My Little Helper!

Yesterday my Maddie took a shorter nap, so she got up waaay before brother bear! After we snuggled for a little bit, she asked what I had been doing!? I happened to be cleaning the bathrooms at that time so I told her that and she looked up at me with her gorgeous blue-green eyes and asked if she could help! Of course I said, "YES!" I LOVE her willing and helpful heart, she ALWAYS wants to help and she isn't afraid to try anything!! And she just loves working next to me! PRICELESS!! :) She asked me what she could do and I gave her very simple instructions which she followed perfectly!!! She cleaned our bathroom SO PROUDLY and met daddy at the door when he got home so he could see her handy-work!! My Maddie is so much like me! She is a people pleaser and a lovey!! She just LOVES to love!! I pray that she will ALWAYS have a pure and innocent heart, and that she will continue to be a Light to those around her!! I love you Maddie Joy!! :)

Monday's at the Park

This summer we have decided that Monday will be our park day...no, we will not be going to just ant ANY park, I have a list of all the parks I want to take my kiddos to this summer!! I am SO EXCITED!! :):) All during the winter we "found" parks hidden here and there, but, since it was winter, we didn't get out to explore! So, NOW is our time to EXPLORE! We will be exploring a different park each Monday and we are SO EXCITED! We have had this list on our refrigerator for several months now and my Maddie and Zack know EXACTLY what the list is! :) Of course, we will also visit some of our FAVORITE parks, but I am excited to go to some new parks! We are going to take a picnic lunch and enjoy the morning there! So yesterday we started our park outings! We headed to Phelps Grove park around 9:30 a.m. and enjoyed the morning there!!! My kids just LOVED hanging out and exploring the new-to-them play equipment!! It was a BLAST and I can't WAIT until next week!! :) Next up on our list is "Griffin's Park!" We named it that because it is right next to our Griffin's house! It is a BEAUTIFUL, NEW park that has the "latest" swings and slides! :) Whoo-hoo for our summer Monday's!

Our Weekend

We had an AWESOME weekend!! I can hardly believe that it is over, but it ROCKED!! Here is a run down of our weekend! :)

Friday:
* We met Amber, Maddox and baby Brody to garage sale at 8 a.m.! We found some good deals and then headed to Chick-Fil-A for breakfast! It was FREEZING and we needed a place to warm up! :) After some playing and a few hash rounds... we felt better so we headed off to the mall!! :) The Gymboree there was having a sale $12.99 or less for EVERYTHING in the store!! Oh yes, it was a gooooood shopping trip! However, our excitement over the sale, meant we were a bit late to meet our husbands at Q'doba for lunch!! :):) Thankfully they got there at the same time and were able to hang out for awhile!! :) So thankful for Travis, he is such a good friend to my husband! :) After a wonderful lunch Wyatt surprised us and came home with us!! It was SO good to have him home for the whole weekend!! While the kiddos napped we just hung out and talked!! I LOVE to talk to my sweet man, for sure!!! :):)

*That evening we met back up with the Griders and enjoyed dinner with them!! Our kiddos get along so well, it is an awesome blessing!! :) After dinner we headed back to the mall for a few more shopping minutes for mommy at Gymboree!! :)

Saturday:

* OUR GIRLS SHOPPING TRIP TO BRANSON!!! Whoo-hoo!! :):) Maddie and I have been looking forward to this day for a looong time!!! Wyatt and Zack loaded up and headed to MArshfields to spend the day with my Grandparents and my mom came to pikcus up!! She had already done some shopping so she brought with her 4 gorgeous Princess dresses from Dillards! She had found them on clearance for $15-$19!! Needless to say Maddie (and I:)) were beside ourselves!! :):) We loaded up and spent the whole day in Branson together!! It was just the BEST day!! My mom is such a cool lady!! She is so loving and giving, so thoughtful and compassionate, SO patient and kind... and she loves my children (and Wyatt and I) totally unconditionally!!!! Sometimes it is overwhelming!!! :):) I am just so grateful for the amazing woman in Christ she is!!! She is an amazing example for my children and I!! I LOVE you mom!! :)

Sunday:

