My 31st Surprise

I am someone who LOVES an adventure more than a gift.  At least for the last 4 years we have done a family activity for my birthday.  My husband knows how much I love surprises and how much I love to be together as a family...so its perfect for me.

 

 

I told LD a few weeks ago that I wanted the girls to see the ocean this summer.  We didn't make it last summer and when you are only a few hours away that is not excusable.

I also knew that since we already have a few other trips planned a week in a condo, ocean front (which is the only way I was going) was not going to happen.  So, I told LD I wanted to get up early in the morning, drive to the beach and drive home that night.  Yes, its insane, but so is lugging 3 kids and all their gear to the beach for a 30 min run before one needs a break.

 

Well...he did even better :)  He asked me on Saturday about 11am if I wanted to go to the beach...now.  So I packed us all up in an hour, he booked a 2 bedroom condo and away we went!

 

 

And it was perfect!!!!  We spend Saturday evening on the boardwalk, having dinner and the girls ran around on the beach.

 

Of course, Cole just went with the flow.

When night time came the girls had their own little room.  It was so cute and they were so sweet all tucked in and giggling.  I thought, man we should let them sleep together on the weekends.  Then at 10:30pm when they were both still awake giggling and getting in and out of bed I remembered why they don't share a room and why Elle is still in a crib.  At 11pm I heard something in the bathroom and saw Elle standing with her diaper and pants off because she needed to go potty.....I was not thrilled with her sense of adventure.

Sunday morning was very cloudy skies and we had to be out of our room by 10.  I was nervous....but LD remembered our friends the Gillmings were also at the beach and they graciously allowed us to use their beach access and room for the day.

It was a perfect day.  The girls LOVED the water and the sane (which was not the case the last time we were there).

We played so hard all day long and loved having friends to play with.

I love that Cole took a nap on the beach...so sweet6!!  We all piled into the car at 3pm and the girls slept hard all the way home.  We may have to make this little trip once more this summer!!

 

Perfect 31st birthday!!

 

Preschool Family Picnic

I cannot believe we are at the end of Clare's first year of preschool!  She had a GREAT year at Kid City Preschool at Next Level Church...and we loved it, except for the LONG drive!!  Its about 20 minutes, which isn't awful until you have two other children who have to ride it twice a day.  All that to say, we are sadly changing to a preschool much closer to home for next fall.

 

But, as part of the end of the year celebration they had a family picnic day.

 

We were excited to all participate and Clare was SO excited for us to come eat lunch with her and her friends at school.

She asked multiple times if Daddy was coming and being the great dad he is, he drove 45 minutes from work for watermelon and a turkey sandwhich. 

At the end of the picnic, which included ice cream :)  Ms. Lisa, Clare's teacher handed out awards to the kids.  It was no surprise to us that Clare got "biggest helper." 

Next year Clare will be in a young 5's class and Elle will spend one more year at home with Cole and I.

Clare made such great sweet friends at school this year...such a sweet blessing!

 

Free from guilt

Guilt has been my nemesis for most of my adult life.  It seems like every time I have a child, more guilt is piled on.  It looks something like this:

-Driving Clare to school, guilt that Cole is missing a nap.
-Home so Cole can take a nap, guilt that Elle is stuck at home.
-Mommy doing chores, guilt I'm not playing with my children.
-Mommy playing with children, guilt that chores are not done.

It is ridiculous and obnoxious and even as I write it out it feels ridiculous and obnoxious, but that is how my mind works most days.

A few weeks ago Todd, my pastor at Next Level Church taught on Biblical guilt.  It was the first time I felt like I had a tool to battle the guilt monster.  His teaching was that if my guilt is not founded on Biblical principle than it is from the enemy and needs to be let go.  And as simple of a truth as that is, a light bulb clicked for me.  Yet again, God has proven that in relationship with him I am FREE.  His desire is for me to be free - in my case, from guilt.

If I choose to trust and live by biblical principle, it frees me from living by the standards of the world, the standards of the best moms around, and especially from the standards of my own messed up mind.  When I go to bed at night feeling any sense of guilt, I can run it through the filter - is it biblical guilt?  No, I did not read to each of my children for 30 minutes; yes, they did have a sugary treat after naps, instead of something healthy; yes, I did turn on the tv to keep them quiet while making dinner and nursing.  Those are all things I strive to change or desire to improve on, but I can go to sleep knowing I am free from guilt that I place on myself.

It saddens my heart so greatly when people who do not know Christ think that Christians are following rules and tangled in chains that limit them.  It is only through Christ that I can be truly free from the craziness of this world and the sin that harbors my heart and mind.

And I know that without a daily reminder that God desires me to be free, I fall quickly into the trap of living by the standards of everyone else, standards I was never created to live by.  Today I am thankful for freedom in knowing all I am expected to do is love, teach, and discipline my children...not make sure my two year old is properly behaved, potty trained and sleeping without a paci (yup, good thing, or we have failed!) 

Spring break fun!!

We had a little stay-cation for Spring break this year and we really packed in the fun.  This was our family's first official Spring Break since this is Clare's first year of school and it just made me look forward to summer.  I love having all three of my kiddos home all day and not having to run around all morning.

 

We had my family (mom, dad, Aunt Tina, and cousin Emily) vising from Easter Sunday til Thursday and LD's family (both his sisters, 2 nieces, a nephew, and a great nephew) vising from Thursday til Sunday.  The girls were SO excited!!

 

 

I wanted to make sure we did some really fun things over the week, though I know everyone would have been content just hanging at home.  I haven't quite gotten adventurous enough to do anything except our basics (like Chick Fil a) with everyone, so since I had extra hands I wanted to do some fun things. 

