May-ra-thon

May is the new December...or worse.  Every mom is scurrying about from "end of year" this to "end of year" that. I'm thinking "they" should stagger some of these events over three months.  I'm just glad it's over!! We ended the craziness with a weekend of COUSIN FUN!! But first I had to go back and post some pics. NO one should be allowed to post 26 pics and call it "blogging", but I'm going to do it for grandparent's sake of course.

Mary "graduated" as they say these days from Pre-K.  She is so ready for be dropped off at "big school" every day with Allie next year.  I can't believe it is approaching fast.

So big!

These two are so funny. One minute they are driving each other crazy, and the next they are playing school for hours at a time. One thing I can count on right now: they are always seemingly proud of each other.

These two have been in the same class since they were wee ones!  

This how we ended Allie's last softball game! Lightening started half way through, so we went out for yogurt!  

We so loved Allie's teacher this year!  She gave her the character award for "eagerness." There is a shocker. She said she is "always always excited about every task, and encourages others to be the same way." We "get" that!

I'm almost finished with the kids' school year books! This is this year's cover. 

Can't believe I'm about to have a 3rd grader!!

The last day of school, cousin Abbott came to stay for the week. Her mommy and daddy are having a very busy week doing house stuff. She's WORN out, and getting spoiled rotten.

Boot camp ended the last day of school! I hated getting up at 4:30, but I LOVED seeing these ladies every day.  I haven't gotten up before the sun since, and I don't plan to!

My big girl is painting her trunk for camp! It's her first time to go to overnight camp!!

Don't whimp out on me yet! Mandy, Abby, and sweet little Hunter came over for the weekend!  So we had 4, added 2, took away one for camp, and are now back to 3! You get all that?  We were so glad they came. The kids did GREAT!

IR-RE-SIST-A-BLE!

Ice cream poolside anyone??

Those lazy days are here.

He just said, "Really, where is my ice cream auntie??"

BOYS!!!!!

Mando was able to ride over to camp with us! Allie was a little nervous until...

....until Madyn showed up!!! I can't believe she's gone for a week!! WE miss you Al!  

Mandy thanks for making the trip to see us. We enjoyed our cousin time!!

Ballerina girl

This weekend was all about Mary. She had preschool graduation Friday, and her dance program Saturday. I'll get back to the graduation, or this would be a very long post.

This was her first year, and it was probably a good year to start since they do a recital only every other year.  I wasn't sure how she'd do since her least favorite thing is for people to be looking at her.  

She had a good year! I wouldn't say she loved it because Mary doesn't just LOVE a lot of things except for popcorn she says.

When the teacher said the kids would be walking out and introducing themselves, I thought, "yeah right:)" She surprised us! She did it confidently! 

Here are segments from the tap dance they performed.

...and segments from the ballet. It's choppy, but I couldn't post the whole thing because of the size of the file.

She loves her teacher.

There's little pumpkin! They have been great pals as long as they can remember.  Since there dance class was on Monday, and church on Sunday night, they were able to have many spend the night dates because of dance.

Mamma Lion and I have seen a lot of each other these days. We've been doing boot camp every morning at 5 am.  I'm so ready to be finished!!! I'll never be so happy not to see my friend every day! Ha.

Painted ladies

..as in butterflies.  Allie's class at school did a butterfly garden, and she couldn't quit talking about it. Poor Mary really wanted a piece of the action, so she saw one at the zoo gift shop and had to have it.  We brought the "shelter" home, and sent off for our caterpillars. After 10 days...they arrived! You would have thought it was Christmas.

Nice. They came with their own food and instructions. Everything happened just as they said...guess they are predictable creatures. 

I never thought we'd be so excited about watching this whole  process, but I noticed myself checking in on them quite a bit during the day....and hubs too.  In this pic, you can see the silk starting to form, and one of them is in the "j" shape. He's attached to the lid where he will form his chrysalis.  Once the chrysalises are all formed, you remove the lid and tape it to the top of the garden.  

About 7 days later, the beautiful painted lady butterflies emerged. Two of them emerged within what seemed like minutes. I just happened to be walking by and saw them wiggling, so we caught them hatching on FILM!!!  The first video below is of one of them coming out. The second video is of us releasing them today.

This whole process took a little less than a month. I barely caught the butterfly taking off. (I circled him) He's probably glad to be out of here!

Birthday weekend

We took the kids to the gparents for Garrett's birthday.  They wore us out!  You would never know from these pictures that Garrett had been pretty ill the whole week...I think he was glad to get out of the house. Since we've been home, he's almost fully recovered.  You've never seen two parents so excited to see a NORMAL diaper as we were tonight. Some things I read about salmonella said the diarrhea can linger for weeks and sometimes months. I was thinking..."it's summer, this is not going to be acceptable if we can't get in the pool!!!"  Our Dr. said even though he appeared to be very sick for several days (when your kid is screaming for hours because of abdominal pain among other really scary diaper symptoms, it is very scary), that because his cultures took several days to turn positive, he probably had a relatively mild ingestion. I can't even imagine a significant ingestion and am SO SO thankful that he's on the mends. He has been SO happy today!!!! At his 3 year check up, despite not eating much for a week, he was 100% in weight and 95% in height. 

