I'm still working my way through our Spring of 2019. Even though I really want to catch up to this year sometime soon, I do enjoy blogging almost a year behind most of the time. It's fun to see what we were up to a year ago and see how much the kids have grown, but right now, it kind of feels like a punch to the gut. Because when I started looking though our pictures from Spring 2019, I realized all of the things we missed this year because of COVID. It hurts. But I'm not a negative person and I try to see the silver linings whenever I can. So I will choose to see this post as a reminder of everything we can do again once we move past all of the pandemic restrictions. And I really am choosing to believe it will be a thing of the past one day! I have to hope or else I'd just be depressed!
Early April is a busy birthday time for us! We have a bunch of friends and family with birthdays right in the beginning of April. We attended our friend Lucas's birthday the day before we had Xan's birthday party. It was held at their gymnastics. The kids loved it! They had a blast jumping on all the trampolines and into the block pits. I got in trouble for jumping on one of the trampolines. I was on the trampoline square right next to the one Xan was bouncing on and I couldn't help but jump! I was informed parents weren't allowed to use the equipment, only watch. Sorry... I'm just a big kid. You see that picture of Atlas looking like the joker with icing smeared all over his face?? Haha! It's almost like he tries to get as messy as possible. Jane made sure to get a good hug goodbye from her best friend Nathan. I love that he put his finger up to tell her to hold on while he was drinking his water. Hydration is important! ;)
We had planned a pool party for Xan's 1st birthday on April 7th. My parents had just gotten a pool heater installed and it was the first day we could use it, but the weather was not cooperating! There was a huge storm rolling in at exactly when I had scheduled her party. My dad being the weather guy that he is told me it was a pretty significant storm. Because the way that it was moving, he was pretty confident that it would clear out by late afternoon and we could still have the party as long as we postponed it just a couple of hours. So that's what we did! It worked out perfectly! Sure it was cloudy and the ground was still a little wet and a few people couldn't make it later in the day, but we made the best of it and she still had a great 1st birthday party! It still stings a little to see Papa sitting in the background of that picture of Xan in the pool. It was the last birthday party of my kids that he was able to attend. I miss him so much. Just hearing his voice and laugh in the background of one of the videos I took that day makes me smile and wish so much I could talk to him again. But man, am I grateful my kids had the opportunity to know him. <3
Xan had her first experience with cake and wasn't impressed. ;) She barely tasted it, but she did enjoy squishing it and smearing it everywhere so I call that a success! When you're the third born and the second girl in the family you don't get many fun toys for your first birthday because Momma is already overwhelmed with toys. Haha, I asked people to get her clothes because new little girls clothes are always so cute and fun or stuffed animals because they are her favorite! I picked out a bunny that was made by the same company that made Jane's Lamby. I think it was a hit! She loves her bunny just as much as her bear now! Another great 1st birthday is in the books. :) Happy Birthday baby girl!
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| Marmee being the exceptional grandma she is! :) |
I did mention that there are a lot of birthdays for us to attend in April didn't I? Birthday party number three! And this special little girl was turning 3. :) Ariella is just 6 weeks younger than Atlas and second gen friends. It's really fun to watch them grow up from when they met as little babies. We all love a good park birthday party and Atlas and Jane really enjoyed the pinata. It was their first encounter with a Pinata. Jane put some pretty good swings on it, but it took the big kids to break it open. I think this was our last April party of the year. We always seem to miss a couple because there's just not enough weekend days at the beginning of the month for us to fit it all in. I think 3 within a couple of weeks was enough though. ;)
At the beginning of April I had a strong suspicion that I was pregnant. (not exactly planned, but not a surprise) Since Xan's birthday is April 8th I really wanted to focus on her and not be distracted by another baby on the way for her 1st birthday. So I waited until the day after her birthday to take a test. It was pretty inconclusive as you can see by my face in the top left pic. There was a super duper faint positive line. I've never had a test that left me unsure, so I decided to not get excited just yet and wait a couple more days and take another one. Yay! Definitely a clear positive! Baby #4 was on the way! Very excited!! I wrote all of the other particulars in my pregnancy blog post. One thing that felt a little different about this one is that I was almost completely certain that this would be my last baby. It felt good to know that going in so I could savor every part of it. Also it was my first time to keep it a complete secret (other than Sam of course) from everyone for the first 2-3 weeks after I took the test. I had always told my mom right away, but for the last one I wanted to surprise her. More on that in a little bit. On to the next couple of weeks of baby silence, which was completely full of fun Easter activities. :D
We love Easter! It feels like you blink and the holiday is over so we like to take advantage of a few different egg hunts to make it last. Our first Egg hunt of 2019 was our Little Hearts Easter party. A couple of mom's from our home school group volunteer to put it on. This was our second year attending. Our first year was just a few days before Alexandria was born! It's a perfect little party for our youngest home schoolers. We meet at a park, read a couple of Easter stories, do a craft or two and have an egg hunt. Of course we always have to stay a while after and just enjoy the beautiful spring weather some more. :) The kids love it. This was the first planned event we had on the calendar that was cancelled in 2020 because of Corona... We're looking forward to next year already!
