What's been happening in TX!

Easter Sunday was wonderful. We had an awesome service at Watermark. We attended the 9:30 service and there were 3 on Sunday morning. The one on Saturday night was completely full and so was the 9:30. It was really awesome to see the hope we have in the Resurrection and to celebrate with our church family. We celebrated with 3 Easter Egg hunts as well. We had one with our preschool ministry at Watermark, our preschool party, and while Mike was away fishing I took the girls to one at a local church. They love the thrill of the hunt and opening the eggs. They don't love candy, but do love to open it. We had some crazy messes and all eggs have been thrown away. Anna was funny cause she would only pick up the pink eggs so her basket was full of pink! Here are some pictures from our church hunt:

Anna and her best bud Grayson. They are 3 weeks apart and together a lot!

Anna and Grace. She is our neighbor and classmate at school!

Ava Morrison (Julia's for all my NC readers)... she cracks me up and she will be a big sis to another little girl. 18 months apart is so fun!

Ellie loves to hunt eggs and likes them to be difficult to find!

Mike's fishing trip

Mike got to go on a fishing trip to Port Aransas, TX. I have no idea where it is, but that they flew into corpus christi. I am guessing it is a long ways from Dallas and is on the gulf of mexico. We've only traveled to San Antonio once since we've lived here so we don't know much about Texas besides Dallas. He loved it and so enjoyed his time with Jake and his dad. Jake is in our student ministry and we love his family. We got to go over to their house on Easter Sunday night to enjoy some yummy fish that they caught.

Ellie got to go on a wonderful trip to Kansas to visit her Mimi and Granddaddy. Her Mimi flew to Dallas to pick her up and flew back with her. It was so sweet of her and Ellie loved it! She will for sure be the kid who will go to summer camp (Kanakuk!) and never miss us at all. She loves new adventures and is not shy at all. She cried cause she did not want to leave Kansas. She got to do so many fun things like swimming at the indoor pool, museums, grocery shop, Easter Egg Hunt, meet new friends at the park, play with Uncle Dave and Leeanna, eat yummy food and drink chocolate milk. She loves to inform me that I need to go to the store to get her real chocolate milk and that I do not make it very good. She was there for 5 days and loved every minute. Anna, Mary, and I had a great time as well with some extra bonding time. It is sooo interesting to see how they behave differently when they are not together. Mike and I really enjoyed our time with Anna and getting to love on her extra special.

Mary is doing great and I will do a separate post on her soon. I am trying to wean her cause my milk is running out and she has 4 teeth etc... It is time and I am a little sad, but know that our 10 months of no bottles was quite the journey. I was not sure what to wean her to since she has only had b-milk for 10 months and has refused everything else especially a bottle. I read online about trying vanilla pediasure cause it has more calories than whole milk and is sweet tasting unlike formula which she gags on every time. I also bought a special nuk sippy cup that was for 6 month olds and she took to it great! I was really praying cause we have a trip to Disney coming up and I really did not want to take her. I love her lots, but she would not enjoy it cause she loves her sleep! My mom has offered to watch her if I can get her weaned! I think I can do it in a month. She eats food great so that is really helpful. She is still a really happy, laid back baby and I am so glad. She is so sweet and you can't help, but smile at her all day!

Blue Lightning...

Ellie and her teammates

Poor Mary.. It has been so windy at the games.

Silly Ellie.. she's happy to be there!

Ellie is on her first soccer team this year through our city parks and rec. Mike is the coach and doing a great job. Our team is the blue lightning and since Ellie's favorite color is blue it works out great. The arrange the teams according to your neighborhood school so all of the kids live close to us. Most of them speak spanish and Mike is not quite sure how much they understand. They are such sweet kids and it has been a fun season so far. Ellie thinks they have one every game and that she scores 3 goals. We have a few more games so I will have to get some on video.

Past Spring Breaks....

Well, our spring break plans for this year are pretty much nothing and I am a little sad. I love spring break and always did something in college and when we were first married. We do have a really fun April and May planned so I keep thinking about these upcoming trips!

I think when I was a college student or teacher I needed spring break so much. I remember being so burnt out and longing to just lay on the beach and do nothing. I doubt I will be doing much of that this week with my 3 energetic girls! Anyways, I was thinking back to all the fun trips I was able to go on in the past and wanted to see if I could remember them all!

Freshman year of college: Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. My track team at Arkansas went there and I was in awe. They have the best weather and everything was so nice. I remember getting to do a little shopping and eating yummy food after the meet.

Sophomore year: Southern California for the Mount Sac Relays. It was another track meet and we went to the beach after.

Junior Year: Naples, Florida with two friends. We drove from Northwest Arkansas to Southern Florida in her old honda accord. It was like 23 hours or some length of time. We did not stop overnight and got to stay at her grandmother's old beach house.

