Fun in the sun

Great day

Mother's Day was wonderful!

We went to church, follows by brunch at a local diner we often visit after church. I was "kicked out" of the house, so I went shopping! Richard cooked dinner while I sat and watched the kids play in the front yard and street with the neighbors. We enjoyed a wonderful meal. And the kids gave me the sweetest gift, ever!! I'd say today was perfect!

The kids were super sweet! Here's a favorite moment from each kid:

At church Brookston gets tokens in class to earn prizes and today he wanted to cash one in. He chose this little monster finger puppets (3 for 1 token) and when he was asked what colors he said red, orange and pink. When he said orange, I suspected, but when he said pink I KNEW, one was for his brother (orange is Sutton's favorite color) and the other his sister (pink!) My heart melted with his thoughtfulness!!

Tonight, I gave Kaisley a big hug and told her "thank you for being so wonderful to me this Mother's Day." She responded, "thank you for being such a wonderful mommy!" Heart melt when those things are totally unprompted!

And Sutton, I probably got about 27 kisses in a row at one point. He just kept requesting, so I certainly wasn't going to stop that sweetness!

As for my awesome gift. While I was gone the kids and daddy made a box of "Hugs with Words". They decorated it and daddy wrote a super sweet note inside. Then there were tons of notes filing the box of sweet thank you's from each kid (even baby #4), as well as daddy!

I'm an emotional person, ESPECIALLY while pregnant (but that's just an excuse, I'm always emotional now!)...so it was tough to hold back the happy tears! I don't think the kids would have really understood "happy tears"...so I had to stop myself! The box was so sweet! Such a pick me up and so precious! It was amazing! I only read a handful and hope to have this box to read from occasionally. But as Richard and I discussed, I'll probably dive in and read them all sometime tomorrow! ;)

Serious sweetness! And a wonderful day! Thank you Richard and kiddos! I'm so thankful to be your mommy!

Mother's Day Tea

Kaisley's preschool had the most precious Mother's Day Tea. We were greeted by our child one at a time, given a corsage, and escorted to our table. The place settings were precious with lots of their homemade decorations, and their sweet little questions answered about mommy! We spent time sitting together and looking at all of their precious creations.

Then the kids left to go get ready for their performance. Kaisley has been talking about this show for weeks. Although each time she talked about it, she would say she had to tell daddy, because it's a surprise for mommy! The kids sang 8 adorable songs and for the first time in any singing show, Kaisley participated in the whole thing!! I was so proud!

Following the show, the kids serves us a special breakfast!

It was such a sweet and special day!

Our six year old

It's hard to believe that we became parents six years ago!!

This morning we woke the kids up early, so we could do presents before school. And because daddy leaves so early for work, he could be there to see the excitement. It also didn't hurt that the extra time meant we took a trip to get donuts before school!!

Brookston seemed to have a fun day at school today. I joined them about half way through lunch (along with Kaisley and Sutton) for a birthday frozen treat!

Then this evening we went to a local jumpy place, and came home to enjoy cookie cake!

I'm also including his Taekwondo birthday party cake from last weekend, just because that's the only cell phone picture I have from his party.

Weekend visitors

Last weekend we had Grandpa and Hailey come visit us! It was a fun, busy weekend!! We were all sad to see them go. It's tough going from seeing them basically whenever and wherever when we lived 10 minutes away. To now it takes planning and an airplane ride!

But we all really enjoyed time playing together at the house, going to a soccer game, playgrounds, the pool, the beach, and Brookston's 6th birthday party at Taekwondo.

These are just a few cell phone pictures I took from the visit.

It's a girl!!!

I guess I haven't posted on our blog about baby #4!! Although does anyone still come here to read? Anyway, we are 20 weeks, 6 days and today was our "big ultrasound"!! We are pleased to report, it's a healthy baby girl!!! She was very active, but behaved enough to get all measurements, see that everything looked good and that she is indeed a girl!! She was weighing in at 15 ounces and measuring about two days ahead right now.

The kids knew that we were finding out the gender today, so I went off to get a big bunch of pink balloons from the store and when they walked in the house after school, they saw the pink balloons right in the entryway!! (We had a prep discussion on pink means girl, blue means boy!) The kids seem excited, although I'm not sure if the excitement is a baby sister or a bundle of helium balloons! ;)

Gymnastics promotion

My big girl was promoted from preschool beginners gymnastics to preschool intermediate today!

