Catch up

Oh c'mon Summer break. You're so close, I can taste it.

I had a small taste of summer over spring break and it was glorious. We fit in the Fort Worth Stockyards with my best friend, Angi, and her sisters. We look like we're running a daycare field trip when we get all of our kids together. I do photo shoots a lot down there but it's rare that I take my own family to do some exploring. 

 

Every day they have a cattle run down the middle of Exchange. We've always wanted to try it but have never had the chance. The longhorn cattle walk down as the kids watch. I think we built it up like it was going to be some kind of amazing City Slicker scene. After it was done in about 2 minutes, the kids asked, "Was that it?"

It's a good thing that there was plenty more to do like mazes, trains, and lunch. It's a major perk that my brother-in-law owns a mechanical bull, ponies, and a train down there. I should be down there every weekend to entertain my kids! 

 Landry was a trooper for the most part, but one thing I've learned is that once that girl is out of the stroller, good luck getting her back in. She's in this independent stage and goes full blown fit-throwing if you try to buckle her back in. Like people are staring at me if I'm trying to put her back in the stroller. She makes friends everywhere she goes. I can't imagine where she got that with having such a introverted family (insert sarcasm).

Landry loves babies. Even though Rylan is totally older than her, my little Amazon girl, takes on her motherly personality and hugs and snuggles her like she's the older one. Poor Rylan looks like she might think Landry is a little too much with her lovin'.

My kids (and this mama) were WORN out after it was done. I don't think Landry even made it out of the parking lot before she was asleep. How is it that 2-3 hour outings wear me out like I've just run a marathon? Guess that's the feeling when your kids are this little, especially when you go on outings without your husband. 

I don't edit every single photo like I used to. Shhhh! Don't tell. I just can't keep up with it anymore. But I picked a handful to edit of my favorites from the day. 

I love the Stockyards. I love how you can feel like you're going back in time and it's only 15 minutes from my house. 

 

Looking forward to a lot more of these outings with these three this summer. 

Basketball season

Well, I’m super late on this seeing that basketball season has been done for about a month now. I could make a hundred excuses why I’m so late. I work two jobs, have three kids, blah blah blah but then you hear it from me nearly every month because that’s about how often I write posts anymore. I’ll save my my-life-is- so-hectic soliloquy for another day.

My husband, Justin, has a slight obsession with basketball, but when you grow up in a state that lives and breathes it, it’s just in your blood. Plus, the fact that he’s 6’4” had coaches hunting him down to play.

This is the second year that Nolan’s played. While he may not be the most coordinated on the team, I gotta say that he shown a lot of growth. He was one of the youngest on the team, which made him look short….something I not used to. He’s usually one of the tallest. 

I’m not proud to admit that my most competitive side comes out at my kids’ games. I mean I’m not one of those yelling-at-the-refs type of parent but I do tell my kids to hustle. Nolan was a great hustler. In fact, I think that sometimes he was more concerned with racing the other kids to the other end of the court than he was in making a basket or anything else. But hey, at least my kid was running, right?

Basketball is a hard sport especially for young ones. I didn’t start playing until I was in middle school and even then it was difficult for me. Ok, I tried out for the team and didn't even know what a lay up was. Yikes.

But do you see my boy having fun with that big ol' grin? Makes those weekly practices worth it after a long day.

Probably the cutest part of the whole season was Campbell wanting to go to every single practice to watch his bubba and wearing Nolan’s jersey from last to every game. He said that he was tricking everyone that he was on the team. He wants to play so badly but we’re going to wait a little longer since it takes so much coordination for him. Landry was the sweetest little cheerleader at every game and it actually really kept her interest, amazingly enough!

We’re so proud of Nolan for this season and how hard he worked.  

Easter egg-citement

I have so many fond memories of Easter growing up. No matter how poor my mom was being a single mom, I sported some frilly dress she sewed for me. I was so excited to have a new Easter dress.

Landry is the boss of the family. Last year, I found her dress on clearance so I decided to have us all coordinate around her. She’s already a bossy girl. Where would she learn such behavior?!

 It was pretty simple considering that I just used the same outfits for the bows and sewed them bowties to match her outfit. Don’t be impressed. They took 20 minutes to sew them both and involved straight lines which is the only type of line I can sew. 

Sidenote: In case you were wondering, no we didn't hunt bananas on our Easter egg hunt. Landry saw it in the diaper bag and if there's one thing you don't mess with with this girl, it's her food. Again, where does she get this stuff?

We were woken up at 3 a.m. by Nolan who threw up in his bed. Nothing says "Happy Easter" like a little 3 a.m. bath and load of laundry. That was a fun way to start the holiday. I was worried that Easter plans would be cancelled but he never ran a fever and was running around when he woke up for the day like it never happened so we went ahead with our plans. Glad it was short lived.

Campbell completely missed the Easter egg hunt so he was moping until sweet Jack snuck up and secretly emptied his basket into Campbell's. How sweet is that? It made Campbell's day.

 Justin’s sister, Rainey, was in town to visit for a short break. She was a good sport as we dragged her along to Easter egg hunts and everywhere else. And Madison, my niece, joined us for church with her brunette side.

I know that people say to savor every moment because time just flies but Easter is always pretty hectic. Trying to get three kids dressed for church, trying to tend to three kids during an Easter egg hunt, preparing lunch, dealing with meltdowns from naps being skipped all make it pretty exhausting. I love Easter and I know that I’ll look back on these years wondering where they went, but I do know that since we’ve had kids I sleep REALLY well after Easter. 

