Halfway through 2023

Happy summer! It honestly kind of freaks me out that 2023 is already halfway over. I don’t know how this year is flying by so quickly! We’ve really been enjoying this busy stage of life with the kids! Here’s a recap of the last few months.

APRIL-

Evie Anniversary

We had our one year anniversary of when we got our pup, Evie! We are all pretty much obsessed with her. She is the absolute perfect fit for our family – a good combination of fun and energetic to sweet and snuggly. We’ve had the best first year with her and can’t wait for many more!

Easter

We had a fun, busy Easter season! We loved making and decorating our annual Easter cookies, as well as dying Easter eggs.

We had multiple Easter celebrations with family. The first was at Ryan’s sister’s house with his dad’s side of the family. There were HUNDREDS of eggs hidden for the Easter egg hunt, and with my competitive kids, we ended up with most of them! The kids loved it, but we still have some of that candy leftover!

On Easter day, we went to Ryan’s aunt’s house to celebrate with his mom’s side of the family, and my family joined as well. There was tons of food and cousins and lots more eggs to hunt! The kids had a blast and we ended up coming home with a ridiculous amount of candy!

Start of Baseball/Softball Season

We had a wonderful softball and baseball season! Both kids moved up to the next league – Kinsie was in 10U, which was kid pitch, and Brax moved up to 7/8. They both got on great teams with great coaches. On opening day, my parents came and the kids had their first games at the same time, so between the 4 of us (and Brody), we ran back and forth between fields to see both of them play!

Losing Teeth

Braxton lost both of his top two teeth this month! I LOVE this phase – he was the absolute cutest!!

New Orleans

Ryan had a work conference in New Orleans, so I was able to tag along! I had never been to New Orleans, so it was quite a fun new adventure! We stayed in a nice hotel, so when Ryan had conference meetings, I worked out, hung out by the pool, or just sat in the room and got lots of reading done. Then when Ryan was done with meetings for the day, we would go out and explore!

We had some of the best food we’ve ever had in our lives. We tried New Orleans’ famous beignets at many different places so we could compare and see who really had the best ones!

One day we went on a swamp tour, which was a lot of fun! We got to get up close to some gators and even feed them some marshmallows!

We also decided on a whim to get matching tattoos of our anniversary!

I absolutely loved exploring this unique city with my favorite travel partner! We had a blast!

Outside Time with Bro

Brody was especially obsessed with spending time outside this spring. When the big kids were at school, we would spend hours outside swinging or playing with all of his trucks. He and Evie would also team up to dig holes in the yard!

MAY-

Braxton’s 7th Birthday

Our boy turned 7 in May!! The stage of life that he’s in has been my favorite!! He is so much fun to be around. He is funny and sarcastic, but also sweet and helpful!

On his actual birthday, the kids didn’t have school because it was an election day, and they use the schools as voting places. We started our day with our usual donuts, then tried to find some fun inside activities because it was actually pretty cold. We had his best friend over for a playdate, played some Mario Kart, and eventually went to sushi for dinner (his favorite!) and then ice cream afterwards! He had a great day!

A few days later, we had a sports birthday party with his friends at the YMCA. They got to do some fun games and activities in the gym, then we had snacks, a cookie cake and ice cream in the party room. Brax LOVED having all of his buddies together playing sports with him! The only other person who I think was as happy as Brax was Brody! He was so happy running around with all of the big boys!!

Baseball season continued

I love baseball season! I love the atmosphere of the ball fields, and we all love seeing all of our friends there. Most of the kids’ friends also play, so no matter what, there is always someone we know playing. Brody’s favorite part of the ball fields though – is the concession stand! You can almost always find him living his best life with popcorn, a snow cone, nachos, or some candy!

Mother’s Day

Ryan and the kids spoiled me for Mother’s Day! Ryan had to work, but he still made me feel loved with fun gifts. And the kids made so many sweet homemade gifts!

Brody’s 3rd Birthday

Our baby boy turned 3 this month!! Goodness we are obsessed with him. He is quite the handful – extremely stubborn and marches to the beat of his own drum…but he is the absolute sweetest, the funniest and the cutest little human!

Brody had quite the busy birthday! We started the day with donuts as usual. Then once we took the big kids to school, we went to the mall to make a birthday bear at Build-a-Bear. My mom met us at the mall to eat lunch with us and shop around for a little while. After the mall, we took him to play at the playground.

Once Kinsie and Brax got home from school, and Ryan got home from work, we let him open his presents and then we took him to Buffa-Louie’s for dinner. After dinner we walked around campus, and then ended the evening at our favorite ice cream place, Jiffy Treat. He was a very happy little 3 year old all day!

End of the School Year

May is always such a busy time with all of the end of the school year activities. Brody had a closing program where his class was supposed to sing a few songs and then say their name into the microphone. A few kids cried or hid behind their teachers, but Brody wasn’t one of them so I was happy!

Brody had a wonderful first year of preschool. I was a little nervous about him – considering he was my 2020 baby who didn’t interact with other humans for the first 2 years of his life. He cried at drop off sometimes, but it never lasted long. His teacher said he was always a good listener and participated in the classroom activities. I am very proud of him for a great first year!

Kinsie and Brax both had a wonderful year of school too!

This was Braxton’s first year at this school, and he started out a little nervous and timid but soon became extremely comfortable and close with all of his friends and teachers.

Kinsie had a fantastic year in third grade. She has made SO much progress in the last few years with coming out of her shell and being less shy. She’s such a natural leader and her teachers adore her. Kinsie was given an amazing opportunities to join the ALPS program (advanced learning program for students) for 4th grade next year. She will attend a new school where she was be with other advanced 4th graders in the district. This school is especially great for her because they have an integrated arts program. She is sad to leave her current school but she is really excited to start at this new school. I can’t wait to see the amazing things she does in this new chapter!

The kids enjoyed a Field Day on their last day of school. I came to help out with one of the stations, and I love seeing the kids in their element with their friends and teachers. The highlight for Braxton was getting to pie his P.E. teacher in the face! 

Carpal Tunnel Surgery

I have suffered with carpal tunnel syndrome for over a decade. The first flare up I ever had was when I got my first teaching job in 2012, and I was using my hands a lot while setting up my new classroom. After that, I had severe flare ups every time I was pregnant. It was so bad when I gave birth to Braxton that I could barely hold him for the first few weeks of his life. I received multiple cortisone injections after giving birth to Brax, and some when I was pregnant with Brody as well. After I had Brody, my hands pretty much always bothered me. They were numb while doing almost any task – my right hand always much worse. So after a very long time – I finally got surgery on my right hand! The sports medicine doctor that I saw said that my carpal tunnel was extremely constricted – so much so that I was beginning to show signs of atrophy in my right hand, so I got the procedure done at the right time. My mom came to watch the kids while Ryan took me for my surgery – which was done with a local anesthetic, meaning I didn’t even have to be put to sleep. It’s been almost 6 weeks since my surgery and I am still gaining my strength back in my hand, but the numbness and carpal tunnel discomfort is gone!!

Summer Fun

We’ve been busy but have still managed to make time for lots of summer fun – including ice cream trips, swimming, Jeep rides and water activities!

Memorial Weekend

We were so excited that Ryan got the entire Memorial weekend off! So we took full advantage of it but spending the weekend at the lake. We brought my nieces with us because my nephew had a baseball tournament, and I knew they would have more fun at the lake with us.

We started our weekend with pizza and watching the Super Mario Bros movie on the projector outside of the lake house. The kids loved it!

Brody is OBSESSED with riding on golf carts, so we had to make sure we took him on plenty of rides through the weekend!

The kids enjoyed swimming in the lake and wearing matching swim suits 🙂

We also did lots of fishing!

The kids all had so much fun together doing all of the various outdoor lake activities. And it was good to see my husband get to relax and enjoy the lake too!

While we were there with all of our family, we celebrated our May birthday boys!

We enjoyed lots of boat rides too! It was such a fun and busy weekend. We hated to see it end!

Spotty

Braxton’s pet gecko, Spotty sadly passed away at the end of May. Brax was really sad to lose his buddy, but we were all there for him and had a small celebration of life for him before burying him in our backyard. Kinsie even made Spotty-themed snacks. We love having pets, but it’s always so hard when we lose them.

JUNE-

Welcome to the family, Goomba!

We were sad to lose Spotty, but shortly after, there was a reptile expo at the state fairgrounds, so we told Brax he could pick out a new lizard. He chose a bearded dragon and named him Goomba! We were excited to have a new pet join the family!

End of baseball season

Baseball season ended at the beginning of June. Both of the kids had fantastic last games in their tournaments, and Brody enjoyed a nice nap in the second half of Kinsie’s late night game! Kinsie’s team ended up getting 2nd place for the season. We loved watching them both grow and develop in their skills this season!

Touch-a-Truck

Our town had a fun event called Touch-a-truck, where lots of local trucks gathered together and kids could get up close and sit in them. There were firetrucks, a digger, a cement mixer, and lots more. It was Brody’s dream! It rained pretty much the entire time, but he didn’t mind at all!

Father’s Day

Ryan had to work on Father’s Day this year, so we celebrated him a little early. He loved the cards that the kids made him!

While Ryan worked, the kids and I spent the weekend at the lake. We loved lots of boat rides, fishing, and Brody even had his first tubing experience and absolutely loved it!

Potty Trained!

I’ve attempted potty training with Brody a few times now – each one unsuccessful. As I said earlier, he is a stubborn little fella and didn’t want to be told to do it, but he wanted it to be his idea. It has also been hard to be consistent with our busy schedule of school, activities, and baseball. I finally found a few days this summer that we would be home for a few days. We woke up one day and I told him he wasn’t going to wear diapers anymore. He resisted for a little while and tried to put his diaper on himself, but eventually gave in. Then he learned how to use the potty in ONE DAY. He started by going outside a lot, but quickly picked it up going on the potty inside too. It was the easiest potty training experience EVER! I cannot even tell you how happy I am to finally be DONE with diapers!!

11th Anniversary

Ryan and I celebrated our 11th anniversary this month! It was been quite an eventful 11 years – but I wouldn’t trade any of it for the world!

Ryan was on night shifts during our anniversary, so we barely saw each other. However, my van wouldn’t start that morning so the most time we got to spend together was when he tried to help me jump start it! Luckily we were able to have a date night the next weekend!

Cincinnati Zoo

Every year we try to take a trip to the Cincinnati Zoo to see Kinsie’s favorite hippo, Fiona! This time we also got to meet Fiona’s new baby brother Fritz!

My parents and my sister’s kids came to the zoo with us. The kids loved getting to feed the giraffes, get up close to the kangaroos, watch the hippos swim back and forth, and much more.

Brody’s favorite part was Ryan taking him on a train ride!

The kids had such a great day together at our favorite zoo!

Sweet Summer Time

We’ve had some weird weather this month, but whenever it’s been nice, we manage to make our way outside for swimming, water fun, popsicles, and driving their little vehicles!

Indians Game

Near the end of the month, we met up with some friends in Indy to go to an Indianapolis Indians game at Victory Field. The kids had an absolute blast with their friends from school!

