Hey look!! This is a current post! Spring is current right? I mean the first day of summer was just the other day. ;) We had an eventful and fun spring this year. One of my best friends got married, We had our first backyard Easter egg hunt, planned a baby shower for an old co-worker, had lots of fun times at the park and the library, went to Austin to visit my first niece, got our first puppy and celebrated Jane's 3rd Birthday!
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| Covenant Buddies Circa 2009. Reunited at Esther's wedding rehearsal! |
Let's go in chronological order so I make sure I catch everything. Our first Spring adventure was going to Nacogdoches to be a part of Esther's Wedding! Esther has been one of my best friends for the last 9 years. She was the Maid of Honor at my Wedding 6 years ago. I was so honored to be apart of her special day too! It was extra fun because I was reunited with some of my old Tejas friends as well.
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| She's getting married in the morning!! |
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| Such a fun night! |
After rehearsal and rehearsal dinner the bridesmaids had a little bachelorette party for Esther at her sister Sarah's house. We didn't do anything crazy. Just some good girl talk and bridesmaid bonding time. We gave Esther some bride gifts and she gave us our bridesmaids gifts. She got us all beautiful monogramed robes in our favorite colors to wear in the morning while we got ready for the wedding. We had a great time together. This is a special group of girls. Esther has great taste in friends!
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| My Maid of Honor helping me with my veil! |
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| Tried to recreate the picture! ;) |
At my wedding my photographer caught this awesome moment with Esther helping me put on my veil. I just love the precise care that is showing on Esther's face in that photo. I was thrilled when Esther asked to if my veil could be her something borrowed for her wedding. So we decided to try to recreate that picture at her wedding with the same veil! I believe it was her mom who put her veil in for real. This was just a photo op! ;) Haha, we got pretty close with our recreated picture. I was trying to make an Esther face and couldn't quite pull it off. There was a moment later in the day that the veil fell off and I put it back in Esther's hair for real.
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| Mom's with 2 kids/Wives of bearded men support club. ;) |
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| Right before the ceremony! |
It was so amazing to be apart of Esther's beautiful wedding. She was such a radiant Bride! I'm looking forward to many chats both being married women now! I've told her that somehow I've been pregnant at the same time as all of our other close friends... so we're next!! 😉 It was really fun to be bridesmaids with my good friend Kae. We both have two kids, our girls are 4 months apart and our boys are 1 year apart. We spent part of the reception together in the bride's room nursing our little boys. :)
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| Buds |
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| Sam with his mini-me |
We both have husbands that pretty much always have big beards and they have many other similarities. Kae and I have a few similarities ourselves. We're both Tejas couples! We have kept up with each other over the past 8 years through texts, phone chats and following each other's blogs. :) We usually try to get together once to twice a year. Kae is such an encouraging friend and I can't wait to see her and her wonderful little family soon.
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| Man... I sure do have an amazing little family. So blessed. |
It was a great couple of days. It did come with a couple of challenges. Sam had to go to visit his grandfather the day before the wedding. His health was declining quickly and it was the last time Sam got to see him. The kids and I rode up with my mom so I could make it to rehearsal and the bachelorette party. Sam got to the hotel pretty late that night and I wasn't back from the bachelorette party yet. (my mom had the kids in the hotel room with her) I got in about 15 minutes after him. There were a few other details that made things hard. The short story was we both hurt each other either by what we did, said or didn't say. Neither of us felt supported. Lack of communication or miscommunication was mostly to blame.
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So sporadically throughout the wedding I was thinking about how I could make things right with Sam. It felt oddly appropriate to have a struggle in our relationship on the day of a wedding. It was great to be reminded of our vows and the simple, but passionate love of newlyweds. It was too crazy of a day to be able to slow down and talk things through while we were in Nac. Pretty much as soon as we got home late that evening (it was a morning wedding) we talked things through about what hurt us and what would help in the future. We forgave each other fully. Communication is everything in any relationship, but especially in marriage!! We could have stayed hurt and became bitter toward each other and still never known how to improve ourselves for future situations. Instead, we had a plan of how to better ourselves and became even closer as a couple. A good relationship doesn't mean that you don't have hard situations to work through, but that you WORK through them together! God's Word always reminds us how to love better and keeps us on track. We definitely have Him to thank for continuing to sustain our marriage.
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| What do I do with this?? |
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| Reach! |
Moving right along! What is it with kids and Easter baskets that is just so cute?? Our Easter weekend was supposed to be spent in Austin meeting my brand new niece. But I was getting over a cold and none of us wanted to risk getting Ellis sick. So I had to postpone my trip. It ended up being a pretty great weekend at home nevertheless.
