Martina McBride's song "Anyway" talks about things that might not ever come to be, that might scare or intimidate you, that may never be appreciated, or that might not even be accepted, but you do them anyway because you know it's good for you and it's where your heart and hope lie. Therefore, knowing that how my family acts, how we look, what we choose to enjoy, or even what we say and believe may not be appreciated or accepted, I still want us to be who we are anyway...do it anyway.
Aaris graduated from pre-k the last week in May. This happened to be the exact week we were closing on our house we were selling. Therefore, this post (like more to come) has been delayed. It was a very special day and hard to swallow. I want her to grow up, just not so quickly. She loves school and is very excited to now be five so that she can go to big kid school. She waved to me the entire time, and when she was going to walk for her diploma she loudly whispered, "Mom, I'm next!" They had a special luncheon afterwards and it was a lot of fun to experience with her.
"The Wonderfulest Time" are Aaris's exact words used to describe our very first family camp out. We went May 1st. It was the exact time that our option period ended for the buyer of our old house and the buying of our new house. (Explains why I've been to busy with moving to post about this trip.) We went on a Friday evening through Saturday noon to Enchanted Rock. There were so many things that went wrong, but it all turned out great. Skylyn did not go with us but had a great time at her grandparents house. We got our campsite moved when we got there but it ended up being a perfect spot. It was right next to the stream and the playground. Aaron set up camp while I cooked. I was suppose to cook over a camping griddle, but Aaron forgot it in his car. So, then I tried cooking over his one little burner he had since being in scouts as a kid. Didn't work. Thank goodness they had just lifted the fire ban and I had packed some firewood. We cooked over the open fire the rest of the trip and it was so much fun. The food just tastes better that way. With unpacking the car, having problems figuring out how we were going to cook without a griddle, and setting up camp we didn't eat until after 9:00 pm. The kids handled it well. They played in the stream, explored, watched us cook over the fire and didn't complain. (In fact they didn't get into bed until after 10:30, but were very happy and we even had to keep getting onto them to calm down and get some sleep.)The kids had a great time roasting marshmallows as well. For the most part they did end up just catching their marshmallows on fire, blowing them out, then feeding them to me. The only glitch was having to pump since I'm still nursing Skylyn. The outlet in the bathrooms was not working so I ended up having to go to the registration building and finding an outlet outside by the vending machines at 12:00 am in the morning. I just kept hoping that no one would be thirsty - and they weren't thank goodness. The next morning after a great breakfast we hiked the rock. The kids did amazingly well. Aaris climbed the entire way. Titus made it all by himself until the very top. Aaron has been camping many times at Enchanted Rock over the years since he grew up doing boy scouts, so he knew all the great places to climb and explore once we got to the top. Aaron and I ended up carrying both kids back down the rock, but that was easy and took no time at all. We packed up camp and headed into Fredricksburg for a late lunch. We stopped at our favorite spot - Hondos! They had live music and the kids loved dancing and eating outside with the music. It ended up being the perfect way for us to celebrate our new journey of our move that was about to begin. It's just another time that I marvel at God and the joy He loves to bring to His children. I had reserved this camping site months in advance, but God new that it was going to happen right when our option periods would end. He really provided us with a terrific way to celebrate and we savored every minute. It truly was the most "wonderfulest time"
I am so happy to say that we have moved into our new house. We absolutely could not have done it without the help of so many WONDERFUL FRIENDS!!! Thank you all!!! This week has been filled with trying to get the kids adjusted to sleeping in new bedrooms and finding the silverware. Aaron has tried to be a handyman already and has fixed lighting problems and electrical dilemmas concerning his TVs, speakers, DVDs, etc. We have also tried out local restaurants, grocery stores, Wal-Mart, and Home Depot.
I thought I would include some pictures. The house right now with all of my stuff is a mess, so I'm showing you the house as it was when we viewed it with the previous owners still living in it. We look forward to having friends and family over for years and years to enjoy our house with us.