We LOVE our church and were so excited to go and worship there on Sunday! Our minister talked about family and respect! It was SO what we needed to hear!! Wyatt and I had a GREAT conversation about it on the way to my parents house and that afternoon out by the pool! (YES!! Summer is here!!:)) We spend most Sunday's at my parents house and we LOVE it!! It is such good time for our kiddos to get to hang out with their Ga-Ga and Mze! I truly believe that the investment of time we have spent out at my parents has made ALL the difference in my relationship with them, with Wyatt's relationship with them, AND with my kiddos' relationships with them! What a BLESSING!!!! This Sunday was pretty special because it was my parents 35th wedding anniversary!! My dad is always out of the country on May 29th, so we usually try to make it special for my mom!! So on our way there, we stopped by Sam's and picked up a cake!! M and Z were SO excited to surprise her with it!! :):) That afternoon Wyatt and I mowed for my mom and then we spent the afternoon poolside!!! Ahhh, it was BLISS! :) Later, my sister and Brother-in-law, nephew and two cousins and Grandparents came over for dinner!! It was SUPER FUN family time!!! I LOVE my family!!!

Monday:

*M and Z were SO EXCITED to have daddy home when they woke up!! They both shouted "DADDY!!!" :) It was presh! :) Then daddy surprised them even further with our day of plans!! We got dressed and hopped into the car to go to Krispy Kreme for breakfast, a TRUE treat!! After enjoying a doughnut (SO NOT on my "diet" but delicious none-the-less!!!:) we headed to the park! Yesterday started our summer of "Monday's at the Park" (more to come on this topic later!:)) so we played there for a long time! Then we took a long walk around the Phelps Grove park neighborhoods!! This was especially fun for me since I grew up around these neighborhoods!! Wyatt and I looked at houses and dreamed about what our next house will be like!! I love dreaming with him!! For lunch we had pizza! YUM-O! :) When we got home it was nap time...for ALL involved so we all enjoyed a 3 hour nap!! After our nap we played outside and enjoyed the gorgeous day!!! We ate a quick dinner and then headed out for a drive and ended up at Braum's for ice cream!!!! It was a great weekend!!!

We are so looking forward to all that this week will hold! Play dates, lunch with my mom and extra time with Wyatt!! WE LOVE THE SUMMER!!!!!!!!!!! :):)

Zack's new favorite phrases!!

I LOVE my son! He is HILARIOUS and absolutely cracks me up!! His two new favorite phrases right now are: "LET'S SMASH IT!!!!" and "What sister says?!" or "What daddy says?" and on and on!! I LOVE that he is ALL boy and isn't afraid of ANYTHING!!! He will pretty much jump off of anything with complete and total joy! He loves to find critters and dig in the dirt and he LOVES TO RUN!!!! He is absolutely the most adorable thing EVER!! :):) What a blessed momma I AM!!!

The Best Day!

I had the BEST day with my kiddos today!! I LOVE hanging out with my M and Z! I never thought that being a momma could be so wonderful and fun (it is definitely hard at times, don't get me wrong! :) BUT, it is SO totally worth all of the tough days!! :)) We have been going less, and hanging out...just the 3 of us, more!! I can definitely see that it is making ALL the difference in the world!! We try to have 1 to 2 play dates a week and the rest of our time is spent together!! We are just having a BALL!! I know that with summer comes a certain fun busy-ness so we are just enjoying our time together!! Wyatt gets off from work really early now, so our evenings are spent together playing outside, reading, going for walks and playing hide- and- seek!! BLESSED!!

So today was a beautiful day, so we loaded up in "our car" (whenever our kids refer to our Highlander it is OUR car. When they talk about the Saturn it is daddy's car! It is very hard for them to understand that we share our cars! So cute! :)) and met my sister and nephew at the Nature Center!! The three cousins RAN the whole way!! It is so much fun to see their friendships starting!! My sweet Maddie has lots of little girl-y friends, but my precious Zack would always just rather be with Maddux!! They are BUD's and it is pretty sweet! We took the long trail around the nature center and enjoyed the beautiful morning, talking all about God's beautiful creation! After our morning at the center, we headed over to Chick-Fil-A for some delicious lunch and some more play time!! :) After we left lunch, we headed home!! I love our time in the car together! We have some really fun cd's that we like to sing together! But, when we aren't singing we are talking about letters and different words that start with different letters! I must say, my kiddos know their letters very well, and we have a LOT of fun coming up with words that start with each letter!! After 3 hour nap's they got up, so happy and full of joy!! We played outside for a long time and soaked up the sun!! Then my friend Angela came over and we talked through her wedding, while M and Z watched Milo and Otis! They love that movie so much, they start laughing before their favorite parts even start! It is hilarious!! :) After Angela left, we ate dinner together and then just played all together! What a blessed evening! My favorite part was during bath time, we were once again talking about letters and I asked Zack how you spell the word "Stop!" (He is in LOVE with stop signs right now!!:) And he looked at me and said, "S-T-O-P!" I thought Wyatt was going to fall over!! We are SO proud of our little man!!! :):)

While I type this, Wyatt is cleaning up the kitchen! He is such an amazing man, he often cleans the kitchen after I have made dinner!! SO blessed!!! Now... for some snuggle time with my man!!

