Family Picnic at Pre-School

I thought this was a fun little photo series. Lily Kate's last day of her first year of pre-school is Wednesday. This school year has flown by. It has been the greatest experience for our family. She LOVES her teachers and her friends. I love how much she's learning! Charlotte will be joining her there in September and she is already talking about it all the time. She'll say, "after the summer I'm going to growed up and go to school with stister (we love how she says "stister") and pee pee in the potty and (big smile) get a BABY stister!" She's very excited. It sounds like she understands what's coming....we'll see. We're off to our first swim school lesson this afternoon. Everyone's growing up, I can hardly handle it!

Random....

Two random things I had to share....
- Parks and I have an HSA account for our health insurance and the years we have babies have become the best medical years for us. We have a big ole $5500 deductible and on the years we have babies we save up b/c we know we are going to have to fork over the total once the baby is born. Along with our giant deductible is the benefit that everything else we do after that is covered at 100%. So, the conclusion for us has been that in these baby years we can count on the fact that we are spending the entire $5500 (but not more than that) and do any medical thing that we want that year! We get massages (billed through a chiropractor), moles removed, etc. All this yada, yada, yada brings me to my current condition of raging third tri-mester heartburn. Today I called my Dr and asked if she could call me in something for the burn. She said it would be very expensive and I quickly assured her that I was up for it. So, this afternoon Parks picked up my pills and they cost a whopping $535!. Wow, this is the only instance in which I would pay that much for medecine that was for anything less than keeping me alive. Gotta love the perks of an HSA. I have high expectations that these pills will work.

- On a completely unrelated note. Tonight at dinner Lily Kate (age 4) says, "Hey Dad, when I get just a little bit bigger I'm going to get a phone and it's going to be purple and I'm going to send messages to my friends on it all day" You could see the fear on Parks' face as he saw the future of being a daddy of girls! He just kept saying, "a LOT bigger, a LOT bigger".

Couple more shots from the wedding weekend

Aunt Sarah was also with us for part of the weekend and this was probably the highlight for the girls. They LOVE being with her. So do I though :)


Here's Lily Kate with Andrew

Happy Mothers' Day to Me :)

This weekend we went to Waxhaw, NC for the wedding of one of Parks great friends from high school in Papua New Guinea. It was a great time to him to visit with old friends. One of our friend's sons and Lily Kate were fast friends from the first time they met so they were together the whole time. I spent most of my weekend with Charlotte and it was such a sweet bonding time for us. Happy Mother's Day to me!

Pinkalicious the Musical

Saturday night Lily Kate and I went to see Pinkalicious the musical with my friend, Wrenn, and her daughter, Maggie. Kate was enamored. She chose her pink tutu skirt to wear and (I wish her hair wasn't covering these in the pic) her dangly clip on purple jeweled earrings. We have been to a couple outdoor, really casual plays but this was her first real play and the theatre graduate in me was really excited that she loved it. They sold cupcakes after the show and she got to hug the little girl who played Pinkalicious, it was priceless.

When Lily Kate & Maggie realized that they were going to get to have a pink cupcake after the show they were holding hands, jumping up and down, and squealing that they were going to turn pink. A special night for sure.

Pickin Berries

My other babies

These are my snap peas that have just started popping up the last few days. It is so hard to keep the kids from eating them every day so we can let it produce enough to gather for dinner.

This is my little vegetable garden this year: snap peas along the back wall, regular peas on the left, cucumbers on the far right, and the middle is jam packed with tomato plants (possibly too many for them to thrive - we'll see how that goes..) We finally got a hose hooked up to the rain barrel so I can water the garden for free. There's just something about growing plants from seeds that gives you a sort of proud and protective feeling...

More Easter shots from Church

We had a great morning! A wonderful sermon at church, a potluck afterward, and then a third egg hunt for our kiddos. Don't worry it's not getting old.

Oh, why won't they look up, this one could be so cute...

Precious, truly precious

Samuel was quite the comedian, he did this for laughs and it worked on me :)

Sweet Kate

Happy Easter!

Kate showing off her ballet barbie from the "the rabbit", which is what she has been calling the Easter Bunny.

And Charlotte showing off her favorite things from her basket, cotton candy, pink necklace, and pretty headband

Egg Hunt at the Children's Museum

We went to the Childrens' Museum yesterday and met up with the Laniers and Powells for the toddler egg hunt. Charlotte was very excited to wear the bunny ears, that is until we got there. Kate dyed eggs and got her face painted and all the little kids just ran around :)

Here is Oliver, in true boy fashion, maybe more interested in the mulch than in the egg hunt

Here is Lily Kate enthralled by the yoyo she found in an egg. The things I would never think to buy that capture their attention!

Here is Samuel "cheeseing" for the camera. He was delighted to have his picture taken while we were begging the others to be still for a moment. Maybe there's a modeling future??


We had a great time. We also have an egg hunt at church tomorrow and Parks and I are going to do one at home in the afternoon, so this is the first of three. This has been a great Easter season, we bought a couple great childrens' books for the girls that talk about Jesus' death and resurrection. Between those, the Veggie Tales Easter movie, and our sweet toddler conversations I feel like we have really been present in the meaning of Easter this year.

