School Easter Parties

Brodey and Brock's Easter parties fell on the same day AGAIN, so I don't have many pictures to show. It was a little crazy running back and forth between their classrooms with the girls in tow.

Brock man was super excited to see us..

Brodey too..

Brodey scarfed down several cookies and cupcakes while I was in Brock's room.. so of course his tummy started hurting. We ran out of there so fast (for fear of vomit) that I almost forgot Lyla! (not the first time) Another mom (also with four kids) was kind enough to get Beans cookies together and send her after us. Whew!

Brock

Few things Brock has said this week that I have to write down before I forget... (really, an entire book could be written with all the crazy things he's said.. I love how his mind works)

I was sitting in the kitchen helping Brodey with is homework and Brock marches out all serious and says, "Mom. God makes us in Heaven, then we BUST OUT of your belly (hand motions), then we grow from little to big (hand motions again). Right?" I tell him he's got the highlights down and he just nods his head and walks away. So random.

A couple of days later he came home from school and he's chatting away about his day.. I was half way listening as I'm changing a diaper.. then he says, "we learned about food and sex today from Mother Goose." Suddenly he had my full attention.

me: "you learned what? From who??" (Mother Goose??? Really???)
Brock: "Well you know, I like peanut butter."
me: "yep. what about the other thing?"
Brock: "Sex. You know, bees."
me: (kinda stuttering at this point) "Like birds and bees?"
Brock: "No mommy, birds aren't sex! Bees and dragonflies. Did you know dragonflies are the faaaastest sex??"
INSECTS! ha!! Whew.


He prays before bed and always thanks God for everyone in the family by name. Lately he is also, very seriously, been thanking Him for eyeballs. Thank you God for mommy's eyeballs, for daddy's eyeballs, Brodey's eyeballs, Bean's eyeballs, Sushi's eyeballs and for my eyeballs. Every night. Eyeballs. I love the things that stand out to him.

Sushi's 1st Birthday

Super-Aunt Lyndsay left this balloon with a teddy bear on our front porch before heading to the beach. I'm pretty sure it was Sushi's FAVORITE birthday present!

Her birthday fell on the Thursday of Spring Break, and since it was such a special day, daddy took the day off and we all went to the zoo! We had such a great time.

This is the only picture I have of her big 1 year old shirt before she covered it with twizzlers. (Which, yes.. she ate a TON of them.. and I'm sure that's not the best snack for babies, but it was her birthday!)

Zoo with daddy is so fun.

Which way Lyla?

All four look at me and smile? No?

After the zoo we stopped by the grocery store and bought *everything* needed for her strawberry birthday cake. Got the recipe from my un-named friend (JESSICAH!)... who was adamant that I NOT follow the directions on the box mix, but go by the directions she emailed to me. I thought it was weird when it didn't call for eggs.. but went along with it anyway. After 45 minutes in the oven I had to scrape it out of the pan. Gave Jessie a call and she guesses it probably needed 2 egges.. so I scrape together some close enough ingredients out of the pantry and try again. Again.. scraping it out of the pan. By this time it was 6:15pm so I tried pasting it together with icing (that is short one pack of strawberries since they were needed for cake try #2), ran out of icing on my flat cake so this is what we ended up with.... (first try on the right)

Turns out the cake needed FOUR eggs. hahahahahaha! Oh Jessicah.. I think it will be awhile before I ask you for another recipe! (jk.. she just had a baby.. I know what that does to ones memory!)

Lucy didn't care! (oh.. and Brock made me move the cake during dinner so he couldn't see the icing. And he left the room when we gave it to Sushi. Poor guy! Still not a fan of the frosting!)

How much do I love that she held onto her balloon the WHOLE time she ate cake?!

Sweet little face looking up at daddy

hAppY bIRtHdaY SweEt bAbY lUcY :)

Chosen of God

Lucy. Today we are celebrating her very first birthday and I've been thinking a lot about just how special she is and how blessed we are to have her. I had always wanted 4 kids: 2 boys and 2 girls.. but after 3 ROUGH pregnancies I was ready to give up on that dream and hoped to never go through pregnancy again.

We should have been thrilled on July 28th, 2009 when we found out we were unexpectedly having a fourth baby.. but all we could think about was the long hard road in front of us. I started getting sick between 4 and 5 weeks and was so sick I could hardly take care of myself, never mind the 3 small kids I was responsible for. I lost more than 20% of my body weight very quickly and took three trips to the hospital for IV fluids. I felt like I was dying and sometimes wished that I was. No part of me was excited about having another baby.

Pregnancy was loooooong and miserable in so many ways. We decided the baby would be named Henry if a boy and Lucy if a girl.. but were still not totally on board with the idea of having 4 kids (in the span of 5 years). What will we drive? How will we provide? How will we give everyone enough attention? How will we get to school on time? How will we get ANYWHERE on time? Will we ever leave the house again??

April 7th, 2010 I woke up around 7am in labor. Pretty uneventful until she was born early that afternoon. From the very second we saw her we loved her immediately.. in a shocking, almost painful, overwhelming way. We named her Lucy Rae (Rae after my sister, who she looks just like, and Lucy because we liked it) and spent two days in the hospital starting at her and wondering how we could have ever not wanted her.

God had a plan all along with Lucy. Turns out the very meaning of her name is "Chosen of God". Of course I believe ALL children are chosen by God, but there is something overwhelming about that being the MEANING of her name, especially since we didn't CHOOSE her. We didn't even want another baby. But He gave us one anyway. He gave us her. And I feel overwhelmed with love every single time I think of her. I can't even count how many times over the past year that I've stood over her while she slept and cried as I thanked God over and over and over for her. She is literally a dream come true... even though I would have given up on the dream of 4 kids myself, God loved ME enough to see it through. He gave me a baby I didn't think I wanted. Even though I fought it all the way and was sooooo ungrateful... He let me have her anyway. His plan is infinitely better than my plan. She is a constant reminder of how much God loves me... He allowed all that sickness and all that struggle so we could get to here. So I could look back and say, without any hesitation, His plan is better. Always better. Even if the path is long and painful and miserable... the end result is so. much. better.

Lucy Rae, there aren't words meaningful enough for me to tell you how much I love you. I feel like the luckiest person in the whole wide world that I get to be your mom. I don't know why God chose me and you to be together, but I thank my lucky stars everyday that He did. You are just a little ball of sunshine and happiness and every day with you brings me so much joy. Happy Birthday Sushi! I love you so much.


"Who am I, O Sovereign Lord, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far?" (2 Sam. 7:18)

Fun with Farm Animals

Some friends of ours have a petting zoo (Cricket's Mobile Petting Zoo.. if you're interested!).. they invited a bunch of friends over to take pictures and play with the animals yesterday and we had a BLAST! The kids loooooved the animals... especially Brock!

There was a photographer there that took family pictures.. but here are a few ;) I snapped with my camera...

The boys (and one top-less little Lyla) all hopped in the creek when pictures were done... such a fun place!

Family Movie Night

A Friday night favorite in our house is watching movies together. Lyla was extra excited about this one... Tangled.. it was the first movie her and I ever saw in the theater together.