Mail Call!!!

For all of you, and I know there are a lot, who wanted to send HUGE care packages for the girls, and me and shawn, as well as separate, but also HUGE packages for my birthday that I'll be celebrating at camp, I've taken the initiative to put camps address here on the blog. Please don't overdo it and send more than a few hundred dollars worth of stuff, at least in the same package....maybe break it down into a few smaller packages, or at least buy insurance for the awesome stuff I know you'll be sending. Oh and you might want to get on that pretty soon, because mail runs a tad bit slower at camp, and we'll be there from July 3rd-the 16th. You can thank me later.

Camp Blue Haven
HC 81 Box 304
Las Vegas, NM 87701

Water Baby

I've said before that Levi loves the water. We decided it was time for him to try out the swimming pool in our backyard. He really seemed to like it. He sat in my lap moving his legs a lot and watching the water. I love this stage where you can see how they soak in every new experience and you can just imagine how much their brain is working overtime as it takes in all these new things.

Summer Somethings

Smiley baby...he is smiling at just about everything we do now :)

Elle was the teacher and she was reading her student a book.
She was a pretty strict teacher...Ava couldn't do anything! ha ha

Customizing the bird houses that they began decorating while at VBS...I love how you can see the movement of Ava's brush...it was going pretty fast!

Little abstract painter

Frog Baby

This hat has officially made it through all three babies. I loved it the moment I saw it and had to buy it way back when. Elle wore it to camp for silly hat day when she was 3 months old and it's packed and ready for silly hat day for Levi.

After we brought him in, I put him in his bouncy seat to get a few things done. I kept hearing him making grunting noises and finally looked over and this is what I saw. LOVE IT!

Boaz

We had our VBS last week and it went really well. It is always an exhausting week, especially when you have a baby in tow. One of the nights, the normal "MC" couldn't be there and no one was willing to step in and take his spot for a night. After a little bit of begging and praying, Shawn said he'd do it! If you know Shawn, you know he doesn't love acting silly or dressing up in front of people, especially for VBS...I'm not sure why because he was a youth minister and is pretty goofy acting when he wants to be, but for some reason, VBS is not his thing. We could not be more opposite! Anyway, he stepped up and donned the traditional VBS garb, lots of sheets and a scarf and was Boaz, the husband of Ruth. He did an excellent job and I was so proud of him. The girls LOVED that it was their daddy.

Even Levi got into it. My friend Donica held him the whole night one night and it was wonderful! Here they are singing "This little light of mine."

Elle's Trip

This post is a little late, but I had to wait for pictures to be developed from Elle's disposable camera and then I had to actually find a time to sit at the computer and make this magic happen! Back in May, Nana called and asked if Elle could go with her and Poppy to a family reunion in north Texas in early June....for a whole week. My first desire was to hang up the phone and unplug it forever and never leave the house again with my sweet baby/oldest child so that she'd never grow up. But, then I realized that that might be a tad bit overprotective and unhealthy so I stalled...I said I'd have to talk it over with Shawn. Before I even hung up though, I knew what our decision would be. We were taking another painful step in the world of parenting and loosening yet another finger of our death grip on our children's lives. It is hard to do. But, as Shawn and I have always said, one of our main goals in raising our children, is for them to desire independence. It's just hard to actually follow through, especially when said child is just 6! Anyway, we said yes, as long as Elle could look us in the eye and say that she understood that she'd be gone 7 days, no turning back. She didn't even bat an eye when saying that to us. We felt pretty confident. The time came, we packed her up, and we said our goodbyes. Both Shawn and I felt a big ol' lump in our throat, but didn't have time to figure out what it was because as we turned back to the house, we had two other little sets of eyes looking at us and not caring that we might need a minute to lick our wounds. The next week actually went by pretty quickly. Ava did ask often if Elle was coming home that day and she was very ready to see her. Finally the day arrived. We made Elle a cake, colored her a sign, and waited. When she finally arrived, and after all the hugs, I couldn't stop staring at her! She looked SO.MUCH.OLDER. I felt like I was getting a glimpse of her as a tween. She just looked so mature and poised. I was unbelievable proud of how great she had done on her trip, never really missing us once and living it up! She said that her favorite parts of the trip were playing in the lake with Hayden, and seeing a baby armadillo up close. I am so thankful to my parents who had the idea and the courage to take one of my kids with them for a whole week! I know it will be a memory that Elle will never forget. Elle had an audience when she was in the water.
Her and Hayden...no fear with water up to their chest.

The infamous armadillo...taken with Elle's camera

Another shot from her camera

from her camera...she said it was inside a restaurant and there were lots of fake chickens above the door and she thought it was funny and picture-worthy.

Poppy, Hayden and Elle at the art museum in Fort Worth.

My mom said that Elle took a special liking to my Uncle Rick...so sweet!

Hayden is such a big boy now! He has changed so much since the last time I saw him!

My grandmother and my uncles with Elle...and a big ol' chicken.

Elle and Nana..sweet picture.

Daddy's girl getting a big welcome home hug!

The sign that we made for Elle. She was pretty excited that we had done that for her.

The welcome-home cake I made. It was so pretty and tasted oh so good!

A few randoms...

Here are a few pictures since I have a few minutes to blog! My and a few of my peeps must have had purple on the brain last Sunday!

Be still my beating heart....this was my sweet boy this morning when we were in the nursery, right after I fed him.

Gramme came in for the weekend and of course was wonderful. I think we got the first break from kids in 2 months. It was only for about an hour to run errands, but it was really nice to get out without worrying about all the kiddo things. This picture was taken right after she got here and we were at a MASH event. Levi's such a cuddler...and Gramme was sure okay with that!