Critter Keepers

My kiddos are so much fun!! They entertain me all day,every day!! I am so thankful for their sweet and fun personalities! :) Maddie is totally a girly girl! She loves to have her nails painted (fingernails AND toe nails:)) She loves to play dress up and have her hair fixed!! She is so much fun! :) Zack is certainly ALL boy!! He is so sweet and funny and he loves to get dirty and catch critters! He loves to go on adventures and jump off of anything tall! :):) For Easter my mom and dad gave Maddie, Zack and Maddux "Critter Keepers!" So last week, on a bright, sunny day we got out our Critter Keepers and crawled around our back yard looking for treasures!!! I was a little worried about what we would find, but they were both SO EXCITED, I couldn't say no!! We looked everywhere...by the fence, in our very wet sand box, but we weren't finding any "satisfying" critters!! THEN we hit the jackpot!! Maddie and Zack squealed with delight as we found rolly-polly's, slugs, worms and even a beetle!! We picked up each critter with our tweezers and blasted them into our keepers to keep them safe until daddy got home!!! When Wyatt rolled in, Maddie and Zack raced towards him SO excited to show him what they had found!!! I think he was almost as excited as they were! He quickly changed clothes and off the three of them went looking for more critters!! :) I love my little family!!!

My Ring

Wyatt and I took my wedding ring into Justice Jeweler's on Saturday to get it checked and cleaned! We LOVE Justice Jewelers for a variety of reasons, but we love that as long as we get my ring checked every six months, if any stone ever falls out, they will replace it for FREE!! As we were talking earlier that day we realized that it had already been since months since we got it checked (and CLEANED, my favorite part!:)) So we made a quick stop by there before we met one of our two favorite graduates for lunch that day!! Within a few minutes of checking out my ring, the jeweler called us back! She had noticed that several of the stones were loose, so she asked us to leave it with them for 24 hours so they could secure each stone! Of course we were so thankful that I hadn't lost a diamond and happily left it with them so they could carefully check each diamond!!

Almost immediately after we left, my left hand felt totally naked! I am one of those ladies that wears her ring, ALL THE TIME!!! It never leaves my finger!! I LOVE my ring...Wyatt worked so hard to buy it for me when we were so young, and I take such pride in the beauty of it and of the marriage covenant that it holds!! Even more than its beauty, my heart swells with JOY at the fact that Wyatt loves me so much, he wanted to buy me something SO meaningful!! When he presented my ring to me as he was proposing, I will never forget the amazing words he said to me as he placed it on my finger...and then on our wedding day when he gave me my beautiful wedding band, he promised to love me and honor me and cherish me!! He has honored all of those words he spoke to me on those two special days!! What an amazing husband I have!

My ring is now back on my finger and it is more special to me than ever!! It is my dream ring and I LOVE it!!

Graduation!

We are SO excited for two graduations this weekend!! (WOW, I hope my family feels better QUICK!:)) Two of Wyatt's sisters are graduating, one from college and one from high school!! We are SO proud of these two girls!! They are number 4 and number 6 in line (Wyatt has 9 siblings, 7 biological and 2 adopted) and they have worked so hard to get where they are!! We are looking forward to taking Tiara out for lunch tomorrow...just her and us! We always have the best conversations! :) She is just so full of JOY and peace...she radiates God's love!! She is beautiful , and her life is a living reflection of God's grace!! She seeks Him in every situation in her life and her heart is so full because of it!! She is leaving for Sweden on Monday and we could be happier for her!! This fall she will head to Boston, MA to get her Masters degree!! We are SO PROUD of her!!!!

We are also very proud of Teal! She is graduating from high school!! We all know that high school isn't an easy time in life, but she has persevered!!! :) We can't WAIT to be a part of her graduation tomorrow night and celebrate with her!!

We LOVE our family, and although we don't always agree, we are thankful for their presence in our lives!!

HAPPY FRIDAY!