Visit from the Coleys

We had such a great visit with Becca and Brent this past weekend. Becca and I have been very close friends for 17yrs and it feels so comfortable to be together. It was really great to be with her but also with Brent and sweet Emory and get to know each of them better too. Miss em already. We hit up all that Wilmington has to offer in the spring: walk on the beach, dinner downtown, Airlie Gardens, some park time, seafood by the water, all the good stuff.

Proud parent moments....

I feel like I'm always so emotionally exhausted by Lily Kate's 4yr old amount of self control and trying to encourage her to fight against this selfishness that she was born with.... tonight we had a sweet moment that I was so encouraged by..... I was putting Lily Kate to sleep, we read our devotion book and then I asked her if there was anything that I could pray for her about her day tomorrow at school. She said, "well, tomorrow is our Easter egg hunt and we should pray that when we hunt for the eggs it doesn't make everyone fight and say THAT'S MINE (said in sincere dramatic LK style). " Then she cut herself off and said, "I'll just pray for that, I'll go first". First she prayed to avoid any "THAT'S MINE" incidents and then she thanked God for all of us in the family (including Margaret Lee, who lives with us & LK thinks is in our family). Then she asked God to make her be a helper for Mommy and not to be mean to Charlotte anymore and for God to make her good. How precious, God is molding her and changing her. I was so proud of her and when I told her she was just beaming. As I left she asked (with hopefulness) if I was going to tell Daddy that she did a good job........how precious! Thank you, Lord for that encouragement!

Master Bedroom Makeover

Really, this is a post to show off more of my hubbys handiwork, I am constantly amazed and what he can do in that garage of his. Here is our bedroom before, sorry about the blaring windows, I forgot to take "before" pictures and I was actually thankful to find that I had this one from a year or so ago. This is the bed that he made us for a wedding present. We weren't using the space well, lots' of it was empty and wasted.

...and AFTER. It's hard to tell but the room is shifted, the headboard of the new bed is on the left wall (from the above picture). The bookshelf in this picture is on the wall where the old headboard used to be. Make sense??

This is my favorite space in the room, we found this little down filled loveseat (with slipcovers - the only way to do white) at World Market on sale. I wasn't sure I would use a sitting area in my bedroom but I do ALL the time. It's such a peaceful, secluded reading spot (2 words that are almost foreign to this mom of little ones)

Nice little low-profile bookshelf that Parks made. I loved the end tables with turned bases that I found for bedside tables, but they left us in need of some practical storage space.

I really wish I had a "before" picture of the dresser. Parks stripped and stained it to match the headboard, bookshelf, etc. It used to be a honey color. It looks brand new, you would never know I bought it used when I got out of college. I love giving furniture a new life.

Well done, Parks, well done!

Simple Treasures

Came across this picture when I was cleaning out the nursery, I think it was on the bulletin board in there when we used the nursery for Lily Kate. Its about 4yrs old, a precious memory to us now. Winship & Lily Kate on the lawn by the lake at Tate

It's A...

We had some trouble posting this video, but 2 weeks ago we got to have an extensive ultrasound with a specialist and learned that our baby is very healthy. For weeks Lily Kate was convinced that we were having a girl, we would say, "Friday is the day we get to find out if the baby is a girl or a boy." and she would say, "no, Friday is the day that you will see that you're having a girl!" She was convinced and there was no changing her mind. Here's a clip of us just after we picked Lily Kate up from preschool that day, telling her what we're having...

Charlotte's Prayer

I heard Charlotte pray for the first time last night. Parks has heard her once before because he puts her to bed but it was my first taste of that sweetness. We were about to eat and instead of asking Kate to pray, Parks asked Charlotte and she said,

"Sure, Thank you God for my mommy and my daddy....and my mommy and my daddy.... and the turtle and Sissy"

So, she's done and I said, "Good job, Charlotte umm....the turtle?" And she said in her sweet little high voice, "Oh yea, hi tiny little turtle." I followed her gaze down to her plate to one tiny piece of broccoli slaw that she had separated from the rest and put on the edge of her place and was gently touching and calling "turtle". Wow, she's special!

Beautiful Weekend

The weather is getting nicer by the day, I hope it's not going to backtrack. Saturday we went to the Arboretum and met up with the Phelps family. The kiddos were mesmerized by the fish. There were a couple of moments when Ben or Charlotte could have easily taken a swim if they hadn't been intercepted.




My wonderful friend, Lauren, spent Saturday with us and we even got to have a ladies night out. Good food, good conversation, it was wonderful.

Dress Making

I've been so busy sewing curtains and pillows that I have neglected making dresses. I cleaned out my closet the other day and found the fabric and ribbon that I had already bought for these long sleeved dressed for LK and Charlotte. Now they each have one to wear while we still have some cool weather.

Also, I just couldn't resist making these for my friend, Shelley's twins. They turn ONE today. The gift is more for her to say congrats for surviving the hardest (most wonderful!) year ever :) Who can resist the matching clothes.

Pudding

Some of these are blurry, but what a sweet moment to capture. Dessert of chocolate pudding from the big bowl in princess dresses.

Pictures I stole from my sister-in-law

Ashley not only has a great camera, but she takes the best pictures. I love this moment she captured between Nona and Lily Kate

Here are all the cousins on my mother's side of my family. Can you tell which one is my brother? It's pretty obvious.