Spring Break

For Spring Break this year, I decided to pack the kids up and take a trip to Lake Charles for the week since daddy couldn't get off of work and we needed some fun stuff to do!  While Borger has been great and we are enjoying life here, we are still limited as to what fun opportunities are available to us.  Plus, we hadn't been to Lake Charles since the summer (okay, we did take a 2 day trip there in September but it wasn't near long enough of a time) so I thought it'd be the perfect time to go.  Brooklyn needed to have her 6 month kidney check up anyways, and since I didn't want to wait until the summer for that it was a win win!!  

Our week started by us picking up our baby sitter early Saturday morning and making the 12-14 hour drive to Louisiana.  I knew I didn't want to make the drive by myself and figured I could use the extra help during the week with the kids so a sweet, precious girl from our church gave up her spring break to come and help me!  Such a blessing Britany is!  The kids did awesome traveling and were pretty content watching movies and playing with toys.  We stopped for lunch and let them get out of the car and then made it to Houston before stopping again and letting them play at a Chick Fil A.  They needed to burn off some energy. They were just falling asleep when we pulled up to my parents house around 10pm.  None the less, we made it and survived an entire day of traveling in the car!  

Our first night my parents invited all of our family to come over and see us and had my brother, Kyle's, restaurant cater the dinner.  I love Izzo's and was so excited to eat some fajitas!!  

For the most part, our week was relaxing and spent with cousins and Captain and Kimmie.  As always, we set up the slip and slide and the kids didn't seem to mind that the water was cold.  They had a blast running up and down the hill outside my parents house and seeing how much soapy bubbles they could get all over their bodies!  To end our fun night the kids all played with bubbles and tried everything they could to pop one another's blown bubbles!

It was crawfish season while we were in LC and that was the one thing on my list to do while at home... eat boiled crawfish!  So we called all our family over and my best friend since high school and her kids and we ate some crawfish.  Britany, wasn't too sure of the mudbugs and not that interested, but she still tried some and didn't think we were too weird for eating them!  My kids loved looking at them and playing with their claws.  I did get them to eat a few and they enjoyed em!

My mom had a great idea to rent a bounce house for a few hours to give the kids something new to play with and they LOVED it!!! It was a huge blessing because we were told we had it only a few hours before they had to come pick it up and before we knew it the kids got to play with it until mid afternoon the next day!  They jumped and jumped and jumped!  Even I got in on the action a little!

My oldest brothers birthday was a few weeks later but we decided to celebrate with him a little early!  Jo's cupcakes and crawfish!

Two of my days were spent with Brooklyn in Houston at TCH and visiting a few friends.  It was a quick two days and half the time was at the hospital, but we did receive great news about Brooklyn's kidney condition.  You can read about it here.

This is Britany and she got to eat king cake, boiled crawfish, and shrimp for the first time in her life with us!

 When it was time to head back to Borger, I decided to split our drive up into 2 days.  We drove half way to outside of Dallas, spent the night, woke up the next morning and made our drive back to Borger.  This way was definitly 1000x times easier with the kids and on me and we made it home in plenty of time to hang out with daddy for the evening and get settled before the kids went back to school the next day!

What a great spring break we had!!

Christmas Celebrations

For Christmas, we decorated our house (thanks to Geary and Juli for the extra hands)  and went all out since we actually had Christmas decorations to use!  After 3 years of a majority of our stuff being in storage, I had actually forgotten what we had!  I also decided that I wanted to start over in some areas so with the help from my mother in law, I got all new ornaments for our big tree and plan on adding to it each year along with wreaths, mantle decor, and mesh that covered our front door!  Brooks did a great job setting lights up outside the house and in some trees.  The kids LOVED walking outside at night just to stare at the lights and always ooohed and ahhhhed over them!   

I tried so hard to get pictures of the kids smiling and looking happy... they cooperated for the most part!

 

The boys have had their own LSU tree for their room since Gavin's first Christmas, so it was only fitting that Brooklyn get her own tree.  I went with pink, purple, lime green, and turquoise colors and tried making it as girly as possible.  I realized once I started taking off the ornaments to pack it up, I hadn't taken a pic of her and her tree so that's why it looks bare.  Brooklyn loved that the lights on her tree were pink and everytime she walked into her room she would ooohhh and aaaghhh over it!