The Hostess

I LOVE being the hostess, really I do!! I have almost forgotten how much I like to have people over and host parties!! On Monday night I had a 31 party and it was a BLAST!!! 14 of my "closest" friends came over for food, fun and really cute bags and purses!!! :) A couple of girls came over early to help and I enjoyed our time together SO much! There is nothing better than serving with good friends!! And they came over to bless me!! Their help just brought me such JOY! :) And then everyone else came and my heart was so full of JOY!! :):) I love being surrounded with friends... dear old friends and sweet new friends!! It was awesome!! :):)

When Wyatt and I got married, we knew that we loved to be hospitable!! We had an 1,100 foot townhouse and we had ALL kinds of parties there...wedding showers, baby showers, birthday parties, an ornament exchange...you name the occasion...we had the party and we LOVED IT!! Then we moved to our beautiful new house and had even more people over!! We have several groups of friends and we really enjoyed gathering everyone to do what each group likes to do! Some of our friends are game players, so we sat around and played games for hours! Others just liked to eat and talk...so we made a BIG meal, everyone brought something and we just sat and talked!! One of our groups of friends always splits off boys and girls!! It is kind of funny, but that is how we know they are, so we made sure to have plenty of chairs outside on our deck so the guys could hang out out there!! We just love to be hospitable, and what makes it even better is that we BOTH like to have people over!!

Once we had kiddos our days of BIG parties kind of died down, we still had a few people over, but not quite like we did before!! This has been hard for us, but I think it has been really good!! We have re-prioritized and we still really love having people over, we are just more strategic about it now!! (I think!:)) So Wyatt and I had a big discussion about this topic over the weekend and set some new goals for ourselves! :) This summer, one of our goals is to have at least two couples/families over a month!! :) We are REALLY excited about this and pray that God will bless the friendships we are about to make!! :):) Whoo-hoo!!

Mother's Day!

We had a jam packed weekend last weekend!! It was wonderful, but CRAZY!!! We enjoyed a day off with my mom on Friday, had a garage sale all day on Saturday, attended the CCH Branches Banquet on Saturday night (and brought all of the fresh center pieces) and Mother's day was Sunday! Whew we are worn out, but it was awesome!! :)

Zack and Wyatt woke me up with sweet kisses on Sunday morning! Zack whispered into my ear, "Happy Modder's Day Mommy! I yuv you!" Awwwww, SO PRESH!!! There is nothing better than your little son (who loves to jump off of everything, play in the mud and eat bugs:)) tell you how much he loves you!! I had several very sweet moments with my boys before they told me to get up and get ready! Wyatt told me not to come out of our room until I was ready for our day, he wanted breakfast to be a surprise!! So I took a shower and got all ready and walked out to my sweet little family with breakfast all ready just waiting for me!! We sat down to yogurt, bacon and special pastries that Wyatt and Zack had picked out the day before...AND, chilled glasses with freshly made orange juice!!! (All my favorites:)) My husband is AMAZING!!!!!!! And he loves me so much!!! I feel so humbled at his planning for a special mother's day! He is just wonderful!! :):) After breakfast, Maddie, Zack and Wyatt went and got their special gifts for mommy!! :) Oh, I felt so special, my family sure does know how to love on me!! :):) Maddie gave me a very sweet card, and a gorgeous purple Calla Lilly flower to plant in our front garden (We are working on our landscaping this summer!! When we bought our house new, there was a pretty start to our front beds, but this summer we hope to really make it look good! And, my Maddie LOVES to help her mommy, so this was the perfect gift from her!!!:)) Zack also gave me a sweet little boy card that melted my heart and a gift card to go shopping with, and then my awesome husband bought out his card and gift!! Then, they gave me a gift all together that was a painted picture of their hands!!! It is PRECIOUS!! :):) (Hmmm, my husband can be crafty!! :):)) He he!! :):) It was the perfect morning!!

For lunch our tradition is to go to my parents house for lunch! The men make lunch for the ladies and we get to talk and hang out, not touching the kitchen, for the most part!! It was SO MUCH FUN!!! My Grandma, mom, sister and "Aunt" Deb (Catrina's mother-in-law) sat around and chatted and hung out with the kiddos until lunch was ready!! Then we spent the afternoon talking and eating and enjoying each other's company!!! I know I say this a lot, but I mean it, I have the BEST family!! We just all get along so well and love to be together!!!!

We left there around 8 p.m. and came home to enjoy the rest of our evening together!! It was the BEST day!!! :):)