Four and a Half

Eden,
Today you turn 4 1/2, but in my mind it seems like it should only be 3 1/2!  Where did the time go?  You are such a beautiful little girl and I love spending my days with you!  Here are the things I always want to remember about you at this age:

-You are still the most easy going child in the family.  Like all kids, you have moments that drive me crazy, but for the most part, you are pretty easy to please. 

-You are still long and lean.  You are getting close to weighing 40 pounds and are the tallest girl in your preschool class.  You are wearing 5/6 size clothes. 

-You are finishing up you first year of speech with Mrs. Davis and have made so much progress this year.  You can consistently say your /k/ and /g/ sounds now with very little prompting.  While I'm so proud of you, part of me is sad that you can now pronounce things correctly, like "Parker" instead of "Pawper"!  

-You are not a very good eater.  Maybe that is why you stay so skinny!  You do not like fruits and vegetables and are horrible about trying new things.  Some of your favorites right now are bean/cheese nachos, black olives, nuts (especially pistachios), yogurt, and chicken nuggets.

-Your favorite thing to play with is not dolls or princesses, but Parker's huge box of Hot Wheel cars.  You play with them every day, sometimes for hours at a time. 

-You LOVE bugs!  Roly polies are your favorite but you also love worms and lizards.  You are not afraid to pick anything up and you love putting them in your bug box.  

 -You recently went through a month where you cried everywhere you went- Sunday School, speech, gymnastics, preschool, Cubbies.  We tried everything we could think of to try and get you to stop crying.  Finally, I came up with the idea of a sticker chart and letting you put a sticker on the chart any time you went to something without crying.  We are starting our fourth week and you are doing great!  You have not cried at anything for the past three weeks and we are so proud of you!

Your redneck "kite"- you flew that thing for several days! (For those of you who can't tell, she is flying the sun visor from Cory's car!)

 -You love to help me in the kitchen.  You are always the first to pull up a chair and ask what you can do to help.  I hope cooking is something we will always enjoy doing together.

-You have really taken an interest in reading the past few months.  You can read the words "the" and "is" and love finding them in your books.  You often ask that I let you "read" the bedtime stories to me while I listen. 

-One of my favorite things is that you refuse to go to sleep without giving me a BIG hug and kiss.  I'm going to miss when you don't want to do that anymore.

-You start almost all of your stories or questions with, "Mom, I wanna tell you sumpin".  It makes me smile every time!

You are such a precious, sweet, smart, sensitive little girl and I'm so lucky to be your mom!  You bring so much joy into our family and life wouldn't be the same without you as our middle child!  I love you to the moon and back, Mommy

Ryan's Baby Dedication

Today we were able to go to Mansfield and support Emily and Jon as they dedicated Ryan to the Lord in his baby dedication service.  Ryan is not one to sit still so he was not a big fan of having to be held during the service!  He may not have been the quietest baby up on stage, but he sure was the cutest!!

After church, we went back over to Emily/Jon's house to celebrate my dad's birthday.  Everyone wanted to help Granstan blow out his candles and open his presents.  I'm sure he was thrilled with all of his helpers! 

We had a fun day spending time with our cousins.  We are so thankful for the joy that Ryan brings to our family and we look forward to watching him grow over the next few years.

An Unforgetable Week

Today marks the end of a hard, devastating, crazy week.  Our little town of Cleburne was hit with an F3 size tornado on Wednesday and many people lost their homes, including three families that we are very close to. 

It started about 8pm on Wednesday night while we were at church for AWANA. A tornado warning was issued for our county so I quickly grabbed Parker and Eden and headed home to join Lily and Cory.  By the time we got home, the rain, wind, and lightening had strengthened.  A huge tornado had already been reported in the neighboring town of Granbury, so Cory thought it would be wise to go ahead and take cover in the bathroom.  We woke Lily up and grabbed some pillows, the kids blankets, and lots of books.  The kids thought it was very cool to be reading in the bathtub!

