Today was a fabulous day! The boys have done incredible on their schoolwork. No fighting or arguing to get things done, and today was no exception. I am so proud of them. It is amazing how smooth and pleasant things are when they do what they have been asked. Lucy did not have a single potty accident ALL DAY! We even went to soccer practice in the afternoon and out to dinner (for several hours) and she did wonderful. She was so proud of herself she kept giving everyone her own high fives. 🤣  (We played outside on the trampoline this afternoon, and Lucy thought it was so funny how the static made her hair stand up. What little bit she has. 😂) My photography challenge for today was running on Manual Mode, Soft Light, and Obtaining Blur. Natalie was a great subject. She was so patient with me while I messed with the camera. I think our shots came out great! Afterwards, we finally took her out for her birthday dinner. She wanted to go to the Magic Time Machine. We have not been there in years! Needless to say, we haven’t missed out on much because it has majorly gone downhill. At 8:50, we waited for a half an hour to be seated in a restaurant that wasn’t even 1/4 of the way full. (That was made worse by one of the workers complaining about his job and cussing at the hostess stand in front of my children while we waited. 😞) Lucy’s silverware was filthy dirty. Smashed food was all on the floor around our table. When our dinner came, we didn’t even have our meal for 2 minutes before our waitress came asking if we wanted take home boxes. We were going to get dessert, but when she came to ask us if we would like to order dessert, she said, “Have you saved room for dessert?” As Natalie said yes, the waitress tells her, “Well you get cookies for your birthday. They have nuts. That’s good enough, right?!” And then she walks off. So much for ordering dessert. 😕 I can understand it was late, but we were NOT the only people in the restaurant. There were actually people still just being seated. It was pretty rude in my opinion, and we will not being going back. It is so sad that what used to be such a fun place to go, with so many many memories, has just fallen apart. At least Natalie was a good sport and still enjoyed herself. We’ll be going for a happier dessert tomorrow! 😁🎂Lucy couldn’t help herself from trying everyone’s food. Nattie was so sweet to share.😊❤️

Today, I was trying to shoot in manual mode. Horrible fail! I just cannot figure out how to get things focused. I tried at dance, and everything blurred. I just need to keep working at it.

When we got home, I just enjoyed trying to get Lucy to smile while she enjoyed her yogurt. She is such a ham!

“Don’t take my picture, Mama!”

 I LOVE these piggies! She made me paint them pink, and she insisted on painting over them with glitter. Silly Lu!

Today started my first of five days of a kids photography seminar. Since I got my new camera, I’ve realized how very little I know about actually taking pictures. Our subject for today was “The Right Light”. Finding the right level of natural light is not the easiest thing, especially when your subject moves. I decided to use Alex for today, since he obeys pretty well. Khaliyah was more cooperative than shooting Lucy too. 🤣I think it came out pretty good for a rookie. 😁After my needed pose, the kids wanted me to take action shots. Natalie was insistent on me getting her in the process of flipping.Not too bad. Then all the rest of the kids joined in.Including Lu.They had a blast watching how high they could all bounce and twist. I had a complete  heart attack with Lucy on there, so I finally had to make her mad and take her off. She needs to get a bit bigger to handle their craziness!

Today was the big day! We finally started potty training! It has been a fabulous day! Lucy has done so well. She had about 5 accidents during the day, which I completely expected since she had never actually peed on the toilet. She successfully peed on the little potty 4 times and then decided she preferred the big potty. She went potty 5 times on the big potty and loved being able to flush. I thought she was going to be scared of the big potty since she is so little. I should have known! ;DWilliam and Alex were such good helpers with her today. William would patiently sit with her and read to her when she would say she needed to go. He is going to be such a GREAT Daddy one day!Hoping tomorrow goes just as good!

We had dinner tonight at Annette and Wade’s. It was so great to see them and the kids. They have such a wonderful family. They just got a new pool put in and the kids had to restrain themselves from just jumping right in. 😂I was for sure one of them was going to fall in! But surpringly, no one did.Lucy kept herself entertained by passing out “gems.” She thought the fire pit rocks were diamonds.She also enjoyed watching the big kids be crazy on the trampoline. (I’ve realized that I need to get better at the things I take pictures of while we are out if I am going to document them. 😄) Oh well. I’ll get better at this. Next time I’ll get Annette’s kids in the pictures, and also all the adults.Abby made everyone a wonderful homemade strawberry ice cream. It was delicious! After treats, we had to hurry home though. We had an hour drive back and bad weather was headed our way. We managed to make it back okay, but Emily was not so lucky. 😳 They were hit with golf ball sized hail. I still haven’t heard the extent of their damage yet. I just hope this season is not what it was for us last year!

