Closing Ceremonies

Our two oldest had closing ceremonies with their troop tonight. Jase participated in Trail Life USA and he enjoyed his time with them, especially anything that was hands-on and outdoors. Allyson loved American Heritage Girls and all the new friendships she has made along the way. 

Allyson only missed 1-2 meetings all year long, so she earned quite a few badges with all the hard work she put in. 

This is her Tenderheart Unit (1st - 3rd grade). 

Finn jumped right up to take a picture with Jase, he loves his big bubby!

The two troops organized a taco bar, so it was a family affair for dinner tonight. 

Trail Life USA's mission is to guide generations of courageous young men to honor God, lead with integrity, serve others, and experience outdoor adventure.

American Heritage Girls' mission statement is to build women of integrity through service to God, family, community and country. 

Shawn and I love what the troops stand for and that the Lord is included in each and every meeting. As of now both of the kids want to do it again next year, so that's the plan. It was a fun year!

May Check-ups

Our little Mae is 18 months old this month. A year and a half! How is that possible? Her comprehension is so good, it amazes me. You can ask her where her shoes are and she'll go in her room and get them. She will do this with everything. Ask her to put something in Ally's room and she will take it in there. We are trying to soak up this stage with her, since she is our last 18 month old! 

Maebry loves to be outside. She is not scared of our 85 lb black lab at all. She will even try to push him away if he gets in her face. Out of all the kids, she appears to be the most fearless; there is not much she is afraid of. 

She has new obsession with Minnie Mouse and it is the cutest thing. I think I might know what the theme for her 2nd birthday will be! ;)

She is loads of fun and can be a little pistol when she gets tired. She turns into Mean Maebry! 

I took her in last week for her 18 month check-up and she is a petite thing. She weighs 22 lbs 11 oz (25th percentile) and she is 30.5" tall (17th percentile). Her head circumference is 18" (26th percentile). This is right in line with how she has been from the get go. And Ally was like this as well. 

Jase turned 9 last month and he had his annual check-up today. His stats are a little different than Mae's. He weighs 76 lbs and 4 oz (84th percentile) and is 56.25" tall (4'8") (93rd percentile). We've got a big kid on our hands. 

We just love Jase. He is a great helper around the house, especially with the younger kids. He loves to read and history is his favorite subject to study. Jase loves anything sports related. He continues to be a Lego enthusiast and his dream job would be to work for Lego! He loves to laugh and play with his friends. And he loves the Lord. 

His team won their playoff game tonight 10-5! It was super exciting to watch and we were definitely the underdog. We had not won against this team in the past 6 outings, so it was time. The boys played great and Jase hit awesome. He went 2 for 2 with a walk. The plan is to play the championship game tomorrow, weather permitting. Let's go Rangers!

Home Group Babies

We currently have 3 pregnant ladies in our home group right now! And we've had parties the last two weekends to celebrate the arrival of their little ones.

First up was a cute tea party themed baby shower for Jennifer. Her and Rhett are expecting their second child in a few weeks. She is expecting a baby boy, Rhett Jr., but they will call him Bo for Bonner (his middle name). So cute!

It was at Christy's home, who is standing next to me (who is also expecting), and Jennifer is next to her in the navy dress. And Ashley is on the far right.

I love these ladies. I love getting in the word with them. I love how genuine they are and how real I can be with them. They have been such a blessing to me since moving up here.

Last Saturday we met at Jennifer's house for a baby reveal party! Brian and Christy are also expecting their second child, due in September. We found out that their baby is going to be a GIRL! Super excited for them!

Mother's Day Weekend

We had a very eventful Mother's Day weekend a couple of weeks ago. Friday morning we met up with a homeschool group we are a part of for a little field day fun!

The kids were broken up into two groups: 6 and younger and 7 and older. The first event was a fun run and the younger group was up first!

So the kids ran quite a ways. Especially for Ally and Finn, who really do not run much. I was so proud of Ally for running the whole way and finishing! And do you see Jase running back to be with Finn?

Jase went to cheer Finn on and to help him finish. Jase told me after the race that he wanted to go and run with him so he would not finish last. He is really becoming quite the big brother with him. This really touched my heart and made me tear up!

Now the big kids turn. The older kids had to run even farther. We are not talking miles, but I bet they ran over .25 of a mile. Jase started off in the back of the pack. Some of those kids took off super fast.

Jase hung in there and ended up finishing the race in 3rd. When all of the other kids lost their energy, he kicked it up in high gear and finished strong. I was super proud of him.

All of the Moms chose an event and spearheaded it. I chose the 3 legged race! It was super fun to watch the kids do it! Here is Jase again helping Finn out!

The girls were all laughs!

After the older kids ran a couple of races, I switched things up on them. One person had to turn around, so now they were looking in opposite directions. They really liked this one!

And the bean bag toss finished it up for field day. It was a relaxed morning with some exercise and the weather could not have been any nicer.

A month or two ago a friend asked if I wanted to run a 5K. It benefited Woman to Woman Pregnancy Resource Center in Denton, a great cause. I looked at my calendar and Jase had a game later that afternoon, so I decided to do it! This was the first official 5K race for me. I've ran over 3 miles at once, but never in an official race. I was pretty excited about it.

I ended up asking Jase if he wanted to run it with me, I thought this was something fun we could do together on Mother's Day weekend, our first 5K and it would be together! We practiced only once at home and ran a little over a mile and he kept up with me just fine.