To make a long story short... the mile wide tornado barely missed us and after a long hour and a half, we were able to finally put the kids in bed.  Parker, Eden and Lily all did a great job staying calm during the entire ordeal.  They never cried or acted scared, even when we lost our electricity.  Eden also said the sweetest prayer while we were waiting for the worst.  Needless to say, it was a very scary hour and a half.

 

After a restless night of sleep, we awoke to helicopters flying overhead to survey the damage.  After checking the Internet on our phones (we still didn't have any power), it became quite apparent that there was some pretty significant damage very close to our neighborhood.    

 

My parents lost some of their fence, their swingset, a huge tree in their front yard and had a cracked window.  Just blocks away from them, Parker's buddy from school lost his entire house.  In another section of town by the lake, many houses were also destroyed.  Two of my family's closest friends lost their houses in this hardest hit part of the city.  Also suffering a lot of damage was the school that I teach at. 

 

Cory had an infusion yesterday morning so the kids and I tried to go to my mom's house to check out their damage, but the destruction made it too hard to get close, so we turned around and came back home.  Through Facebook and watching the news on our phones, we were able to stay updated on the relief efforts around town.  Because we had no power, we drove to Burleson and had lunch with Cory.  Last night, we went out to Heath's for dinner and swimming and a little air conditioning!  Thankfully, our power came back on in the middle of the night and brought with it some much needed cool air. 

 

This morning, I had the opportunity to go over to Parker's friend's house and help them a little with their clean up and recovery.  Words can't describe what I saw and I left there feeling both grateful that we had been spared and helpless that there wasn't more I could do to help them.  They have lost almost everything they own and are now in the process of rebuilding not only their house but their lives.  I just can't imagine what they are going through. 

Cole's kitchen

Master bedroom-the tornado took the sheet off the completely made bed and they found it stuck in the ceiling

The Harrison's house was completely destroyed. 

 

The living room at the Harrison house

Our friends, the Wrights, used to live in this house many years ago.

Amazingly, no lives were lost in this horrible tornado.  The community has pulled together to help all of those in need and crews are working around the clock to both restore power and clean up our hardest hit neighborhoods.  They've even brought in disaster recovery teams to clean up my school in hopes that we can resume school on Monday morning.  

 

Those who lost their homes have a long road ahead of them.  It definitely puts life into perspective and makes you realize how quickly your life can be turned upside down.  Thanks to everyone who has called or texted to check on our family.  We truly are blessed!

Happy Mother's Day

What a privilege to be their mom every day!  I can't think of a better job!  It isn't always easy, but there is no other way I'd rather spend my days! 

And if this doesn't make you laugh, I don't know what will... I think I'd better lay off the restaurant food for a while and try to drop a few of those 520 pounds!  Priceless!  And by far my favorite Mother's Day gift!

I love you Parker, Eden, and Lily!  Thank you for making me a mommy!  I love you all to the moon and back!

Parker's Angry Birds Skating Party

Ever since we attended a friend's skating party back in October, Parker has been begging for a skating party of his own.  Since there aren't a lot of options in Cleburne, I quickly agreed! Parker settled upon an Angry Birds theme and knew exactly who from his class at school he wanted to invite.  As always, I made Parker's birthday cake and was quite pleased with the result this year.  Parker loved it too which in the end is all that matters!

 As soon as we arrived, Parker was off and he didn't slow down for three hours!  Eden was a little slower to warm up but once she got started, she skated and skated and skated.

The kids enjoyed pizza, ...

cake...

 

presents...







and, of course, lots and lots of skating!

Aubrey was the most passive skater I've ever seen!  She leaned on the walker and let Aunt MerMer push her around the rink. It was quite funny to watch!

 

Toward the end of the party, Parker got a chance to go into the cash machine and catch as much money as he could.  He ended up catching $5 and was so excited to put it in his piggy bank!

 

We had such a fun time at Parker's birthday party and were so thankful for all of our family and friends who came out to help us celebrate!