 

Even though we’re busy, we have all really enjoyed lots of family time! We have some fun planned before school starts, then some fun new adventures coming this fall, including a trip to California in September! 

Happy summer!!

Loving the Summer Life

July was so busy and fun! I’ll get right to it.

4th of July Celebrations

We had a whole weekend of 4th of July fun- and Ryan got to enjoy it all with us! 

We started out at the lake for the annual fireworks. We always spend the day there, then watch the fireworks at night. The kids had a blast swimming, paddle boarding, and collecting rocks. 

Brody was too hype to take a nap that day, but I knew he would love the fireworks, so we just went with it. He didn’t nap, and he was slap happy! He did want his pacifier because he was tired, but he LOVED the fireworks, and he danced around while watching them and naming all the colors he saw! The big kids enjoyed the fireworks too! This was Evie’s first experience with fireworks as well, and we had no idea what to expect. She definitely didn’t like them, but she did ok if we held her close and reassured her!

We spent the night at the lake house, and woke up to do more lake fun. We took a golf cart to the campgrounds and hung out there for a little while, then we came back for more swimming fun.

We also had a fun boat ride. The kids all had fun, and Evie really liked her first boat ride. She loved the wind blowing her ears!

The next day was the actual 4th, so we joined my family at the Brownsburg parade. The kids loved the snow cones and getting lots of candy from the floats driving by. 

The highlight of the parade, however, was Brody’s reaction to the firetrucks. He loves trucks and vehicles of all kinds, so he was PUMPED to see police cars and firetrucks in the parade!

We had an awesome morning with family! 

After the parade, we had lunch at my sister’s house. The big kids really wanted to stay and swim at their neighborhood pool, so they stayed and we took Brody back to my parents’ house for a nap. The big kids had a blast swimming with their cousins!

Later in the afternoon, we brought the kids back to my parents’ house for swimming, dinner, and fireworks. Ryan’s parents came to join as well. 

Ryan bought a big case of fireworks last year and we only used about half of them then, so we used the rest that evening. The kids loved doing sparklers and watching Ryan light some fireworks in the street. It was a chill, low-key 4th of July, and it was the perfect way to end our busy weekend!

Soccer/Ninja Camp

I recently found out that there are tons of day camps offered in our town during the summer. I was too late to sign the kids up for a lot of them, but I was able to sign them up for a day camp at their gymnastics building. It was a Soccer Ninja camp! I originally just planned on signing up Brax for this camp, but Kinsie thought it sounded fun too so they did it together. They loved it! They played soccer, had Nerf gun wars, did ninja/gymnastics activities, and a craft each day.

One of the crafts was a shark mask. Brody thought it was hilarious! He definitely missed them while they were at camp each day, but they had a lot of fun!

Lake Days

We got to spend another weekend this month at the lake! We enjoyed a boat ride, swimming, and going to the kids’ cousin’s birthday party!

Pool Days

The kids and I came up to my parents’ house about once a week for a swimming day. My sister’s kids would join us whenever they could which always made my kids happy! I never get many pictures of our pool time because I’m usually in the water with Brody, but here are a few!

The Great Outdoors

We had another fun month of lots of outside fun! We finished the month of July at almost 800 hours for the year!

The kids always enjoy finding bugs and critters.

Doing water activities has become one of their favorite things. They love the kiddie pool, spraying each other with the hose, and jumping on the trampoline with the sprinkler!

 

Brax has been obsessed with sports lately, so he spends a lot of his outside time playing baseball and soccer!

 

And the kids are still always riding around on their bikes, scooters and power wheels!

 

And sometimes our outside time is more chill – like drawing with sidewalk chalk, drinking gatorade and just chilling in a fold up chair!

Other Fun at Home

The kids have now started school, but they enjoyed their off time while it lasted. Kinsie is always finding art and craft activities to keep her busy, and the boys enjoyed working out with Ryan and I, and also just lounging around having lazy mornings in bed!

Yaya Day

At one point in the month, Brody had a double ear infection. It was rough on his little body, and he was out of whack for a couple weeks, all while Ryan was working a string of 12 hour shifts. One day, Brody had an especially bad day, which made it a really hard day for me. The next day, my mom decided to come down for the day and help me. Her being here helped SO much. The kids were happier, and I had another adult to take some of the load off of me. I am so grateful for my mama and everything she does for our entire family!

Grandma Day

Ryan’s mom got to have some special time with the kids this month too. She planned a play date at a water park near Megan’s new house with a bunch of their cousins. They had so much fun, and even spent the night. 

Fun at the County Fair

One evening, the kids and I were visiting at my parents’ house and my dad asked if we wanted to go to the Hendricks County Fair, so we loaded up right then and there and went! The kids had so much fun!

Brody’s favorite part was definitely the tractors! We can’t wait to take him to the state fair next!

The kids enjoyed riding a few rides at the fair too.

They loved getting to spend some special time with Papa!

Brody’s Partially Vaccinated!

Even though we’ve now had Covid, it was a great feeling to get my baby his first Covid vaccine! He was a champ!

Library Reading Challenge

The kids enjoyed doing the Summer Reading Challenge through the county library this summer. They got prizes during different stages of the challenge, and the final prize for finishing the challenge was to pick out their own book. Brax picked a dinosaur book, Kinsie picked an origami book, and Brody picked out a truck book. All very fitting for them!

Holiday World

Ryan had a few days off the week before the kids started school, so we decided to take the kids to Holiday World! We have never been, but have always heard great things. We stayed in a hotel for 2 nights, and a cottage at Santa’s Cottages for one night (since that is al that was available!)

Traveling with kids is always an adventure!

The original forecast wasn’t very promising, but we decided we would make the most of it regardless. It rained pretty heavily in the morning while we were still at the hotel and eating breakfast, but by the time we got to the park, it slowed down significantly. Then about an hour in, the rain clouds went away and the sun came out! It was a beautiful, perfect day at the park!

The kids loved exploring the different holiday-themed sections of the park!

Brody was about half an inch too short for a lot of the rides, but he loves all the rides that he was able to go on. One of his favorites was the Holidog Express Train!

We all had a lot of fun on the rides at Holiday World! And the kids LOVED the free fountain drinks available everywhere!

After exploring Holiday World for a little while, we ventured over to Splashin’ Safari, the water park connected to the main park. It was amazing! Ryan and I took turns going on water coasters with the big kids, while the other one stayed back at the splash pads for Brody. The areas for little ones like Brody were fantastic – a toddler’s dream. He LOVED all the water slides!

We stayed until close that day and watched the evening fireworks and drone show. It was an amazing day!

We took the next day off from the parks and ventured around town. We were able to check into our cottage, which we absolutely loved!

The heat index was well in the 100s that day, but the kids still loved playing on the playground at the cottages and feeding the fish in the lake.

The cottages also had a Reindeer Express Train that ran every morning. Brody was a BIG fan!

The kids also loved looking around the Christmas Store, the candy shop and the toy store!

We were on the go so much that day that Brody didn’t get his nap. So by dinner time, he was tuckered out!

We went to the parks the next day for one more day, but this time with a good strategy to make sure we did everything we wanted to. When we entered the park, we were greeted by Santa! Brody wanted absolutely nothing to do with him, but Kinsie and Brax enjoyed saying hi!

We spent most of the day at the water park. The kids rode more of the bigger rides and Brody had so much fun in the little kid areas. After a while, we changed into dry clothes and rode more of the Holiday World rides. We stayed until close again, and then drove home that night. It was an awesome note to end our summer vacation on. We definitely want to make it a summer tradition!

Like I said, our month was very busy and lots of fun! The kids have started school back up now, so we’re trying to get back into the swing of our school routines.

Lately with the craziness of life as a mom of 3 kids and a crazy pup, it has been difficult to find the time to do my monthly blogs. I really enjoy doing them, but it is a struggle to make the time. So I may cut down how often I post, maybe every other month or so. We’ll see where life takes us! Thanks for whoever continues to follow our journey!

Here is our 1 Second Everyday for the month of July. Happy end of summer!

Marchin’ into Spring

We love March. It marks the beginning of spring and warmer weather. This month had some beautiful weather, and some freezing weather…typical of Indiana! But we had a lot of indoor and outdoor fun this month!

New Trampoline

We bought a trampoline! This was something we’ve had our eye on for a while. We knew the kids would love it…and we were right! We’ve had it less than a month and it has already been a huge hit!

Even Brody is having fun on the trampoline. He can’t really jump yet, but he loves bouncing around when Kinsie and Brax jump around him. The kids already have lots of plans with this trampoline as the weather gets consistently warmer.

Kinsie’s Art Display

Kinsie’s artwork was chosen by her art teacher to represent her school In the Youth Art Month exhibition at the art museum on IU’s campus. Only a few students’ artwork from each school were chosen for this exhibition, so it was an honor. We were so proud of her, but not surprised! She is a wonderful little artist and it is great to see her thrive in an area that she loves so much.  On the first day of the exhibition, we took a trip to campus to go see her artwork.

She received a certificate and a gift bag from the museum. She was so happy!

Kinsie’s little brothers were proud of her and loved seeing her art too!

It was a beautiful day outside, so we took the opportunity to spend the morning on campus. We had a picnic lunch and walked around campus. The museum is right next to the Showalter Fountain, and IU’s marching band happened to be practicing there at the time. We enjoyed sitting and listening to them practice by the fountain, and Brody danced around to the music! The fountain was empty, so the kids got in and ran around in it. It was a beautiful and fun morning!

School Dress-up Days

The kids had a few dress-up days this month for Read Across America week. Kinsie got to dress as her favorite book character, so she dressed as a Hufflepuff character (her Halloween costume). 

Brax had a few fun dress-up days too…including Wacky Wednesday! 

And Crazy Hair Day! His blue hair was a hit!

St. Patrick’s Day

St. Patty’s Day is mainly a fun excuse to take cute pics of my kids!

Since the kids were on Spring Break, Ryan’s parents, and his sister Megan and her son Griffin came for the day to visit. They wanted to see Kinsie’s artwork, but also just hang out with us for the day. It was another beautiful day, and we took advantage of it again by walking and exploring campus. 

Grandma Bev and Papa Tim were in their happy place with all 4 of their grandbabies!

Cincinnati Zoo

We love the Cincinnati Zoo…mainly because of the hippo, Fiona. Recently, the zoo got another adult hippo in the exhibit – Tucker. Ever since then, the kids have been asking to go again to see Tucker. So when the kids were on Spring Break, we did. My parents came along for the fun too. The weather was great and it wasn’t too crowded like it was last time we went.

The kids loved feeding the giraffes and seeing them up close.

We had lunch with a view of the savanna.

We spent a lot of time with Fiona, Tucker and Bibi at the hippo cove. Like usual, they did not disappoint! They were SO active…swimming back and forth, doing flips, and playing with each other. Kinsie was in her happy place…she could have stayed there all day!

We’ve been visiting Fiona since she was less than a year old, and Kinsie was only 4! Look how much they’ve both grown!