(It's been completely and utterly crazy trying to move which is why I haven't blogged in over a month. We are now in between houses, so once we get into our new house, things will once again be crazy and I might get behind again. Please just hang in there with my dear friends and family)
I still can't believe that I'm a mother of a 5 year old, but it's true. One of these days I'm going to realize that I'm a true adult, much less a parent, and not feel like I'm an 18 year old trying to play house.
We normally like having the kid's birthdays in our own backyard or at a park - something simple. Well, this year our house was completely boxed up, so that was not possible. Therefore we moved the party to a very fun place called "Kiddie Acres". It's a fun, little, kid's only amusement park that's been around north Austin since Aaron was a kid. In fact, Aaron's 4th birthday party was at Kiddie Acres.
Aaris told me that she wanted a Jesus themed birthday party, but I just didn't know how to go about doing that. So, she finally decided that Angels would be good (even though she has asked if her next birthday party can be a Jesus birthday). We kept it all pretty simple. Since I figured that most boys wouldn't like to dress up in angel wings, we mainly invited girls, and it turned out that only girls were able to make it. We had it at 2:00pm on Sunday, May 24. It was overcast (but pouring rain in south Austin) which made for very comfortable weather. We brought drinks and one of the most delicious cakes ever! A very sweet lady from my mom and dad's church makes cakes and made Aaris a beautiful and absolutely delicious angel shaped birthday cake. The party favors were angel wings and halos for the girls to wear which we actually handed out first thing so that they could enjoy them the whole time at the party. It ended up being absolutely adorable. It was precious to see all the girls running around, riding rides, waiting in lines, and eating cake in wings. (It also made it easy to keep up with everyone in Aaris's birthday party.) Aaris is blessed to have sweet friends to celebrate with her. All of the kids got to ride each ride 1 time: train, real pony ride, boats, ferris wheel, carousel, cars,and airplanes.
Titus had a great time riding rides with the help of Papaw. Skylyn was happy for Poppy who held her and let her nap on him. Mimi got the joy of presenting the angel wings to the girls. Mamaw and Mema Mary both enjoyed watching the fun. Uncle Adrian became the designated photographer. Aaron and I were honored to be the proud parents of such a fun, sweet, energetic, healthy, bright, friendly, and very faithful little (but getting big very quickly) angel girl!
-She is a very, very happy baby when being held, by anyone and everyone.
-She loves to smile at everyone and is always making people smile back at her. I think she is going to be my little social butterfly.
-Other than being held she likes to sit in her boppy or in her exersaucer.
-She will lay on her tummy on the floor as long as someone is laying with her. She is happy for about 10 minutes at a time in all the above positions, but then wants to be held again.
-She really isn't rolling or crawling, but I definitely don't need that happening while trying to move.
-She does desperately want to sit up. When laying on her back she will pull herself up to a sit up position just longing to sit up.
-She is finally sleeping through the night again.
-She babbles and squeals a lot.
-She giggles a lot and also loves to be tickled.
-When I lean in to kiss her she sometimes opens up her mouth to give me an open mouth kiss.
-When I give her a bottle she will hold onto it.
-She loves eating baby cereal mixed with my milk. She is also starting to eat prunes, sweet potatoes, and apples.
-She grabs anything and everything.
-No teeth yet, but I think they are coming soon.
-She is still holding onto those blue eyes
She really is a joy. I just wish I had the ability right now to sit and enjoy her, but we are packing, so that is frustrating. She loves her brother, but especially her sister! And, they truly love her and love on her all the time!
She went to the doctor today for her check-up. She is 12 lbs 9 oz and 23 inches long. These measurements and her head circumference all hit in the 5% for her age. As the doctor said, she is proportionately petite. She did get two shots and they have really upset her all day long. I pray that she is much better tomorrow.
I hope the next 6 months don't go by as fast as the first have. LOVE YOU SKYLYN!
