2014 Spring Celebrations

Our Caileigh bug turned 6 in April 2014!  Sweet toothless girl, please slow down!  She has now lost a total of 5 teeth. She reads and devours every book she can get her hands on, she constantly wants to learn about new things, I love it! I learn new things too! Her favorite as of late is checking out books from the library on bugs and butterflies in particular.  She LOVES to tell me all kinds of bug facts and regularly brings a new "bug pet" to the house, wanting to take care of it.  We have some caterpillars we are hoping will turn into butterflies or moths.

We celebrated her birthday with sweet friends from both school and church.  Surprise, surprise it was not Frozen themed! :-) The chosen theme was a Sleeping Beauty Pajama and pancakes party.  The girls all came in their pajamas and we served pancakes on a table decorated like a bed.  They played some games and enjoyed playing in the backyard and singing the soundtrack from Frozen, what else?! :-) Let it go.. let it go...

Birthday morning Balloon Avalanche

Birthday morning pancakes.

Celebrating with her class at school!

We are so thankful for Caileigh.  She is such a joy to our family! This new season of having a "school-aged" child has been so fun to me.  She is maturing so fast! I love seeing her grow in boldness, compassion, creativity and responsibility.  I cannot express enough how thankful we are for the opportunity she has to go to Heritage Academy. She has grown in confidence in who she is as a friend, a daughter, and a child of God.  Our desire for all our children is that they would come to know and love Christ with all their heart but to also learn to love and serve others well.  She floors me with how aware she is of the needs of those around us, in school and in our neighborhood.  She is so diligent in praying for others and their needs. May I learn to love and serve others as she does.

 Sweet little sister is 3 1/2 years old.

Little Brother is 11 months now and still not walking.

For Mother's day, my sweet husband and children surprised me with two old window frames to use for projects I had been wanting to do.  They also took me out to eat at O'Charley's- where we ate exactly a year ago, waiting and timing contractions and hoping that we would get to meet our baby boy very soon... which we did! :-)

Also in May, Sweet Baby Boy turned one! That was probably the fastest year yet!  What a joy Connor Luke has been to our family!  He is everywhere!  I thought for sure our active little man would be the first to walk, but he was actually the last at 14 months. He is typically so content and happy. He loves to give kisses and hugs, although I think they are becoming more like tackles! He's obsessed with balls, and almost anything can become a ball when Connor gets a hold of it. Another favourite is making a mess every where he goes and all the better if it makes a loud crashing noise at the same time.  I have caught him trying to climb the bookcases - a big no, no!  The girls still adore him, Caileigh loves to baby him and is sad he doesn't want to be held much anymore.  Emma loves to make him laugh and always manages to get the biggest belly laughs out of him!

Birthday Breakfast

Enjoying his Birthday Balloon Curtain

Big sisters are determined to get this boy walking!

Supporting Hope for Augusta's Arrow Art Show

Enjoying his cupcake

Why won't you let me touch you?

For Connor's birthday we celebrated with family here at the house.  We celebrated our "Rookie of the year" with none other than a baseball themed party.  It was so fun having what family that could come and celebrate with us and we enjoyed watching the cousins play together. We were even invited to a wedding in the backyard- such fun imaginations we have in this family! 

Fun with Pittman cousins and Aunt Katie

These boys are so excited to finally have a boy cousin... the girls, not impressed with the boy stuff! Ha!

I love Connor's adventurous spirit, he always finds something to do or explore.  I have a feeling I will never be bored and will be kept on my feet for many years to come! I'm not complaining! :-)  He seems to have quite a sense of humor and loves to make his sisters laugh.

Before summer camp started we used our zoo passes and went for a family trip to the zoo in honor of both Caileigh's and Connor's birthdays.  So much fun!  The girls loved all the animals as always and this time Connor got really excited to see the animals.  His favorite was still the elephants and he was a little uneasy around the birds that you get to go in and feed.  I don't blame him. When they fly and land on your head, it makes me uneasy too!

Spring 2014

Springtime did bring warmer and a bit more stable weather.  We spent many days outside enjoying our backyard.  The girls found lots and lots of bugs and I enjoyed taking some old pieces of furniture and bringing some new life to them.  Stephen says I have a painting addiction now... I'm sure there are worse addictions to have, at least mine is fairly easy on our budget.

Dr. Suess Day at school

Caileigh's class bear, Tina spent a weekend with us.

A sweet friend came to play one day.

I stay busy keeping up with this guy!

We were able to go to the Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia one Saturday.

 Connor and Emma were not too sure about the birds...

 One of the Koala Bears was awake!

Train ride

Our little pride

Spring also means people are out more, which means more traffic in more ways than one.  We have enjoyed getting to know and see more neighbors on our new street.  We often felt isolated and lonely on our previous street.  It is much more "people noisy," which is both good and bad. We have developed a friendship with our next door neighbor.  She is very needy.  It is challenging to love her well.  It is often inconvenient and her life is messy.  I am thankful for her.  Getting to know her has helped me to look outside my four walls that often demand so much of my time and energy and think through how I can really love my neighbors as Christ calls us too.

Stephen's birthday came and we managed to celebrate amidst the full week the Mission's Conference always brings.  I am so thankful for his life and that God chose him specifically to be my husband and the father to our three pretty great kids!

My Aunt, Uncle and cousins came to visit us during their Spring Break.  We enjoyed taking them to the zoo with us.  I loved watching my kids and cousins play! So thankful they chose to spend part of their Spring Break with us!

 Also in March, Caileigh and Emma were both flower girls in Stephen's cousin, Meghan's wedding.

With cousin John Carter

This year we were able to join Stephen's parents for our spring break at Disney World.  It was such a great week.  Very relaxing and so much fun to enjoy just being together as a family!

10 months old!

This girl drove the race car with Daddy

This girl stayed up late and rode Splash Mountain for the 1st time with Daddy and Mommy!

Spring Break in Augusta = Masters = Uncle John works long days at the Masters = Uncle John and Aunt Laura here in Augusta!!! We LOVED the little bit of time we were able to spend with Uncle John and Aunt Laura! We sure miss having them here in town with us!

We celebrated Easter by having friends over for Easter lunch.  I cooked my first ham, the consensus was it was good. The kids hid Easter eggs.  It was fairly quiet until a man decided to throw a package over our back fence, hop over, pick up said package and run across the backyard and hop the fence on the side and disappear behind a neighbors house... all while we sat on our back deck. Almost immediately police were at our front door and our back fence asking if we had seen a man come through here.... Two hours later, they found him, the package and lots of other 'goodies' stashed in shopping carts and other piles around our neighbors' house.  As my sister said, "There's Easter in the hood for you..."