Not surprisingly, we have had a LOT going on these days! I haven't even been teaching this semester, and I have had such a hard time finding a minute to post a few pics and a couple stories on here. So here are a couple stories and a LOT of pics. We'll start with our youngest: Mary turned ONE back on April 5th! A few days later she started walking. She went from no steps at all to like 10 all in one go. And on that same day she began walking, she gained a good bit of extra sass in her pants. She thinks she's grown and tells me about it often! Both the walking and the sass have increased over the past few weeks; we will hopefully be seeing a decline in the latter here shortly... ;)
John has been able to go turkey hunting (read: turkey calling for 5 minutes followed by an hour of mud playing) with Pete a couple times since that season opened, which has been a dream come true for him. He LOVES getting up at 4:30am to go sit outside with his daddy. This last time they went, Pete referred to the turkeys they were looking for as "big ole turkeys," and that has since become John's favorite adjective. Last night's storm had some "big ole thunder!" and on our walk yesterday, we saw some "big ole trucks!" He's also adding syllables to all the words he can, making him a true southern boy. John's as cute as they come.
I'm convinced Susannah is ready for kindergarten, and she's only going to preschool this fall. She is SO smart and wants to learn SO much, and she is out of luck with a mommy who just doesn't do elementary school. She is pretty much self-taught in writing the alphabet, can do kindergarten math, knows how to rhyme, and so much more. She's also beginning to show empathy, which is what I've been told is more important than any book knowledge. I wish I could claim any one of those things as something I've taught her, but alas, the girl is just a dream child who learns faster than I aim to teach. I hope she's not so bored in school that she starts dealing drugs to fill time.
OUR HOUSE IS UP! We are so excited about the progress over the past several weeks. It's been one brushfire after another (none of which I deal with -- I just hear about them at the end of the day), but our general contractor is amazing and puts them out without anyone dying in the process. (Peter K. Acker is our general contractor, for those who don't know that. He's not for hire though; this is most likely his first and last house.) Now that the structure is up, Pete and I both can hardly contain our excitement to get our family in it! It's going to be beautiful and perfect for us; we only have 5 months of work left (aka foreverrrrrrr).
Back when John's leg was still broken. The day they broke ground! John was ready to go to work!
The basement.
Putting up that frame.
Signing the frame! Even Mary "wrote" her name.
I took a few minutes to write some verses on our door frames. This one is on the entrance to the master bedroom, as it's been my marriage verse since we got hitched!
This is on the frame for our sliding glass door, which is right by the dining room.
This is on one of the kids' room's posts. Praying this for me each time I enter their rooms and their lives, so that this is true of them as they go out into the world.
Lookin like a real house!
That porch makes all the difference. LOVE IT SO MUCH.
The doors and windows and deck are all in now, too, but I don't have pics of that. I'm in love with this place already, and there's not even siding or a roof on it yet. Can't wait to start our life here! Here are some more pics and videos from the past month and a half:
Not the best picture, but for the past several weeks, I've been babysitting a little girl 3 days a week. MOMMING HARD over here, y'all.
The best family pic we could get on Easter Sunday. I colored that whole wall behind us, btw.
Love these little Easter chickies.
Chillin like a villian
I don't care what other people say: you absolutely take as many pics of your third as you do of your first.
3 happy faces at the same time is hard to catch!
We went to dinner with some friends one night, and our buddy Kyle asked if he and Sus could sit at a table by themselves. Good thing he didn't pay, or this would be her first date!
Texting Doc McStuffins and Elsa.
We're serious about our Highlights magazines!
Left these kids alone outside for 5 minutes...
Mixing up the plaster for some handprints! A super fun craft Uncle Steve sent the kids!
Susannah said, "Look at my fancy decorations, Mommy!" Yikes...
Back in April, I was able to go to the beach with 7 of my best friends here for 4 days. These looks tell you everything you need to know about their feelings when I told them they weren't coming.
For four glorious days, we were young and free once again. (And then quite ready to get back to our children!)
The very next weekend, Pete and 9 of his buddies went camping for 4 days! Their trip may have looked completely different than ours, but 4 days in the woods for my man is just as refreshing as 4 days in a beach cottage is for me! (They were doing senior pic poses.)
John is getting GOOD at building. He tells me everyday that when Sus goes to preschool, he's going up to the land to finish building our house.
Picnic at the park with friends, and that Mary cracks me up!
Four of the wives of the camping men and all our kids while the daddies were gone!
She knows what ice cream is now...
A night out with the fam to see The Deloreans, an 80s rock cover band. SO FUN.