We loved seeing and interacting with all the animals!

The perfect way to end our day…ice cream!

Children’s Museum

Grandma Bev watched the kids overnight, and then she and Megan took them to the Children’s Museum. The new Dinosphere opened back up, so Brax was pumped! The kids had a great time…even Brody got to join!

Fun at Yaya’s

Another day, the kids had a play date at my parents’ house. They played outside ALL day!

Cousin Fun

We had a few random cousin play dates this month. Have I mentioned how nice it is being just an hour away from all the people we love, instead of 10 hours? Cousin Griffin came over to play a few times. They always have a fun time together!

My sister came down to visit one day with her kids, and she brought along a few more of the kids’ cousins for a play date. It was pretty chaotic with 8 kids – but it was a lot of fun! 

My kids were back in school, but some of the cousins came along to pick them up from school. They loved it! It was another beautiful day, so the kids spent most of the day outside. We had Mexican food for dinner and had a great day!

Day Adventures with Bro

Now that Covid isn’t completely taking over our lives, we’ve been venturing out a little more. When Ryan has days off, we try to have day dates, and Brody tags along!

We love walking around campus, and Brody LOVES seeing all of the campus buses!

Brody and I love going to the park…especially when we have the place to ourselves!

I’ve even felt a little more comfortable taking Brody with me on errands now…as long as we go places when it isn’t crowded, which usually it isn’t in the morning. He loves looking through the toy aisles and playing with all the trucks…and getting cake pops!

Brody loved going on a breakfast date with us! He ate like a king!

Outside Fun at Home

We’re still going strong on our 1,000 Hours Outside goal. Here are a few pictures of our time outside this month.

Inside Fun at Home

And of course the kids always find fun things to do when we’re inside too. Kinsie created a food truck, and created a menu of fun little snacks. The boys loved it!

 

The kids are always playing in the workout room, They love climbing on the gymnastics bar!

 

Braxton is always reading to Brody. It is so sweet!

 

We are still doing puzzles! Even Kinsie has been helping a little more. We’ve moved up to 500 piece puzzles!

 

This boy…he is always climbing. Always getting into something. He is 100% toddler. Pray for me.

Puppysitting Lola

We watched my sister’s dog while they were on vacation. She’s an old pup (13 years), so she was very low maintenance. But the kids – especially Brody – loved having her for the week! The weather wasn’t great for the last few weeks of March, so we didn’t get outside or go on as many walks as we wanted to…but Lola enjoyed just being wherever we were. Brody loved following her around and letting her kiss him!

Play Ball!

Softball and baseball season have officially started! Kinsie and Brax both had their first practice during the last week of March. Kinsie is back with her team from last year, and Brax is starting his first season of baseball. He is so excited!

And that was our March! We are excited for April…we have Easter coming up, as well as lots of other fun things planned…like another vacation at the end of the month! 

And as always, here is our 1 Second Everyday for the month of March.

Many Celebrations in May

We had a very busy May, and it felt great to be *somewhat* back to normal. We celebrated 2 very special birthdays, the kids finished their school year and stayed busy in sports, and we got to have lots of semi-normal spring and summer fun. It was refreshing!

Braxton’s Surprise Birthday Trip

For the first time in over a year, we took a family weekend trip! We did a surprise birthday trip for our big 5 year old. We didn’t tell him where we were going, so he enjoyed the suspense knowing we were going somewhere special for his birthday weekend.

Day 1: Kentucky Down Under

We drove about 3 hours to Cave City, Kentucky. The first surprise was Kentucky Down Under. Ryan and I came here with his family when we were engaged, so we knew the kids would love it. It’s an interactive zoo with lots of fun outback animals to see and interact with. This was really Brody’s first time at a zoo too!

The kids loved the area where you can feed the birds and they climb all over you. Even Brody tried to grab the birds!

We also loved the outback area where there were kangaroos, emus, and some farm animals openly wandering around. You could buy cups of food to feed the animals. The kids were in heaven and Ryan made best friends with all the animals of course!

The park was mostly outdoors, so overall we felt pretty safe and comfortable. We kept our masks handy and wore them when we couldn’t distance ourselves from other people. Brody spent his time either in the stroller or in the Ergo carrier, and we did our best to keep him away from people since he can’t wear a mask. He was a trooper! He seemed to enjoy a new environment since he doesn’t get out much. He even took a decent stroller nap in the afternoon.

The animal show was not super “Covid friendly” since they bunched everyone together in a small amphitheater. I just wore Brody in the carrier and stood to the side away from everyone, and Ryan and the kids wore their masks. The kids still enjoyed the show, and they loved getting to pet (and hold) the snake!

The kids had a great day and they loved the park! Brax still asks us all the time when we can go back!

Time at the Hotel

This was Brody’s first time staying in a hotel. It was an interesting experience! I couldn’t just let him crawl around since hotel floors are gross, and I couldn’t let him play on the bed much because he would try to dive off. We ended up setting up his pack ‘n’ play and letting him play in there… but he isn’t a huge fan of being contained! That evening we let Brax open his gift, and we got carry out and ate in the room. We were all tired from our busy day so we just took it easy and played in the room and watched TV.

Brody did not understand bed time with us all in the same room. We turned off all the lights, and I set the kids up with a show on the iPad while Brody fell asleep. I figured he’d be exhausted, but he thought it was party time! He just kept standing up in his bed and talking and screaming happily. After maybe 45 minutes, he finally sat down and passed out. He was up and at ’em early in the morning and woke us all along with him. But it was Brax’s birthday so we were excited to start the day!

Day 2: Dinosaur World

On the drive, we told Brax to look for clues for where we were going for his big birthday surprise. He finally saw a huge dinosaur statue and started to get an idea! He was so excited!

We spent all morning exploring Dinosaur World. It isn’t a huge park, and most people could go through the whole thing in maybe an hour, but we spent more time than usual because Brax wanted to see and read every single thing possible. There was a walk through the woods where you would see life-size dinosaur statues, and Brax wanted a picture with every single one! Later I took all the pictures from Dinosaur World and put them all in a Shutterfly book with facts about each dinosaur so he could look at it whenever he wanted!

There was also a fun dinosaur-themed playground and we let the kids play for a while. Even Brody enjoyed it!  After a while, we let the kids pick out something from the gift shop, then we left. Brax LOVED Dinosaur World. He said he wanted to live there! It was a perfect place to spend his birthday!

We told Brax he could choose anywhere he wanted for lunch. Or if he wanted a certain type of food, we could find something. Of all the possibilities, he chose Wendy’s!

Ryan’s parents were watching our dog for the weekend, so we had them meet us back at home so we could eat dinner together and get ice cream for dessert. Brax requested our favorite ice cream shop, Jiffy Treat. He had a wonderful 5th birthday and couldn’t wait to tell his teachers and friends about his weekend!

 

Mother’s Day

Ryan had to work in the afternoon, so we spent the morning together as a family. It was a gloomy, rainy day, so while Brody took his morning nap, we all watched a movie together. Once Brody woke up and Ryan headed to work, the kids and I spent the afternoon at my parents’ house. It was laid back and relaxing, and the kids just enjoyed having fun together like usual!

For Brody, every day is Mother’s Day!

The kids made a “stuffed animal parade” along the balcony. This is just an example of the many creative things they do when they play together!

Fully Vaccinated!

On May 4th, I got my 2nd Covid vaccine! I thought Star Wars Day was a good day to become fully vaccinated, and I prepared with an appropriate band-aid. I did have some symptoms with this vaccine, but it was tolerable. Once the kids were in bed that evening, I started having chills and body aches. I didn’t sleep great, but I was able to rest a little the next day and manage the body aches with Advil. By about 24 hours post vaccine, I was completely fine. 100% worth it!

My sister got me this amazing hat so that WHEN I feel comfortable going out in public without my mask, at least people will know that I am vaccinated! 

Outdoor Living

I’m not going to lie, spring weather has not shown its face as often as I’d like at this point in the year. We’ve had so many random cold and rainy days. BUT, we take advantage when we can. Brody is a little outdoor boy. He loves it! He has been enjoying his new outdoor toys like his swing and walking lawn mower.

Whenever Renata comes over, she always tries to do something fun with the kids. One day she brought stuff for the kids to paint birdhouses and flower pots.

Enjoying the outdoors whenever they can!

It has only been warm enough to set up the water table once or twice, but when we do, Brody gets real excited. He splashes like crazy and gets himself soaked immediately!

It’s an annual tradition to start the swimming season by all the cousins jumping in the pool together holding hands (Brody will join someday!)

Lake season has started as well and we’re real excited about it! We were there a lot last summer, but Brody was such a tiny baby he obviously couldn’t enjoy it much. Now he loved it. He wasn’t crazy about the boat ride, but mainly because he didn’t like wearing his life jacket. The big kids loved swimming and riding the paddle boat with their cousins!

Dinosaur Birthday Bash

Since the boys’ birthdays are only 2 weeks apart, we decided to have a combined birthday party for them. Brax was really excited to share his party with his brother! We let him pick the theme and of course he picked dinosaurs! Since Covid is still a factor, AND we still don’t know very many people in our town yet, we stuck with a small family-only party…just the people the kids are closest to.

We were excited to finally get to host something at our new house! I had a lot of help prepping for the party – even if it was just someone coming to entertain the kids so I could clean! Ryan’s sister Megan made me some banners and the matching shirts for the birthday boys. And Aunt Renata made her famous cookies! We ordered Jimmy Johns for the main food and I ordered cakes from a local lady who has a side cake business. They turned out really cute!

I didn’t have a whole lot of activities planned, but I didn’t have to. These kids are all so close they can have fun doing anything! 

It was a team effort to open presents. I helped Brax, and Ryan helped Brody. Kinsie and a few of the cousins delivered the presents to the boys when they were ready for another present to open. Brody was so funny opening his presents. He would open one, then want to play with the toy and wouldn’t want to put it away to open the next. And he continued to get distracted and tried to crawl away. When he opened a jumbo pack of Puffs (his favorite snack), he was so excited and didn’t want to put them down!

We all sang “Happy Birthday,” and dug into the cake and ice cream. Brody got his own special smash cake!

Of course we all had to be dressed in our dinosaur gear!

Brody loved his smash cake! He seemed to enjoy eating the cake, but honestly, he didn’t eat THAT much. He mainly just played in the cake. He loved squishing it between his fingers and rubbing it in his hair!

My kids LOVE doing the piñata, so we made sure we got one. Now that most of these kids are playing softball or baseball now, they broke into the piñata sooner than they ever had in the past!

It turned out to be a great party. The week leading up to party day, the forecast said it was 100% chance of rain. Somehow, it turned out to be a perfect, beautiful day. After the party activities, the adults hung out and talked and the kids all ran around in the backyard and the basement. It was a great day!

 

Brody’s FIRST Birthday

Our littlest love turned ONE this month! Since we had the party the day before, we had somewhat of a low-key birthday for our boy (after all, it was a Monday!) The kids still had school, but Ryan was off work so Brody got to spend the morning with mommy and daddy.