I want to remember the importance of Easter and what it means and I want to relay this to my children. I was trying to have this magical parental moment of explaining that Easter isn’t about bunnies and candy, it’s about Jesus dying on the cross for our sins because he loves us that much. After I’m finished explaining it I asked the boys, “Isn’t that amazing that God and Jesus love us THAT much?”

Campbell replies, “Well except for that dying on the cross part.” He said it like I was insane for talking about someone loving us and dying in the same sentence. I just love these moments.

I hope that I can do a better job explaining that whole "dying on the cross part." There's always next year, right?

Thanks mom and dad for working so hard on Easter for the kids and for lunch. Exhausting means we  jam packed in the memories.

Jammie days

In the process of starting my new photo gig, my own family snapping and blogging has gone to the back burner. So now that we're on Spring Break, I made sure that I picked up my camera even if we were all still in our jammies.

Every morning this little sunshine is smiling and she spoils me rotten. She sleeps in til 9:00 or 10:00 on the weekends and breaks. She's like her mama, she loves her sleep.

With the time change, she even slept until 11:00 am! Whoa! She'll be sleeping til noon when she's in college.

Her brothers absolutely adore her. I love that Nolan reads to her and knows the tricks of distracting her instead of telling her no. We're still working on Campbell on that one.

Lazy days mean we're homebodies and the older I get the more I just love being home with my family with no agenda.

She definitely rules the roost and we have to bring her back down a few notches when she goes super nova on us with her fits.

But then she flashes us this grin and we melt. Works every time.

I see this face making a reappearance during her teen years.

Hopefully they'll be mixed with see little smiles like these. Happy Spring Break!

Circle of Life continues

Santa brought Nolan a bike without training wheels when he was 6. We rode it and I thought it would never happen but we finally got him to ride that thing a year later. It was just a couple of weeks ago that he could ride without one of us running right next to him.

I remember a particular photo in Justin's baby book as I was watching this proud father/son moment. I told Justin that it reminded me of the photo and I just had to grab my camera so I had it for Nolan's baby book one day.

They were both 7 when they really learned to ride a bike. The one on the left is Justin circa 1981 in Kentucky and Nolan now in 2013 in Texas. .

 

I think the only difference is that we didn't believe in helmets in 1981! I hadn't seen this photo in years, and honestly I was trying to just get the darn thing in focus. Lucky break that it was the same angle and that Justin and his dad are both sporting beards! Twilight zone. Welcome to my life every holiday when I'm with him, my father-in-law and brother-in-law in the same room at the same time. 

Stockshow 2013

It's that time of year where we're posers and put on some cowboy boots like we're fresh from the farm and go see the Stock Show in Cowtown. After every Stock Show, my children ask when the next one is repeatedly throughout the year.

Too bad in years past we've had boots for everyone. This year my boys outgrew their boots but Campbell didn't let that stop him from dressing the part everywhere else. Nolan said, "No fair, why does Campbell get to dress up? I want to wear my Buzz Lightyear costume." Apparently, he thought that the Stockyards were the same as Halloween.

We held our noses and checked out all the animals. Landry was mesmerized by them all as you can see in the photo above. There was no taking her eyes off that cow. She sure was rockin' those boots.

The boys couldn't go home without riding rides of course. All those rides scare me to death because I see how they fold them and put them in a suitcase when they're done. I can just see a screw falling out and throwing my kids out of it like a boomerang. Thank goodness they want to stick to the kiddie rides still.

Nolan walked the plank while Landry and Daddy watched. Yep, that's a Hot Wheel band-aid she's sporting after a moon walk act she pulled. The tiniest little scratch but that sucker would NOT stop bleeding. By the end, she was looking and acting ragged and so were we.

So maybe we're not the country folk we pose to be, but we're Texan. So that pretty much means we belong anywhere where tractors, cows, and horses are. Or at least that's what we tell ourselves.

Kentucky visit

Ok, this is just downright embarassing. I know it's February and I'm posting the LAST of my Christmas pictures. But one day, years from now my kids will be glad I did it even if it was a month late.

Throw me a bone here, I'm working two jobs with three kids so it's amazing that I'm even keeping this thing up anymore.

After we finally made it to Kentucky, it was a great trip! Twenty and a half hours in the car with three children 7 and under made for a very exhausting two days.

The lucky thing is right when I get to Kentucky, I’ve got lots and lots of extra hands for  help. My oldest niece adores Landry and she loves her just as much. She’s so great with her and she was exactly what I needed after hearing the word “mama” at least 645,938,297 times in the car.

I’m pretty sure that the boys favorite place on Earth is being at either one of their grandparents’ houses. They love spending the night and LOVE spending the night in bunk beds at Gram and Pop’s house. I was scared that no one would sleep with all three sleeping in the same room together, but they did surprisingly well.

It snowed while we were in Kentucky and that meant another snow day fun day. Since my kids hardly see it, they love playing in it. I like looking at snow next to a warm toasty fire, but not so much being out in it for more than 10-15 minutes.

We jam packed a lot in 3 days but managed to squeeze in an adult movie (thanks to a very patient mother-in-law) who babysat my kids.

Speaking of others that babysat Landry. My sweet niece babysat Landry. I mean she literally took care of her and watched and entertained her more than anyone that I would pay for babysitting. I love seeing their relationship grow and I love that Landry has a break from her brothers and gets to see her girl cousins.

The boys love playing with their cousins and all their new toys. Before we ever pull out of the driveway, they start talking about how much they’re going to miss Gram and Pop and how they want to come back.

 The drive back was smooth and uneventful! Hallelujah! We actually made it back in record time.