Xavier Turns 9

Our big guy turned 9!

We had a baseball game on Xavier's birthday and treated his team to cookies and juice pouches after. 

 After we cleaned up, we had to have birthday treats with daddy.

His favorite birthday treat - cinnamon rolls and cream cheese icing.

I could do a prettier job with my icing but I did make them homemade - I get points for that, right?

Xavier is growing more responsible everyday and loves to help, especially if he can help his dad.  He loves to know how things works and believes he can fix almost anything.
He has a tender heart that loves hard and dreams big.  He loves family time and wants us all to be together as much as possible.

Happy birthday, Xavier.  We love you and we're so thankful for you.

Bonus - birthday at Grandma Num and Papa's.

AJ's 4th Birthday

Our niece, Adelyn turned 4!
We're so thankful to have her in our lives.

She had a superhero themed birthday party.  Cousin buddies!

We helped her bling out her new birthday bike with a basket and a bell.

Isa and I got to hang out some at the party.  She's my reminder that children grow so quickly.

Someone left us unattended - Gigi lets you sit in the water table with just a diaper!

It was a very sweet day spent with family!

Happy birthday, AJ!

NICHE 2019

Four ladies and I slipped away to the NICHE homeschool conference a couple of weekends ago.  We were gone Thursday - Saturday and enjoyed our time away from our army of little people.  We grew, we were challenged, we cried (okay, I cried), and we pushed ourselves to learn and plan for the upcoming school year. 

We represented 5 families, 23 children, and 3 more on the way.
We ate good food and plenty of it and stayed up too late visiting.

I went to a class on Iowa homeschool law and feel much more confident in choosing from the 5 options in Iowa, if that is in our future.  I also went to classes on being a wise wife, managing bad days, time and home management, Bible quizzing, judgment, and morning time. 

I was convicted a lot, and need to get my notes back out and re-read them to keep that conviction and move it over to change and betterment of self and our school.

We are excited to introduce morning time and see what that looks like for our tribe.  Cindy West did a nice presentation about morning time and brought to me the concept of starting with a quick "brain game" to get right and left sides of the braining firing and working together before moving on with the school game. 

As when Mike and I went in 2015, Nancy Bjorkman was inspiring, convicting, and uplifting.

I really enjoyed Scott Woodruff's sessions (he's from HSLDA).  He did the Iowa homeschooling session and the one about judgment.

In between sessions, we wandered the exhibit hall, touched all the curriculum, and bought things for our upcoming school year.

This was a fantastic weekend.  I tried to keep my feet up when I could

but in the end I came home a swollen mess.

Mike, of course, handled things at home beautifully, and never complained a bit.  I was glad to get home to my zoo, but the break was fantastic.

Summer Days

Summer is quickly slipping by and we're trying to enjoy it as much as we can.  There have been some low lows and some happy highs.

Highlights...
While Emma was gone we went out and played with her pup, Anne.  Zayden, not a dog person, hung out of the van most of the time.  He did actually get out on the 2nd or 3rd time we were there and got braver.

Hair cut!

Last Thursday we went to the state park near us.  Chelsie took the kids for a hike while us pregnant moms....uh....didn't, and then the kids played and we had a picnic.

My strong girl did those steps.  She was worn out afterwards!

Picnic with a whole lotta kids!

Saturday night bike rides...

This kid...

He came down for a drink Saturday night and said nothing about his cheek.  When questioned he said his bear scratched it.  We never did figure it out.  Boys....sigh.

Baseball nights! 

Little Sam seems to be the focus of many of my summer candids.  He's in such a growing season.  I'll have to work on catching the others this week!

Baby 5 {Strawberry Baby}

Baby 5 is a mover and a shaker.  She's a strong little nugget and spends her days (while I'm working or on my feet) snoozing and her evenings and nights (while I'm trying to rest) rolling around, kicking, and being a pistol.  If I am still, she is not.  This bodes well for me when she joins life on the outside, huh?

I haven't had any major cravings these latter weeks of pregnancy but it is fresh garden strawberry season, so baby and I have been enjoying strawberries in everything. 
Dairy free (almond milk) yogurt, granola, and strawberries...

Oatmeal, almond milk, and strawberries...

Maybe this dolly will come out with red hair on account of all the strawberries. 😉  

{And tonight it is a strawberry moon.}

Play Ball! {HOMERUN!!}

Xavier is having a great baseball season.  It's been a joy to watch him improve, learn, enjoy, and appreciate the game each time we play.  He catches pop flies, fields the balls, hits well, and mostly understands where the play is.  Moms of younger boys - take heart - they get there.

On June 11th we played a team that my cousin Chance's son, Rylan, was part of.  It was fun to watch the cousins on the field together.

Rylan catching and Xavier batting.

Safe!

Rylan batting

Xavier:

Rylan:

On June 14th we played away.  Xavier had a great night.  He was the last batter, which often results in a "home run," however, his last at bat he did actually hit out to the outfield far enough that he got his first ever little field home run!  He was pumped.

HOMERUN! ⬇

Tonight we were back at home.  Xavier had a couple of great doubles and caught a pop fly in the field.

It's been a fun season to watch and we'll be sad to see it come to an end next week.

My Men

My matching men....

...all dressed up and ready for church.  How I do love them.

Chicken Pox!

Many days ago I noticed a random spot on Zayden's head.  Assuming it was a bug bite, I never really thought about it.  That evening, after showers, Mike noticed another spot in his underwear area.  Hmmmm.....

Having experienced the chicken pox with 3 other kids (Ameliya + Natalee/Xavier), I knew what I sure thought they looked like, but having no knowledge of exposure or where in the world we would have gotten them I brushed them off.  (The other 3 got them from Mike's shingles - we were expecting them.)  The next morning he had a couple more random spots.  Still baffled, I called our clinic to get the doctor's opinion.  He said the same thing as I did - sure seemed like chicken pox.  Ha.

He'd had no fever, no real symptoms except he did take a really long nap the day I found the first spot.  In fact, on day 1, he was doing this...

We quarantined him at home and home he remained for almost 2 weeks.  Other than a couple of fussy days, he was quite a good patient.  (Sending Gma a spot update.)

He never got "hundreds" of spots, but did get probably 75-100 spots.  I hope it was enough to prevent him from getting them again.  He became a huge fan of the oatmeal bath and loved living in loose cotton PJ pants and t-shirts.

He'll have a couple of scars, because he's 3 - ha - but he did really well overall.  Daddy made him a "pox room" in the office with a smart TV and DVD player and the daybed.

We kept him well hydrated and he got unlimited popsicles and snacks - because there should be some perks to the pox, right?  His favorite thing was coming down after bedtime to say, "I'm hungry."

Big sister picked him out some cool shades at Dreamnight since he missed out.

He's all healed up now, and officially got to go out this weekend.  We're maintaining naps and working on keeping his immune system built up so he's back to tip top shape!

{As a note:  We are not anti-vaccine or non-vaccine.  He had not, however, had the varicella vaccine.  We are fine with him having had the chicken pox because he is a healthily developing child, and we kept him home as soon as we realized to protect those around us.  You do you.  We're working on being "us" over here.)