After Ryan dropped the kids off at school, he stopped to get Brody his first official birthday donut. He was a big fan!

Once the kids were home, we set up Brody’s gift in the basement and brought him down to see it. He loves tents, so we got him a pop up tent and tunnel, and bought balls to put in it. He LOVED it! Kinsie and Brax enjoyed playing in it with him too!

In the evening, we got Culver’s for dinner and Brody loved his first cheeseburger. We also got ice cream for dessert. We sang “Happy Birthday” to him and let him try some ice cream. You could tell he liked the taste, but it was too cold…he kept making a shivering sound! We ended up letting him have some of his leftover smash cake for dessert and he enjoyed that too. He had a great day!

 

Sports Life

Sports kept us very busy this month! Brax had soccer once a week, and Kinsie had softball practice once a week, and at least one game a week. Normally, Brax’s soccer and Kinsie’s practices were at the same time on Saturdays, so Ryan and I had to divide and conquer. But a few times, Kinsie’s practice got cancelled so we got to see Brax play soccer. 

Kinsie has improved TREMENDOUSLY this season. She started the season barely hitting the ball and she wasn’t the best at fielding either. But between my dad, Ryan, and her coaches, she has gotten so much better! She gets on base every game now and even gets in on the fielding action! We are so proud of her progress!

End of the School Year

The end of the school year is always a fun time. We were so sad that the kids didn’t get to experience it last year. 

 

Braxton got to celebrate his birthday at school this month. He got to bring the snack that day (we brought pre-packaged cupcakes), and the class sang to him while he wore the birthday hat!

Brax also had an end of the year program. There were only 2 guests per child allowed, we had to wear masks the entire time and space out in the auditorium. Luckily, Grandma Bev came down to watch Kinsie and Brody so that Ryan and I could go to the program. Brax was all business throughout his songs, then at the VERY end he did a crazy face pose! 

 

Brax had a WONDERFUL school year. We absolutely loved his school, and we are looking forward to Brody getting to attend there someday. His teachers were amazing, and he made significant growth this year – both emotionally and academically. He made some great friends too! He will be attending the half day Kindergarten program next year at the same school, then he’ll be moving on to Kinsie’s school after that!

 

Kinsie loved her end of the school year too. Their class counted down the last 10 days of school with 10 fun activities – such as stuffed animal day, an ice cream snack, watching a movie, and working with a partner for the day. Her school district has been very cautious with Covid all year, so they avoided a lot of normal end of the year activities…but they still made it special for the kids. She is looking forward to things becoming more normal as time goes on so she can experience all the fun normal school activities!

 

How amazing are our kids though? They had the craziest year, but they got through it with a smile on their face (under their mask!) They didn’t let all the unknown and crazy of the world bother them. They were just happy to be at school and see their friends. I wish adults could be more like kids!

 

Beginning of Summer Vacation

The first few weeks of summer vacation were not exactly summer weather. It rained or was 60 degrees or less most days, so we spent a lot of time indoors. Luckily, we had a few new toys that kept them busy! My mom saved ALL of my beanie babies from when I was little – specifically for her grandkids to someday play with. Now that we were settled into our house, my parents brought over the tubs (yes, multiple) of beanie babies. The kids LOVED going through all of them and sorting them into categories. And I may have enjoyed looking through them as much as they did!

We also spent time playing in the tent and doing some virtual reality. Yes, Ryan got new toys too!

The best new toy, however, is the Nugget. My sister-in-law first told me about these months ago, and I knew I wanted one once we were in the new house. I ordered one back in March when we moved in, but they are VERY popular, so they were backordered about 2 months. Well, our long awaited delivery came just in time for summer vacation. So far the kids have been OBSESSED!

They have used it as a couch, a fort, a slide, and a climbing ramp. I think Brody may love it the most!

Memorial Weekend

Last year on Memorial Weekend, I was in the NICU with Brody at Arkansas Children’s Hospital and was less than a week away from moving to another state. This year, we got to spend it together as a family with a happy, healthy, crazy little one year old! 

We went to my parents’ house on Sunday to watch the race and have a pool day. Most of the day it was actually pretty cool – too cold to swim in my opinion. But the kids didn’t care! Even though it was only 65 degrees outside, they spent the majority of the day in the pool. In the late afternoon, the temps finally seemed high enough for Brody to get in the pool. At first we let him sit on the side and watch the kids, but he kept trying to dive in so we figured he wanted to get in!

Brody loved the pool…just like I figured he would. He is a huge fan of the bath and splashes like crazy, and he was the same way in the pool. I have a feeling this little guy will keep me busy this summer!

 

We spent the night at my parents’ house that night so we could wake up and head straight to the lake the next morning. It was only Ryan’s parents and his brother at the lake that day, which was nice! When Brody was napping, we went fishing with the kids. At first they were nervous to hold the fish, but eventually they got brave enough to do it, and then they didn’t want to stop!

Once Brody woke up, we let him see one of the fish we caught. And, like I figured he would, he tried to eat it!

Last winter, Ryan’s parents bought a camper to keep at the campgrounds. We drove golf carts down to the campgrounds to see it for the first time. We loved seeing the camper of course, but the big highlight was the cicadas! They were EVERYWHERE around the campgrounds. Kinsie is obsessed. She would find them at recess and play with them, and already knows all kinds of facts about them. Now she got Brax and Brody into them too. They were collecting them and playing with them. Kinsie even took one back to the lake house with her and made a little habitat in a jar. She has always been my nature girl!

We ended the evening with a boat ride. This time, I just wore Brody in the Ergo carrier and he enjoyed it much more this time! We had a great weekend together!

We had a wonderful month of May. It felt more like the way it should be. I know things are not completely back to normal, and I won’t feel 100% better until my kids are able to get vaccinated, but it is SO nice that Ryan and I are both fully vaccinated. I feel a little more comfortable going places now, especially outside. My kids are kind of socially awkward and don’t get close to people they don’t know anyway, so it works out! We are hoping to spend a lot of our summer days enjoying our own backyard (we got a TON of outdoor toys for the boys’ birthday), swimming at Yaya’s pool, hanging out at the lake, and hopefully some other fun adventures as well. 

Happy Summer and enjoy our May 1 Second Everyday!

 

Our September Stories

September was the first month in a long time that really seemed to go by quickly. Both of the kids are in school now, so just the driving around dropping off and picking up kids each week day keeps me pretty busy! Covid is obviously still lingering, and to be honest, hit a little too close to home this month…but overall, it has sadly meshed into our every day lives. Wearing masks, keeping our distance from people, constantly cleaning everything and washing our hands…it’s second nature now. We are doing our best to still be aware of it and do our part to flatten the curve, but also still do fun things and *somewhat* live our lives.

Here is a recap of our September…

Kinsie starts in-person school

This was probably the highlight of her month…and her birthday was this month too! Kinsie was SO excited to finally start at her new school, and she was not disappointed at all! She has absolutely loved every second of it so far. She has made several friends right away, which is amazing considering how shy she usually is. She and Brax both don’t seem to mind the changes to school this year from Covid. They have a great collection of cute masks that they genuinely get excited to pick out each day for school. If only more adults were more like these kids…we’d be over this pandemic a lot sooner! We know there is always the possibility that things will get bad again and they may shut the schools down again, but for now, the kids are loving their time at school.

Brax’s School Activities

Brax is loving his new school too! He seems to be fitting in well and making new friends. His class has a special private Facebook page where they share pictures of the kids activities. One of his favorite activities that they have done so far was dig for dinosaurs (while learning about the letter D). Recently, Brax was also the “Top Banana” in his class, which is like the student of the week. He got to bring in pictures of his family, his pet, and some of his favorite things. He also got to bring in his favorite book for the teacher to read to the class. He loved it!

Family Hike at McCormick’s Creek

During Labor Day weekend, we wanted to take a family hike somewhere nearby. McCormick’s Creek is only about 15 minutes away from us, so we found a cave trail to explore. It was more crowded than we expected, but we never go anywhere without our masks, so we just threw those on and continued our hike. Kinsie especially loved it, and she walked our dog Koda the whole time. Brax wasn’t feeling great. He had just had his flu shot, and he was having what we thought was side effects from that, but he continued to have symptoms that got us worried in today’s Covid world. He was a champ and toughed out the hike, but he definitely didn’t feel good. We ended up taking him to get a Covid test the next day and after 24 excruciating hours of waiting, it was negative!

Visitors

It is SO nice being close to family again. We love when grandparents, aunts/uncles and cousins come to visit us for an afternoon!

Kinsie is SEVEN!

Our beautiful girl turned seven this month! She had quite the special day. First we started our morning with our traditional birthday donuts.

Kinsie had school on her birthday, which she was really excited about. Her teacher and classmates made it a very special school day for her. She got to bring in birthday treats, she wore a sticker that said “Today is my birthday!” and they made her a birthday book. She made the cover, and each classmate made a page in it.

After school, we got carry out from a sandwich shop (Kinsie wanted grilled cheese), and we took it to IU campus near the Sample Gates to have a picnic dinner.

After dinner, we went to a park to let the kids play for a little while.

Finally, we ended our night by getting ice cream from our favorite ice cream shop in town and ate it on our front porch. We had such a fun afternoon celebrating our favorite seven year old!

Kinsie’s Pinkalicious Birthday Party

Now that we live closer to family, Kinsie really wanted to have a birthday party with all of her cousins, so we had a very small family-only Pinkalicious birthday party at the lake house. We made sure to keep it small and outdoors so we were still being safe. It turned out to be a beautiful day so it worked out perfectly.

If you have never read the book, “Pinkalicious,” it’s about a little girl who eats too many pink cupcakes, so she turns pink. The doctor diagnosed her with “Pinkititis,” and told her in order to turn back to normal, she must eat a steady diet of green food. For Kinsie’s party, we included the cupcakes (but made sure nobody ate too many!), lots of fun pink food, and a tray of green food for the cure to Pinkititis!

The cousins all loved making their own crowns with stickers and jewels. They even made one for Brody!

Kinsie loved opening her presents, eating cupcakes, and hitting the piñata. She was completely in her happy place to be surrounded by all of her cousins!

It filled my heart to see her so happy. It was also so nice that Ryan was able to join us, since, in several years past, he had to work. The kids all had so much fun together and clearly wore our girl out! She usually has so much energy and NEVER falls asleep in the car, so the party was clearly successful since this is how I found her when we got home!

Fall Fun with Cousins

My niece Kolly had her birthday party at my parents’ pool near the end of September. It was supposed to be a pool party, and while it was a little too chilly to swim, it was a beautiful fall day! After the party, my family and I all sat around talking for hours while the kids played independently. No arguing, no adult intervention, no screens…just kids being kids. They had a blast playing in the leaves together all afternoon.

Breaking Ground

We finally broke ground on our home!! We are so excited to get this process started. It has been almost 6 months since we first decided to build, so to finally see a hole in the ground is so exciting!

Brody at 4 months

Our precious, happy little boy turned 4 months old this month! He is still overall a very easy-going baby, but he knows what he wants and we have a feeling he will be on-the-go as soon as physically possible. He adores his brother and sister, and the feeling is mutual. We all love our Brody time and love watching him grow!