On the morning of the race, we get there and he starts telling me his stomach hurts. I tell him it is probably because he is nervous. I'm in limbo on what to do. Do I make him run or let him sit it out? Shawn, the other kids and his parents aren't there at this point, so he would be left by himself when I took off. I ended up not giving him an option and we started the race.

My goal was not to stop at all. To just keep on going, even at a snail's pace. Well less than 30 seconds into it he stops and tells me he is about to puke. People are passing us left and right. Here we go. I stop with him as he is hunched over trying to throw up, nothing. I finally tell him that I'm going to start jogging and as long as he can see me, he will be fine. He got all nervous when I said that and I think he couldn't believe that I was actually going to run and not stay with him! Ha. I must have stopped with him a couple more times when he thought he was going to throw up. Nothing. I finally decided to keep on going. Jase would stop and then sprint up to me, stop and sprint up to me. This is basically how he ran the entire race, which isn't a terrible method.

On the last leg of the race I told him that we weren't going to stop anymore, we were running to the end. At that point in time, we probably had less than .5 mile to go. And with that he was off. I guess with all those breaks he took he had tons of energy, because it was a full on sprint to the finish line for him. Forget about Mom, who stopped with you the first mile of the race and kept encouraging you to push through and finish!! Haha!

He really did great and I was super proud of him! He finished 5th in his age category (Male, 1-12 years) at 38:59.

2 minutes later I finished up! The tank was on empty for sure! My clock time was 40:46 and I finished 7th in my category (Female 30-39). My original plan was to finish under 30 minutes! Ha! I have a little work to do before I reach that goal.

After the race, they were doing a 1 mile fun run and Jase asked if he could do it! LOL! I guess he was finally warmed up. Again, so proud of him for pushing through and finishing. Although, if I do another one in the future, I might do that one solo.

Daddy and his baby girls on Sunday morning.

Shawn's parents were in town that weekend, so we took a few pics before church that morning.

All dressed up in our Sunday best.

Smiles with Grandma and Grandpa on Mother's Day!

April Outings

This is such a busy season for us right now. Outside of 4 kids, it's homeschool and our co-op, home group, baseball, dance, American Heritage Girls, 2:7 bible study, Trail Life, and I might be leaving something out. It's great and I love it, we are just busy. I'm sure you can tell with the lack of blogposts this past couple of months. So, these are most of our April outings, enjoy!

Last month I set-up a field trip for our homeschool co-op (Classical Conversations) at the Texas Electric Railway in Plano. It operated between 1917-1948. Here is a map of the tracks with some more info on it.

The back of the railcar was a mail station. Pretty neat.

All the kids got a chance to sit in the Conductor's Seat It was made uncomfortable on purpose; so he would stay awake and not fall asleep!

There was plenty of hands-on activities for the kids to do inside the museum.

It was during Happy Hour at Sonic, so I stopped and got the kids a slush on the way home. Maebry has caught on and gets her own drink! No fooling her.

She is a mess and she knows it!

Every Saturday this spring you'll find us at the ballpark. This season has been up and down with wins and losses, but Jase still has had a good season. We have 2 games left, so hopefully the boys can put the bat on the ball!

We attended a martial arts class in Lewisville last month that was pretty cool. It is a safe place to learn self-defense strengthened by Christian principles. This is pretty unique because most of the karate places have a lot of middle eastern religion, with bowing to the sensei, but this place is different. We opened and closed in prayer to Jesus, which is more our speed. The kids had a blast. Little Finn was a little hesitant at first, but he warmed up.

We met up with our Classical Conversations group for one last hurrah. They played and we had  closing ceremonies. Ally was awarded with Memory Whiz and Enthusiastic Presenter. Jase was awarded with Excellence in History and Most Outgoing. We had a great school year and each week the kids had a fun science experiment, hands-on art (tin whistle, drawing, painting, classical music) and gave a presentation in front of their peers. They also learned a ton of facts from: History, Science, English grammar, Latin, Math and Geography. We will be changing to a different campus next year to better accommodate our schedule, but we are super excited to continue with Classical Conversations!

My mom came into town for a visit the last weekend in April. She treated the kids to a fun outing at Obstacle Warriors. If you follow American Ninja Warrior, then it is just like that, except kid-sized. It was fun seeing Finn be so adventurous and try new things. He was a champ on the balance beam! And Ally, she was challenged to get out of her comfort zone in a safe environment, which is good for her. Little Mae held her own with the big kids; she was fearless! And Jase owned dodge ball (one of my personal favorites in elementary) and got on some of the big kid obstacles.

On the way home I stopped by the Dude Perfect office. It was closed, but that didn't stop us for a photo op! The boys absolutely loved it!! Ally rode home with Daddy so she was bummed, but don't worry I took her by there the next week.

To finish out the month, we took some crazy boys out for Jase's birthday! We opted for a baseball game with friends instead of a party. He is getting older, so we will be transitioning from the big parties for him.

Six 8-9 year olds, 3 younger ones and 2 adults = Craziness! Ha! The boys had a blast watching the Frisco RoughRiders, eating ballpark food and playing together. (My mom was not feeling well at all, so she was not at the game with us after the 1st inning, hate that.)

Taking 6 boys through the all you can eat line by myself!

I preordered a cookie and brownie tray earlier in the month and they hand delivered it to our seats during the game. It was a fun treat for all!

We let the kids stretch their legs and run on the play equipment later in the game. They had so much fun.

It was a great day for Jase. He told Shawn on the way home that it was the best party ever! So glad to hear!