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| Look I found one Mom! |
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| Next year will be really fun with him! |
Last year we did a small Easter egg hunt in my parents backyard. This year we did our first Easter egg hunt in our own backyard. Atlas found a couple eggs, but otherwise just watched Jane run around the yard. :) Jane was really good at finding eggs this year and she understood that she had to wait until the end to open her eggs.
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| Look at how full my basket is Mom!! |
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| Enjoying her Easter candy |
She found the majority of them with no help. Of course I didn't make it too hard. ;) I hid a couple in trees and under things the rest were mostly in plain sight. I love how much she enjoyed it. Jane kept running up to Sam and saying, "Look Daddy! I found another one!!" I have awesome memories of Easter egg hunts from my childhood. My dad was the best at making them fun and challenging.
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| Tripod and iPod bluetooth remote for the win! |
So even though I was pretty bummed that I didn't get to visit my first niece the week after she was born, I really enjoyed being at home this Easter. :) We had Easter dinner for the second year in a row at Cici's! The whole family loves pizza. :D We pretty much had the place to ourselves. Unfortunately we won't be able to continue this tradition since the Cici's near us closed last month. :( BUT we're getting a Mod Pizza very soon! So I'm ok with that trade off. We had fun this Easter and I can't wait for next year! (Jane said, "Please can I pick eggs again??" While we were looking at this post. :D)
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| Diaper Changing Challenge! |
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| Beautiful Momma! |
Our next fun spring event was throwing a Baby shower for one of our old co-workers from Argent Energy/Denali. Marissa is a special lady that everyone loves. She is so kind and such a hard worker. So all of her old co-workers wanted to shower her during this special time. We played a couple of games. One was a diaper changing challenge with some baby dolls. It got a lot of laughs! Someone dropped the baby! ;)
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| Jane trying her hand at the diaper challenge! |
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| My awesome boss! |
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| A great group of people! |
It was so awesome to see all of our old co-workers and catch up! I especially had a great time getting to hang out with my accounting team again. I love those people. Best work team ever! I got to see my two favorite bosses ever! Kim and Jeff gave me a chance when I started in Accounting at Argent with no experience. Along with a few other co-workers, they taught me everything I know. They also were the reason I got to work from home after I had Jane. I can't thank them enough! It was a really fun day. Congratulations Marissa and Clint, Sidney is adorable!
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| Park Buddies! |
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| Library Story time! |
I can't talk about our spring and leave out our Tuesday Park and Library days! This spring we went to the Library for story time and the neighborhood park for home school park day every Tuesday. Sickness was pretty much the only thing that kept us home. Jane made her best friend at park day this spring! Nathan and Jane are only two weeks apart in age and seem to have the same ideas of what is fun. :) One of their favorite things to do is Jane will chase Nathan laughing with a cupcake/leaf/chicken nugget/etc. and Nathan will run away smiling saying, "I don't want it!" Every time Jane sees Nathan she runs up to him and squeals! Nathan smiles and gets bashful. It's so cute! They always seems to have a great time together.
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| Excited for story time! |
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| Atlas loves the chairs at the library! |
Atlas has been going to story time since he was about 5 months old. He loves it! He can do almost all the motions to the songs. He just loves the library in general. So many BOOKS! Jane loves story time too and will run and jump around the room while we are waiting for the songs to start. She knows all of the songs and motions. She will pretend to be the teacher at home and lead us in songs.
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| Thinking about heading down the slide |
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| He did it all on his own! |
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| Hello Spring!! Our neighborhood park has about 10 huge azalea bushes and they were all in bloom at the same time. |
Jane's favorite place to go is the park. I would like to go a lot more often than we do, but it is quite the challenge with both of them. Atlas is doesn't understand the whole "falling is dangerous!" thing and although Jane is pretty coordinated and careful she is also super daring. Add the fact that they normally don't want to be in the same spot at the same time and you have me running around trying to spot them so they don't fall. I'm always a little worried someone is going to fall and break an arm or something while we are at the park. So we usually stick to once a week unless Marmee can come with us to help. Now that summer has started we still try to make it to the Library for story time, but we are trying to go to places other than the park to beat the heat. Look for my Summer Fun post for more on that. :)
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| Jane is Three!! |
Hmmm, this is getting a little long... I think I'll split our spring adventures into two posts. Here's what to look for in the next entry! :D
Part 2
Started work for ChurchBiz
Meeting Ellis
Welcome Home Cambria
Jane's 3rd Birthday Party
Proverbs 24:10
If you faint in the day of adversity,
Your strength is small.
Proverbs 3:13-15
Happy is the man who finds wisdom,
And the man who gains understanding;
For her proceeds are better than the profits of silver,
And her gain than fine gold.
She is more precious than rubies,
And all the things you may desire cannot compare with her.