So many pictures, so many stories, so many DAYS since my last post! So I'll dive right in. We are scheduled to break ground on our new house site today! The unfortunate thing about that is the weather isn't looking good...for the next two weeks... So we might be delayed a good bit once again on getting this ball rolling. But we are SO excited to finally have everything set to actually start. Will definitely post pics once the process begins. Susannah, in her 4 1/2 years of life, is already becoming a sage. She notices things and says things that are beyond her years; she'll speak straight to your heart if you listen long enough. I've been reading my favorite book on marriage again with several of my close friends. It's called What's It Like to be Married to Me? by Linda Dillow, and it's revolutionary. A huge part of it deals with thankfulness and response. Do my responses to Pete in any given situation convey my love for Christ and for him? Do my daily interactions with him convey thankfulness for him? Tough questions. God calls us to a "yes" answer to both of those questions, but so often I fall short. So during the couple weeks I was reading those chapters and mulling over them, Susannah was my truth-sayer:
We've been encouraging the kids to say, "Thank you for [this meal], Mommy," without being prompted. They've begun catching on recently, and one afternoon when Pete was at work, I said in response to their thank-yous, "You are so welcome! Y'all are so sweet to me!" To which Susannah's immediate response was, "And Daddy! Daddy's sweet to you, too!" This season of life -- when kids are talking to and pulling on you all day -- is the hardest to take notice of the sweetness of your spouse. Thankful for that matter-of-fact reminder from my girl.
[I posted this one on Facebook, but I wanted it here, too.] Susannah and John had been PSYCHED about Valentine's Day since they saw the first red heart balloon in Walmart, so we'd been plotting for some time what we wanted to make or do for Pete to show him how much we love him. The week before Vday, I read the kids a story about a little boy who made his mom a very thoughtful present, and I said to them, "Let's make something thoughtful like that for Daddy for Valentine's Day! Okay, so...what's something we know that Daddy LOVES a whole lot?" I was thinking of things like dead animals or libertarianism, but Susannah immediately responded, "Well... us!" My sweet girl nailed it. There's no better testament to Pete's role in our family. His love for us is strong and obvious, and we are beyond thankful for such a man. (We did get him animal crackers, though, as a representation of dead animals you can eat -- John's idea.)
Sus teaches me a lot about thankfulness in general. She's becoming the most kindhearted, thoughtful little lady, and I am so unbelievably proud of her. John's also had his moments of truth-saying. One evening after a particularly long day of hearing "mommy" 8 billion times (not counting the little runt who just pulled my pants down or squawked every few minutes since she couldn't say my name yet), I reached for a beer in the fridge upon Pete's truck entering the driveway. I believe the clock read 4:58pm. Close enough. As I took the cap off and took my first swig, John came in the kitchen and said, "Mommy. Ladies don't drink that." WHATEVER, JOHN. I couldn't stand up straight from laughing so hard. John is the funniest mini-human in the world. John also broke his leg 3 weeks ago, so he's recently perfected the art of peg-leg-walking, as he's been stuck in a bright yellow cast. Pete took him to get his cast back when he first broke it, and when the nurse asked what color he wanted, John said, "Tan I pease have lellow pease?" Of course, from then on the nurses were in love. So between their chiding of my jumping on the trampoline with the kids (did I mention that? yeahhhh, it was basically my fault), they complimented his cool, lellow cast alongside his amazing hair. Can't miss John, these days! Mary is doing SO MANY THINGS these days! In fact, just today she stood up from the floor without any support for the first time. (PLEASE DON'T WALK YET.) She points at everything, understands any word that has to do with eating, rambles in her baby language, and so many other tricks. My parents are coming in town tomorrow, so in preparation she is currently having her first naptime sleepover with Sus and John in their room. All is quiet, and it's been almost an hour, so I call that a success!! Mary will be 1 in just over 2 weeks, and I'm blown away. She still looks so much like a baby, even with her 5 teeth, it's hard for me to believe she's been hanging out with us for that long already. I cannot wait to see her smash into her birthday cake. All our kids have an intense love for food, but I think Mary wins. She's petite, but she can eat a grown man under the table. We have some exciting things coming up for our extended family! Both Lauren and Brae are expecting little girls in just a few weeks! This will be Lauren and Eric's 4th babe and 1st girl -- cannot WAIT for the new love that will enter their life. This will be Brae and Mike's 5th babe and 4th girl -- Than Man reigns king of the kids! We are counting down the days until there are new babies to snuggle. Picture time!
Back in January, Sus and I went on a Big Girl Day outing for Starbucks, nails, Target, and Aldi. The perfect day!
Plotting her steal.
Nobody loves Elmo more!
John's first man haircut!
Maybe the cutest picture in the whole world.
"Bye Mommy! I'm going to far away lands and the grocery store!"
Pete took Susannah to a fancy Daddy-Daughter Date Night. I'm not sure who was more excited!
My big kids
Sus trying to steal a kiss
Working man
Date with my handsome man!
At Urgent Care on the day of the big break
SO proud of his lellow cast!
Hey.
Life during dinner cleanup.
Susannah was in the newspaper with her craft from our library's Story Time.