Wahoo! :)

Precious memories

Our church had a daddy daughter dance the day after Kaisley's birthday. Such perfect timing. They seemed to have a wonderful evening! When Kaisley got home I asked her what her favorite part was and she started singing butterfly kisses, or at least what she remembered of it! Precious!!! Daddy later explained to me how incredibly sweet she was during this dance. She had her head on his shoulder, she was giving him kisses, saying "I love you", and evening giving butterfly kisses to daddy! ***tears***

I love that they do this dance! Such memories for the two of them!!

4 years flies by

Amazing how quickly 4 years can just zip on by!! Kaisley had a wonderful 4th birthday! Her school invites mom (or Dad) to join in at snack time on the child's birthday. I got there a little early, so I enjoyed watching Kaisley play outside with friends. Then we moved inside where the kids sang, they ate cookie cake, then it was time for the dance party!! SO CUTE!! Seriously, loved this part to pieces!!

That night, by request of the birthday girl we visited Chu.ck E Che.ese. And had a rather nice visit. Although I was a bit surprised at how busy it was on a Thursday night!

Kaisley then had her party over the weekend at the place where she's taking gymnastics class! It was a great time with school and church friends! Along with, her request of an Ariel cake in a pink dress!!

The flirt

This little guy knows how to get a girls' attention! Our first Disney trip he got a kiss on the cheek from Aurora. Ever since then, he's shown a preference to her! Lol! But this last trip, he got a kiss from both Rapunzel and Cinderella!! But he didn't forget his sweet Aurora! :)

Our first visit

New stuff

Today was an exciting day for all 3 kids!

This morning Sutton started soccer in a little program called soccer. tots. His age group is for 18 months to 27 months. He's currently 25 months. How cute is that?!? They started off with some kiddie version of stretching, Sutton didn't participate in this at all, but really enjoyed watching Coach Sarah and mommy do it! Then we did some warm stuff and he got really into it. And he was really rather good at soccer stance and tapping and rolling his foot on the ball, awesome balance! Although we shouldn't expect any different, kicking a soccer ball after all is the reason he FINALLY walked at almost 18 months! They did some kicking around and into the net. He thought he was mister cool! We did some fun little games with cones, both "pow"ing them onto the ground and then getting to kick them over, we used pool noodles and a parachute! Overall he had a blast! He was running and screaming in excitement!

Then, after school pick up, we headed to a gymnastic and taekwondo location. Mommy is beyond excited that this place has both and a class for each kid, at the same time! Score for mommy!!

So, Kaisley went into her gymnastics class with a group of 6 kids and 2 teachers. Not a bad ratio if you ask me! I couldn't see her in every location since they rotate through a 20,000 sq ft gym along with about 6 other groups of levels and aged children. But I did get to see her for warm up, bars and beam. And she appeared to have a blast and said her favorite part was jumping. I think there's a trampoline at one station. She came out all smiles and about an hour later asked when she gets to go again...getting verification from me that this will be a regular thing!

Brookston's headed to taekwondo class a few minutes after Kaisley's class started. He was really excited! There is a great viewing area, but unfortunately he can see me in the mirror he looks at himself in. So, I tried to stand to the side while watching, but sometimes I couldn't see from there. So, if I was in plain site, he was easily distracted as silly. So, I didn't get to watch a lot of class (chasing a 2 year old was also part of that reason!). And I missed him breaking a board!!!!! He was so proud and excited when he came out from class with a board in 2 pieces and showed me how he hit the board with the base of his hand and broke it! So fun!! He's really pumped up about class!

So, Tuesday for us is now a fun and busy day for our kids...hopefully that will translate into good nights of sleep!! :)

Florida in the winter

The life of a Floridian at Christmas! :)

A jolly visit

Kaisley's school had breakfast with Santa on Saturday. I'd say it was a success. No tears!!!

Singing the ABC's

I'm trying to post from my phone so, let's see if this works! Sutton loves singing with the ABC's...you can hear 6 or so of the letters!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWUa54vmV1o&sns=em