Egg hunt number 2 was the KFBC Egg Scramble! We loved this event last year and made sure to make it happen again. They do such a great job putting it on. They have the scramble split up by age group so everyone gets a fair shot, then they provide free chickfila sandwiches, chips and juice for lunch. It's held at one of the kids favorite parks as well. Jane affectionately calls it the Tree park. The scramble only lasts a couple of minutes, but with the lunch and fun park, it works out for a great afternoon. I'm so grateful that my mom comes with us to help keep with everyone.
Our last egg hunt of the Easter season was our backyard hunt. I think I enjoy hiding the eggs as much as the kids love finding them. I remember my own childhood Easter egg hunts with such fondness. My dad was always so creative with hiding the eggs. I try to follow his example and make it as much fun as possible. Jane of course found the most eggs, but Atlas surprised me and found some that Jane didn't see right away. Alexandria found a couple while she was outside crawling around while I hid the eggs.
I love our unconventional Easter tradition! After our egg hunt we always go to Cici's for a late lunch. It wasn't purposeful at first. But one year I realized we had been to Cici's on Easter day for the last two years already and thought lets just make it our thing! (another thing COVID stole from us in 2020) Our last family activity on Easter was all playing Mario Kart with 4 players for the first time. It was so much fun! It was a wonderful holiday.
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| This Grandbaby group will be growing from 4 to 6 by next year! |
Ok coming back around to Baby #4! It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be to keep the secret from my mom for a couple of weeks. Mostly because I wasn't feeling too bad yet. I asked my good friend Lena to watch Jane, Atlas and Xan so I could go to my ultrasound appointment and get my pregnancy confirmed. I thought maybe my dates are off and I wasn't quite 8 weeks yet. I was right, the OB told me I was closer to 6 1/2 weeks than 8 weeks. You could still see the tiny baby in there though. :) I told the kids about the new baby later that day and it was so much fun! They were soooo excited! It was the perfect time to tell my mom and dad too because we were going out of town together to visit Scott and Anna in San Marcos that weekend. I had Jane draw our family and put the drawing and the ultrasound picture in an envelope. Jane gave it to my mom when we got to their house to pack up to go. The look on her face is priceless! The surprise was a success!! She was like.... wait is this new? Oh my goodness!! Hold on how did you go get an ultrasound already? How far along are you? Oh wow! My dad was just like another one??? ;) I normally tell my mom when we're thinking about another one but we hadn't talked about it lately and the last thing she knew is that we were going to wait awhile before deciding on a 4th baby. It was great to have a 3 hour drive in front of us to tell them all the details I had kept a secret until then. :D Another exciting part is that Marmee and Pappaw were going to be adding two grandbabies in one year and growing the total from 4 to 6! Anna was due in July and I was due in December. We told Scott and Anna when we arrived by showing them the same picture and ultrasound. They said they knew it! They suspected I was coming in with baby news!
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| Watching the train go by |
We got back and let the littles nap and everyone else took a breather. We decided to take a trip to the neighborhood pool that evening. The water was pretty chilly, but the kids had a blast! Their pool has a huge kid area. Different depths, but all shallow water and lots of fun splash pad elements. Perfect for a wide range of kids. It was time to head back to the house for dinner and it was a beautiful evening to grill and spend the rest of the evening relaxing together in the backyard. Uncle Scott shared some of his gymnastics and baseball skills with Jane and Atlas. After we got the kids to bed. Us big kids had some fun of our own. Scott got his croquet set out and we had a great time being terrible at it together! Haha! Lots of laughs.