We've not had this many family pictures in the last 3 years as we had this weekend!  Bunny was very intentional about getting us all in the pic!

At the zoo!

I love this pic! Garrett was screaming woo woo! Like every 3 year old, he LOVES a train ride.

Look at the birds Pappy!

Pretty girls:)

These chimps were fighting about something. They were loud and obnoxious!

We went to the baseball game that night.  We didn't last long because it was much colder than anticipated, but had a great time.

Look who I ran in to!!! I can't believe we were at the same place at the same time unplanned! Beth Ann and I have been best friends since child hood....we only visited for a minute, but it was great to snag a pic.

Allie and Laynie were shocked. Their reaction was priceless.

Garrett and I stayed home from church, but we dressed up to get a pic afterward since we hardly ever get the opportunity. He actually cooperated.

Love those sweet gparents!

What a fun weekend to celebrate our goofy boy!

Learning to be 3!

It's not easy telling the world you are 3!  Those fingers just don't want to cooperate sometimes.

Getting close..

Almost there..

Well we've got a whole year to practice.

Time flies faster with every child. It seems like he was born yesterday, and now he's 3.  I'm so glad it flies..ha! I'm just kidding, but those first couple of years are exhausting some days.  This is the first time we've had one turn three and not have a newborn coming down the pipes.  Don't worry, I'm not forgetting about cc, but he's already 10 months!  

Speaking of exhausting. I mentioned Garrett got a stomach bug right after we rounded the potty training corner. After 8 days of being sick, we finally got an answer: salmonella poisoning. It has been a long week! That's my excuse for blogging his birthday 2 days late.  We went to see Bunny and Pappy for the weekend and we had a wonderful time! Will get those pics up after I get this boy well. I'm so thankful to know he's going to be better in no time with a little medicine.

We love you so Gman. You are the life of our party and a charmer in deed. You make the world a more light hearted place, and I can't wait to see what God has in store for you my big boy! Happy 3!!!

Mother's Day

I had a great mom's day with the fam.  They didn't look so excited huh? That's because super mom there didn't realize the boy had 102 deg temp.  Should've known when he asked to go to bed instead of lunch that something was wrong.  A sure way to get the stomach virus going is to proclaim to the world that you are nearly done potty training. There went that train...choo choo. Oh well, that's kids for you...throw all sorts of wrinkles into your well ironed plans!  It would be very boring any other way.

I made a page of some of the art work they made. They could not WAIT to give it to me. I wish they would stay this way forever!

I am so thankful that God has blessed me with these crazy 3 plus one more! My sisnlaw texted me about mother's day earlier in the week, saying I am a mom of four. It is hard to wrap my mind around the fact that I am a mommy to a baby all the way across the world.  We very unexpectedly received an update on him earlier in the week with a NEW picture! We were so thrilled to see how he's changed. Allie noticed right off that he was losing some of his chubby in his cheeks.  He must be crawling all over the place.  Just as unexpectedly as we received that update, today we learned that it is highly likely that all families receiving assignments after 11/30/2010 (ours was 12/23/2010) will NOT be granted permission to travel this year.


Wow, just like that our hopes were dashed. It is not an absolute, so we will continue to pray for God's perfect timing.  I just feel like we are missing so much. I feel like our "due date" has been pushed out another 6 months....I'm starting to feel like an elephant.....wait..wait..and wait some more.  It is certainly part of the process...a very uncertain process. This is out of our control, and I find peace in knowing that for all these months we have prayed for God's timing, and as it is unfolding, we have to be satisfied with His sovereignty.  

A "Brief" Announcement

OH YEAH! OH YEAH! The BOY decided this week that he would go to the potty!  It has really been pretty painless...just had to be on his terms. He's had no accidents for a few days and is making me taking him to public potties as we zip around town even with his diaper on, so I guess we are getting there! I think he is going to be one of the "I need to check out every potty on the planet" kind of kids. So the big question for boys???

BRIEFS??

or BOXERS??

He watched the "Potty Time" DVD which was actually very helpful to get him going.  He was screaming , "I have POTTY POWER...and making muscles."

SO cool!

 I'm really really excited to see the end of diapers (after 8 years....) I will enjoy the break...even if it's just a "brief" one..ba ha ha.

Hope you have a blessed Mother's Day weekend.  Maybe this video will make you feel like a mom to the core....just like it did me:)