Photo Update

Tatum's class sang "Tony Chestnut" at her spring performance. I had never heard that song before, so it cracked me up to see her sing it.

She also graduated from preschool this spring. I can't believe her preschool days are over. We started her homeschool kindergarten curriculum toward the end of April, just because she was so eager to "do school" with Avery. It is so fun to teach her because she is such a quick learner and quick worker. She zooms through her work so fast, I'm pretty sure we're going to be done with her Kindergarten by Christmas. But that's just her... she loves a challenge and usually rises to it.

For Avery & Tatum's birthday present, Papa & Nana took all of us to the mall to get the girls ears pierced. We went ahead and got Laney's done too, so hopefully we are forever done with ear piercing. We learned a few lessons. Laney's age, 3, was the right age to get it done. She had no clue what to expect and it was over before she knew what was happening. Barely any tears. Avery, on the other hand, knew what to expect, and freaked out like a crazy woman. We almost left without her having it done. Tatum stepped in when Avery was freaking out and was very brave. Tatum didn't cry at all. She just smiled real big through the whole thing. After watching her two little sisters do it, Avery decided to try again. I did have to hold her in my lap and physically restrain her, but she did cooperate as best she could and we got it done! Hooray... all the girls in our family have pierced ears now and we will have fun sharing earrings. For their starter set, Avery chose her her birthstone, Tatum chose purple flowers and Laney chose pink flowers.

Bodie is 14 months and such a boy. His favorite word is "ball" and he always has either a ball or a sword in his hand. He is now really good at walking, sliding, climbing, giving high fives, bumps and kisses. Whenever  we go outside, we call him the "sweaty beast" because he is covered in sweat within 5 minutes. I can't even put into words what a joy and blessing it is to watch our little guy grow and learn new things.

I took my camera outside one day while the kids were all playing. I love all the creative ways they spend their time outside. Here's Laney making some mudpies.

Tatum on our new rock wall Brian built to add to our play fort.

The big sister

This is Laney pushing me on the glider.

All three of the girls like to be Bodie's little mamas, but I think Laney is the most naturally gifted with a mama's heart. She is always wanting to care for him and help him do things.

Tatum loves collecting chalk dust. She colors real hard to make lots of dust, then collects it in some little container.

We love having our friends, the Spenn kids, over one day a week. It is truly the highlight of our week. We are usually so busy I forget to take pictures, but I got a few while we were having a tower building contest.

On the morning of May 16, I woke Tatum up really early and invited her to come downstairs with me before any one else. I let her choose what she wanted for her birthday breakfast... cinnamon crescent rolls. Happy 5th birthday, my sweet sunshine!

Our sweet friends, the Kindles, came to visit us a couple weeks ago. We had such a fun time catching up. Even though we only see each other once a year, we feel like they are family. We always feel like our time with them is too short. Our kids had so much fun playing together and Brian & I love the time we get to spend relaxing and catching up with Brandon & Jennifer. This family is a gift from God to us!

Goofy kids!

Laney & Kate... the sweet 3 year old princesses!

Swim team has been such a good thing for Avery and our family this season. When she joined the team in April, she couldn't swim across the pool without holding on the lane rope at least 10 times. Now she is swimming the freestyle, backstroke and butterfly in swim meets and doing awesome! We are so proud of all her hard work! And we have said over and over how much fun it has been for our family to get to know our neighbors during practices and meets. Tatum is excited to be on the team next year and we are looking forward to many more seasons of cheering for the Copperfield Dolphins!

On the ready bench

Go Avery!

We took the girls to Sea World to celebrate Avery & Tatum's birthdays. My mom & dad joined us, as well as our sis-in-law, Jenn and neice, Tara. It was such a fun day! In the penguin encounter, they had a penguin out in the lobby walking around right next to us! It was so fun to see one so close! We loved feeding the dolphins and the sea lions. The shows were wonderful and everyone, even Bodie, sat still and watched them in amazement. Later, that evening, my parents took Laney & Bodie home and Jenn & Tara wanted to go back to the kids area, so Brian & I took Avery & Tatum on all the "big" rides. Since there were no lines that late, we rode Journey to Atlantis back to back several times. So fun! And Avery was tall enough this year to ride the Steel Eel so she and Brian rode that twice.... her first real roller coaster ride.

Now we're gearing up for our last week of swim team and our divisional meet next Saturday. Then we are taking a vacation with my parents to the hill country for a few days to spend some time relaxing by the river. We are so looking forward to getting away for our little vacation! Tatum just started taking gymnastics, which she is loving. And Laney is going to try ballet & tap later this summer. Between all the fun activities, we are still homeschooling a few days a week, mostly just for fun. The girls enjoy "doing school" and I do too.

