Oh man, here I am yet again, a year behind in my blogging recaps. I blame it on being a super tired pregnant lady then having a newborn who doesn't like to sleep until 11pm or later for the past year. I feel like it's a pretty good excuse. I really believe I'll catch up one of these days! Since I'm not intending to have anymore babies I think it might actually happen in the near future. Ok, now on to our Winter happenings from last year. :)
I used to dislike Winter, but nowadays I'm coming around to it! One thing that helps is that Jane loves it. Seriously, both Jane and Atlas get excited if the temp drops below 75 degrees and throw on their coats, hats and scarfs in delight. ;) I enjoy feeling a brisk air now. But I'm still a wimp. Anything below 50 degrees is too cold for me to be outside for any length of time.
 |
| Jane is right next to Coach Shelton on the far left. |
Our first Winter 2019 event was Jane's first KinderStars Gymnastics Skills Meet! She was just 4 years old! I wasn't sure how she would do with so much attention put on her, but she did great for her first time! I was so proud! No one wins at a skills meet. Each athlete gets ribbons based on their own personal performance. The ribbons rank in colors. Rainbow = Best, Blue = Good, Red = Needs improvement, and White = incomplete routine. Jane got three reds and one white for her first meet. The white was because she forgot a skill in her floor routine. This season she was the youngest gymnast on her team and she was the only one doing a Gem Gym level skill routine. Everyone else was doing a Bronze level. I think it really confused her that she was doing different skills than everyone else. She still did awesome in my opinion. She listened to her coaches, waited patiently for her turn and was a good teammate and clapped for her team members routines. I knew if she had all of that down we could work on getting the ribbons higher for her next meet! And really being a good sport and having fun are the most important things and she accomplished that!
 |
| Go baby, go!! |
In early December 2019 Xan got forward motion down! She would only go a couple of crawling motions before falling down again, but she was definitely on her way! If my memory serves me right, at 8ish months, she is the earliest crawler yet. Atlas and Jane were closer to 9-10 months when they got started. She could not wait to keep up with brother and sister!! It's so important to her to be included. By Christmas she was crawling across the room to get that discarded wrapping paper!
Hmmm, this is one of those notes that is lost in translation because I took so long to write this post. It says "School break"... All I can think is that we must have taken a break from Preschool during December. These pictures are from one of their very favorite preschool activities that we did. They asked to do it again just last week (March 2020). They both remember doing it! We traced their favorite teddy bears and then I had them color it in. It was the most time Jane had ever spent intent on coloring. She usually gets bored of coloring in like 30 seconds. She was much more careful to stay in the lines and get it just right. It was so cute. Atlas enjoyed it as well, but didn't take near as much time as Jane did perfecting his bear. ;)
Take it from me, it is one of the coolest things to get to have play dates with your best friend from Elementary school and get to see your kids play together.. Rachel and I became fast friends after meeting at a home school sports day when we were about 7 years old. Soon after meeting, we found out we lived just a few blocks away from each other! So needless to say we spent a lot of time at each other's houses and we also were horseback riding buddies. I feel like our BFF relationship continued for the next 3-4 years then as friends normally do, we drifted apart. We never had a big blow up or anything, things like moving, and Rachel starting private school got in the way of continuing to be close friends. We lost contact over the years. Enter the social media age! We found each other on Facebook and decided since we both had kids now that should get together since we lived less than an hour apart. We had our first get together in YEARS in Dec 2016. It was great! We said we'd get together more often, but life goes so fast! We let two years go by before we got together again. Oops! We met up at the Woodlands playground because it ends up being a pretty good middle ground. The girls had fun together and our babies that are only a few weeks apart even interacted. Atlas was there, he just didn't have a friend his age and refuses pictures sometimes. ;) Again, it was a lovely visit and we promised not to let 2 years go by again without another play date. (we made good on that promise and only had 1 year go by, but I'll wait until the appropriate recap post to go through that one) I just realized we haven't gotten a picture of the two of us together at any of our recent get togethers. We'll have to fix that next time!
 |
| My kids love a good trampoline! |
We had great neighbors. Lena and Ralph moved in next door when Jane was just a 1 year old. They had a little girl that was 2 her name is Whisper. The first day I introduced myself to Lena she handed down a super cute pair of sparkly Sperry's to Jane because they loved them so much and wanted them to have a new life. Seriously, Lena is one of the sweetest people you'll ever meet. You only wish she was your neighbor! Fast forward 2 years and their lease was up and they moved out. :( We were so sad to lose them as our neighbors but super glad they were planning to stay in Kingwood. A week or two after they moved out we ended up at the same exact gymnastics trial class for Jane and Whisper. I really feel like God kept us together. I mean what are the odds?? For the next year and a half we saw each other at Gymnastics every week. <3 Eventually, they grew out of their class and we didn't get to see each other there, but Lena started home schooling and Whisper joined our home school group! So now we get to see each other at Park Day or when whenever we feel like it's been too long we'll have a play date of our own. We were super thrilled for them when they bought their own house in Kingwood! So of course we had to go visit them in their new house and jump on their new trampoline. It was a fun time. Love you Lena!
