Why I'm So Blessed

I never knew I could love this much. My heart is full when I look around the house and see these guys.

Chatty Fun

We spent the night with Bubba, JJ, and Jaci. It was a nice visit...even watching some noodling show with Bubba.

Visiting the Farm: Lots of pics!

The boys and I met JJ and Jaci over at PawPaw and Memaw's. Memaw's daughter and her family were there. The kids enjoyed playing with Paul - he's a year older than Jaci and Case.

Sorry for all the pics, but with so many cute kids, how could I resist?

Elgin Fun Observations

5 kids - three of which are 3 and under.

Riding bikes.

Playing Wii. Dancing. Watching Everyone else dance.

Beautiful weather outside.

Pizza for lunch.

Playing basketball. (Including running Case over and giving him a huge bump on his head.)

Top Reasons to Travel With Pam

I got to play Nanny for about 36 hours over Spring Break. My friend Pam needed to go to a conference, but she's still on maternity leave....so her company flew her and Baby Talla and a "nanny" to Phoenix.

1. Sweet little Talla had just begun laughing so it was fun to try to get her to laugh.

Of course, I'm pretty sure she just thought most of the time, Who is this crazy lady traveling with Mom and me?

2. Our rental car was a Michael Weston Dodge Charger. Red.

3. Talla was the best traveling baby I've been around. She usually was happy (see picture) or sleeping (see picture) the whole time. Most of the time that Talla was stuck with April and me, Talla was sleeping. Easy job.

4. Yummy authentic Mexican food. Mmmm Albierto's!

5. Nice digs. Nice view.

6. I got to see my best friend April. Talk. Book browsing at the library. Starbucks. And our funny antics in the hotel. We kept telling Talla that we were hilarious. Not sure she agreed.

7. Did I mention the great Mexican food?

8. Good times with Pam. Good talks. Good laughs. Oh, and there's nothing that bonds you closer than almost missing your flight...riding the shuttle a few times back and forth between the rental car place and the airport...and running through the airport praying that the airplane waits for you. As Pam texted me the day after we returned, "I think God stopped time for us."

Here's to friendship!

Beware: I'm a Soccer Mom Now....

...and there's a lot of pictures here. Believe it or not, I didn't post all the pictures I have.

I never really liked sports much growing up. I played half a season of basketball in 4th grade, and that was it. My poor dad - he got his sports fix by going to watch my brother and I play in the band at the football games.

I've grown to like sports more - watching and playing though I'm not much at playing. Sometime I'll have to share the story about when Josh and I decided to play catch. (And we never played catch again.)

Anyway, I digress. I've been excited about my kids playing sports after hearing all the fun Josh had playing sports his whole life. Case was old enough to start soccer this year so we enrolled him. I wasn't sure how it would go: we had a slow start. Casen wasn't a fan of interacting with his team at the first practice. He ended up playing by himself the whole time. Then the next game and practice got cancelled due to bad weather. Today, was his first game then. And he did awesome! And to put "awesome" into context:

As his coach told me earlier in the year, "Soccer with 3-yr-olds is like herding cats. We just try to get them to kick the ball in the right direction."

So true.

Case stayed out on the field. With constant reminders. After every play, he would run towards us and ask, "Can I have a snack now?" He had seen the snacks for the end of the game. He acts like he never gets a capri sun and goldfish. We would tell him, "After the game -go find your coach!" Then he would run off smiling.

He ran after the ball. With a smile on his face. And by himself. Big deal for a 3-yr-old.

He got a few kicks in - even with the ringer girl that the other team had. I'm pretty sure that girl was nine and twice the size of Casen. And she knew how to run and kick the ball into the goal.

While all of this was going on, Liam was trying to get on the field to play himself or steal some other person's drink/snack/ball. He had a blast!

Both boys had lots of fun and were worn out. Early bedtime tonight!

Pretty sure my favorite moment from today was watching C run with the kids with a huge smile on his face.