Here are some stats about our Bro at 4 months…

• He started to giggle and we are OBSESSED.
• He loves when we hold him and walk around. He always wants to see everything around him.
• His brother Brax often calls him “sweet boy” and its the most precious thing ever.
• He has different interactions with all of us. My favorite is how he smiles at Kinsie.
• He is ticklish under his armpits and on his thighs.
• He rolls from his back to his belly…constantly. This often keeps us up at night as well so we’re hoping the novelty wears off soon!
• He wants to be able to move so bad, so he works hard at scooting himself forward. He will probably be crawling in no time!
• He is showing signs of changing eye color. We are thinking they may turn brown like me and Kinsie’s eyes.
• Now that he is big enough, he loves looking out in my Ergo carrier. He loves being able to see everything going on!

We are all always loving on Brody. Like literally at all times.

The many adorable faces of Brody at 4 months.

Four months in and we are all still completely smitten with this little boy. And now I can’t believe that he will have his half birthday in less than 2 months. It is also crazy that his whole life so far has been during a pandemic. He doesn’t know any different than to see us wearing masks all the time. But someday, hopefully sooner rather than later, life will be somewhat back to normal and he won’t remember the crazy world he was born into.

And now onto October…one of my favorite months. We hope to still incorporate some of our favorite fall traditions while still being safe. Halloween may look different this year, but the kids will still be in costumes and they are excited to be close to home to spend that time with the people we love.

And as always, here is our 1 Second Everyday video for September 2020. Happy fall!

New Adventures in August

August was a month of lots of new beginnings. Kinsie and Brax both started school, and Ryan started his new job. Covid is still raging, but at least we have somewhat of a routine now and school to keep us busy. The kids have spent WAY too much time together and have way too much energy for me to keep up with, so having schoolwork now has helped keep their mind somewhat stimulated.

Here is a summary of our August…

Kinsie Starts 1st Grade Virtually

Starting the school year online was definitely not our first choice. We had a talk with Kinsie about school earlier in the summer, and we all agreed that being in school, even if that meant wearing a mask and social distancing, was the best choice for her. She thrives in school, and she couldn’t wait to start at a new school and meet her teacher and new friends. However, about a week before school was supposed to start, the district decided to start the first few weeks online. She was really bummed, but she made the most of it. Her school day included several live meetings with her class, which was a great way for her to still get to know her teacher and classmates. Her teacher has done an amazing job connecting with the students and creating class community, even virtually. Luckily, after the last board meeting, the district has decided to move to “phase yellow,” which means elementary students can start attending school in-person next week, and middle and high school students move to a hybrid schedule. Kinsie is SO excited! I’m so proud of her for how she has handled all the crazy changes this year.

Ryan Starts His Job

We were all excited for Ryan to officially start his first real job! And it only took about 10 years to get there! So far he loves the hospital that he is working at, and all of his co-workers. He is still getting used to being “in charge” but he is doing great and we are all loving his hours.

After Kinsie’s first day of school and Ryan’s first day of work, we had to celebrate with a trip to Jiffy Treet for ice cream!

Braxton Starts Pre-K

Another new adventure was Brax starting pre-K at his new school. Luckily, he has been able to go in person. He has to wear his mask sometimes throughout the day, like walking into and out of the building, and he does such a great job with it. He was a little nervous to start at a new school, but so far he has loved it and loves his new teacher and classmates.

Outdoor Adventures

Even with the kids starting school, we still have to get the kids outside to play as often as possible. They have SO much energy, and they fight more with each other and drive us crazy if they aren’t active enough throughout the day. Luckily, we have a pretty big yard for them to explore and play.

Kinsie’s current obsession is American Ninja Warrior, so Ryan has tried to give the kids some “ninja-type” activities in our own yard. We even gave her an early birthday present and got her a slackline obstacle kit. The kids could spend hours on it!

Love these crazy kids!

We still make our way over to my parents’ pool for swimming days every so often too!

One morning, we went to the park that Kinsie calls the “American Ninja Warrior” park. This is a newer park so it gets crowded often. We went early, and had a good chunk of time without crowds, but it didn’t last too long. When there were too many people around, we had the kids put on their masks. Even so, they always enjoy any park time they get.

One day, Ryan’s mom and aunt Renata came to visit. The kids wanted to take them to our other favorite park, and to show them the waterfall. We also enjoyed a picnic lunch at the park, bike riding, and looking for fish in the creek.

Weekends at the Lake

We are taking full advantage of our summer time at the lake. We have gone pretty much every weekend, even if just for the day. Ryan’s parents recently got some paddle boards, so we have all been enjoying trying them out.

In August, we also celebrating our sweet Grandma Bev’s birthday. Even though she fell in the lake while trying to help dock the boat, her heart was so full the whole day with all of her kids and grandbabies!

And of course the kids always enjoy their time with their cousin, Griffin…even if its running around in random sun hats!

Building Our Home

We are in the homestretch of preparing to build our forever home. Just a couple more weeks and we will be breaking ground. We are all so excited, and we love going to visit the lot whenever we can. I will be taking lots of pictures of the building process so I will be sure to share the progress.

Brody turned 3 months

Our precious little Brody is growing so fast right in front of our eyes! He is getting so big and so much fun. We are all so obsessed with him. The kids literally fight over who gets to sit closer to him. He is so happy and BUSY…like his brother and sister. He is still pretty go with the flow because as a third kid, he really has no choice…but lately he has less chill days and more busy days and always wants to be on-the-go!

Here are some updates of our little Bro at 3 months –

• He talks and squeals a lot – definitely discovering his voice.
• He loves to suck on his hands.
• He is much more interactive and LOVES when people talk to him.
• When laying down on his back, he scoots backwards like a worm.
• Most nights, he sleeps a 6-7 hour stretch. Some nights he wants to make sure I don’t forget about him and wakes up after just a couple of hours for a midnight snack.
• He loves looking around and observing everything around him.
• He often smiles with his tongue out, just like Kinsie did as a baby.
• He naps best with loud music to drown out the noise of his siblings.
• He is doing great with tummy time.
• He is in constant motion. In fact, when I put him down on his playmat and walk away to do something, I’ll come back not even a minute later and he has scooted himself off the mat!
• On the day he turned 3 months, he tried a new trick and can roll from his belly to his back. The kids love cheering him on when he does this!

These kids are ALWAYS loving on their baby brother. I feel like I say “Give him some space” a hundred times a day!

More sweet faces of our favorite little guy…

We love every single day with this boy. He brings us so much joy. I love seeing the kids in their roles of his big brother and sister. Even if they beat each other senseless often, they are so sweet and loving with Brody. We’ll see how long until he joins in on their wrestling matches!

Growing month by month…

Lots of new and exciting changes in August, and now we are looking forward to September. Our Kinsie Kay will be 7 this month!! We love fall and we have so many fun traditions we usually do in this season. However, it is 2020…the year of the pandemic. Things may look different than they usually do, but we still have each other and so much to be grateful for. We’ve been through so much this year already, and our kids have become absolute champs with all the change. We’re ready for our first Indiana fall, even if we mainly enjoy it just from our front porch!

Here is our August 1 Second Everyday video. Enjoy!

A Much- Needed Family Summer

Even though the pandemic is still raging, our summer in our new home as a full family of five has been so refreshing! We’ve had so much quality family time that we’ve all been aching for for years! Since Covid is still going strong and we are still being protective of our little Brody, we really haven’t gotten out and about much to explore our new town and we haven’t really been able to meet people, but we know that will come soon enough when things get better. In the mean time, we’ve just been soaking up all the family time we can get, and enjoying being close to our families and cousins again.

Here’s a rundown of our July…

4th of July

We enjoyed going to the lake this year for the 4th. Our day mainly consisted of boat rides, fireworks and cousin time!

IU Scavenger Hunt

We took the kids on a long walk through IU’s campus, and I wanted to find a way to make sure they somewhat stayed interested, so I made a scavenger hunt. It included specific landmarks around campus, such as the Sample Gates, the Showalter Fountain and the Herman B. Wells statue, but it also included things like red and white flowers, a red clock, people riding bikes, etc. The kids enjoyed it even though it was about 100 degrees out that day!

Exploring new parks

We have tried to spend some time finding old and new parks to explore in our new town. The first one I wanted to go to was my favorite park from college, Lower Cascades Park. It is a beautiful little park with a hidden creek and waterfall. The kids LOVED the waterfall area! They spent a good hour climbing behind and all around it, and throwing rocks in the creek.

After the waterfall hike, we let the kids just play on the playground. This park is also nice because it isn’t usually too crowded. Another day, we came back to this park to ride bikes and had a Subway picnic.

Another park we tried was called Switchyard Park. Kinsie liked to call it the “American Ninja Warrior Park” because it had lots of climbing ninja-type activities, which is one of her current obsessions!

Pool Parties

We’ve gone to my parents’ pool about once a week this month. This is probably the kids’ favorite place to play with their cousins!

We recently let Brody have his first pool experience. He was pretty chill about it, like most things in life!

Lake Life

We’ve spent almost every weekend at the lake, our happy place! We always love going on lots of boat rides whenever we can.

The kids have loved spending time with their other cousins as well. We enjoyed visiting some cousins at the Heritage Lake Campground, as well as some much-needed Griffin time!

We always have fun at the lake. Whether it’s fishing, swimming, boat rides, paddle boat rides, kayaking, or just hanging out, it is always a fun and relaxing time!

Outdoor Living

The house we are currently living in is a great place to catch fireflies. The kids loved their first firefly experience!

Ryan has never had this much time off before, and he is not the type to sit around…so he did lots of projects. Just a few examples include a giant Jenga set, and a peg board for the kids to climb!

 

Fun at Renata’s

The kids are always asking when we can go back to Aunt Renata’s house. I took them one day and like usual, they had a blast. They loved playing with Nicole’s dog Winnie in the baby pool, running around outside, and doing lots of painting and art projects!

Kinsie the Biker Babe!

Our big girl Kinsie learned how to ride her bike without training wheels…in about 5 minutes! We were visiting Ryan’s Aunt Rita and her family at the campground, and Kinsie wanted to ride bikes with her cousins. The only extra bike they had didn’t have training wheels, so Aunt Rita took her out and Kinsie picked it up SO quickly! It was so much fun watching her ride and all the kids running with her and cheering her on! We’ve been taking her places as often as we can to keep practicing. She’s a pro now!

Kinsie Dates

My sweet Kinsie has REALLY missed being in school. She was supposed to start her first day at her new school on August 5, but her district decided to do online learning until at least September. She’s super bummed, so I’ve been trying to find ways to keep her spirits up. Since she is at home with her brothers all day every day, she’s been needing some breaks…and since she’s good about wearing a mask, I’m able to take her on little dates. One day I took her to get special drinks from Starbucks and then to the park. Another day I took her to get school supplies and go see her school. She loves our girl dates!