Brianna is Jane's longest friend! They met when Jane was just a few months old. (part of the babyhoodies from the original sisterhoodies) They are 4 months apart and love to play together. We were excited to go to Brianna's 5th birthday party! It was at a park I hadn't been to before and Atlas was at a challenging age at that point. So I left him home with Sam and took the girls to the party. I wore Xan the majority of the time while I chatted with my friends and watched Jane run around with her little friends. It was a sweet party and Jane had a blast! I absolutely love that the two pictures above are almost identical 3 years apart! We didn't pose them or anything I promise! I'm excited to keep watching these girls grow up together as 2nd gen friends. <3
 |
| My cold remedies: Blanket, slippers, tissues, netflix. |
Oh man, January 2019 was a rough month for work! It was the first year my boss let me handle all of my clients year end accounting work. Since it was the first time doing it I had a learning curve and everything took me longer than I thought it should. I made all of my deadlines though! Yippee! January is a tough month to be busy since a lot of sicknesses seem to go around then too. We all had a bad cold through part of the month and Xan can never seem to get rid of congestion once she has a cold and she ended up getting an ear infection from this one. Poor thing! Some good meds from the doctor knocked it out real quick though. I was soooo glad when my January work was over. I felt like I could breathe again, because of the cold, literally and figuratively. ;)
 |
| I may have gone overboard... |
Soooo in January Chick-fil-A offered a free breakfast item on Wednesdays. All you had to do was go inside and order or go through the drive thru and tell them how many people were in the car and they would give you free breakfast sandwiches! I had done this many, many times during their free breakfast months and we loved it. The thing is they have two Chick-fil-As in Kingwood and they were both doing free breakfast on the same day! So I did both!! It was awesome. I kept the left overs and sent them to work with Sam. Don't worry none were wasted. Nowadays you have to scan your app on their free breakfast days and you only get one free sandwich per app... I feel like people like me were part of the problem that led to that decision. Or maybe they realized they lost too much money giving away so many free sandwiches. Anyway, I only did both CFAs once I promise! ;)
Gymnastics meet #2! SOO much improvement! Two Rainbows, one blue and one red! It was a really fun meet because each meet has a theme and this one was a Frozen Theme. So Elsa was there to give everyone their medals. Beam was her best event in my opinion for this meet. She was so proud of herself that when we got home she had to get all her medals and ribbons so far and have me take a picture. I was very proud too. Yay Jane!!
 |
| The farthest Atlas went on anything. The steps to a bounce house... |
We had heard from our friends, the Combs, that the indoor inflatable play place called Jumpalooza was a lot of fun. We hadn't made it out yet because the last time I tried to take Atlas to Pump It Up he hated it! He was scared of everything. I figured it had been long enough since we tried and since it was a different place that maybe he would like it this time. I was wrong... in fact he had the worst reaction so far! :( He hid under a table for the majority of the time we were there. I finally convinced him to go bounce on the stairs leading to a bounce house and that's the most fun he had the whole time. Maybe next time! Jane loved it of course and wants to go back all the time! Xan was just happy to be around people. ;)
 |
| How he makes me feel. <3 |
Look at us, we made it to 8 years and still super happy with our choice of forever. We've grown so much as a couple since that wedding picture. Honestly, marriage has been challenging some of the time but the vast majority of the time it's just been fun and comfortably reliable. We're a super low maintenance couple and we like it that way. We don't do much for our anniversaries. Normally we ask my parents to watch the kids and just go out to eat. It's enough for us! I feel like when we make it to 10 years maybe we'll do something that takes a little more planning than just dinner. I'll have to think about it.
 |
| Brianna loved holding Xan. |
We made it out to the Woodlands playground for the second time in January! It was our second time to hang out with the Crafts in January too! That never happens. It was pretty great. I loved getting to catch up with my friend Melody while the kids had a great time playing together. Look I grabbed a picture with Atlas in it this time! :D It was sprinkling when we walked out and they were all attempting to use something they were holding to cover their heads. Atlas put to monster trucks on the sides of his head. I don't think it did much good for shelter from the rain, but it sure did look cute. ;)
In early February we took a trip down to Sugar Land to decorate cookies at Great Mama and Papa's house. It was Atlas's first time to actually be pretty involved in decorating cookies too. He really enjoyed it. Of course Jane did! She loves everything to do with cooking/baking. They definitely enjoyed eating them at the end too. ;) Mama always makes it so fun with cute holiday themed decorations. Thank you Mama!