Brian is not teaching summer school this summer, so he is home with us most days. We have enjoyed doing a few field trips and hanging out with him so much. We took the kids bowling a few weeks ago, which was hilarious and fun! He is such a super dad and I am glad to have these few weeks with him home with us everyday, joining in with us in our every day activities. He is right now telling the kids to get ready to go fishing so I better end this post. :)

DYSO and Easter

Happy Easter! He is Risen!

We went to the zoo last weekend, and I let Brian do most of the photography so I don't have many photos, but I could not pass this one up. This giraffe was so friendly... it stuck it's head right into this crowd of people and almost licked a few kids. You can see Brian holding Laney and Avery up there right underneath it's head. Once the security guard noticed, he made everyone back away until the giraffe wandered off back into his habitat.


Avery & Brian made this little red sports car for the Sparky Drive-in last week at Awana. I think she might have been the only one with a windshield, so she was very proud of that. There were a lot of cute cars. The Sparks got to watch "Cars" and eat popcorn while sitting in (or beside) their homemade cars.

Here's Avery & her friends watching "Cars." You can see all the cool cars around the room.

Here's Bodie and his buddies watching the movie too. Since I keep the one-year-old nursery on Wednesday nights, these are my little munchkins that I get to hang out with every Wednesday night and Sunday morning. They love the buggy... and it is a lifesaver!

Tatum loves this dress. We have been blessed with wonderful hand-me-downs from a couple friends and this dress was in one of the bags we just got. It's silky and shiny and she looks and feels like a princess when she wears it. She asked me to take her picture when she wore it last.


Here's our little one year old with his mullet. It just hit me out of the blue one day that I need to get him a haircut. You don't really think about haircuts when you have baby girls because you just want to let it grow, so it was a new thought to me to need to get our baby a haircut.

Here's the side and back of the sweet little mullet.

He was a very good sport about it. He sucked the life out of his paci and kept his focus on the Elmo movie, and he did wimper once or twice, but overall the experience was a surprisingly good one.

I asked her to give him a faux hawk, so here she is styling his new 'do.

Tada... he looks like such a big boy now. And the back of his head is the spitting image of the back of Brian's head, except for the hair color difference. It's so funny the way genetics works... the exact same hairline and shape of head as his daddy.


Avery & Tatum have been practicing for a couple months for Dance Your Shoes Off, which was held last weekend in front of City Hall. It was so hot and so crowded, I admit all I wanted to do was dance our shoes off and get the heck out of there. But it was so awesome to see so many kids out there praising the Lord with dance and singing (and shouting) "He's alive, He's alive inside us and we will rise up." It was a memorable day for us.




They wore brand new shoes to do the dance, then at the end they all took their shoes off and put them in these huge containers to donate to kids at various ministries our church serves.

And we couldn't resist a little dip in the pond.

If you've never seen the video of the adult version of Dance Your Shoes Off, it's pretty neat. You can see it here. And here's the video of the Kids version last weekend. You can see the backs of A & T at 2:21, but you kinda have to know what to look for.

I have probably watched the DYSO video from last Easter 10 times and I still get chills every time I see it. I think it's a miniature taste of what Heaven will be like. Thousands of very different people, young & old, singing & dancing to Jesus together. It was really fun for our family to get to be a part of it this year.

We're a Homeschooling Family

My friend Jennifer invited me to write a guest post for her blog.... you can read it here. She also has so many words of wisdom to share on her blog and lots of fun ideas for crafts, recipes, etc. And I love all her photos of her sweet kids. So take some time to look around at The Kindle Crew while you're there!

Beginning to walk...

Bodie took his first steps yesterday, at one year and 3 days old. He started out the morning taking two steps and falling into me. But we kept practicing. Every time he made it a few steps to me without sitting down or falling over, I raised him up in the air and we all cheered for him, and he thought he was the champion of the world. By last night, he could go about 6 steps on his own! I'm so excited for him... mostly because I know he will enjoy getting to be a part of what the girls do, but also because it will give my poor arms a break from carrying him everywhere!

This past Wednesday was his 1st birthday. Since we already celebrated his birthday before, we didn't do much on the actual day, except I did make chocolate chip muffins for breakfast. He had two smash cakes for his birthday. We did one in SA with my family last week.

Then we did one with Brian's family here in Houston.

He is one lucky boy, getting two birthday parties! He enjoyed both thoroughly. Our girls didn't dive into their 1st birthday cakes nearly as eagerly and aggressively as he did. They were dainty and delicate with theirs.

Avery...

Tatum (She barely touched her cake!)

and Laney...

