Saturdays can truly get crazy around our house. Today we started off bright and early with gymnastics for Lucy, Alex had a soccer game (in which he scored the first of only 2 goals for the game 😁🎉), and Sean came to get William for a fishing trip at Lake Texoma. I am so glad William was able to do something just for him. He had a blast! Even though they only caught 1 fish, he swam, dug sandpits, had a cookout, ate s’mores, made fires, exploded things, and so much more. He was just able to be a boy and have fun!While Wii was out living the life at the lake, Natalie visited her friends, and Lucy enjoyed chips. She’s such a character!She took a two hour nap on my lap, and woke sporadically and asked for chips. She must dream a lot about food, because she talks about it in her sleep, and asks for it RIGHT when she wakes up. 🤣 (I promise we feed the kid!) After Lucy’s chip enjoyment, she decided to get temperamental and throw a one hour temper tantrum about going potty! I don’t know what gets into her around 6pm every day, but she often turns into the demon child! We were trying to go deliver some Easter surprises to some friends and go to the park, but Lucy had not been potty for a very long time. 4 1/2 hours! We tell all our kids that they need to go before we leave the house. She, however, was NOT going to. She told Sam she needed to go, but when he took her in there, she changed her mind. Then she started screaming. I tried to help out, but she wanted nothing to do with it for me either. It was as though she was teasing us about it, but also screaming about it, throwing things, slamming the door to keep us IN the bathroom, yet refusing to actually go. After about an hour, and everyone in the house trying to take multiple turns to keep sane and “take her potty”, she tells Alex that she needs to go potty, he takes her, and she does! He did nothing different than anyone else of us were doing. It was like there was no problem after that. 😳 She can be SO stubborn! By the time we delivered treats and made it to the park, it was after 9:00! The temperature had also dropped quite a bit. We only stayed for about 45minutes, long enough to enjoy some crazy swinging. After such a day, it felt GREAT to hit the bed!

Some days just call for a little bit of silence. The kids are all home today for Good Friday. No activities due to the holiday, so everyone wanted friend time. While all the big kids were out and about, Lu played hard with me, then crashed. Still treasuring these quiet snuggly moments. ☺️

Wow! Photographing a toddler is hard enough! Putting her in a field of flowers to do so, is darn near impossible! Crazy Lu! The bluebonnets are quickly disappearing. With all the rain we have had, and more to come in the days ahead, the grasses and other weeds are growing in around them so quickly! I found this amazing spot to do pictures last Saturday on the way to Brinlee’s birthday party. Just since Saturday, many of the bluebonnets were already hidden. I still managed to find an adequate spot to shoot though. I just needed a more cooperative subject. The instant Lucy saw all the flowers, she was in heaven! It was absolutely precious! She kept shrieking and caressing the flowers. My mistake was I, for some reason, thought she was just going to stay by me until I told her what to do. Yeah right! She bolted off long before I had any equipment ready or my settings put in. I so wish I could have captured her sheer bliss.😞 Next time, I think I am just going to switch to video mode, if something like that happens, and edit from there. At least I won’t miss the moment that way. I loved how much she loved seeing all the flowers.

The nice things about the location we were in was that there was absolutely no one else there in the flowers, Lucy had a huge area to move, and the lighting was almost perfect. (Only a few times did the sun peek through and give some awkward blares of light.)

There were hardly any ants, no poison ivy, and no snakes. We’ll find out about chiggers in the next few days. I’m hoping we escaped those too!

Lucy found a ladybug in the flowers and loved just watching it go in and out of the leaves. The main challenge I had, aside from toddler on speed, was that there was a cemetery behind the area we were in, with an iron fence going around it. Any shots I wanted to get of Lucy in the sunset had the fence behind her. I kept trying to lure her another direction, but that didn’t persuade her desires in the slightest. Toddler mind made up is usually what stays. Luckily she realized that her boots had mud on them, so she sat down in some of the flowers. That helped in cutting out the fence.

There was a really nice man visiting the cemetery, who stopped to watch Lucy run through the flowers. Once she noticed him watching her, I managed to get quite a few good shots. She stopped long enough to say hi and listen to him tell her how much she looked like a little flower angel. It was really sweet. At least she had a wonderful time. I heard all about it the whole way home. 😊❤️

April was my month to host STEM Club. For our challenge today, the kids had to build their own bird’s nest. We took a hike to the nature trails to gather supplies, and then the kids had to come back and construct their nest in a tree to hold an egg with their group.In the end, we had some pretty spectacular nests put all in my trees. I was really impressed with their creativity and willingness to get messy! 