We make the super bowl fun for everyone! I make sure there are foods that everyone likes and enjoys. We make the Super Bowl one big snack time with lots of chips and dip. Even Xan got to enjoy the food! The kids think the game is exciting for the first 30 minutes or so. When they get full or I cut off their chip intake they get bored. Of course Sam and I want to keep watching the game and it's not quite bedtime yet. So we let them watch one of their shows on my computer until bedtime! It works pretty well. Everybody is happy. Jane will ask through the year, "Is it time for the party with all the food yet?" She loves the Super Bowl food! :D
I put a dollar store pack of water balloons in Jane's stocking for Christmas. She was so excited about it! I told her we had to wait for a warm day to use them, which isn't rare in Texas winter. One warm day in February we got them out and had a quick water balloon fight. Look at their faces!! Do you think they enjoyed it? ;) Xan really enjoyed cuddling her water balloon. She's such a cutie! I'll have to pick up some more for the summer!
Gymnastics meet #3 was the best one yet!! Jane earned 2 Rainbow and 2 Blue Ribbons! No reds! So proud! She definitely looked the most polished for this meet. I got better at documenting it too. I realized I shouldn't even try to take pictures during her events, I just need to take video of the 4 events and take screenshots of the videos if I want pictures of it. She needed a lot of reminding on Floor otherwise she would have gotten a Rainbow too and on Beam she was just a little wobbly otherwise it was great as well. We enjoy our meet days so much! We usually try to go eat at Cici's afterwards if the timing works out.
I always dread sleep training. I feel like babies are ready for it at different ages. For my kids it has a lot to do with how socially mature they are and if co-sleeping just isn't working anymore. Jane it was 11 months, Atlas it was more like 14 months and for Xan it ended up being 10 months old. Xan was the BEST sleeper until she was about 4 months. She hit the sleep regression and started waking up once or twice in 12 hours. She'd sleep half the night in her rock and play and I would be tired and give up and put her in bed with me. It still wasn't bad. But around 10 months she started waking up and trying to talk to me when she would wake up in bed with me. So we decided to try sleep training. I hate doing cry it out, but when no other method works to get enough sleep to survive I do resort to it. After the first week the majority of the crying was done and it only took about a month or so and she had it down and was an excellent sleeper again. Sleeping from 9pm-9am. Yippee!!
 |
| Such a good dentist patient! |
Jane LOVES going to the dentist! She will often ask if it's time for her dentist appointment yet. Definitely didn't get it from Sam or me! We can't stand the dentist. For this appointment they found a small cavity on her back molars. :( She got that from me. My baby teeth were very susceptible to cavities. We made an appointment to get it fixed up and were back the next week. They asked me if she could go back to get her filling without me because kids will do better that way sometimes. I said sure! They brought her back to me in like 20 minutes. They said it was so close to the surface that they didn't need to use numbing medicine and she did amazing! They said they wish they would have taken video she did so well. We were all very impressed. This girl loves everything medical!
I'm not a Valentine's Day fan. But I like to make it a little special for my little loves. I put on my rose shirt and dressed the girls in pink. We had a picnic lunch on our hot pink picnic blanket. I helped them write a few Valentine's to their friends. It was a sweet day.
Since Jane was old enough to know how to take care of a library book and know how special it is to have her own library card, I decided it was the right time to get her signed up for one! I left Atlas with dad, so it could be just about her. She was so excited and proud of her very own library card. I love that she loves the library! Right down the street from the library in town square they were holding a food festival. So the girls and I checked it out and grabbed a frozen ice treat. Jane jumped in a few bouncy houses too. It was a good day!
We had Atlas's 3rd birthday party at one of his favorite places! The First Baptist Humble Indoor Playground. The price was super reasonable. Atlas had such a great time with his friends and enjoying his cupcakes and opening his presents. Atlas has so many people who love him, Kokoo, Akuya and Joseph came in from Dallas, Uncle Scott came in from Austin, the McNairs came even though Marie had just gotten back from California, The Morgans came in the middle of moving too. Atlas said he wanted a real guitar for his birthday. I was more than happy to get him a kid sized guitar. I loved watching Sam teach him how to hold and strum it for the first time. So sweet!!
What I didn't know a year ago is that this would be the last of Atlas's birthday parties that Great Papa would attend. It makes that picture with them together even more special. Look at the way Papa is looking at him. So much love in his face. Atlas loved him so much right back. I will always be grateful that Papa got to come and be apart of Atlas's first 3 birthday parties. <3
The day after Atlas's birthday party he came down with Chicken Pox.... We had a Chicken Pox party without even knowing it! Uggg! I let everyone who came to the party know we may have accidentally exposed them. No one was worried about it and no one else (other than the rest of my kids) ended up getting it. Yay! Sooo, Atlas was sick on his birthday, poor guy! We still had cupcakes and presents and made it a special day. He didn't feel too bad from the Chicken Pox so he definitely still enjoyed his birthday. He's such a special little guy. I can't believe he's already 3!
 |
| My little tree climbers! |
The weather always seems to start warming up in Houston right around Atlas's birthday. It always signifies the beginning of Spring to me! So this is where our Winter 2018-2019 ends. It was a great season full of joy.
Psalm 46:1-2, 10
God is our refuge and strength,
A very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear,
Even though the earth be removed,
And though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;
Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!
