March 2015

Oh March, one of our very favorites! Everything comes to life and gets rollin' here on the farm! Our month was filled with adventure. Ben was back on the baseball diamond with the Bullfrogs and Des got to start his baseball career as a Dirtbag! Brad was off to London, we got 21 cows and 20 chickens, celebrated Spring Break with lots of friend fun and played hard everyday. Here is an overview of some of the day to day fun we had.

GG had to go to the doctor. I think she had Strep throat. I wanted a hearing test done. Gaga and I think that she lip reads and that we are mistaking hearing loss for shyness. The doctor says her vocabulary is too good for a kid with hearing loss and blows me off. Says she probably has allergies and needs to be on medicine for the constant snotty nose. I disagree but whatever. She gets special lovin' from me for being such a good patient! :)

The DIRTBAGS. How cute is that name? And better yet, it's all of Desi's favorite people (and ours too!) on the same team! This is his very first baseball practice ever. I couldn't tell if he was more excited to get to be like big brother and play baseball or if it was just a sunny day with his best friends. :)

It just melts me when my hubbie is out there coaching his boys. Puddle on the floor.

This was the month of FULL PRINCESS MODE with this girl. Anna wig, dresses, jewelry. On this particular day she told me, "But mama, I'm not a girl. I'm a princess." My goodness. It's pretty darn fun to go from baseball practice to princess mode and back again over and over. Two completely different worlds. She loves having her picture taken, and taking selfies, and looking in the mirror and showing off her outfits to her daddy. It's all so confident and I am constantly praying that she never stops feeling pretty.

The accessories have launched this month in that she usually has about 14 necklaces and 4 bracelets and 2 rings and 8 or 9 headbands on before she is "ready."

Oh, how could I forget? And the crown...

Outdoors time is in full swing. Man, it gets hard to not be outside with kids, but springtime makes up for it in a big way. Here the boys are watching the storm roll in so they can play in the rain!

Other than that we just spend our happy days singing songs, telling stories, playing ponies, counting down the minutes until the boys get home from school (Genevieve usually starts asking if it's time about 9:30 a.m.), feeding our chickens and cows, visiting our papa and gaga, and enjoying every day!

February - Children's Museum with Desi's Class

In February, Desi's Pre-K class took a field trip to the Jasmine Moran Children's Museum here in Seminole. GG and I joined them, and had so much fun seeing all those boys play together. Desi's best friends are all in his class this year: Nate, Cole, and Grady. They are inseparable and have the best time together.

Here the four of them are playing weathermen:

Here Des and Nate check out the fish in the big aquarium:

Courtroom drama! Des, Jeremiah and Grady play judge...

Banging the gavel. Order in the court!

Little Attorney GG has more fun playing with the chair.

But her FAVORITE place on the planet is the miniature grocery store. Her and Graham shopped like old married people together...nagging and all!

For some unknown reason, Graham is busting a move here...cause that's how he rolls.

Desi loves the grocery store too! He picks out all the junk food I won't let him buy at the store. :)

Here they are playing school...

And then we found the face paint. Oh dear. Let that creativity shine boys!

This girl couldn't be happier than with a paintbrush in her hand.

Des, Cole, and Grady. Best friends rule.

Some bubble fun.

Then after a delicious lunch Nate's mom was brave enough to take that fab four home with her for an afternoon of playtime. They are so lucky to have each other!

February - Restorative Yoga

February was all about Restorative Yoga apparently. I started a new teacher training program in OKC with a group of my favorite girls. We will meet once a month for the next several months and learn how to incorporate restorative yoga poses into our classes. Also, my friend Jill and I attended a full-day immersion on Restorative Yoga with the one and only Judith Lasater in Dallas!

The trip to Dallas was crazy. We drove down together, had an amazing night together with Mexican food and girl talk at the hotel. Then we woke up super early, headed to Whole Foods for breakfast and as we headed to the conference it started to snow. It snowed all darn day and by lunch they decided to cancel the rest of the conference. Dallas is NOT set up to handle 6+ inches of snow and it took us ELEVEN hours to get home. At one point we truly thought we would run out of gas just sitting on the highway and not able to exit to find a station! Although it was super stressful, and SUPER long (with 5 semi trucks crashed on the side of the highway) we did have a ton of time to chat and catch up which is always special.

