Easter

My favorite Easter picture of my babies


We had a great Easter holiday. We went egg hunting at Glen's grandmother's house like usual. It was pretty cold and so it was challenging trying to hunt for eggs and get good pictures outside. Of course we had already gotten their outfits before we knew it would be cold, so their clothes are not quite weather appropriate.

Bailey finding a sneakily hidden egg

My little man on the hunt!

Avery giving me the "don't take a picture of me" look

Parker showing off her loot

Starting the back blogging - Spring Break

So this is what I'm going to call back blogging. It is where I don't blog for months at a time, and then try and catch up with some quick little posts. It is also where I feel nothing but guilt that I have not made time to do this until now. Where I look at the date that I posted last and feel like I have SO much to remember and wonder what I'm going to forget. I actually feel like crying right not, but I'll push through and get this done. If there is a story I was suppose to blog about, hopefully I'll remember it. I am going to try and get this done this week because the girls are gone to music camp and I might get a little bored. OK - here I go. Where to start? Hmm.

I'll start at Spring Break.

The Crew

The kids and I went to the cabin in Ruidoso for most of the week. Mom and Dad were there on their Spring Break also, so we got to hang out with them. We took Avery's best friend, Bethany with us so it was a special trip for us. It was our first trip with a friend so I was a little nervous, but Bethany is one of the sweetest girls that I have ever met. I am so thankful that she and Avery are such good friends.

Ave and Bethany

My kids favorite thing to do at the cabin is STILL going for a hike. We did and Bethany got a little sick. There is nothing like taking another child 6 1/2 hours away from their parents and them getting sick!!! She was and always is SO sweet. I just hated it for her. You always want your mom when you don't feel good and so I really felt bad for her.


We went to our favorite park and the kids really had fun playing. It was especially fun since Ruidoso was still in school and some of the 5th graders came to that park after we had been there for a while. I think my kids were feeling just a little cool that they were out.


Another thing the kids did was play fusball. We had some major matches going on, but sad to say that noone could stand a chance against ME!! Ha Ha. It is so fun beating little children. :)

Pottying, Ainsley, Water, Tests, & Rocks

WARNING!!

Blogger is TOTALLY messing with my fonts. I have been working for over 15 minutes trying to get it right and I am now giving up!! SO sorry for all the weird fonts. The were not done on purpose.


POTTYING:

Top News of the day!! Jude is officially potty trained!!! I am done with diapers guys!! It took some time and patience, but we did it. We meaning Jude, me and Jude's teachers at Mother's Day Out, Ms. April & Ms. Lori. Jude started going potty at school for them, but still didn't want to at home. I kept trying with no results. Ms. April and Ms. Lori took him every time they took the other children and he would most of the time be successful. After each successful potty at school, she would let Jude come tell me in my class. (ABOVE AND BEYOND WHAT I WOULD EXPECT FROM ANY TEACHER!!!) So, after all the encouraging words from Ms. April, I made the last run for diapers about a month ago and swore that it would be the last. AND IT WAS!! Woo Hoo. I am so proud. Don't ask me why. Every person in the world learns how to go in the potty, but I still am just so proud of him. Yeah Judeman!!! (and Ms. April) :)



AINSLEY:

My niece came to visit for a week. We had SO much fun with her. She fits in our little household SO well. She is SO smart and sweet, I just LOVE having her with us. She is 5, but very petite, so she even got to come to my school and be in my class (I teach the 4's class). We have 2 girls and 9 boys in our class, so the girls are ALWAYS excited when Ainsley comes so there is extra estrogen in the room. And again, she fits in our class perfectly!!! I took this picture at the house when the girls were at school. I can't wait till she comes back to visit. We were already talking about the next trip before she left.




WATER:

Glen thinks that I am insane because I found a new water that I am in love with. He thinks that all water is the same and that the water out of the tap is just as good. Well, I do like water out of the tap, but I found my most favorite water EVER!! Actually I found it about 4 years ago in LA. It was different looking and I tried it and liked it. I had never seen it before, so I totally thought that it was an LA thing.

I have since come to realize that IT'S NOT!!! It is right here in my little Texas town. I just love the taste, the size of the bottle, the look of course (HA), and mostly love that it helps me drink something that I usually have a hard time being motivated to drink. The funny thing is, I keep seeing people on TV drinking this water. I have stopped the tv several times and run it back to show Glen and of course he laughs and tells me I'm crazy! So... here it is.....my new water!! It is called Fiji. LOOOOOVE IT!


TESTS:

Update on Avery and Bailey's tests are that they both felt confident about how they did on the test. That was a blessing in and of itself. They both finished before lunch, which made me feel even better. Thank you to all who prayed for my girls that day!! We'll know if they worked in a few months.



ROCKS:

We went to watch Bailey's soccer practice yesterday. Jude and Parker usually get out and play in front of the car during the hour practice. Well yesterday, Jude got in the car with his shorts around his ankles. He was trying to get them around his shoes to take them completely off. I was on the phone, so I was trying to give him hand gestures and evil eye him to make him stop. I guess I need to work on the evil eye thing cause next thing I knew, he was in front of the car with JUST HIS UNDERWEAR ON!!! I got off of the phone pretty quick after that. BUT....while I was still on the phone, I grabbed his shorts and I barely could lift them. Sure 'nuff, my child filled EVERY pocket full of rocks from the parking lot and they COULDN'T stay on. THAT'S why he was taking them off. He really wasn't TAKING them off, they were FALLING off. So.... like any good mom, I had my camera handy and took these LOVELY pictures. I wish you could have heard some of the soccer girls gagging during practice at having to see Jude in his underwear. There are probably 10 eight year olds that will be scarred for life (or so they think!)

TAKS again.

Well, today is the reading TAKS day. It has been the day that our house has been dreading/talking about/getting ready for...for weeks now. Actually the girls have been preparing at school all year, but Avery has really been focused the last couple of weeks. She has been tutored by a great friend, Kate everyday after school for a couple of hours. Kate has been AWESOME for her. She feels safe with her and Kate has a way of being patient AND loving AND firm. She gave Avery the sweetest card yesterday with some Extra gum (Avery's FAVORITE treat!) It is SO neat to see their relationship grow the past few weeks. *****(BTW-Kate is a grown up, not a kid. She is actually in her first year of teaching, so she is GREAT with kids. ALL my kids love her, but Avery feels especially close to her.)*****

I am not so worried about Bailey, but please say a prayer for her too today. You never know how stressed they might be during the test. I pray they both take the time to read and visualize what they are reading. That God bless their thought process and guide them to the right answer. I pray they don't feel the pressure of the test and that they KNOW I love them no matter what and that God created them perfect no matter what they get on this test!!!!

I totally started crying when I was saying bye to Avery. She is just so special to me. Well, they all are, but she needs my prayers today the most it seems and seeing her walk away from me was hard. Knowing she was going to have such a focused and intense day broke my heart. I know she'll do good. Bailey too. I just ask that everyone pray for them today. PLEASE!!

PS. I have so many posts to write and I promise this week/weekend I will get caught up!! But for today, I am focused on my girls!