Last August we were all set to pack our things and move to a new house, but things suddenly changed when the buyer of our house terminated his offer at the end of his option period. We were frustrated and disappointed, but kept our house on the market believing that God still had another plan. We then welcomed our new little Skylyn and decided to take our house off the market to enjoy her and the holidays. Well, believing in our hope in God and His plan for us, we put our house back on the market in March. We had a lot of activity, but no offers until about 2 weeks ago. That weekend we had completely disassembled the two kid's rooms and the kitchen to neutralize them. We got a call right in the middle of priming and painting to have a showing. I asked them to come another day, but the man would be flying out the next morning and wouldn't have another chance. It's funny because I had always laughed that God would show me that He would sell my house, not me. Well, that was definitely the case because every other showing my house was perfectly clean, but this time my house was a wreck. Only God could sale a house looking the way ours did at that time. The man came back about an hour later to see it one more time. That night we suddenly saw an amazing house in our home search email update. We asked our realtor to show us the house the next day and she agreed. As we were getting out of the car our realtor, Melanie, said she had received a call saying we should be expecting an offer from the man that viewed our house. We then walked into the most perfect house for us. I was on the verge of crying feeling God's power at work. He had designed a plan for us that was better than we could have done ourselves. His timing was perfect. Every other house we had liked always had one of us compromising something we really wanted in a house or location. Not this one. You know, we had prayed and prayed that God lead us to the perfect house for us, and He did!! It's exactly what we both wanted. Unlike any other house, Aaron loved it and so did I! We had been praying hard about our house situation for quite some time, but that week we were in overdrive. I must say thank you to those few that we called upon to pray with us! But, I must admit that even with all the anxiety of hoping everything would work out this time, we both felt a peace and confidence in our hearts that we had witnessed God's plan and power first hand and that, really, we had nothing to worry about. By the end of the week we had accepted an offer from our buyer and had our offer accepted on the house we wanted. As of midnight tonight we are in escrow on both houses. We close on our house on May 28 and close on our new home on May 29. We have a lot of packing to do, but it will be a joy knowing that I'm moving to a house God hand-picked for us.
Easter Sunday - what a special day! I love that we celebrate Jesus' resurrection and his defeat over Satan!
Our Sunday started off rainy outside, but happy and so much fun inside. My tradition since my first egg hunts as a kid was that the Easter bunny had come really early Sunday morning and hid the Easter eggs for us. So, we always hunted for our eggs before we left for church. I think we were dressed in our Sunday clothes most of the times, but I do think there were a couple of times that we were in pajamas or hair still in curlers, and such. For the last 4 years our tradition has been to get the kid(s) dressed in their brand new (sometimes just new to them) Sunday school clothes and then head outside for the egg hunt. It was rainy outside this year, so the Easter bunny hid the eggs inside. The kids started off by finding the baskets full of a couple of extra goodies as well. Aaris had a brand new children's bible (because theirs was literally falling apart at the seems from so much use), pink cotton candy, and a 101 Dalmatian puppy toy. Titus's basket had a brand new kid's devotional book (again theirs was falling completely apart from using it every night), blue cotton candy and a Wall-E toy. They were so very sweet during their hunt. They shared eggs with each other and helped each other find eggs. This year was Titus's first year to really truly understand the hunt. Aaris had a good time trying to find her favorite egg - hot pink with a cross drawn on it. Afterwards they got to open a couple of the plastic eggs and have some candy before heading to church. (They hunted both boiled/dyed eggs and plastic eggs....my big tradition growing up was that we only hunted boiled/dyed eggs). We had a fantastic time worshiping at church. Afterwards we headed to Poppy and Mamaw's house for a big family Easter Lunch. Let me just say that we ate very, very well. After lunch we headed outside to hunt a few more eggs. The kid's cousin, Cosette, had not yet had her egg hunt. It was very nice of her to share her hunt with Aaris and Titus. By this time the sun had been out for a couple of hours, so therefore it was dry and beautiful. Afterwards Aaris snuggled with and talked with Mema Mary. It was sweet to see Aaris loving on her great-grandmother that way. I think they are kindred spirits because they do both enjoy socializing and talking. After naps we said our good-byes to Aaron's family and headed to my parent's house. My mom and dad really wanted to see the kids all dressed up. We took some pictures and had a fun dinner all together. It really was a day full of family and love.