GG loves pulling out her yoga mat and showing me her moves or doing yoga along side me. Here she is practicing her savasana. :)

 

The boys wanted to try it out too. Here they are fully propped and relaxing...

January 2015

It's a new year! Such an exciting time as we plan ahead for all the fun adventures to come in 2015!!! On New Years Day, we started the year off with our friends Ash and Zach. We had been trying to gather a group of friends for a Friends Thanksgiving and then a Friends Christmas and well, it finally came down to a Friends New Years Day with more than 1/2 of the group missing. We still had a great day as the 6 kids played together and we watched some really exciting football...the Ducks winning the 1st ever semi-final to play for the National Championship!

Ash and I got a rare photo together...

Even though the winter weather here makes you want to curl up and do nothing, we had plenty to keep us busy. The boys basketball teams were in full force with weekly practices on Tuesday nights and games on Saturdays. I started teaching yoga at Seminole State College on Monday and Wednesday afternoons. I had the class coincide with Brad's lunch break so he could watch Genevieve for me. That means I am now teaching 4 days/5 classes a week. I also took on the challenge of being co-chair of our Main Street Promotions Committee that is in charge of all the fun events downtown. 

Des bought these earrings for Genevieve for Christmas. She wore them every single day for a good 3 weeks before they broke. This girl is all about the fashion.

We had gone to the mall so Brad could spend his Christmas money on a bunch of new work clothes and shoes. (He is so practical!) She was completely captivated with herself at each and every dressing room!

Sure there were fun new things added to our calendar this month, but most of our days were completely cozy. A fire in the fireplace, dinner at the breakfast bar, watching movies together, warm bubble baths, wii family tournaments, and of course, family storytime before bed. Clean, cuddly babies in warm, fuzzy jammies...there is just nothing better.

On days that I'm teaching at the college, GG gets to have lunchtime adventures with her Daddy. They usually just come home and eat grilled cheese and tomato soup and then head back for office hours where she colors endless Frozen pictures and wanders the halls entertaining the rest of the business department. But on really special days, she gets to go out to lunch with some of the oh, so important college folks. And she entertains them too.

Of course we have been enjoying all of the wonderful Christmas gifts we received. So much playing! And well, I'm not the only one that has enjoyed this beauty. The kids can't believe how much dessert they are getting these days! They sure do love to help in the kitchen.

A couple of days the cold, dreary weather broke and we would have glimpses of sunshine. One of those days just happened to be a Saturday when we got together with 3 other families to discuss putting together a tee ball team for Des and his friends. The other families had 5 year olds ready for ball too and we had to discuss serious baseball business...like team names, and how we would hardly never practice and certainly NEVER go to tournaments. :) The discussion quickly turned into how we should have all those kids (8 boys + gg) outside so we grabbed some poles and headed up to the pretty pond.

Then it transformed into grilling out and laughing our booties off. I think we are gonna love tee ball this year! :)

The boys were pretty excited to go back to school, Ben more so than Des. But soon enough we were back in the swing of things. I always assumed that when the kids were in school, I would have so much more free time and life would get less hectic. That has certainly not been the case with us. I guess when you factor in moving to a farm, beginning to teach a lot more, and still having one of those kiddos at home it makes sense, but man, school + sports is CRAZY busy!!! I am always working on someone else's schedule and there is never enough time in the day. But school brings so many celebrations. There is always something fun for the kids to look forward to and something they accomplished that they are proud of. Even the 100th day of school got a celebration!

There were a few sick days and a few days where the boys just stayed home to rest/play/be with sister and me. Especially our Desi...sometimes it's all too much for him and he needs a mental health day. And heck, he's in Pre-K...which Ben didn't even go to. So whenever he's a little too sleepy, or bored with school, or just wants to be with us, he gets to. And we LOVE when he is home...

All in all, a fantastic start to the new year! Time just keeps cruisin' along and we sure are enjoying the ride!