April

Maybe when I catch up on blog posting, I can name my posts something a little more creative ;-)

This is just a cute picture of Zoe in a nice outfit :) I don't dress her this cute often, so enjoy it while you can. 

Colt is doing spelling… joys of homeschool - you can do spelling in your pjs! He's spelling his words with lima beans with letters on them, in case you are wondering. 

Tatum has been into Frozen like most little girls. She insists that I fix her hair like Elsa every single day. 

Petting zoo time

Tatum loved getting her face painted. She's really interested in make-up right now and is frequently found rummaging through my make-up bag.

2 Cuties

Axel and Alethea came to visit! 

It's fun having cousins around! Zoe always seems so much bigger when a smaller baby is over. 

We had several ice days. This is the one little "snowman" (more like an ice-man) that Tatum and our neighbor could build. Notice Tatum… she's in her "Elsa dress." Do you want to build a snowman?

We went downtown for pizza to celebrate some accomplishment of the kids one night. 

After pizza we stopped by Jim-Jim's Water Ice for snow cones! I love that these snow cones are made from real fruit :) This is random to place here, but one word the kids have been saying lately is "amn't." Like, "I amn't doing that!" It's a contraction they made up that cracks us up! 

Colt had a school vacation day while Tatum and Levi were in preschool, so I took advantage and we made a day of it! He chose to eat at Kerby Lane for breakfast. They have delicious gluten-free pancakes… he ate every bite :) 

Then we hit up Peter Pan Putt-Putt.

Even Zoe joined in on the fun.

We love the weirdness of Austin.

Our neighbors decided to move, so I thought I'd get a pic of them. One of the things we have loved about our new house is that we have kids in the neighborhood that we can easily play with. 

We will miss August and Ivy very much! We are praying that our new neighbors will also have kids! 

Zoe loves playing with the big kids outside too. 

Grocery shopping time. Gotta pile in! 

This is Zoe's first bacon. Felt like it was a good moment to capture. We love bacon! (I actually found a sugar-free bacon at Whole Foods that we are all digging. It is surprisingly every bit as good as the kind with sugar, just even healthier. Makes me wonder why they even put sugar in the other kind.)

Our friend Innocente had her baby and I got to hold this sweet girl one day!! Something precious about newborn life. 

More cousin time! Eliza and Hazel came to play! 

Another South church picture. The worship team called all the kids up to sing Mighty to Save before they were dismissed for children's classes. It was such a sweet moment to hear our kids singing these words of Truth!

Colt worked really hard on his animal project this year. He chose a mockingbird. He did all the handwriting himself which took forever but he was diligent! I was a little disappointed that he chose a bird and not some other animal that we could take a field trip to the zoo to see, but it ended up being great. Now we know more about all the mockingbirds we see in our back yard! 

He made a bird mobile with one bird perched and the other flying. He was so proud of his project and I was proud of him! 

post Disney March

After Disney, the rest of March took a slower pace. We didn't do a whole lot over Spring Break - we actually did some homeschool to make up for the week of school we missed while on vacation. 

Ty and I (and several others) have been working for almost 2 years to begin a new church in South Austin. Our church of 6 years (Westover Hills in NW Austin) had a vision for a multi-site church and we hopped on board to help bring that to our part of town. After LOTS of research, church visiting, prayer, conversations, meetings, and more prayer, we finally had our first service on March 23rd!! 99 people were in attendance the first Sunday. We loved this because it fit perfectly with our church's theme last year that the Shepherd left the 99 to bring in the 1 lost sheep. There is room for that one! :) 

Tatum and one of her favorite friends, Ryla, on South Church's first Sunday. If you are interested in learning more about South Church, click here. 

Nana and her grandchildren at Hazel's First birthday! 

In March, Colt lost his second tooth!! 

He was kind of dreading it… but then loved it! :) 

We had a family birthday party… not sure why I didn't get pics of any actual people? Our friend Ryan works for Kellogg's and his wife gave us this huge rice krispy sheet. Add a bit of frosting and you have an easy and delicious birthday cake! 

Zoe discovered this school bus. She LOVES to be pushed around on it! 

Colt had a jog-a-thon at school. He had a side-stitch in this picture, but after a few laps it went away and he began running. This was a fun event for the whole family. 

Zoe is so cute! 

This is Zoe's favorite drawer. She pulls the cups out of here about 20x a day. 

Granny Rae came to visit! 

Tatum wanted to play baby - ha! 

The boys played t-ball for the Dodgers in the Oak Hill league for the first time this year. They had a total of 3 games/practices a week, so that took up a lot of our time this month. They both had fun and improved quite a bit! 

