she is fierce – shakespeare
with these big brothers we will have one fierce little girl ruling the house by
july.30.2015
we are so excited to call her by name!
“do not fear, for i have redeemed you; i have called you by name; you are mine.” – isaiah 43:1
anna kate, you have a house full of love waiting on you! until then keep growing sweet baby girl!
xxoo
jack, you love to celebrate just like your mama. you were so excited to pick out anything red to decorate for st. valentines day. you were spoiled having a few cousins spend the weekend with you. to tell you the truth, just like every time we get together with family, we missed you! you are off to play all weekend and perfectly happy. your valentines day gift was going to academy and getting all your tball gear with daddy. you had a great time and just couldn’t keep your eyes off of the football gear. daddy had to keep telling you “focus jack! we are looking for baseball!” you are a stinker and quite the model for me these days …
oh samuel, busy busy kid. on this st. valentines weekend you were so excited to tell everyone “happy bir-day!” 🙂 you love to celebrate too! we were so excited to get you a copy of 101 dalmatians also known as “woof” for st. valentines day. you also got a stuffed dalmatian too! you’ve been carrying it around all weekend. you are saying all kinds of things lately. joshua and jack were asking you all you could say in the car and laughing hysterically at the way you tried your best to say them.
love you guys like crazy.
xxoo
ohh how can our sweet erika be 17? we made a little trip out to bc to celebrate with her! she is so blessed to have such wonderful friendships. i just love watching her grow up!
oh did the boys love your party, erika! chocolate cake and endless oreos…
we enjoyed a little r&r at gramps and grannys and on the day we packed up to leave we had a surprise visitor …..
yeah i’m pretty sure you four babies were melting our hearts by the minute. thanks for the surprise visit/play date abbie! the boys enjoyed it and it was just enough to have them fall asleep on the trip home 🙂
we are getting more and more settled in to our new home. the weather has really turned the corner this past week and it’s been nothing but sunshiney days! i’m hoping to take pictures of the house soon, but for now i feel like we are guest ready 🙂
last week papaw and nana came to visit. the first day the weather was a little gloomy but the boys wore them out inside the house just as well. the last day the sun came out and it was beautiful. we went out to show them the park and the boys explored their little hearts out. thank you for visiting papaw and nana the boys loved every bit of it!
xxoo
of you boys…
the new house, the new surroundings, the new adventures: through it all, you guys are growing and exploring so much. i have hardly been able to catch up and write down all the new things you two do. we started attending the library time here and it is a great one! you are already excited to go back this week. this is a big deal, as jack never liked going to the one in our old area. could be that this one has a young cute teacher, who is great with the kids. 😉
“p is for pig” oh you two participated so well! the teacher in me was loving every bit of it 🙂
we have loved having visitors since the weather has been so nice! your oldest cousin, michaela, came a few weekends ago so daddy and i could go to the movies. we love that she lives so close! she is a huge help. we also love that she lives near great shopping. {well maybe just mama does} we followed her back and got to meet her new “kitty” then she stayed with us to help jack pick out some new kicks.
this last weekend gramps and granny came to stay with us and we enjoyed making a birthday cake for gramps. {i sure wish i could have been there on his actual birthday but i was really excited to have him at our house} 🙂
we hope you get to visit again soon gramps and granny!
other than having our favorite visitors and exploring outside our neighborhood, when the sun is out we are exploring the backyard. the boys absolutely love it! i know they will make so many memories here.
samuel, you love being outside. you run to the back door saying “oosh! oosh!” meaning “shoes.” you are more than happy to be out there whether someone is there or not. you spend most of the time with maudie. you also love putting leaves between the deck spaces. you are starting to play football with daddy and jack, always on daddy’s team. you have mastered the stairs in the house. you also say “up-tairs!” oh there are so many new words you are saying, i might have to make a new post to share. you love cuddling in the morning with cartoons just like big brother. you and jack are doing a great job sharing a room. mama or daddy still needs to stay in there till you guys fall asleep, but we will work on that. 😉 i keep telling myself, we won’t have to do this one day. so i just enjoy the extra quiet time i get with you while i can.
oh my big boy jack! this football season has made you fall in love. you know every team. you ask daddy who won against who and to look it up on his phone. every evening daddy comes home you challenge him to a football game. daddy said the other day, he is starting to have to really run to catch up to you! it could be your new shoes that make you go so fast 😉 you have the peyton manning “nationwide is on your side” commercial down to a t. you randomly sing parts of it around the house. you love patterns and numbers. you are helping around the house more and more. you are participating at mass more and more too. so much so, you can sometimes be heard singing along with father. we are so proud of you for being a good example for samuel.
you will have to have your own post soon too! but for now these little memories will do. 🙂 you goofy boy.
xxoo
she was all smiles ready to show us her new little friend 🙂
it doesn’t get much more perfect than that. sweetest little thing… thank you, abbie, for letting us spend the day with your new little love! he’s perfect!
xxoo
christmas and new years break has come and gone so fast, as always. boy did we soak up every day and create such great memories. we spent the last weekend of advent preparing goodies and getting all packed before our trip out to bc.
daddy even ran out and got us one of the last trees in town. it was perfect!
sunday we headed out to bc and met all of our cousins there. the power wheels gave gramps’ yard another treatment for the winter 🙂
we had a few nights leading up to christmas eve to enjoy everyones company. we also ate a lot of really good food! thank you dana and granny for feeding us all week 🙂
christmas eve mass came and many little children fell asleep 🙂 it was a silent night after all. when we got back home they were ready for a christmas celebration like no other 🙂
sweet emily was even so excited, she shared quite a few smiles that night.
our family pictures are getting a little crazy. not everyone is always happy and not everyone looks at the camera. but they are all so darn cute! i think the outtakes are the best to remember …
emily grace’s very first christmas! it has been so long since we had a little girl in this family. we had to get a picture of granny’s girls ( – camryn and taylor) to remember this…
the kids gave us all a gift to remember! they performed the nativity for us. complete with scenes from the visitation of mary to her cousin elizabeth. little elizabeth was beyond excited to hear the news!