Cousin Bike Ride

Ever since Kinsie learned to ride her bike with no training wheels, she wants to ride ALL the time! Our rental house is on a main road, so she can’t ride there, so we take it to parks and my parents’ house often. One day, my sister brought her kids and their bikes too and all 5 of the kids had a cousin bike ride.

Brody is 2 months!

We are SO grateful for our precious Brody in our lives, especially during such a weird time. His sweet noises and smiles can brighten up any dark day we may have.

Here are some updates on our Bro at 2 months:

• He is 12 lbs. 5 oz. – 55th percentile for weight.
• He is 24″ long – 85th percentile for height.
• Like my other kids, he has quite a large noggin! His head circumference is in the 95th percentile!
• He sleeps a good 6-7 hour stretch at night in between feedings.
• He is talking and interacting much more.
• He is SO smiley…especially in the mornings.
• He recognizes voices and faces and love his family.
• He loves doing bicycle kicks with his legs. When his belly hurts, this is one of the only things that calms him.
• He loves when people talk to him and love to be involved in whatever we’re doing.
• Car rides, boat rides, and being worn in a carrier always soothe him to sleep.
• He is getting on a more consistent eat – wake – sleep cycle… a Babywise method that worked well for my other kids.

The kids are still completely obsessed with their little brother. They love cuddling with him, talking to him, playing with him, helping give him baths, and cheering him on with tummy time!

His smile is seriously my favorite…

More sweet Brody faces!

As you can see below, he has already grown a lot! He is really filling out and getting some cute chubby cheeks!

We are all head-over-heels with this sweet little boy. Even though giving birth and living with a newborn in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic has been extremely difficult, his laid back personality and overall sweetness has made every difficult second completely worth it. He was an unexpected, but perfect gift from God. If it would have been up to me, of course I wouldn’t choose to have a baby during a pandemic. But God knows better and I can’t imagine life without this precious gift He knew we needed!

Ryan is excited to start his official job in August, Kinsie will start online learning, and Braxton gets to start at his new preschool. We also should be breaking ground on our house in August as well. We are grateful for these things to keep us busy and give us something to look forward to during an unpredictable time.

Enjoy our July 1 Second Everyday video!

One Crazy May

The last few months have been absolute insanity. And when I think that things can’t possibly get any crazier, they do. May turned out to be extremely exhausting and emotional, but also amazing since our sweet baby boy was born!

Here is a recap of our crazy month…

Brax’s 4th Birthday

Our boy Brax turned 4 this month!! Even before the pandemic, we knew that his birthday would have to be low-key because we knew that I would either be super pregnant, or have a newborn. Luckily we had a beautiful day to work with, so we filled our sweet boy’s day with lots of fun right from home!

My sister and her family wanted to surprise Brax with donuts in the morning, so they called and ordered them at a nearby donut shop and my mom picked them up. He loved the surprise from his aunt, uncle and cousins!

Brax was thrilled to get a new bike for his birthday from us! He spent a good portion of his day practicing riding it. We also had a picnic lunch in our front yard, a water balloon fight with Daddy, and sprinkler and pool fun.

After we came inside, we ordered his favorite dinner, pizza. After pizza, we called our families for a Zoom birthday song and cake. He loved getting to see everyone even though they all couldn’t be there.

Even though we never left the house, our boy seemed to have a great 4th birthday! And I was thrilled that Brax would still have his own birthday…I was genuinely nervous that the baby would come that day. Luckily (and surprisingly), he didn’t come for another couple weeks!

While we packed…

We had a LOT of work to do before we moved at the end of the month. My mom started packing whenever she could, and I spent half the month as a beached whale who could hardly roll over, so the most I could help was sitting with my mom and telling her what to pack and where. It was super frustrating because I felt useless. Anyway, one of the hardest parts about packing is entertaining your kids. They are usually good about entertaining themselves, but when they are watching you pack all of their toys, it often causes some issues! They spent some time dressing up, making forts, and drawing lots and lots of pictures. Kinsie recently discovered a YouTube Channel that teaches you how to draw hundreds of different animals and characters. She spent countless hours drawing during the moving process!

It rained a lot this May, but we would still try to get the kids outside whenever we could so they wouldn’t kill each other. They came up with obstacle courses, random games, and drew lots of PinkFong creations with sidewalk chalk.

Lots of walks trying to help get baby out…

I had been physically miserable for quite some time at this point. I was shocked that the baby hadn’t come sooner based on how I felt. I was so desperate to get him out, and tried to do whatever I could to help the process…mainly lots and lots of walks. We obviously couldn’t take long walks because my feet would get too swollen, but we took as many short walks as we could. One of our favorite walks was at a different lake in our town, closer to the kids’ school. There’s a giant swan that lives at that lake, so the kids call it “Swan Lake.” It was a beautiful walk with lots of wildlife, including the swan, a family of ducks, turtles, and fish. The kids loved it and could have spent hours following the duck family!

We also walked around the lake by our house. We always looked for wildlife to keep the kids entertained. During one of our walks, Ryan found a speckled king snake and PICKED IT UP. He is crazy. This particular type of snake is docile, and he had a good hold of it and Kinsie even touched it. Later on this same walk, we found a turtle, which Kinsie fell in love with and would have taken home if we let her!

We did the swan lake walk on Mother’s Day as well. Ryan was off for paternity leave at this point, so he was able to join us for a Subway picnic and more wildlife watching. This was the first Mother’s Day that I’ve gotten to spend with my mom since we moved here. I not only loved spending Mother’s Day with her, but I was beyond grateful for the time she spent with us in Arkansas. She was absolutely crucial to us this month with everything that went down and I am so blessed to have her love and support.

Last Day of School…Quarantine Style

Obviously the kids’ school year did not end the way we expected it to end, and we all had our moments of grief with this fact. However, I am so impressed with my kids on how they handled everything. They were still excited to take “Last Day of School” pictures. I always love seeing how much they’ve grown during a school year!

Graduations and End of Year Parades

Since the pandemic caused all school and events to be cancelled, Kinsie’s school decided to have a drive-through Kindergarten graduation ceremony. It was SO precious and she got her certificates and got to say goodbye to her teacher. Brax’s school also had a drive-through farewell parade. Unfortunately, I was not able to be there because I was still in the hospital with the baby (I’ll tell the whole story in his birth story coming soon), but Ryan and my mom recorded both events and took pictures for me.

Here is the video Ryan took with his Go-Pro of Kinsie’s graduation

 

Introducing Brody Ryan Matthews!

The biggest and most anticipated event of our month…the birth of our precious baby boy, Brody Ryan Matthews. He was born on May 17 at 10:24am. He was 7 lbs, 14 oz. and 21 inches long. He is the absolute sweetest baby and we are all so obsessed with him. We ended up spending about a week in the hospital due to high bilirubin levels, which I will explain in full detail in his upcoming birth story. Luckily now, he is doing much better and we’ve enjoyed welcoming him home into our family!

Lots of love for Brody

Brody only got to live in Arkansas for about 2 weeks before we moved. While we continued packing our house, the kids spent most of their time fighting over who got to hold Brody. The love playing with him on his playmat and reading lots of books to him!

Brody’s First Walk

Before we moved, I really wanted to take Brody on a walk around our favorite park. Even though he slept the whole time, we all enjoyed our first and last walk at our park as a family of five.

Brody’s First Bath

Kinsie was thrilled to get to help with Brody’s first sponge bath!

Moving Day!

Brody and I were only home for about a week before we had to load up the moving trucks and hit the road to Indiana! My dad and Ryan’s parents came down to help us load up and drive. It was a crazy, exhausting, busy few days but we made it! Ryan even drove one of the UHAUL trucks, helped us get settled, then flew back down to Little Rock to finish out his month. This definitely wasn’t the way we wanted to finish our time in Arkansas, but we are already planning a trip in the future to come back and visit our friends and our favorite places.

My mom helped drive with me and my kids. It took us about 12 hours since we had to stop every few hours to feed the baby. He did amazing on his first road trip!

RV’s for MD’s

Since we had to be out of our house on May 30 and Ryan still had to finish his contract, he needed a place to live for the month of June. He thought about staying with a friend, but most of his closest friends had new babies, and he didn’t want to impose on a family or cause potential exposure. My friend told me about a Facebook group called “RV’s for MD’s” where people who own RV’s offer to let frontline workers live in their RV so they don’t expose their families to the coronavirus. I joined the group and we were able to find the nicest family in Little Rock who had a huge, full-sized RV. They made dure the RV was clean and fully-stocked and they even gave us a baby gift! We worked it out to park it at the RV Park in downtown Little Rock right by the river. It is such a neat program and we were so grateful that Ryan had a safe place to live!

May was exhausting, and I’m glad it is over. However, it will be a month I will never forget for the rest of my life because I had a baby and moved across the country within 2 weeks! The kids and I are staying with my parents for the month of June, then when Ryan is finished, he’ll come to Indiana and we will live in a rental house while our house is being built. Things are still crazy trying to get settled and dealing with 2 kids and a newborn, but I am just so grateful for a healthy baby and the fact that we are closer to home!

Stay tuned for Brody’s full birth story and more summer fun in the upcoming months!

Here is our May 1 Second Everyday…enjoy!

 

The March that Nobody Expected

Our March started out great, and we were looking forward to listing our house, and visiting Indiana to start house-hunting. Well as you all know, things took an unexpected turn for the entire world with the global pandemic, COVID-19. This virus turned everyone’s world upside down. For our family personally, it has been really hard with me being very pregnant with 2 kids now fully at home since schools are closed until further notice…and all of this while I was trying to get the house prepared to put on the market. Most importantly, Ryan works in the emergency department, so he is on the frontlines of this battle, which is the scariest part. We have been social distancing and doing e-learning and trying to come up with creative ways to let the kids get their energy out, but the idea that Ryan has the risk of being exposed every time he steps into work has caused me a great deal of anxiety. I have gone through several stages of emotions this month…from full on panic and anxiety, to somewhat acceptance UNTIL another major change happens, to anticipating more major changes and trying to find mental peace when they happen, and so on…but overall, the only thing that is really getting me through this is my faith. When I feel weak, I pray. When I feel hopeless, I pray. When I feel anxious, I pray. When I feel overwhelmed, I pray. I hate to admit that I haven’t been living this way the last few months. With so much going on in our lives, I’ve just been a little energizer bunny constantly going and doing and taking control of every situation and marking things off my checklist like a mad woman. God has really used this pandemic as an opportunity to humble me and make me slow down and let go of the control that I thought I had and just trust Him. This month has been so hard and scary, and I know the pandemic isn’t even over yet, but I am grateful that God has used it to open my eyes and realize that I need to fully trust Him.

With all that said, here is a rundown of our crazy month…

Enjoying the weather (pre-pandemic)

March has always been one of my favorite months, and in Arkansas, the weather is usually amazing from March – May before the intense summer heat comes. Ryan worked a lot of weekends and nights early on, so the kids and I had to find activities that I  could physically manage and still let them run around. Before COVID-19 came around, we still made trips to our favorite park as often as we could!

