesterday we went to church and then went to lunch at my in-laws which is always a treat. It was warm enough to swim (!) so Bryan and the boys stayed and did that while I went and up groceries and then maybe took a nap. ;)

Lily Mae had her first Sunday lunch at the big kid table! Aaaand ate nothing.... so she will probably go back to the high chair for a bit. ;)

I got her dress on clearance at Dillard's last summer and today was her first day to wear it. I can't get enough smocked dresses on little girls!

Lily, aka Queen of Cradle Roll (according to the cradle roll teachers).

I also gave Parker a haircut last week and it was a bit traumatic because our clippers are terrible. I of course already knew this because I give Bryan haircuts but he tends to just deal with it--Parker not so much. (This experience resulted in a quick trip to Target this morning to buy some better quality clippers!) It still turned out pretty good though. What a dapper dude.

Woman on a Mission.

On Saturday, we had a birthday party for one of Parker's friends (Nerf Gun Wars!!) and then a baseball game (which they lost, wah-wah), neither of which I have pictures of. ;) The boys got to go to Grammy's house for the afternoon and I cleaned and organized which eventually led me into this mess...

Oh man it was awful!! If you can't tell, that's ALLLLLL our keepsakes. I have been putting off organizing this for like 2 years (no seriously) but I FINALLY DID IT. It took all night and two movies (Guardians of the Galaxy and The Imitation Game), but I am very happy to report that everything is now in five tidy and labeled bins that are neatly under the spare bed. It was sweet to go through all our memories and all the kid's baby stuff, but I'd rather not have to do it again anytime soon. ;)

On Friday, we went to a birthday party for my sweet friend, Tara. Tara goes to church with us and we have just become friends in the last year. She is one of my new favorites! Here are all the "Dove Group" girls (aka my bible study group that is SO much more than that--they are some of my closest friends!) 

(I'm also growing out my bangs. Bare with me as I attempt to figure out a suitable no-bang hairstyle. I feel like I'm missing my arm!)

All these baby buddies are my favorites! I'm not kidding, I think like 12 babies have been born within this group in the last 2 years. It's awesome. I know we will cherish these memories when they are all grown up!

Parker had a game on Friday night as well, so he and Bryan had to miss most of the party. This Little League schedule is no joke! Hayes is chomping at the bit to play next year, so I'm sure my level of insanity will only increase. (Yaaaayyy.)

The rest of the week was spent doing pretty normal things. We went to school, went to church, I had lunch with Tara, and we Face-timed with Nanny and Pawpaw (among many other things that I'm forgetting, I'm quite sure!)

OH! And I cleaned out my closet and sold it on Trading Up, which if you know anything about that than you know that it is QUITE the chore. Blah. But it's done! So many grown up things this week! When did I get so responsible?

We also.....

Played with Play-Doh...

Played outside.....#chalkislife...

Carried our "kids" (stuffed animals) everywhere....

Played with Buzz Lightyear and looked adorable....

Made robots with kinetic foam that Parker got for his birthday....(I learned that I much prefer this to Play-Doh!)

Thanks to his friend, Malcolm!

Played Candyland...

And Lily tried her hand at being a cowgirl (I think she's more of a city chick;).

Hayes has been saying hilarious things lately. One day last week he kept saying "Mooooom, I'm so BORING". He also calls everything "beautiful" and it's literally the best. Bryan was pouring him a glass of tea the other night before dinner and Hayes watched in much awe and anticipation and then sighed and said, "Ahhhh, BEAUTIFUL." It was cute. Bryan and I about died laughing. 

Kids are so fun! (usually!)