{we may have a little actress on our hands}
our parents made our christmas complete by giving us the first gift….our very own copy of the texas monthly celebrating george strait. no ads, just george. they spoil their girls! oh we still can’t help but smile we when think of our magazine!
after all that excitement 🙂 we let the kids take turns opening their presents! as tradition goes… emily went first 🙂
the adults opened gifts after…
we learned some gifts were not what we thought they were. it’s okay we created the best memories over having the longest laughs.
christmas morning we sang happy birthday to our sweet jesus and enjoyed all the toys santa clause brought….
we said goodbye to our cousins and headed over to papaw and nana’s for christmas day.
boy did these boys get spoiled…
we opened presents and had a yummy lunch. then it was off to play football. almost the entire afternoon!
we had such a special time with our families. we had one more good nights rest before packing up two vehicles worth and heading back home… we have been so blessed at our new home. two of my sisters inlaws are near by so they were able to come by for a visit during their stay…
we were so excited to have them visit and see our new home!
loved having so many loved ones here! right before new years kindle’s family surprised us by staying three nights with us… they along with dana’s family helped ring in the new year with us… it was so perfect!
we came home to sleeping babies and teenagers laughing like crazy…
daddy knows how to pour his toasts evenly….
we had lots of laughs and sad goodbyes…
i still can’t believe our house could hold so many boys… it was the perfect way to end 2014 and a perfect way to start 2015. already looking forward to next december!
xxoo
from our family to yours!!
xxoo
“loving God, during this holy season of christmas, we ask for your blessing on all families. let mary’s openess to your wondorous ways be an inspiration to place all trust in you. let joseph’s courage provide hope during times of anxiety and uncertainty. let jesus’s life ignite all families with a spirit of light and love. may the grace that encircled the holy family widen to embrace all families. for this we pray. amen.”
oh you know, a whole month! i could break it down post by post… but i don’t know if i have the patience. it was hard enough to be away this long. so i came up with the top 10 events that can happen in just a month. it may be picture over load but that’s what i love most anyways 🙂
10. before halloween weekend we met our sweet friends out at blessington farms! i want to go back already. we could have spent all day on those slides!
9. jack attended his last cgs class. oh such great formation he received. we are sure missing these great people!
8. we went trick or treating one last time in our neighborhood. we sure missed daddy this time. we even had our pumpkin pizza. mama found out it is very hard to trick or treat and hand out candy at the house at the same time. our little referee was blowing the whistle and taking all the candy he could get.
7. sweet samuel turned the official t w o .. we celebrated with getting a birthday blessing at gramps and granny’s church and then meeting nana and papaw at the park. he was so excited they brought maudie along to play 🙂 we headed to san antonio to spend the weekend celebrating with daddy! so proud of our big boy!
6. we had our 4 year and 2 year old check up and a sad goodbye to the only doctor the boys ever knew… he was a great one 🙂
5. we said goodbye to the best first house we ever had. such wonderful memories! we moved in as a family of 2 and moved out as a family of 4 🙂 it couldn’t have been more perfect!
4. we lived in bc during our transition time thanks to gramps and granny and dana and mike for putting up with us so long. it just made pulling the band-aid off that much harder..
i also was blessed to spend a weekend retreat with the best friends a girl could ask for… it was not so silent but we had a number of excuses 🙂
3. on november 17 we closed our our new home! we feel very blessed for this smooth transition and beautiful house we can now call home!
2. luckily once we moved, it was only a week before we went back to bc to celebrate the baptism of sweet emily grace!
1. we celebrated a wonderful thanksgiving with the new sweet addition to the family!
*bonus news*
our new house is looking a little cozier with christmas decorations instead of boxes galore 🙂 i don’t have many pictures of it because around this crazy month my camera lens has taken a turn for the worse. however, i have a wonderful sister who let me borrow hers after thanksgiving… so a new post will follow soon!
until next time… promise it won’t be as long as last 🙂
xxoo
four years? it seems like just yesterday us mama’s were trying to satisfy our candy cravings together…. well maybe it was 😉
as soon as i got back from oklahoma we met up with miss sienna to celebrate her fourth birthday. panda style 🙂
such a simple and fun afternoon! thank you for sharing your special day with us sienna! and an extra thanks to nadia… my kids never knew they could actually ride a carousel, until that day 🙂
happy birthday sweet sienna! we love watching you grow!!
xxoo
well we did it! in all the craziness going on around here, we were able to see aunt holly at the hospital with her baby girl! it was a fast and furious trip but so worth it to see that sweet little love. we finally had a day with all four sisters in the hospital to celebrate the arrival of this sweet girl. can you believe, with n i n e t e e n nieces and nephews, this is the first time we have ever been able to do that?!?
happy birthday sweet emily grace! it was worth the drive and back to get to meet you and welcome you home! you are loved by so many!
xxoo