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| Yay everyone is in the picture and not frowning. ;) Bryn and Flynn are both present in this picture too. |
On our last morning in San Marcos we made it down to Blanco River and the 5 Mile Dam! It was our first time to really get in the water other than wading just up to our ankles. The kids were in love! they loved finding and throwing rocks and going in a little deeper and swimming a bit. All of us took a kid and made it across the river to a little man made circle of rocks. It was like a little baby pool of calm river water. We made some great memories and we can't wait to make more the next time. We were able to sneak in a family picture before we left. I think it's fun that both Anna and I are pregnant in this picture but you can't even tell! I would love to recreate this picture with Bryn and Flynn on the outside when we have a chance. :)
The same weekend we were in San Marcos, Sam was at his Granny Bea's funeral. She had passed away suddenly at her home. She had some health problems as almost anyone would in their 80s but she was healthy enough to still be living on her own. We're glad that if she suffered it wasn't for long and we had our last memories with her in great health, body and mind. So glad we got to spend the previous Christmas with her. She was a darling lady, who loved her family well and in return was greatly loved by all her family members. It was fun that the same weekend that I got to tell my family about baby #4 was the same weekend Sam was telling his! Sandra said it was such a bright spot on a hard day. Also, my original due date for Flynn was December 5th which is Granny Bea's birthday. So that made it extra special. (I stayed with my original plan to go to San Marcos instead of the funeral because I would just be trying to keep 3 toddlers quiet the whole time. I thought it was more important for Sam to get to focus on supporting his parents instead of being distracted by us and I think it worked out really well.)
On May 1st we had our first Splash Pad visit of the year! A friend had told me about a splash pad nearby that we hadn't been to before, so of course we had to go check it out! I remember it still being a little chilly but the kids loved it. Especially since we hadn't been to splash pad in like 9 months. It was Xan's first time to really get to play at the splash pad since the summer before she was only a few months old and hung out in her bouncer or in my arms almost the whole time. As you can see for her expression, she is a fan. Lots of happy squeals from her joyful face.
Just a couple days later came a crazy windstorm followed by crazy Kingwood flooding! It was like come on, give us a break. Harvey still feels too fresh for this to go on again! Thankfully we live at a really high point and our street never even holds water. The worst that came of it for us was part of our fence falling down. We have great neighbors, they patched the fence with a couple of horizontal boards across, while we worked on finding someone to come replace it and split the cost together. Our favorite fence company was booked so we didn't get our new fence until July. I'll circle back in my summer post.
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| My mom, Uncle Jimmy, Papa and Uncle Danny (Missing Mimaw and Uncle Leo who have passed on) |
Oh my goodness! I had been waiting for this wedding to happen for years! The bride, Kim, was my boss when I worked at Argent Energy and Copestone after that. One of my best bosses ever! The groom, John, was also my boss at Argent, just not my direct boss. They started dating shortly after I started working at Argent. My mom and I loved them as a couple and always wondered when they would finally tie the knot. Well the day finally came! We got our invitations and I had to make it happen. Sam agreed to stay with the kids and put them to bed while I went to the wedding with my mom. It was sooo great to be reunited with so many of our co-workers. Argent was such a great place to work. Being newly pregnant I got to tell everyone in person about our 4th baby. Yes, I got a few, "4??? You know how that happens right??" comments. ;) But I also got some, "That's amazing! You are super mom!" comments too. :) It was such a fun wedding, how could it not be with Kim and John? My mom asked me to dance and we had a great time on the dance floor together. I'm so incredibly blessed that my mom is my best friend. <3
Oh man, It's another last that we didn't know was a last. My cousin, Amanda, hosts the family at her home for a Crawfish boil each year. (yet another thing Covid cancelled in 2020) This was the last Crawfish Boil with Papa. If my memory serves me right it was my last family get together with him completely well. Of course he spent a good part of it loving on my babies. Atlas woke up sick that morning. Sam stayed home with him so we could still go. I'm so glad we did. It was my last in person announcement about Baby #4 before I announced on social media. I put Xan in her Big Sister shirt an waited until someone noticed. No one was saying anything after we'd been there a few minutes. My dad couldn't wait for anyone to notice with out a little nudge anymore, so he said something like, "Can anyone read? What's that shirt say??" They were all like, "Oh! We just thought it was a hand-me-down shirt!! Really??" Lots of hugs and congratulations. It was a lovely day with family. I hope we get to have another one next year.
