What's Going On

Alright, 2021 is my year to regularly start documenting our family's life. I'm determined!

If you read this, I'm going to do my to post on here M/W/F. 

Unfortunately for this goal though, January is a pretty dry time as far as photos and general busy-ness goes around here, so I don't have a ton to share.

Here's what I've got:

Cheesy photos of a crazy Graham and Lily.

And Graham using his newly found skill of climbing the stairs. This child is such a mess. He makes me laugh all day long. Except for when he is screaming over his oatmeal being all gone.

Graham has also been pulling up on everything in the last couple of days and is so dang proud of himself. (He's also teetering on the line of over-confidence and has taken a few tumbles much to his dismay and bewilderment.) We're about to have a walker here pretty soon! 

I also have been trying to clean and organize a few things including but not limited to my jewelry draw and our pantry. 

Yikes.

Much better. 

Going back in time a bit more---we enjoyed New Year's Eve with my parents at Uncle Julio's and made a last minute "Happy Birthday 2021" cake to celebrate "midnight" with the kids. 

My Mom and I went to the Dillard's New Year's Day sale and got some of the cutest things for mostly Graham and Lily (plus a few athletic things for the big boys) and we met up with everyone at Norma's in Frisco (selected purely because they had black eyed peas and Lord knows we all need some extra luck after this last year). It was SO good and Parker even managed to nonchalantly pull out a tooth while we were there. I'm happy to say that the tooth fairy DID remember to run by the house sooner rather than later this time! 

Seeing Nonnie and Pops was a fun way to end Christmas break. We also loved our trip to Lubbock! I'll do a quick recap on that next time. 

Bye!

 

Changes and a Bit of Normalcy (!?)

If there is anything to give you an indication of how hard it is for me to blog, this post is it. I wrote this on August 25th and am just now getting to publish it, mostly because I don’t have the energy to re-write and repeat myself since I have a lot of catching up to do.

Please enjoy my musings from three weeks ago. ;)

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Well it’s been a year since I last posted so I thought it was high-time do an update! I’m such a great blogger. 

What has changed in a year? Um, a lot.

Let’s see...we added a whole new human to our family. Graham. He is our very favorite.

Pandemic.

Bryan became an independent public adjuster.

We lived with family for a few months.

We moved to a new house in a new town.

Hayes started kindergarten.

😅 I’m tired.

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Lily also went to her first gymnastics class this morning, so I suppose for the sake of starting somewhere as far as photos go, I’ll start there.

She loved it and ran around saying things like “SUPER SPEED! YEAH!” If you know her than you know that this is “so Lily”. She makes me laugh (and also makes me SO stinking tired) on an hourly basis.

She was very concerned about getting too hot (🙄), getting to take a turn on the uneven bars, and getting to learn “back flips”. We hit the jackpot and basically got a private lesson since there was only one other girl in her class. She can’t wait to go back and I can’t wait, either!

I took baby Graham’s 10 month photos today (I still need to edit them for Instagram and am also two weeks behind.)

Isn’t he just the cutest little thing. I can’t with him. He was posing for the phone big time today and it was so funny. He is about to cut at least two more teeth on top (he may already have but I can’t ever get a good enough look!) He is such a dream baby. (Except for when he misses nap time like today when we were at gymnastics. It was not exactly fun to hold a squirmy baby while wearing a mask in hot gym but you do what you have to do I guess. 😉)

He is also FINALLY consistently sleeping in his crib! I say this like it’s his fault when it isn’t, we just have had too crazy of a life to move him from the Nap Nanny until the last few weeks. 

On the big boy front, they have LOVED being in school and I pray/worry every day that it stays that way and that schools stay open. I’m tempted to delete this just so I don’t jinx anything but I will leave it (for now). Our school district was literally the only 5A district in the metroplex to start in-person, but that’s a topic for another post!

Here are a few photos of their first day for the sake of making sure it is documented. 

I’m not kidding I was just staring at his newborn fingers and toes two hours ago. 

This one, too! 

I just about had to grab Hayes by the collar to keep him from jumping out of the moving van on the first day of kindergarten. Since we weren’t allowed to walk them in this year I had to snap a quick picture as he basically ran into the school. (I would be more sad but quite frankly the disappointment from the amount of “normal” things not happening this year has started to be replaced with a really fun numbness in what I assume is some sort of coping mechanism.) 

Precious boys! Ugh. I love them so much and wish time would not be such a complete thief. We’ve had great reports from both boys regarding their teachers (whom I’ve never met in person but seem very adorable over Zoom!) This is a weird world, y’all.

I’m going backwards a bit but since I’m apparently turning this into a school year post I feel that I must share our back to school dinner which we have the night before school starts. I very last minute decided to decorate the table this year with the boys school supplies and am already planning my for table next year. I love this stuff.

I also did our tradition of laying out backpacks and their “first day” outfits (and I will do it for as long as they will let me....) and put together some easy/ lazy but IMO cute and useful little gifts for their teachers (because I’ve learned a few things about teacher gifts and the key is that they really just want a good gift card and something they actually use like fancy pencils. It’s not as fun as I would like but it’s the truth.)

In other news, we have been absolutely loving our new neighborhood, including its proximity to the grocery store and Sonic (FIVE minutes), but probably our most favorite thing has been our neighbors and street! The kids have a blast running around and in and out of houses every night with the other neighborhood kids. 

Here is Hayes at our neighbors birthday party which included a “bubble truck”. I did not know these were a thing but now I’m glad I do!

Here are my kids with two of our other neighbors having a movie night with lots of popcorn and sugar(And the lovely backdrop of our house which is clearly still in need of decor and paint.)

We’ve also really enjoyed the neighborhood pools the two times were able to snag tickets for the evening (it’s times like these that I find my 3am insomnia very beneficial because without it we would have been out of luck and someone else would have snatched them up!!)