Levi was begging me to inflate our swimming pool, but I couldn't find it. So, he became resourceful and made his own pool out of this plastic storage bin! 

Levi turns 5!

Levi turned 5 this year while we were at Disney World. We didn't plan the trip around his birthday - it just worked out best for us to be there that week. But, it was fun for him no doubt. He got to wear a huge birthday button with his name on it. Wherever we went, the Disney Cast Members all said, "Happy Birthday, Levi!" He ate it up! Colt eventually got jealous and now wants to go to Disney for his birthday - in hot, crowded July. I think he'll be lucky to try and brave Sea World for his birthday :)

Anyway, here are Levi's answers to his birthday interview:

Who are your closest friends? Jake, Abbie and Will, Zoe, Colt, Tatum, Charis, Ty, Scout and Garrett, Fletcher and Jane, Hannah and Jackson, Taylor and Abbey and Bailey, A.J, Claire, Jesse, Olivia, Walker, Lucas and Brian, Macy, Weston (from preschool), August and Ivey (our neighbors)

What are some talents you have? riding my bike and doing tricks on my bike like standing up and holding on with one hand, doing good at gymnastics and baseball - I can hit the ball far.

What activities do you like to do with your family? Going on dates, when we go to Chuck E. Cheese, when you take us to our friend's house

What makes you happy? When it's my birthday and I go on a fun ride like the Star Wars ride and Dinosaur ride at Disney. When I go to Nana and Bang Bang's house for a sleepover.

What makes you sad? When you guys leave to go on a date, or when you guys die, I'm gonna be sad or if our house gets on fire.

Favorite color? Blue

Food? Hot dogs and macaroni and cheese. Some healthy stuff that's my favorite is carrots, broccoli, bell pepper, green beans, meat and tortilla chips. I also like the P.Terry's hamburger with the sauce and lettuce and tomatoes on it.

Sport? basketball and baseball and soccer (cause next year I want to play soccer).

Book? Star Wars Ninjago book

TV show? Word Girl

Movie? Star Wars

Song to sing? Blue Skies and Rainbows

Day of the week? Sunday cause then we get to learn more about God

What did you get for your birthday this year? Lightning McQueen cars, umbrella, Jake and Never Land Pirate sword, going to Build-A-Bear Workshop and getting a new outfit for my bear, my new bike

When I grow up I want to be a Disney character and work at Disney World. Which one?: Magic Mickey

My goal for this year was to learn to ride a bike which I already learned. So my new goal is not to get tagged out when I run the bases. That's going to be hard for me. I need to run faster.

Something new I want to learn when I am 5 is how to be quiet so I don't wake Zoe up when she is napping and how to play baseball better.

Anything else? I hope Mussa has fun at his birthday. (He's the boy we just sponsored from World Vision and he turns 5 next month.)

Levi dancing with his cousin Eliza at Ty's cousin's wedding

Levi,
As the answers of your birthday questionnaire show, you are such a funny, thoughtful, sincere guy. You really do have lots of friends and you continue to remember everyone's names that we meet. You love your siblings, especially Zoe, and I pray that your relationship with them will always be of upmost importance to you. You are the best clothes folder and toy picker upper in our family and I appreciate the diligence you show in helping out around the house. You seem to be very intuitive for your age and you are picking up lots of educational information from listening to Colt's homeschooling lessons. I hope you aren't bored in Kindergarten next year! You are a joy to parent as you can process so much for your age - if we explain something to you, you get it and try to do it differently in the future. One thing that is a challenge for you on your birthday is that you easily get frustrated with other kids your age or older who aren't as mature as you. I know you will get a grasp on that soon enough and we'll move on to something else :) Levi, we love you SO much and you bring a smile to my face whenever I think of you. I pray that your excitement for life, your intelligence and your love for God will continue to grow in you and that with it you will do amazing things for the Kingdom.
I love you, Mom.

Other Disney pics

Here are just a few more pictures that are some of my favorites. Honestly, some of these are just pictures of the pictures they took for us at Disney, that's why they are all digitized :) 

On the way out of the hotel to the airport, we ran into Chip and Dale and tons of other characters we had already met. It was a fun way to say goodbye to Disney. 

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Well, that's about all from that vacation! It was a super fun and memorable trip. I am SO glad we had the opportunity to do this as a family at this time. The kids keep asking when we are going back (this isn't helped by Disney who keeps sending us brochures in the mail each week!) Tatum says next time she goes, she wants to stay for 5 weeks :) Ah, kids.