Senior Year: Destin, Florida with a whole group of people from SBU. We rented a nice beach house and had an awesome time. It's funny cause Mike was in Orlando at Disney with his family and I remember us talking on the phone some.

Married Life:

Charleston, SC and Savannah, GA on a trip when we lived in Raleigh, NC. I love both of these cities so much and they are beautiful during the spring.

Myrtle Beach, SC was another great trip with Mike and it was really close to Raleigh.

Williamsburg, VA and Washington D.C. with Mike. It was full of history and culture. We loved going to both of these cities for the first time.

Married life with kids:

Well, the spring break trips have kind of ended:) We normally, go somewhere in July or with family now cause it is not really a break with 3 kids. It is nice to have some extra hands!

However, last year we went to the KOA outside of Dallas. It was hilarious cause I was very pregnant with Mary and we rented this tiny cabin. We left at 2:30 in the morning cause neither of us could sleep and the kids were coughing all night. It did not feel like camping cause we were right off of a major interstate in Dallas.

Dallas will be very busy this week cause people from small towns in TX and OK drive to Dallas to shop, go to six flags, museums, zoo, etc... We have some fun stuff planned with friends so I am sure it will be a nice week where we do not have to be anywhere by 9:30 A.M..

What was your favorite spring break trip?!

Love Her!

I decided to get the camera out to snap a few pictures of this cutie after church on Sunday. I am so glad that I did cause I know I will treasure these precious pictures in the future. Mary is 9 months old and changing everyday. She is sooo happy and full of life! She's laid back for the most part, but really loves anyone to interact with her. She lights up when her sisters talk to her and smiles great for the camera! She is such a doll and we love her so much!

yummy food....

Mary is loving food lately and lots of it! She likes fruit baby food, but no veggies. I can't blame her... green bean baby food is yucky. She does like real veggies and tonight she enjoyed some mashed potatoes and peas/carrots.

Today, I gave her a cheerio and she picked some up to put in her mouth. I'm pretty excited we have some more options since she is still anti-bottle at 9 months. We love this girl!

Lake Weekend!!!

We went to the lake this past weekend with some good family friends. We were blessed to be able to use a families lake house and it was so fun! It really was a perfect weekend. All the kids got along and we had so much fun. I've known Katrina since we first moved here. I was able to join her play group and through church etc.. we've been friends ever since. Ellie is 9 months older than Carsen and Anna is 9 months younger. Their little boy Canon is such a cutie as well. Ellie and Carsen shared a bottom bunk together and all 3 girls shared a room. Ellie said the bunk beds were her favorite part. Mike and Simon enjoyed lots of adventures together like 4 wheelers, Rhino truck, ping pong, and a campfire with the big girls. I stayed at home quite a bit with Mary which was great with me. She enjoyed her sleep and is such a good traveler. It was such a nice break after a busy February!

Good times at the dinner table with 5 kids under 4!

Our attempt at a family picture

Simon and Katrina with their great kids!

Daddy and his 3 girls including Shadow.

Ellie and Carsen. Sweet girls and friends!

Love this picture

Sweet sisters on a hike to the top of a "mountain".

Anna and Carsen... sweet girls!

Daddy fell asleep a little early....

A yummy dinner at the Steak Shed. It is only open on Friday and Saturday nights from 6-9!

Mary at dinner... she loves all food!

rocking on the front porch

We had a fun campfire!

NBA All Star Game!

A great Valentine's Day Date!

We saw Wolf Blitzer from CNN!

Alicia Keys was the halftime entertainment along with Shakeira. I was not a fan of Shakeira!

The huge screen really is pretty amazing!

Usher was the pregame entertainment

Lebron James... my favorite basketball player. He is amazing and huge!

Life Lately....

Well, I have been bad about blogging lately cause if I don't have pictures I don't seem to post as much. I have pictures on Mike's computer and he is at church right now! I will have to post some more later with some very fun pictures! February, has been a very busy month and full of all kinds of crazy fun! Here's what we have been up to lately in no particular order:

It has been really cold here this winter as far as a Texas winter goes. I don't remember the last time we went to the park and so we've had to be creative with playing inside etc...I am so thankful for preschool or else we would all be getting a little stir crazy. Yesterday, Mike had the day off so we went to the Children's Museum of Dallas. Our sweet, Mimi got us a family membership which I know we will use all the time! The girls love it and it is manageable for me to take all 3 girls by myself. Our playgroup goes sometimes as well so it will be fun to go with friends on cold, winter days or blazing hot summer days!