Our first stop of the week was Ray's Splash Planet.  We hadn't been there yet and the girls LOVED it!!

It's definitely something I can't do on my own, but a place we will visit again for sure.

Cole was a trooper just hanging out in the VERY hot pool area.

 

During the course of the week we ate at Chick Fil a (twice!) and cook out (twice!) since both sets of guests requested our fav fast food joints :)  We also stopped at the park to play since the weather was beautiful.

 

The second half of the week our big fun activity was Monkey Joes...another place I'm not ready to tackle on my own.

 

But since we had cousins visiting...big cousins :)  we could do it!

 

And we hit up our neighbors trampoline for some afternoon jumping!

 

And after a good long week of lots of playing, EVERYTHING needed a good cleaning!

 

And after two days being back in the routine...I am really ready for lazy summer days!!

Easter 2013

We have had the BEST Easter weekend.  We started the weekend off Friday night with a quick early dinner and then Next Level had a Good Friday service.  It was awesome!!  It just set the tone of the weekend for me.  It is also incredibly exciting this year with Clare being a little older and somewhat understanding the reason we celebrate Easter.  We were able to have a lot of fun conversations with her about how much Jesus loves her!

Saturday we went to the Stallings Egg Hunt and spent the afternoon playing at home and getting ready for Easter.  Saturday night LD and I watched The Passion of the Christ and I had not seen the movie since it came out in the theater.  I really felt like I needed a gut wrenching reminder of how much Jesus sacrificed for me.  I feel like its always hard and uncomfortable to watch...you just want to turn your head because the gore and mockery is so bad.  But there comes a day when I need to remember, I need to feel uncomfortable about how much was paid for my sins so that it is not taken for granted.  It is so much easier to read it in the Bible than to imagine him as a human being feeling the thorns on his head, and the hammering of the nails into his hands and feet.  But sometimes...I need to remember.

Sunday I could not have been more ready to head to church and celebrate that He had risen!  But, not before the Easter bunny came and left some goodies :)

 

Then everyone got on their Sunday best to head to church!  

 

A coworker for LD's came with us to church and also took us out to a delicious brunch afterwards!

This is our first holiday as a family of 5!!

Then after naps we had our friends the Monza's over for an Easter egg hunt and dinner.

 

 

The girls loved finding their eggs and we have a great yard for hiding them.

Elle and Maddy are best little buddies and we just love them!  Thankful to have such sweet friends!

 

More fun adventures to come as we have family coming in tonight!!

 

Our Easter Prep & Egg Hunt

I haven't been the greatest blogger in the last few weeks and I think its just because we are settling into normal.  I am not feeling a great need to document every time I leave the house with all three children along because it is finally becoming just another daily task. 

 

With that said, we have been busy getting ready for Easter!!

 

The girls made these cute egg bouquets and I made a larger one for centerpieces on our table.  It was a super easy and fun craft.

 

And we colored Easter eggs.  I am learning everything is done easier on the floor than at the table.

 

Coloring eggs is one of those tasks, much like carving a pumpkin that daddy has no desire to participate in...so we do them while he is at work.  He is not the craft type!

Then we had a fun day planned Saturday and went to the Stallings Easter Egg Hunt.  The rained threatened our fun, but thankfully the sun came out.

Cole was a trooper and just hung out with daddy.  I think LD is loving carrying around a boy that can support his favorite team :)

I love this sweet picture.  Every time they hold hands on their own I am reaching for my camera.  I feel like I need documentation that they love each other on days when they are not getting along so well.  They really are sweet friends.

 

 

Before the egg hunt there was a craft table, a few little games where you could win candy, and a bounce house that got a little crazy, so we decided to steer clear of that!

We also could meet the Easter bunny, which Elle did not like.  This picture doesn't have sound, so it doesn't look as bad as it actually was.  I will admit this is a slightly scary bunny, but Elle was so freaked out.  She watched to see where he was the entire time we were outside.  She was gripping my shirt so hard.  I'm slightly worried as to what will come when we go to Disney World in October.

 

I didn't get any pictures of the actual hunt, which is a bummer because it was a sight to see.  There were baseball diamonds taped off that had hundreds of eggs laid out. When they said go all of the kids ran and filled their buckets.  I was feeding Cole and LD went in with the girls and it was chaos of course.  Next thing you know poor Clare is standing in the middle of the ball field sobbing.  She came walking out and said she did not want any eggs. I don't think she was prepared to fight for her eggs.  But after you picked up all your (empty) eggs (yes, they were empty), you traded them in for a huge lollipop.  The girls of course were thrilled.

 

 



Elle's first haircut

 

A friend of mine asked the other day if my girls have had hair cuts.  I started thinking, Man Elle could REALLY use a haircut.  She has very short hair and its really thin, but it was getting pretty straggly.

 

 

So we made a morning of it and went tot he cutest little barber shop in town and Elle was very excited!

Clare told her all about it.  You get to sit in a car, watch tv, and have a lollipop when you are done.  I think they would go once a week if their hair grew fast enough!

 

 

And since we were already going, Clare was WAY overdue for a trim.  She actually got 1 1/2 inches off and you can barely tell!

Elle's hair has this crazy wave in it that will drive her crazy when she's older, but I love that the little ends are all even now.

 

And Cole was a trooper and slept the whole time!

We decided to finish off our fun day at Chick-fil-A for lunch.  This is the ONLY restaurant I would ever take all three kiddos to by myself.  And the reason is because they have mom's valet, where you go through the drive thru, order and pay...and then go in and they have your meal on a table for you.  Plus this chick fil a is across the street from our house and has an indoor play place.  I think we frequent this place once a week and the sweet ladies that walk around refill our drinks and bring us kids ice creams after the girls eat.  It is the BEST!!!!