The end is in sight!

I have a love/hate relationship with this time of year. I love that school is almost over and I am no longer going to have to get up at 5 AM during the week. I love that the teachers tend to send home less homework. I love that the days are long and my kids can go outside and play for hours when they come home from school. I love the flowers blooming and birds singing! I love the warm temps! I love getting ready for a beach vacation that always comes right when school gets out. I love celebrating 2 of my babies birthdays as well as my mom's, my sister's and now Quinn's. However I hate TCAPS! I really, really hate them. My sweet boy went to bed crying last night :( He doesn't like tests. He gets super anxious. HE is terrified of failing. He puts some much pressure on himself. He is miserable the whole week. That is why I hate TCAPS! IT makes a normally sweet boy very grumpy and sad for a whole week. And to make it worse for him....his big sister isn't intimidated by TCAPS at all! She doesn't brag about that fact but he knows it and it just makes his anxiety worse b/s she isn't phased by these daunting tests! I will be so glad when this week is over and my sweet Caleb is back.

On a happy note....13 years ago today I was getting ready to be a mom for the 1st time! Matt and I probably felt the same way Caleb does right now :) Hard to believe I am about to have a teenager! Where does the time go?

Easter 2013

This is our 1st Easter together as a family since 2010. It was so nice to have Matt with us for a change. His parents even joined us for lunch :)

My family :)


The rest of my Easter pictures are on my iphone and I haven't figured out how to get them onto my blog.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter!

What has been going on in our life!

Boy, life has been so busy lately and has thrown us some major curve balls lately. After many weeks of Matt having back/leg pain due to a bulging disc and doing physical therapy to try and get relief he ended up needing emergency surgery when the disc ruptured. I am very thankful that God was watching over Matt...the surgeon said had the rupture been a few discs higher that the rupture would have severed his spinal cord and he would have been paralyzed for life. He did have quite a bit of nerve damage that is causing some lingering effects (no feeling in his left leg) but we are hoping those nerves will grow back over time and that these side effects aren't permanent. In the meantime he is sitting at home for the next 6 weeks on limited activity! During Matt's ordeal Caleb had been coughing and had a low grade fever. I was finally able to get him to the dr on Monday and he had pneumonia. He is responding well to antibotics though thank goodness. And if all that wasn't enough I was supposed to have a small procedure Nov. 2 to remove a couple of spots that had been found on a mammogram a few weeks ago. After numerous unsuccessful attempts to remove them my dr decided I had been through enough and they would just leave them and do another mammogram in 3 months. If there is growth at that point we will attempt a different procedure to remove them. Needless to say we have had a interesting few weeks and I am looking forward to things being relatively calm around here.

Safety City

Madison's Girl Scout had the opportunity to attend a safety day at Safety City. She was so excited. Not all of the girls from her troop came but quite a few did. Madison had a blast showing off her ability to ride a bike without training wheels! She was the only girl from her troop that could ride without training wheels. The girls had a great time taking a safety course, getting their "license" made and having their helmets fitted. A few girls, including Madison, didn't have properly fitting helmets so they were given new helmets. They were really nice helmets too! Listening in the safety class

Helmet fitting...they couldn't get this one to fit right so she got a new one!

The girls riding through the obstacle course!

Sweet girls at the end of the outing!

My Little Archer!

A couple of weekends ago Taylor's Girl Scout troop went to our local Archery Club and from the first arrow Taylor shot she was hooked! And to top it off she was really good. She was able to practice with both a longbow and a compound. She preferred the longbow. In fact she asked for one for Christmas :) My dad used to compete in Archery Competitions and still has his longbows...we are going to see if they are still in good condition and if so just restring them. Taylor also wants to join the Archery Club and shoot weekly so she can get better. And we found out...there are Archery Scholarships :)

Hello, my name is Holly and I'm addicted to Pinterest!

I admit it...I am a pinterest-aholic! I refused to get on there for a long time. I didn't want to see all these cute ideas and yummy recipes that I didn't have time to do. Finally, I broke down and got on. At first I would get on and browse once a week. Then I browsed a couple times a week and before I knew it I was hooked and was on every day, "pinning" away. Now I have numerous boards and not only am following other people but have followers myself :) I have done a few crafts, made a few recipes and gotten many decorating ideas :) I'm pretty proud of myself. Now I just need to limit myself on how long I browse on a daily basis...it is so easy to get sucked in once the kids are in bed and spend hours looking at things. I made these for a birthday lunch at work the first week of school...they were a hit!

I made my own canvas!

Supplies for my menu board

Finished product

We're Back!

Matt and I returned from a wonderful 10 day vacation with no kids. This was our first big trip without them...we have gone away for a weekend before but never this long. We decided to farm out the kids so nobody would have all 3 (this way the caregivers would offer to keep the kids next time we do this). Caleb went to stay with Matt's parents, Madison stayed with my parents and Taylor went to my sister's house. This was the most relaxing vacation. We left at midnight Thursday night and drove to Orlando (driving at night is the best as there was no traffic) where we stayed at Bonnet Creek for 2 nights. Matt's mom had reserved the presidential suite for us. We checked in and slept for a few hours. We ended up walking around Universal Studio's Citywalk that evening and grabbing a bite to eat in a food court. Saturday we slept in and laid by the pool a little. We also enjoyed walking around the resort b/c lots had changed since we had been there last a few years ago. We can't wait to take the kids in March during Spring Break. Sunday morning we got up and drove over to Tampa. Once in Tampa we quickly found the parking garage we had reserved a spot at. They loaded our stuff onto the shuttle and we headed over to the Port Authority. A porter took our luggage and within 10 minutes we were through all the security and had our "sail & sign" cards in our hands and were on The Legend! I couldn't believe how quickly it happened. We enjoyed just sitting and people watching while waiting on our room (we got on the boat at 11:00 but couldn't get into our room until 1:30). We had a wonderful time and made some great memories and are already planning the next one! Because we did so much over the 10 day period I am going to break down the trip into many posts over the next few days.