If you've made it this far I'm impressed. It's a long one I know... We were very busy last spring apparently. Almost done I promise! Our last trip of Spring 2019 was to Austin/San Marcos. Our Awana Scholarship Camp Alumni had organized another reunion. It happened to be the same weekend that Anna's sister was graduating from college, so they had a lot of family staying with them then. I asked my cousin Stephanie if my mom, the kids and I could come stay with them for a night. She was happy to host us! It was a quick one night stay, but we managed to fit quite a bit in! I do need to remember one night trips are really exhausting for me. I don't like arriving and then turning around the next day and getting back in the car and driving home 3 hours again. Anyway, The kids had a blast swimming with their 2nd cousins that evening and the next morning. Jane and Atlas really enjoyed Colin reading to them before bedtime too. <3 I almost forgot! On the way to my cousin's house we stopped in for a quick visit with my dear friend Kae and her sweet kiddos! It was so lovely to see her and get to see her home in Austin for the first time. I am so very grateful for her friendship. It was the first time our boys were old enough to play together which made it even more fun. It was the perfect visit. :)
The reunion was fun but a lot less people that I knew well were able to come to this one. It also felt a little disorganized for some reason. Maybe it was because we couldn't throw the Frisbee around because it was all rainy that made it feel off. ;) It was great to see my friends that weren't able to make it the reunion last year though. I really enjoyed seeing Allie and Bekah! The reunion was held at the same place we used to have the old tubing parties as well, so that was cool. It was still worth the drive for sure. :) Oh man, that picture in front of the river cracks me up! We were like hey! Lets try to take a picture! None of the kids were looking so we picked them up and Xan started whining, Atlas wouldn't stay still and Jane started covering her ears. The cherry on top is my mom's finger made it in the picture too. Hilarious!! I'm glad we took it anyway. I love the realness of it. Finally we headed back to Scott and Anna's house for just a little bit to hang out before heading home. Ellis was napping at the time so we headed to the river to let the kids wade around and enjoy the water so we didn't wake her up. Once we made it to their house we didn't stay long. We were tired from everything we had fit in that weekend and we had a long drive ahead of us. I seem to remember the trip home going really smoothly for a late evening ride. So much fun packed in to less than 2 days!
Sorry for the picture dump! There were too many good ones, I couldn't pick just a couple. As always Jane's birthday ushers in the summer season for me. That means this is the last Spring Adventure of the year. Jane's actual birthday was the day before her party. It just so happens that her best girl friend's birthday is the day before her's! So we went to Paige's birthday party at Jumpalooza on Jane's actual birthday. When we got home I had a couple of presents for Jane to open and candles for her to blow out. Sweet and simple. Kind of random, but Jane had been asking to go through the car wash for a while and I'm too cheap to do it all the time, so I told her we could do it for her birthday. We tried and it was like everyone decided to get a car wash that day too. I hated to disappoint her but it was just too long to wait. We tried again the next day and got in just fine! She was thrilled! Atlas and Xan were pretty enthralled too. I guess I should get more car washes! Haha! Jane still isn't bored of having a pool party yet. It's easy and cheap so I am all for it! A lot of friends were out of town this year so it was a smaller party but it was still perfect. It's easier to keep up with everything and get to visit with everyone that way. Jane does better at splitting her time with her friends too. I tried my hand at making a layered birthday cake instead of cupcakes for the first time! I think it turned out great for the first one!! Gosh, how is she 5?? I've always heard people talk about how fast it goes but you can't really understand until it happens to you. She looks so grown up in her play make up and clip on earrings. All requested by her. She is so into fashion and everything pretty and fancy. She sure doesn't get it from watching me! I adore her independent spirit, no matter how challenging it makes parenting her. It's so worth it. <3
Lamentations 3:22-23
Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed,
Because His compassions fail not.
They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