I’m tired and this post is never-ending so I will wrap this all up with some random photos. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions on the whats/hows/whys. 😂

Bye!

Oops!

And just like that....I forgot to blog for 2 weeks! Or maybe more? Actually I didn't forget; I've thought about it every single day but never got around to it. Wah-wah. And I was doing so well!

I'm back!

I have so many things backlogged in my mind and I'm afraid I'm not going to remember half of it now that I've sat down on here to write this thing.

Where did I leave off?

I believe Judy was here the last time I blogged and I promised a picture, so here I am fulfilling my promise. ;) We went to Parker's school one morning for lunch (yes because they have lunch at 10:30 in the morning....) and I snapped this of Grammy and Parker. Parker was so excited and talkative and proud to have us at lunch with him. It was fun!

When we were leaving, Judy noticed the veteran bulletin board that I had sent in photos for a few months ago. Look at all those brave veterans!

And here's our two! Pop and Grandaddy.

On Judy's last night, I made my friend Brenna's famous skillet apple pie and dumped a whole lot of cinnamon on it, but I thought it was still pretty delicious!

We were sad to see Grammy leave (sooo sad) but we managed to cope by finishing off all the donuts she bought for the kids during her stay.

Honestly one reason I haven't blogged is because there hasn't been a ton of really interesting things going on! Hayes has made about 36 pillow forts in the living room (with every dang pillow in the house) and it's beginning to drive me a little more crazy than usual.

I caught just a millisecond of Parker wearing a HAT. I pulled up in the pickup line last week and he was just standing there totally chill wearing a GIANT "I'm 100 Days Smarter" hat that he made for his 100th day of school and I just died laughing. He never EVER wants to wear hats or ears or anything they make at school for their heads. Of course he would just randomly decide to wear the biggest thing he has ever made. I saved it for a week just because I thought it was so funny.

I saw the cutest idea to post love notes on each kids door every day in February (I got the idea from a very cute mom blogger who goes to the same church as my parents in CO), so I started to do it, too....and then I stopped. Haha. On day three I realized the kids weren't that into it (mostly because they can't read/don't want to read). Maybe next year! ;)

Here is my first night attempt:

Parker's school did a Random Acts of Kindness Fundraiser and Parker's most anticipated AOC by FAR was getting to make breakfast in bed for Bryan. He woke up early and made him a card while I made breakfast.

He requested the tray. It was so cute.

"Dear Dad, I know you like blue and you like your job and you like me. I love you, Parker"

I can't!

Me and the little kids double dipped at Chick-fil-a last week....

This meme made me laugh.

I got the kids Valentines printed and LOVED how they turned out! I'll try and take some photos of the finished products. ALSO, my valentine cards sold so well this year and I am so happy! 

The little kids had their Valentines Parties at school yesterday and were so cute and happy. Lily took apple sauce pouches for her friends and Hayes took bubbles. 

Parker's V-day party isn't until tomorrow which I think is super strange since today is Valentine's Day (Happy Valentine's Day, by the way!), but it is what it is. He'll be taking crayons.

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Photo below is from Lily and I's second trip to Chick-fil-a. Lily likes to straight-up lick the CFA sauce from the cup and I never catch her in time. 

Bryan had taken the boys to see the new Lego movie which they loved (all three--I'm pretty sure Bryan has a boy crush on Chris Pratt.)

I did Lily's hair in pigtail braids for the first time ever! She wore her new 'do to church on Sunday and to school on Monday. Bryan doesn't think her hair is long enough yet because by the end of both days it looked like she had two "rat tails" (his words). Haha! I don't care. I cannot believe how long her hair is! 

She was a very unwilling model both days. 

This morning I sat out the kids Valentine's on the fireplace hearth (and TOTALLY forgot to take a photo), and the boys were SO sweet when they woke up to open everything. Judy left some Valentine goodies and GG had sent them all cards, so I put those out along with our traditional cheap-o chocolate roses and some Valentine's banners. 

Look at these cuties!

They are thankful for their treats Grammy and GG!

(Also: Parker's watch. I'm not sure why but I think it is utterly adorable.)

Other things worth mentioning but missing a photo:

1. Parker lost another stinking tooth!! I'm not sure what its official name would be, but it's on the top to the left side of his center teeth. The tooth fairy came by literally seconds (I'm not kidding) before he woke up and walked out of his room. Whew! We have a horrible tooth fairy.

2. My friend Aubrey and I are going to the RISE conference with Rachel Hollis this summer! I am so pumped. I've mentioned this before, but I love her podcast and general message and she's going to be in Dallas so we decided we couldn't pass it up!

3. I cannot think of anything else off the top of my head although I'm sure I'll hit "publish" on this post and remember 5000 things.

Funny kid sayings:

Lily saying "Chicken Little" sounds like "Kickin Yiddle" and it's so cute.

Lily's current pre-nap pre-bedtime songs are "Jesus" (Jesus Loves Me), "ABC",  and "Bus" (The Wheels on the bus"). She requests them in this order every time.

We call toots "toot-toots" (I actually have no idea how that started), and me a Lily were sitting on the floor last week and my stomach growled and she goes, "Oh! Mommy toot-toot!", and I was like "NO I didn't!" and got all flustered which she very quickly realized was funny and lead her to start yelling "Mommy toot-toot! Mommy toot-toot!" for the next 20 minutes. She knows she is funny and I know that it's just a matter of time before she yells "Mommy toot-toot!" and dies laughing while we're sitting in church or walking through Target.

AGHHHH I told  you this would happen! My kids have said so many funny things lately but nothing else is in my brain at the moment! I will try to remember more and will post (PROMISE) soon!