We just had D-Town at Watermark which is our version of Disciple Now. It was so awesome and such a blessing to so many kids. It is the student ministry teams biggest event so many hours and hard work were invested into the weekend. There were 480 students and 120 leaders involved. It was A LOT of people and so much fun! Mike was the speaker and he came up with the theme which was " 5 Dangerous Prayers" from Psalm 51. He made the curriculum which went great with their being 5 sessions of either small group/large group time. The prayers were
Clean Me, Teach Me, Mold Me, Use Me, and Break Me.
The other staff did all the creative parts, music, videos, etc... They did such a good job and are so creative. The ideas they come up with are awesome. My favorite part was on Friday night during the first session. They rewrote the Black Eyed Peas Song "Tonight is going to be a good night". It was awesome and so loud in there. It for sure set the tone for the weekend. They went on to rewrite "Party in the USA" and a Taylor Swift song all about DTOWN.
I was able to host my small group girls who are in 11th grade. They are so much fun and so committed. I love their passion and faithfulness when we meet each Wednesday or for big events. Mike was with his 9th grade boys and they stayed up much later than we did. I don't know how he does it. He really has so much energy. He is speaking tonight to our Young Adults cause JP is sick.

Teeth or Ears? I'm sure most of you who have a little one have wondered what is wrong with them. Mary was really fussy today and not sleeping well. I couldn't tell which one it was and she didn't have a fever so I was really confused. I decided at 5:00 that I didn't want to risk a sleepless night so we went to the Dr. It was an ear infection and I am so glad I took her. The Dr. gave her some meds. and I'm sure she will be great soon!

Well, I am watching American Idol for the first time this season. We always have something on Tuesday night and I never get to watch. It seems pretty good so far. I hope we can keep up with it till the end. Have a great week!

Great State of Texas....

I love "Baby Bangs" post today on why she loves Texas. She described it so perfectly and for our friends and family from out of state I think it will give you a good taste of life in Texas. I know that Dallas is different than Houston, but what she writes describes our lives here. I've never seen such a different culture. It really is unique to Texas. Our students who are "preppy" wear wranglers and boots. Car Hart jackets are in style and these are not "redneck"people. However, you also feel the desire to dress up to go to a fancy mall or to dinner.

Mike wears boots often and looks pretty cute in them! He also got a "western/car hart" jacket from Watermark as a staff gift. It is amazing how we can live in this huge city and have all the conveniences, but at the same time drive an hour away and be on a ranch. I'm guessing soon we we might have to decide if we will be Aggies or Longhorns! ha! I think we will stay Jayhawks....

Adventures with Daddy....

Mike is such a fun, creative Daddy. He is the best at coming up with random/creative ideas that our girls love. Many, people told us when you have 3 kids you really have to tag team and divide them up for it to really work. We were learning the hard way that weekends were sometimes really difficult with the kids cause there is lots of down/unstructured time which is good for a little while, but our girls love need a plan! We now sit down every Thursday night to plan the weekend. I normally take the girls on Friday morning (Mike's day off) and we go do something together and let Mike rest, exercise, or do whatever he likes. I come home by noon and then we spend the rest of the day together. He takes E and A on Saturday mornings on some sort of adventure.

Last weekend they went to some horse ranch in Frisco that also hosts birthday parties. They loved it and got to jump in bounce houses, ride ponies, pet goats, and play on the playground. Anna is free so we only had to pay for Ellie which was $7. Another guy in our community group took his boys and said "it was the most fun he's ever had with his boys". Mike is quite the planner and always has a fun event for the girls on Saturday mornings. They also love to go to White Rock Lake to the dog park. I am so thankful to have a husband who loves me and loves our girls!

How will we respond?.....

The Future Leaders of Uganda from Watermark Community Church on Vimeo.

Our church has been opening my eyes to what the world is like in Uganda, Dallas, or Haiti in the last month. We support a certain ministry in Uganda and are building water wells, sponsoring children etc.. Our community group has been working through how we should respond. The main message I have gotten over the last month is that I need to think about what am I doing right now where I am at in life with my family, neighbors, friends, West Dallas etc..I am beyond blessed and am so thankful that my church cares for the rich and poor!

Check out www.watermarkworldwide.com

Anna's 3rd Birthday Party!

Anna turned 3 and her birthday finally came! The girls have been anticipating this day for months. They play birthday party all the time and Anna was so excited. I am soooo not the birthday party planner where everything is cute with lots of crafts. We had her party at a gymnastics place and it was awesome. They had 2 teachers who led the kids in games, trampoline, obstacle course, and lots of other fun activities. I only had to bring the cupcakes and drinks. It was so easy and low stress. It was so fun to see all the kids really enjoy themselves and for the parents to be able to talk with one another! I am so thankful for Anna and what an amazing little girl she is becoming each day. We also survived her being 2 which was quite a year full of discipline, potty-training, and all of those fun things that happen when you are 2 years old!

Anna with her good friend Grayson. I love his face!

Gretchen and I with Preston and Mary. They are one month apart.

Everyone loved the trampoline.

Anna loved the parachute!

Big sister loves to party!

Mary loves her Daddy!

Anna and Jack or (Jackman as she calls him)

Ellie and Anna with their good friend Carsen

All of the kids stretching listening to their teachers!