Butterfly kisses

I don't talk about it much on the blog anymore but every now and then I feel compelled to share something about this journey of healing after losing my sister to breast cancer last year when she was only 41 years old.

I'd like to say each day it gets easier, but I think it got way worse before any sign of sunshine appeared. Details of my nieces that I can't share have been the most heartbreaking watching them pick of the pieces of losing their mother way too young have been the hardest. Seeing my mother experience the unimaginable of losing a daughter has also been agonizing. At times, I'm not the "fun" and "cool" aunt anymore, I'm more of the rolling-your-eyes-at-me-because-I'm-acting-like-your-mom aunt.

The hardest times are the ones that I just wish she was here to see something or ask her something about what she would want for her girls. I go with my gut but I throw in a good "you should know better" for good measure like I know my sister would.

Most recently, my oldest niece had her senior prom. Prom...it's a huge event in the life of a teenager and here she is about to graduate high school and my sister isn't here to see it. Talk about gut-wrenching.

I remember right before Tonya died, when we knew she was terminal, Tonya and I were talking about how expensive Madison's dress was for her junior prom. Tonya said, "Well, I'm not going to see her in her wedding dress, so I told her to get it."

I'll never forget that.

Madison looked beautiful in her dress that cost more than my wedding dress. (Since when did that happen?)

I'm not sure how she made it all night in those shoes. Those are what I call 15 minute shoes.

As I'm taking Madison's pictures, I look over at my youngest niece, Avery, who is holding this big beautiful butterfly in the middle of this urban/industrial area. I asked her where she got it and she said it was just sitting on the ground a few feet from us. I'm not talking about one of those tiny little butterflies, I mean this butterfly was showing off it knowing it was so huge and beautiful.

For those of you who don't know, my sister's middle name means butterfly and shortly after her death we released butterflies in her memory and it was also very symbolic with her battle with cancer.

That butterfly stayed on my niece's hand for at least 5 minutes, and then went to each girls' hand. It stayed nearly the entire time we took photos. I've had small whispers of her presence since her passing, but this wasn't just a whisper, this was as good as Tonya just showing up and saying, "Hey girls, what's up? It's me, Mama and ain't no way I'm missing my baby's senior prom."

 I can't shake this from my mind. I know that without a doubt it was her. And how perfect that even after her death she finds a way to still be a mama, because more than anything that was what was most important to her.

So I know next week when my niece is walking across that stage to get her diploma and in everything in her life thereafter that her mama, without a doubt, isn't missing a thing. She's there and just when we think she's missed some life event, she sends us a sign to say, "I'm here."

I'm so grateful for this visit from her even as brief as it was.

"Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a beautiful butterfly." (Proverb)

All Aboard

What's better than a snow day? Well, no snow day but having Good Friday off on a BEAUTIFUL day to go spend time with my family. I called up my best friend, Angi, and we went to go ride the train in Trinity Park. It's so cute and my kids love it. I had never taken Landry to ride it so I thought it might be fun. 

 

 So Angi and I and her younger sister gathered up our daycare crew and took a ride. I get a little nervous watching kids at parks. I'm still a little traumatized from our park experience two years ago when losing Campbell at the park for what seemed like an hour but was only about 60 seconds. 

 

 

But we didn't lose anyone and no one fell out of the train so I call that a successful day. It's amazing how the smallest things entertain our kids. I'm so thankful for that. I'm dreading the years when they're teenagers and the only things that entertain them cost a lot of money. 

 

 

Popcorn and a $3 train ride, it doesn't get much better than that if you're a kid. Heck, it doesn't get much better than that for me as an adult!  

 

Landry and Rylan are forced BFFs...whether they like it or not. They seem to like it.

 

 

 Best birthday party ever by the way was when we had Campbell's birthday party there well minus the June heat. But what wouldn't I do for this face?

 

 

It works on the ladies too. Reese wanted to sit right next to him.

I got to sit next to Tucker and Landry. Tucker was being protective of Landry (or making a move). That boy can ask some questions! 

Even Nolan at 7 still thinks it's cool. 

After the train ride, it was a first for me...a food truck park. It's a new sensation down here to go outside where a bunch of food trucks are. Who would have ever thought that would be a phenomenon to eat food cooked out of a truck but I gotta say, it really was good!

 

Minus a few meltdowns near lunch time, it really was a great day. Meltdowns are always our cue that our forced family fun outings are almost done.

 

It was indeed a Good Friday. 

 

 

Our husbands wonder why we do these forced family fun adventures to ourselves when we know that at any moment they could turn disastrous. Thankfully, this one wasn't.

Spring Fever

I do it all the time....overextend myself. It's been the mantra of my life for the past year. Say yes and never say no. I think I want so badly for this photography gig to work that I pour myself into it, sleep deprived and all. My spring break was no different. I promised my kids that I would take them to do things and committed myself to SEVEN sessions over the break as well.

So one day over spring break while I was editing photos, I had pangs of guilt. Motherhood does that a lot to me. I was sitting at the computer with the blinds open watching this beautiful day unfold from a window and I dropped everything, packed a lunch, loaded Landry in the stroller and we headed to the park by our house.

It was so beautiful outside. Spring and Fall always have a fight every year to see who will win first place in my heart as my favorite season. So far, Spring is not disappointing.

  

This little girl can make me go all kinds of crazy in the car with her fussing and fit throwing about being in a car seat, but you give her some play time outside and you'll never see a smile leave her face. 

 

Some days whatever is on the agenda has to be wiped clean and you have to enjoy what you have right in front of you. I hope my kids remember me as a hard worker, but more importantly, I hope that they also remember that I also dropped everything and played with them too.

Because even if it was only to capture this, it was worth it. 

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.