We celebrated Christmas with Brooks' mom and grandmother, Missie and Hettie, along with Brandon and Kate while we were in Waco for Bran's graduation.  The kids were so excited to receive all their gifts and had a blast playing with each one as they opened it.  We kept trying to get them to open more, but they were so occupied with the previous gift, it took a while.  Grammy always gets creative gifts that the kids love.  They opened gifts and played around until almost 10pm.. then Uncle Bran pulled out The Bible App for kids and things calmed down!    

 

We spent Christmas morning at our house just the 5 of us and it was great!!!!  Brooks and I were up late the night before (3am) finishing building and putting their big presents together.  The kids were getting a BIG gift from Mim that ended up being delivered two days before Christmas, which meant Brooks only had a few hours to set it up-- actually he spent 9 hours Christmas eve day setting it up and then from 8pm- 3am that night and STILL didn't finish, but it was enough.  I had finished wrapping all the kids smaller presents days before so thankfully I didn't have to worry about that.  I fixed our traditional chocolate chip banana bread and had it ready for the morning! Brooks and I prayed the kids would sleep in a little bit, which they did, so we managed to get almost 5 hours of sleep before the mayhem started and the kids were ready to open presents!  We spent the morning watching the kids opening presents and letting them play!  It was so fun to watch their reactions with each gift they unwrapped.  They each had VERY different personalities when it came to opening their presents.  Gavin had all of his gifts unwrapped within 10 minutes or so, which Miles was still on his FIRST one!  Gavin wanted to see everything he had and then play with it all, while Miles needed to study every button, knoock and cranny on his gift before we'd force him to move on.  Brooklyn oooohed and ahhhed and said WOW to EVERYTHING.  She took her time and checked out her gifts, but then willingly and quickly moved onto the next ones!  Too funny.  

 

As hard of a decision as it was for us to decide to stay home Christmas morning, it was really fun and a sweet time for the 5 of us.  Our morning was relaxing and full of playtime!!

After the kids started winding down from all their "little" gifts, it was time to reveal their BIG gifts from mommy and daddy!  We had them hidden in the playroom covered up, so the kids hadn't seen them yet.  We had them close their eyes as they walked in the room!  Their faces and expressions were priceless when they saw their gifts!  Brooks built Brooklyn a grocery store, Gavin a lego tray, and Miles a train table.  They were sooooo excited!!  Still-- a few months later and the kids play with these everyday!  So grateful for a husband who has such an amazing talent and willing to use his skills and creativity to do things like this for his kids!!

After naps, the kids got some VISITORS!!  My parents drove part of Christmas eve, spent the night in a hotel near Dallas, and drove all Christmas day to get to our house!!  We were sooooo excited they came to visit and spend some time here!  it was so great to have them at our house!!  Once the kids were happy after naps and fully awake, they got their gift from Mim and we brought them outside for another BIG reveal!

A SWING SET!!!  Words can't describe how excited our kids were.  They loved the swings, both the slides, and running all around.

After playing on the swings the kids got another round of Christmas with presents from my parents.  You'd think they would have been tired by now of unwrapping presents, but yea right!!  They were just as excited as if it was their first round of gifts!

The next day, we got another round of visitors.... my brother, sister in law, and niece and nephew!!!  Our kids were sooooooo excited to see their cousins and have them at their house!  Playtimes were a blast with all the new, fun, and exciting toys around!  We did a few more rounds of gift giving and opening presents before going bowling with the whole family.

Thankfully, the local bowling alley had gutters and a ramp for the little ones to bowl with and surprisingly, they all did really good knocking the pins down!  You can see just how much fun they had bowling!

It just so happened that my sister in law's 30th birthday was the same day they arrived so we welcomed her with a birthday cake!!

While my parents and brothers family were here-- the kids played together non stop, we cooked meals together-- including roasting hot dogs on an outside fire pit in 22 degree weather and making smores, we stayed up late playing cards and dice and just hanging out!  There was never a dull moment with 11 people under one roof, but it was also a special time with our family!

So after Christmas and Aunt Anna's birthday, we got to celebrate Miles' 3rd birthday.  Everyone was leaving on his actual birthday so we spent the night before decorating Rice Krispie treats and singing Happy Birthday to our Miles.

Early the next morning, we woke up to an empty house.  Sad that our time together was over, but so grateful for all the memories we made.  Whew.... that was a lot of Christmas celebrations!!