We had a great spring break. We drove to Aggieland to see a baseball game in the new Blue Bell Park there. They now have the option of lawn seats, which are on either side of the bleacher seats. It was so fun to just sit on our big blanket and watch the game and let the kids roll down the hill and play. The Aggies didn't play very well, but it was a fun experience. We got some Layne's after the game and drove around a little bit. We drove by my old apartment and Brian told the girls that was where he kissed me for the first time. Tatum said, "So you got married there?!?" Ha! We'll save the conversation about kissing for a later date. For now, we'll let them think you kiss for the first time when you get married!
On our way out to College Station, we passed by our spot where we always take our bluebonnet pictures, so Brian suggested we get out and take some. Bodie was a pretty good sport and we got a few cute ones, but the crazy lady in me does wish their outfits coordinated better. :)


We also went to San Antonio for a few days to help celebrate my Paw Paw's 90th birthday. My cousin and his family live out in the country on a beautiful piece of land covered with bluebonnets. It was such a fun night, catching up with all my cousins, aunts & uncles. I got to thinking about Paw Paw... I wonder how it must feel to look around at a large group of people and know that all of them are there because of you... not just to celebrate you, but because they were all birthed by you, or married to someone birthed by you. It made me miss my MeMe so much. I came back to Houston and cherished my photos of my grandparents. I spent an entire quiet time last week just crying out to God because I miss them so much.

Paw Paw and Bodie, born 89 years and 4 days apart.

These bluebonnets put our Houston ones to shame. Here's my mom with the kids. My sis-in-law took some family photos of us at this same spot, so I'm hoping we will have a "keeper" of the 6 of us from this spot.

Here's my two cowgirls practicing their "Yee-haw."

And Bo trying on Daddy's cowboy boots.

We were invited to throw out the first pitch at the Cy Falls home opener a few weeks ago. Brian was so excited to be back at the field. Although we are both glad Brian is where he is now and no longer coaching high school sports, we do miss the family at Cy Falls. Brian will always be an "Eagle" deep down inside, no matter where he works.

Last time we were here, this boy was kicking at my ribs, eager to meet the world. Brian was very proud to introduce him to all the teachers and kids we saw.

Our sweet friend, Ms. Evelyn, brought the girls a goody bag to enjoy during the game, complete with M&M's (all in Tatum's teeth!) and bunny ear masks, which they wore proudly most of the game.

We are enjoying our 3 new pets... Camo, Dot & Spike. We adopted them as a result of one of Brian's fishing adventures. This is them the first night he brought them home. I can't believe how much they've grown in the past month! They are almost twice as big now. They live in a much bigger tank now in our schoolroom and they do a good job of entertaining us. Camo is not afraid of us, but when any of us put our face right up to the glass next to Dot or Spike, they jump off their rocks into the water and swim to the opposite side of the tank. They are amazing little creatures, designed by an amazing Creator.


Here's our official birthday photo of Bodie on March 21, 2012, his 1st birthday.


I still sometimes pinch myself because it's so amazing and fun to have a little boy.

We went to a nursing home a few weeks back to "play with" the residents... we did a little craft and played ball with them... they sat in their wheelchairs in a circle and they could either kick or hit the beach ball to anyone else in the circle. Tatum was the queen of that game. Anyway, I was sitting next to one sweet lady named Lois... the girls were around me and Bodie was sitting on my lap facing her and reaching his hands out to her. She started crying and told me, "You have a million bucks."

That scene has played over in my head a hundred times. I can still hear her voice saying those words. It's true. I do have a million bucks. I may not have much money, but my children are gifts from God and they do make me so wealthy. I am rich with hugs from little arms and kisses from little puckered lips, colored pictures and drawings that say "Mama" on them, wilting flowers from our backyard given to me with love, four sets of little eyes that light up when they see me, four little voices that call me "Mama"... I am richly blessed indeed.

"Thanks be to God for His inexpressible gift!" 2 Cor. 9:15

Eleven Months

It was hard this month to get him to sit still in this pose. He is very busy now. Trying to walk has become one of his favorite activities lately. And sitting still is definitely not.

These two are glued at the hip. He loves her attention. It is sweet to watch him develop a different relationship with each of his sisters. He lets Avery carry him anywhere and he is usually very happy with her. He likes Tatum because she knows how to make him laugh with her silly faces and noises. Laney is usually content to just sit next to him and give him toys and talk to him. He is a blessed little guy having such attentive sisters who want nothing else but to play with him all day.

This was one of our little science experiments... letting colors from pen marks climb up a piece of coffee filter paper dipped in water. It wasn't the most amazing experiment, but it was fun to do it together. Avery went to one of her friends' Mad Science birthday party a few weeks ago and in the party favor bag was a bunch of fun simple science experiments for kids, so we've been trying them out.

Here's Brian and Avery at Daddy-Daughter Date Night at church last weekend.