Lucy’s dance studio hosted a super sweet tea party for the mothers and daughters. Lucy had a wonderful time. They started off with treats and drinks……Followed by a special visit from Princess Belle. (Miss Kristen in disguise.😉)The girls made rocking tea pots…… and had their nails painted, then blush and sparkle glitter added to their cheeks.Lucy felt like such a big girl to go dance with all the other girls.The girls had one final pose for pictures,…they got a BIG hug from Belle…….and finally a gemstone ring surprise to end the day.We had a wonderful time. 😊

William is infatuated with cars right now. He is constantly researching and reading all he can about them. He REALLY likes expensive cars too. 😕 While we were in CA, he made us drive down PCH by the luxury car dealerships in Newport. Traffic is pretty crazy through there though, so he couldn’t look as much as he wanted. We decided it would be more exciting to see them up close. So… we bought tickets for the Dallas Auto Show. He was SO excited!This Batmibile was constructed out of Legos!A Toyota Camry race carA McClaren (too expensive to go in!)Awesome JagCooperCooperA ZThe boys were so cute to involve Lucy in their finds. In a lot of the pictures, Lucy is actually in the car, you just can’t see her. 🤣A StangA FerrariA Lamborghini (Didn’t realize how small they actually came!)A Polaris SlingshotCorvette#1The totally Awesome Corvette

We sure had a great time!! We’ll have to make it a tradition!

Today was a disaster!! When my schedule is SO full, it just sets it up to be such if the slightest thing is off. Today it wasn’t a thing but a who, actually a few whos!! We stayed up WAY too late last night to start with. The kids and I were having way too much fun, we lost track of time. When we got up this morning, it was later than usual. The kids really wanted to jump with Lucy on the trampoline before we left for dance. What I didn’t realize was that none of us ate breakfast. No one said they were hungry, which is usually what happens the second everyone’s eyes open. We all just completely forgot. When Lu and I got ready to leave for dance, I realized her dance bag was missing. We were going to be on time too. I spent 10 minutes looking through everything! So I thought. When I finally gave in and grabbed the spare pair of dance shoes, I turned around to see Lucy’s dance bag on the floor in her closet. Ugh! Go to dance, and Lucy did NOT fall asleep in the van this time! Yay! Or so I thought. She was HORRIBLE in class. She wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t follow instructions, kept running off and disrupting the class. I was completely embarrassed. To top it off, she was mad at me when I tried to put her in her car seat, so she grabbed my necklace and would not let it go. In asking her several times to please let it go because it was going to break, she still wouldn’t. She yanked a really hard yank, and I snapped at her.  She started crying, but let go. The entire car trip I had to listen to her screaming to the top of her lungs. She has such a temper. I guess I did not learn enough about raising kids with the others. Lu is going to do me in. Even as crazy as Natalie was (and still can be at times😉) she never misbehaved in any of her classes like this. None of the other kids did. Luckily, after we made it to Academy to get Natalie’s equipment for soccer, Lucy calmed down and just laid her head on my shoulder. She fell asleep when we got back into the van to bring everything to Natalie’s school. After all that mess, we still had to run home to get everyone lunch, go to the store to get snacks for scouts, go to scouts, then leave early for a mandatory parents meeting back at the school for soccer. For the 15 minutes of the meeting, Lucy screamed for 13 of them! We have made quite the reputation of being the crazy lady with all the kids and the screaming baby. Sometimes I don’t even want to leave the house anymore it is so incredibly embarrassing! I’m trying to give the older kids opportunities, but it is horrible to try and do with Lucy. She does not make it easy at all! I am beginning to wonder about a Mother’s Day out program for her. I really think she needs some time away from me. Loving mom is great, but I am being smothered, and she is not learning that other people love her too and she can be fine and learn from them as well. After the meeting, the kids still had church activities they had to get to. Natalie tells me that her new soccer shoes are too small. Yeah, that is waiting for another day. I brought the boys and Lu home, and we played outside until we had to go back to get them. Then Dad finally came home. Sometimes I feel like it is a marathon getting to that point. Score at the end of the day: He brought home pizza for dinner! It might have been 9:00, but Lucy fell asleep in the van on the way to get the big kids from church, and was out for the rest of the night. I got to eat my dinner uninterrupted and go to bed somewhat early. Glad the day was over! I don’t want a repeat! 😳

After the craziness of today, the boys really wanted to climb the trees. Lucy did too. So after we dropped the big kids off at Church, everyone climbed. There is just something magical about climbing trees. They can get REALLY high! Alex is SO close to being able to get in the tree by himself. For now, I still have to hoist him up.I LOVE that the kids are able to do this now. 🙂There was no way I could hold the big camera and Lucy in the tree at the same time, so I was not able to get pictures of her climbing. She really loves to be a “Big” kids though.While the big boys climbed, she kept herself entertained by taking selfies. 

Sam has been out of town for several days, and of course my schedule is crazy hectic this week! It has been nonstop! Today I had a few errands that needed to get done, Natalie was trying out for soccer, Nate had to work, and Lucy had gymnastics. All were within 15 minutes of each other. Then,when I picked Natalie up from school, she informed me that there was a Cheer Parents meeting tonight as well. I was truly in panic mode. Luckily, everything went well and everyone was able to be at what they needed to be and accomplish what was needing to get accomplished. They even told us tonight that they are wanting to move Lucy into a more advanced gymnastics class. She has learned all her skills in the current class she is in. Hopefully the new class will have more scheduling options. Once we all got home, we played outside to just let off that last bit of energy. It was such a beautiful night!Lucy played peekaboo and swung with me,while Natalie tried to help William perfect his landing on his front flip.He’ll get it soon. He is very determined and has been continually trying since he completed the flip. 😊