Yesterday Gramme spent 300 hours filling up water balloons, which were all busted in about 4.8 seconds. But they sure had fun!

Gramme also played with Play-Doh with them and they made a whole town. It was really cute how they had all these tiny details.

They sure do love their Gramme!

I won the lottery!

Okay I didn't really actually win the lottery as far as scratch off tickets go. But, I do feel like I won the "married-a-man-who-goes-above-and-beyond-as-a-father" lottery. To some degree, you can tell when you are dating someone if they would be a good husband or father, but really you just don't truly know until you actually have a child with him and then see what happens. Had I just gone with that idea, hmmm...the first time I saw him with a child, he was holding him upside down by his ankles and accidentally lost his grip and dropped the kid on his head. Oh dear...lol! But I can now say will full assurance that I got one of the ones that are really rare. He is amazing with our daughters. He loves to wrestle with them, even when he's just gotten home from work and he really just wants to take a quick nap. He watches cartoons with them in the afternoon and likes it! He makes them pink/purple/blue pancakes...whatever color they want and adds funny faces to them sometimes. He takes them fishing and almost never gets annoyed with doing all the slimy work. He loves wearing pink...something he never wore before our 1st daughter. He prays for their husbands just about every night with them. He doesn't mind changing diapers and with all three kids changed every single diaper while we were in the hospital. He spends his day off with them and incorporates all of us into his free time. He wakes up before everyone and is usually the last to go to bed. I can only hope that our kids will someday understand just how blessed they are. Right now, this is the norm to them. They don't realize that this is truly not the norm in society. I'm not a mushy-writing type so I'll keep this part short. I am so thankful to God every day for giving me a husband who is such an amazing dad to our three kids!

They were so anxious to give daddy his gifts!

Levi wasn't too impressed with the whole Father's Day festivities.

Surviving Summer

I really have to be on my A game this summer since Elle is used to doing things all day, Ava is used to having my attention, and Levi now demands a lot of my attention. I devised a flexible schedule to keep boredom from creeping in as well as feel like we didn't turn into TV blobs from 3 months of sitting around. We don't get to every single thing on the list every day, but we do get most of them done. Of course there are days that the whole schedule is thrown out and we do whatever too. One of my favorite things we are doing this summer is working on Christian living. I am talking to them a lot about the Fruit of the Spirit and how we can show it in our daily behavior. They are really soaking it in. We are also working daily on manners. I feel like I've seen an improvement in both of them! We also implemented a Good Deeds Chart which is working marvelously. The girls get a sticker every time I catch them being sweet to each other or us, or I see them doing something without being asked, like throwing a dirty diaper away. Today they actually fought over who was going to throw it away. Of course, I don't give them a sticker every time so they have to just keep doing it, not knowing when they will get a sticker. They each got to pick out 5 prizes they'd get when they filled up each line and then put them in order of importance. Elle picked in ascending order: $5 to spend on whatever, ice cream, a family picnic, candy from our candy stash, and going to the Jump Place. Ava picked the pet store to look at animals, a blow pop, $5 to spend however, a big bubble bath, and ice cream. It's funny to see what they picked and then how they rated it's importance.

Here are a few other pictures of things we got for the summer to help make the days a little less boring.

Window Markers...fun, cheap, and easy to clean up

Wooden face masks...only cost $1 each and gave me a good 45 minutes of time...well worth it!

Watercolor paper--they had been painting on notebook paper and the mess was taking longer to clean up than the actual time they spent painting. Now they can paint there little hearts out and there's no disintegrating paper and stained table from their artist endeavors! Plus, it was majorly on sale at Michael's when I bought it!

Perler beads....this takes me back to childhood!

The final product. Elle had the patience to do a flower, and Ava...um lets just say this is for ages 6 and up. It was too tedious for Ava's preschooler fingers but she was proud of her colorful square!

Even I did one...and LOVED it. It's much much cheaper than therapy and it truly made me feel calm. I was in the zone while I made it and felt a sense of accomplishment when it was done. Yes, I am a crafty dork.

D.I.Y.

For the last month, we've been working on a DIY home improvement project. Let me first say, yes, we are still married. But, only because I chose for once to butt out 90% of the time and let Shawn make the decisions. I only weighed in on about 2 or 3 things and Shawn will even tell you that he's glad I did on at least one of them! Anyway, we decided to install a patio in our backyard. We spend a lot of time outdoors, especially in the summer and if you've ever seen our house, you know we have no mature trees in our neighborhood. The positive is that there's no leaves to rake in the fall...the negative is that there's NO shade from the summer sun. So, we decided to build a patio and put a canopy over it to provide shade. We had one good weekend in May where our friends from church came over and helped A LOT and whatever they didn't get done, Shawn and I would have to finish....this was all with a one month old, a 3 year old, and a 6 year old. To say that it was a trying time would be an understatement. There was a lot of sweating, dehydration, very dirty laundry, banged up hands, crying babies (and children and adults for that matter) and some general weeping and gnashing of teeth. But, it's now finished! And can I just say that it looks even better than I imagined. The sweetest part of the whole thing is that we (meaning mostly Shawn) did it ourselves!! We are so proud of what we thought up in our heads and made come to life in the backyard. It is much more bearable to be out there on a hot day....now if we can just figure out how to keep from being eaten alive by mosquito's. The work begins....

Shawn riding the compactor

One by one, the stones are put in place

We both learned a lot about cutting stone. The tool he is using in this picture is NOT the best option.

Hammering the last piece of stone into place!!!

TaDa!