Laney got tubes in her ears on Thursday. I was so excited about it that I really didn't feel too nervous. We had it done at a surgery center rather than a hospital, which made it very low-key and easy. We were the only ones there that whole morning... it seemed like they opened up the facility just for us. Laney did really well through the whole thing. She did scream when I handed her to the doctor. I knew that she would not go with the doctor unless he picked her up and took her. It took a little longer than usual because her ears were filled with such thick snot that he had to get two different vacuums to suck it out. Brian met me there and we waited about 20 minutes until the doctor came to get us. As she came off the anesthesia, she was a crazy lady. Squirming, thrashing around, screaming and crying. They told us it was normal, so we just tried to keep her from hurting herself or us. Finally she opened her eyes and started settling down, so we were allowed to take her home. She cried and fought her seat belt the whole way home like it was a snake trying to attack her. It was pretty crazy. I fed her chips & queso with apple juice when we got home and she starting acting more like herself. After we relaxed and read a few books together, she seemed completely back to normal.

We have been watching her closely to see if we can truly tell a difference in her hearing. So far I've noticed two things. I haven't had to repeat myself to her once. And Brian & I both agree... she has a new twinkle in her eye. It's hard to describe, but she is just happier now. And so am I.

So how's homeschooling going?

We now have two days under our belt. I have felt like I was crazy at times, but I have also found myself genuinely thanking God that He has made us a homeschooling family. This was not in our plan, but if I have learned anything about life, I have learned that when my situation becomes uncomfortable and I feel God start to pry away layers of junk around my heart, it always turns out good when I trust Him and obey.
We withdrew Avery from school last Wednesday. It was a very hard day for me. I cried my eyes out several times. I can't really put into words why I was so emotional... I guess it was the finality of admitting our child is different. I had so many mixed emotions going on inside me that day... relief that this decision had been made, thankfulness that all the pieces had fallen into place, fear of the unknown world of homeschooling, sorrow for her missing out on the fun times she would have had at school, but mostly relief that the battles were over.

So last weekend, we re-arranged the furniture in our study and made it into a pretty cool little schoolroom. I bought a few educational posters for the walls. I bought a math curriculum. I bought a lesson planner. Everything else we are borrowing from friends or just making do with what we already have.
So yesterday was Day One. Laney stayed home from preschool because she wasn't feeling good - that's a story I will tell more of later - so my plans for a quiet house quickly disappeared. But we still got everything done we had planned. Math, Reading, writing, history, spelling, phonics and storybooks. Today we added science and Bible. Tomorrow we are planning to add piano and baking. We probably won't do every subject everyday... I plan to do Bible, math & reading everyday for sure, then the rest I will throw in a few days each week.
Today all 4 kids were home all day. I discovered several challenges I hadn't anticipated, but I also discovered the greatest thing about homeschooling ... immediate feedback. In just two days of homeschooling, Avery is already writing her letters and numbers way better just because I have been telling her immediately when she writes something the wrong way.


So onto the story about Laney... Since before she turned two, I have been concerned about her hearing. I would walk into her room when she was still in her crib and she wouldn't turn to look at me and I sometimes had to call her name several times to get her attention. Our pediatrician said it was "selective hearing." He said the fact that she speaks and understands instructions means that she doesn't have a significant problem. Even though I didn't completely agree with him, I didn't think there was anything I could do with her so young.

So fast forward to this year. I knew at her 3-year old check up, I wanted to talk to our pediatrician about her hearing again. This time, since she had a pretty bad ear infection and he knew our history of concerns about her hearing, he referred us to an ENT.
So I took her to the ENT today. First, an audiologist put us in a sound booth and did a hearing test on her. She had headphones on so I don't know all the sounds she was hearing, but there were several times I heard a sound and she didn't respond. So when we came out, the audiologist said she does have significant hearing loss. But the good news is, her ears are filled with fluid so hopefully when that is cleared, her hearing should be fine.
So next we saw the ENT. Right when he walked into the room he said, "So you know you have a deaf child, right?" Oh my, I had no idea it was that bad. He said the fluid in her ears may very well have been there for a whole year! She may have had several ear infections over the past year and I never knew because she didn't run a fever or act like she felt bad. My poor little Laney all this time, we've known something wasn't right, but didn't know it was that bad. She can't hear consonants, so in most of her words, her vowels are right but her consonants are off. I can understand most of what she says, but sometimes I need Tatum to interpret. Tatum always knows what she is saying.

So we are planning to get tubes in her ears, hopefully this week or next. It's immediate and easy. He said the surgery will take a total of 6 minutes. When she wakes up, she will be able to hear! I can't wait to see her little face as she hears things she has never heard before. I am hopeful that her new ability to hear things will help her have the confidence to try new things and reach out instead of clinging. I am excited for her to "get it" the first time rather than the seventh. I am excited to teach her how to say words correctly. I am so excited for her.

Guess who lost her first tooth?

Seems like just yesterday she was just getting all those teeth!

How on earth can she be turning FIVE in just a few months?

Princess Tatum, we love you!