I love these sweet moments of Lucy. She can be so challenging at times! But moments, like just enjoying the rain just falling on her head, make it SO worth all the hard times!She played in the rain for over a half an hour. It was an ultimate struggle when she had to come inside. Oh the joys of being young. ☺️

I finally had a few hours this afternoon to take Alex to get his 7 year photos. Boy, you would have thought I was ripping his arm out of the socket by making him wear a nice shirt though. He is so funny, because he had just gone to church this morning, and never complains about a button up shirt then. I even let him wear shorts and flip flops! Once we got to our location, all was forgotten, and he had a blast! Natalie wanted me to take a few more of her, even though she has had a lot of pictures taken lately. I figured why not, since we were making a special trip for it. William came along too for the fun. His birthday is still a month and a half off, so I’ll get his official photos closer to his actual birthday. I think my shots came out FABULOUS!

The sun was a bit tricky this afternoon though. It was beautiful and overcast, until we arrived at the falls. Then, the clouds broke up a bit. I had some shots of bright sun, or splotchy shadows, but luckily they worked. I was very pleased. I LOVE these kiddos of mine! ❤️😊

Sundays are wonderful days because they are days of worship and renewal. Our church is incredible. It has changed me for good in so many ways. Today I was extended a calling to serve in the nursery. I was so excited! There have been times in my life that I would have really had a hard time. “Mom-ing” all day every day can be pretty hard at times. However, I am in a place in my life now where I am just trying to soak up every last little bit of sweetness and simpleness I can get before mine are all grown and gone.  These kids are just fabulous! They are the new generation. It is such a pleasure to be able to teach them and share what I care about and love so much in our gospel. It is going to be so much fun! After our services were over, our neighborhood had its annual Easter egg hunt. Lucy really gets into these parties now. Instead of the Frosty that she fell in love with at our Christmas party, today they had the Easter Bunny. Lucy was just as impressed!She kept smiling at him, saying “Hi!”, and waving to him. Eveytime he’d walk by she would want to get her picture taken with him. Lucy was SO ready to hunt for the eggs! It was almost near impossible to keep her behind the sign until the hunt began. (3minutes is a horribly long time in the mind of a 1 year old!)Ready, and……GO! At first it was hilarious because almost all of the eggs were in the shape of ducks. She kept asking me, “Where are the eggs?” After finally convincing her that the ducks were the “eggs” and had treats in them, there was no stopping her. This time she knew to pick up as many as she could get in her basket. She had it down.😊When all the eggs were claimed, she wanted to open every one! The challenge was that it was SO windy everything kept blowing away. We let her open one, and then asked her to wait until we got home.William and Alex had a good time too, except they said that some kids kept taking everyone else’s eggs. William said one boy dropped his bucket, and several kids ran over, and instead of helping him put them back in his bucket, they took all his eggs. It really bothered William. He is such a sweet young man. It gave us some great lesson time to talk about kindness and not being greedy or selfish.We finished our event with yummy cupcakes, then headed home to FaceTime Brie. It won’t be too much longer until she is home! 😁

After a crazy start to the morning with gymnastics and soccer, Lucy had a birthday party to go to for her little friend Brinlee. It was SO cute! Kristi had their church in Blue Ridge decorated like a farm, complete with cow and pig balloons, and pig snout cups. Brinlee was also dressed for her special occasion in an adorable cowgirl outfit. We had so much fun! Lucy ran and played with the kids, ate hot dogs and cupcakes, and bounced on Hoppity Horse. I always get frustrated after these types of things though, because I never get very many pictures. Chasing a toddler around just doesn’t allow me to. 🤣 Lucy enjoyed being able to play with Maedreigh as well. Usually they are in class, and can’t really play. “Free Time” is the best playtime!

Life around our house has been very “Soccery” lately. First, Alex started soccer and now Natalie has made the school soccer team. Tonight was her first game. She majorly goofed and told us, more like assured us, that her game started at one time, but when we all arrived, it had actually started a half hour earlier. (I should have trusted my instincts!) To too it off, they only took cash for tickets, which we did not have at all. We had to pull out our camp chairs and watch the game from afar, while we waited for Sam to come and bring cash. At least we didn’t miss anything spectacular. Their team lost 1-0. It has been a long time since she has played, so she was very rusty and hesitant. Hopefully she finds her knack again. She was a fabulous soccer player before. That was such a hard time to have to make her choose between the two sports she absolutely loved, but there were just not enough hours in a day to do both. I know there is a reason for everything. Natalie learned so many life lessons from competitive gymnastics. I hoping she can find a sport that she loves and excells at again. After the game, my mom and I went out to celebrate my birthday. Finally. 🤣 Things have been so crazy around our house, there just has not been free time, until now. And luckily the weather only made beautiful works of art in the sky, but didn’t rain us out. It was a wonderful evening! So nice to just get out for a bit and be an adult, and actually eats hot meal that is all my own.