Book Character Day

In honor of Dr. Seuss’s birthday week, Kinsie’s school had several dress-up days focused around Dr. Seuss books, such as “Cat in the Hat” day (wear a hat), “Fox in Socks” day (wear crazy socks), etc. On Friday of this week, the kids got to dress as any book character and bring the book if they had it. Kinsie chose to dress as Pinkalicious! I always loved book character day as a teacher, and I’m so glad that I got to help Kinsie be a part of it now!

Wye Daffodil Festival at “Daffodil Hill”

Every year, Wye Mountain has an entire field full of daffodils, and when they are in full bloom, they have a festival. I always saw people posting pictures of it, but each year it didn’t work out with our schedule for us to check it out. Luckily this year, we were able to make it work, even though Ryan was coming off of night shifts and was sleep deprived…but he knew this was our last chance so he took one for the team. The kids loved running and rolling through the fields of daffodils and I loved all the beautiful photo opportunities. Little did we know, COVID-19 was on its way, and this was our last real adventure before the recommended quarantine began, so I am especially grateful that we took the time to check it out. It is also funny looking back at these photos, because this was the last time Ryan had his facial hair. With the virus, Ryan has to stay clean shaven in order for his N-95 mask to fit properly. No complaining here…I love him no matter what and I’ve learned to embrace his scruff, but I do love seeing more of his handsome face!

E-Learning Days

When Kinsie found out that she wouldn’t get to go to school for a while due to the virus, she bawled. My sweet girl loves school so much, and she hated the idea of not seeing her teacher and her friends for a while. I always said that homeschooling would never work for us, and I still believe that, but I am very impressed and surprised with how well e-learning from home has been going so far. Kinsie stays much more focused than I expected, and all of her teachers have done a fantastic job keeping their lessons online as normal as possible, just like they would be had they been at school. Her main teacher posts videos every day with their spelling and phonics lessons, and even does a read aloud video every day. There are often fun activities the kids can do too, like make a leprechaun trap on St. Patricks Day. All of the specials teachers post fun lessons for them as well, and I about melted at the videos the music teacher posted singing her “hello song” to each individual class with her ukulele! This school has been such a blessing for Kinsie this year, and I know we will miss it. Brax really wanted to learn too, so I used my old online teaching resources and printed worksheets for him to practice letters, numbers, colors, and more. Once he finished his worksheets for the day, he could do learning apps on the iPad until Kinsie was finished with her work.

Kinsie’s school, and many other schools that I have heard about, have been providing free breakfasts and lunches to students while school was out. Kinsie’s school also made these meals available to any kids, not just students of the school, of any age, as long as they were in the car with you when you picked them up. The kids were pumped to pick up our free meals and enjoyed them all week.

St. Patrick’s Day

Not that we do a whole lot on this day anyway, but it’s a fun excuse to dress up and take a picture!

St. Patrick’s Day is always special to our family though, considering Ryan’s Match Day happened to be on this holiday 3 years ago. I have SO many emotions about this day, and now I am super nostalgic about it since we are ALMOST DONE with residency!!

Kinsie’s First Tooth

Recently, Kinsie noticed that she had her first wiggly tooth. She was SO excited because she sees her classmates losing teeth all the time and always wondered when she would start losing her teeth. She wiggled nonstop (of course during a pandemic, my first piece of advice to her was to always make sure her hands were clean before wiggling her tooth!) Each meal she ate caused her wiggly tooth to become a little looser. Finally one night, I told her it was SO close and I could probably get it easily. Surprisingly she let me, and it indeed came out so easily…so easily in fact that it didn’t even hurt at all! She was so excited and loved getting her first visit from the tooth fairy the next morning! The tooth right next to it is now starting to wiggle, so she’s been working on that one next!

Selling the House

We’ve been preparing for this for months. After LOTS of decluttering and storing, painting and repairs and deep cleaning…it was finally time to list our house! Getting our house “show ready” with 2 kids, 2 dogs, lots of rain, hence, lots of mud and dirt tracked in, all while being 8 months pregnant…definitely no easy task! On top of all that, this was right when COVID-19 came about, so then we had the added worry that people wouldn’t be out trying to buy houses right now. We went ahead and listed it, hoping it would at least get a lot of online attention while everyone was quarantined at home.

Our house officially went on the market on a Monday, and the VERY next day, we had 3 showings! We were supposed to be in Indiana the first week our house was listed, but we decided it wasn’t best to travel during the pandemic, especially being around our families with Ryan working in health care, so instead we stayed home. Before we found out about the 3 upcoming showings, Ryan had already planned on picking up a couple of extra shifts to make some extra “moonlighting” money. So I was on my own with getting the kids and dogs out of the house!

The first showing was around lunch time, so we loaded up the car and grabbed fast food and just hung out in the car. It was rainy out anyway, and the kids stayed entertained watching a movie and doing activity books.

The second 2 showings were in the evening back to back, and it was nicer outside, so we grabbed some dinner and had a picnic at the park. Apparently since this was the first sight of nice weather in about a week, EVERYONE else in the town decided to go to the park as well, making it very hard to implement social distancing. We sat at our own little picnic table by the lake, then tried to find areas in the park for the kids to play without other people. The kids helped me walk the dogs, and we used hand sanitizer after touching literally anything. Both the kids and dogs were very good, but even so, afterwards I was EXHAUSTED!

After just 1 day of being on the market, and 3 showings, we have officially accepted an offer and are under contract! It was truly a God thing that this all happened so quickly even during a pandemic. It is such a relief that I don’t have to continue having the physical stress of keeping the house ready, but even more not having the emotional stress of wondering if our house would sell before we needed to move. The best part is that we negotiated with the buyers to let us stay in the house until the end of May, which will be super helpful since the baby comes sometime in May. The kids and I will move out then, and Ryan will find a co-resident to stay with until he finishes out his contract at the end of June.

Social Distancing Spring Break

Like I mentioned before, we were very sad to make the decision not to travel to Indiana for spring break, but we definitely felt that it was the right thing to do. We were planning on house hunting, and even though that was our only chance to go, we’ve continued to look online, and we are very blessed that we at least have 2 realtors in the family that I fully trust to look at the houses we like and help us make a decision. Anyway, the first few days of spring break were rainy, so we had to entertain ourselves inside, at home. This included getting our the Easter eggs and having indoor egg hunts, lots of dancing and Go Noodle videos (short dance along videos for kids to follow), drawing and coloring, puppet shows, live stream videos of animals at the zoo, and even a few naps!

Luckily, we didn’t have gloomy weather for too long while the kids were home for spring break. As soon as the rain stopped, we busted outside as often as we could while still maintaining social distancing. On one of the days, we took a family walk (dogs and all) around the park. Ryan doesn’t get to do this with us very often, so it was nice to share this time with him.

The next few days we had WONDERFUL weather. We spent about 4 days in a row outside all day.

The kids loved having nature scavenger hunts and combining the nature items they found to create new “inventions.”

One day, we had straight up summer weather. It was 87 degrees! We took advantage of the weather and let the kids have their first pool and sprinkler day. They loved it! They even washed my car and found a lizard friend. This day made me very grateful that I won’t be pregnant through the real Arkansas summer, because the heat from this day was rough on my very pregnant body!

Another day, the kids were running out of ideas to do in our own yard, and it wasn’t quite warm enough to do the water activities again. I came up with the idea to make a “board game” on our driveway and they loved it. Both kids helped me plan out our game, and all the obstacles and accelerations that would come with it. When we were done, Ryan took an aerial picture from the top of his Jeep, then we played the game… a lot!

Some of the specific parts of the game included:

• Frog jump ahead 3 spaces
• Bubble Spill – lose 1 turn
• Swimming with fish shortcut (Kinsie’s idea was to wear goggles while taking this shortcut!)
• Stuck in the ball pit, lose 1 turn (they would literally sit in a bin filled with balls)
• Scooter ride acceleration
• Frisbee toss ahead 3 spaces
• “God Bless America,” march ahead 3 spaces
• Duck crossing, go back 2 spaces to allow them time to cross
• Hit by a water balloon, lose a turn to dry off

I asked Kinsie what she wanted the “end goal” of the game to be, and she said that the goal is to get to “Princess and Superhero World!” It was actually a lot of fun creating the game with them, and they played it nonstop until it eventually rained and washed the game away.

Pregnancy Updates

At 32 weeks, we entered our 8th month of pregnancy. At the most, I have about 8 weeks left, but with my history, and based on how I’ve been feeling, I probably have less time than that. This month has been tough emotionally for obvious reasons, but it has also gotten much more physically difficult for me. Moving around in any way takes about 10 times more effort than usual, and my hips are really starting to hurt…I can physically feel my body getting itself ready for labor.

Here are some updates and/or changes at 8 months:

• This boy has not calmed down…not even a little bit! It is safe to say that he is by far my most active child in utero. He also seems to be very strong, because his kicks send shockwaves of pain through my ribs, my hips and my bladder!
• He is currently anywhere around 4 pounds and 17 inches long.
• My ankles and feet are starting to swell. Lately I’ve TRIED to sit down as often as possible, but…you know…kids. Ryan is a MAJOR help whenever he is home. Kinsie usually tries to help, but is often is oblivious, and Brax is just Brax…he doesn’t really understand.
• Like I said before, my hips are giving out on me. In the evenings in particular they really hurt and I can feel my ligaments stretching, making it painful to walk.
• My carpal tunnel syndrome is slowly getting worse. It’s not unbearable yet, but I have to sleep every night with wrist braces, and now I wear a brace on my right hand throughout most of the day. The less I use my hands, the better it feels…but its kind of impossible not to use my hands!
• I developed two new random cravings this month – apple juice and grapes. But not necessarily together.
• We THINK we have his name picked out…but you’ll have to wait until he’s born to find out!
• Bright side – at least this quarantine is happening when I’m too physically exhausted to run around anyway!

This photo was taken at 32 weeks – baby was the size of a cantaloupe

The kids LOVE feeling their brother move. When they snuggle with me on the couch, their hand usually finds my belly and just rests there so they can feel his crazy movements.

My sweet Kinsie has the tendency to drop something on the ground whenever she is done with it, whether it is a toy, her jacket, her shoes, etc. Ryan and I have been trying to explain that she needs to pick things up and put them in the right spot, especially now to help me out. This message was not quite getting through, so we had to take it a step further. We found a 2 pound medicine ball and wrapped it around her body with seran wrap, then I had her wear it around for a few minutes and try to pick up various things around the kitchen. She was not a fan (she wouldn’t even let me get a picture so I had to sneak one), but she started to understand! Now whenever she starts becoming “unhelpful” again, I remind her of the lesson and she starts to help more. My sister called this lesson “Empathy for the family way!”

I’ve been trying to soak up my time as just a mom of 2, and trust me, I’ve had LOTS of time with my 2 the last month! They often drive me crazy but goodness I love them and all their crazy and unique idiosyncrasies. I can’t wait to meet this new little one and get to know his unique crazy self too!

We still had lots of good moments this month, but it definitely was not the month that anyone expected. I am praying constantly that COVID-19 will start to slow down soon so we can all feel safe leaving our homes again and continuing our lives, but I am trying to prepare my mind for the possibility that it could still last a while.

My 2 biggest fears right now are 1) that Ryan gets infected and has to be put on quarantine when the baby comes, and 2) that the virus continues so heavily that the kids won’t get to finish their school year at their schools here in Arkansas. This is supposed to be such an exciting time for us, and the idea of the kids not getting to say goodbye the proper way to their teachers and friends just breaks my heart. With my first fear, I know that its a possibility, but I also know that Ryan is doing everything in his power to make sure that doesn’t happen. He is always wearing his PPE at work, and cleaning and sanitizing himself and all of his materials before he even comes into the house and hugs any of us. This month has proved to me even more that my husband is a freaking rockstar. He is handling everything so well both physically and mentally, AND helping me and the kids through it too. I am so grateful for everything he does for us and the fact that I get to do life with him every day. With the second fear, I know this is also a good possibility, and Kinsie knows it too. I told her that if this happens, we will do whatever we can to make sure she gets to say goodbye to the people she has grown close to here in Arkansas, whether its through FaceTime, or even if we need to come back a few months after we move when this has all been cleared. Only time will tell how the rest of this all plays out.

I’ve come a long way mentally and emotionally in just one month, but I know I have only been given the strength to do that through God. Don’t get me wrong, I still have weak moments…every single day. But I’ve been doing a LOT of praying, talking with family and just focusing on all the good things happening, and that is what is getting me through it. Praying for everyone else out there and hoping you all STAY HOME and STAY HEALTHY!!

Here is our March 2020 1 Second Everyday video…

 

June Travels

June was a whirlwind! We were gone more than we were home. During the month of June, we traveled to Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri, and then the kids and I took a 2 week trip to visit family in Indiana. Ryan had to stay home to work, and we definitely missed him a lot while we were gone! However, we stayed super busy and did lots of fun activities back in our home town. I’m excited to share our June adventures!

Trip to Lake of the Ozarks

Since Ryan was named Chief Resident, one of his first responsibilities was to make the first few schedules. We knew that the kids and I were going to be gone the last 2 weeks of the month, so Ryan scheduled himself to work pretty much the whole time we were gone. With that being said, he was able to get multiple days off in a row during the first half of the month, so we decided to take advantage of that and take a little trip to the Ozarks! My parents met us there and brought along Kerigan. Unfortunately, Kinsie was not feeling well during the trip, and we later discovered she had pneumonia. She was just extra tired and not her perky self, but she was a trooper and still had fun.

On the first full day, we took a hike at the state park. It was a fun and easy hike, and we saw tons of deer! 

After our hike, we went to the beach area near our condo. The kids loved splashing around at the beach, playing on the playground, and taking a ride on the inflatable kayak that Ryan brought with us.

The next day, we rented a pontoon boat and spent the entire day on the lake. We had a great day exploring the lake, trying out different restaurants on the water, fishing, and more. The kids were all exhausted by the end of the day, and Brax even fell asleep on Yaya’s lap, which I know she didn’t mind at all!

I felt so bad that we took Kinsie on this trip when she didn’t feel good, but she was such a trooper. After the trip, we got her on some antibiotics and she was feeling better within days. It was still such a fun little trip with some people we love!

 

Small Adventures

Taking small trips, even if it’s to a store or to get ice cream, are crucial for my sanity. Since Kinsie wasn’t feeling well, we were home a lot. As soon as she was feeling a little better, we took short trips out of the house just to get some fresh air. We needed to get some school uniforms for Kinsie, so we went to the outdoor mall and had ice cream. Another day, we went to Target and got cake pops at the Starbucks inside the store. It’s the little things!

One day, Ryan didn’t have to work until the afternoon, so we took a family walk around the lake. The kids enjoyed stopping along the way to see turtles and ducks and we enjoyed some quality family time.

Dragon Boat Races

The lake by our house does this event every year, and the first year it took place on the day we moved. We obviously didn’t go then since we just moved in, but we did see the fireworks from our house! This is the first year we were able to check it out, and it was very cool! Different companies get together and make teams and they race dragon boats across the lake to raise money for charity. Each company also sets up a tent and gives away free items. The kids got some free dragon cups, a beach ball, and lollipops, so they were in heaven! There were also fun games and activities set up around the park, so we all enjoyed a fun family morning at the event!

Father’s Day and Our Anniversary

Our 7th anniversary and Father’s Day landed on the same day this year, so I made sure Ryan took the day off! We didn’t do anything spectacular…just went to church, and spent the day playing outside with the kids. Then I made Ryan’s favorite dinner. It was simple…but that’s all we needed. All we wanted for both our anniversary and Father’s Day was to spend the day all together, so that’s exactly what we did!

A Tough Goodbye

As soon as we moved here 2 years ago, I made some incredible friends within the residency program. Several other wives within the program took me in right away and became my very good friends. We did playdates often, went to church together (usually without husbands, but with ALL our kids), we constantly had a group text going, and we supported each other through the tough journey of residency. The thing I loved most is that all of our husbands were in emergency medicine together, so we all shared the same struggles and helped each other through them. Their husbands were in the residency class above Ryan, so they just completed their third year and all moved away for new jobs. It was really hard saying goodbye to the friends I got so close with, but I was SO grateful just to have them for the 2 years that I did. Now I just have an excuse to travel around the U.S. to visit!

Back Home Again in Indiana

The kids and I went to Indiana to visit family for 2 weeks, so that was half of our month right there. We are so grateful for our family for always helping us find ways to get there and back when Ryan can’t drive with us. This time, Bev flew to Little Rock and helped us drive to Indiana, and my mom helped us drive to Little Rock and then flew back to Indiana. We were SO busy during our 2 week visit, and we loved every minute of it! Here is a recap of our adventures in Indiana…

Indianapolis Children’s Museum

We used to take Kinsie to the museum when she was little, then of course we moved when Brax was still a baby, so we hadn’t been there in a few years. The kids were so excited when their cousins invited us to spend the day there with them. Brax LOVED the dinosaur peeking in the building as you first walk in!

Some of the highlights of the inside of the museum included the carousel, the fossil digging area, and the Paw Patrol exhibit.

Although we loved everything we saw inside, we spent the most time outside in the sports area. This is somewhat new, so we had never been. It was amazing! They had tons of exercising activities, every sport you can imagine, and a huge treehouse, similar to the “Tree of Life” at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. We spent hours exploring and playing! It was an awesome day!

Indianapolis Zoo

We tagged along with Megan, Griffin, Grandma Bev and Ryan’s cousin Jess and her daughter Bexlee to the zoo. The bad news is that it rained almost the entire time we were there. The good news is that we still got to see most of the animals. A few of the savanna animals, and the tiger (my favorite) weren’t feeling the rain, but other than that, we saw a lot and had a great day. Kinsie hitched a ride in Griffin’s covered wagon, and Brax used Kinsie’s unicorn umbrella, so we were all good! The Indy Zoo has a great indoor aquarium area, so we spent a lot of time there. The kids loved all the sea creatures, and Kinsie got to see the dolphin show that she’s been talking about literally since we moved. Brax loved the orangutans and talked about them for days after!

Another neat temporary exhibit was the MISTery Park. It was just a short little loop full of mist sprayers. Simple, but neat! Despite the rain, we enjoyed the day with family and animals.

Splash Pad

We met Bev, Megan, and a few of Ryan’s aunts and cousins for lunch and then went to the park splash pad for the kids to play. It took some time for the kids to get comfortable enough to play, but once they did, they had a blast!

Toy Story 4

The kids were dying to see Toy Story 4, (ok so was I!) so I wanted to take them to see it in theater during our visit. We invited some other cousins along, and we all took up an entire row! We all loved the movie, but my favorite part was hearing Brax belly laughing with every scene that had their new favorite “Forky!”

The next day, all the cousins made their own version of Forky. Then Kinsie wanted to take it a step further and make more characters. This project continued for days and expanded more and more until she had drawn every single character from the movie! Her final project was quite impressive, and now she wants to display it in the play room at home!

Cousin Sleepovers

The kids favorite part of visiting is always cousin time. They had several sleepovers, including Kinsie sleeping over at their house one night. Their time together is always fun and eventful!

Pool Days

We always love spending time at Yaya’s pool while we’re in town. On our pool days, Kinsie transformed into a mermaid and did not get out of the pool unless forced to eat or go to the bathroom. There were a few days where she swam from 10am to 7pm! Brax made tons of progress from wanting someone to always hold him, to swimming around independently.

The kids’ happiest of happy places…ALL their cousins in the pool with them!

Even when we weren’t IN the pool, we still loved spending time out by the pool. When Brax needed breaks from swimming, he brought puzzles out and did them poolside. We also enjoyed several meals on the terrace.

The kids had SO much fun together in the pool. They played for hours and hours, and they all get along so well. And we just love watching them have fun together.

Other Outside Fun

The second week of our visit had beautiful weather. We spent as much time as we could outside. When we weren’t by the pool or lake, we enjoyed swinging and water table fun at Megan’s, or riding on the lawn mower with Papa!

Lake Days

We spent a good chunk of time at the lake during our visit…which is one of my favorite places to be. We went for a few random trips during the week, and then spent the weekends there as well. During the week was the best time to relax and go fishing since there weren’t many people there. The kids enjoyed fishing for about 3 minutes, then moved on to other things. In that short time though, they did catch a fish or two! While the kids played, I fished longer with Ryan’s dad. Between the two of us, we caught lots of blue gill. I hadn’t fished in far too long so it was great to get to do it again!

We spent our entire weekends at the lake as well. Lots of Ryan’s relatives came during that time, so we enjoyed visiting with family. All the kids LOVED swimming in the lake. Brax particular loved swimming with Uncle Nate, and Kinsie and the older cousins loved jumping off the dock and playing on the giant mat.

More lake fun included boat rides, water balloon fights with cousins, and water table fun for the littles. And of course we had to snap this photo of Papa Tim with his 3 faves in his Heritage Lake shirt!

Fireworks at the Lake

This is one of our favorite days of the year, and somehow we have managed to make it the last 2 years. Lots of family and friends came for the day so of course there was lots of people, fun and food. The kids spent most of the day swimming in the lake, and then the night consisted of the official fireworks put on by the lake. The kids got all decked out in glow necklaces and bracelets and stayed up late for the fireworks. We loved the fireworks, but my little guy fell asleep in the middle of them! It is very rare for either of my kids to accidentally fall asleep. He clearly was so exhausted from a long week of playing and swimming!

Home Again Home Again, Jiggity Jig

After a very busy and fun 2 weeks, we were sad to leave family, but very ready to head home and see Ryan. The kids were SO happy to see him and spent the next 24 hours playing games with him, telling him all about our trip, and of course, climbing all over him! It was so good to be together as a family again!

And that wraps up our month! We are looking forward to just being home in the month of July and enjoying summer before the kids start school. I still can’t believe that Kinsie starts KINDERGARTEN at the beginning of August! In the mean time, pray that we survive the intense Arkansas summer heat!

Here is our June 1 Second Every video. Enjoy!