April in all its glory

In late March we went to cheer Uncle Adam on as he completed a Half Marathon!  It was so fun and I'm very impressed.  This will not be happening in our house any time soon so it's nice to know other family members can reach these goals for us :)

Go Adam!

Lunchables at Jack's soccer practice.  I hate to admit this, but the Baptists do it well.  Sports, that is.  Jack played spring Soccer with Concord and loved it.  And the practice each week was one hour a week next to this giant playground.  It was the bomb diggity.

We had a lunchable supper at the playground each week.  If only this included a little beer for mommy.  (somehow I feel like a Catholic sports league would have this taken care of....Just sayin...)

I loved watching Jackman progress.  He has an overwhelming desire to please and to do his best and I loved seeing him learn and grow on the field.  This was a very positive experience for him.

Easter baskets!  Low key of course but the kids loved them.

Egg hunt with Widdi and Rachel at Widdi's old school.

We made speckled eggs this time around.  I'm just impressed we actually colored eggs this time around.

After mass Easter picture.  Love these people in my life.

After church we drove to M-town for an egg hunt at Mimi and Grandaddy's.

As usual, we all had a blast and enjoyed soaking up some Springtime sunshine.

School pics.  How much do I love this handsome face?  And where is my little baby?

Speaking of babies, how is she graduating from Pre-K????  I so love my beautiful, smart, sassy little girl.


More pics...

Lucy played Y soccer with her friend Charley this spring.  She did SOOO much better with staying focused and trying hard this time around.  I'm so proud of my girl.

In April we attended Kindergarten Round Up!

Lucy cannot wait until Kindergarten.  I'm ready for her to move forward bc I firmly believe school is her place.  She loves structure, a place she can learn and explore and thrive, and of course - being the teacher's pet.  She is my daughter after all...  My only worry going forward is friends.  Girls are not fun.  Girls are mean.  (Until you become an adult and learn the awesome ones happen when you are an adult.)  And as her mom, I'm tasked with making sure she gets the support and strength she needs when the "girls" become "mean girls."  This is the part I'm not totally prepped for.


Needless to say, that day was pretty packed.

Jack played goalie at one point.  Not a fan of this position personally but he nailed it.  Love this kid,

We attended Jack's end of year Open House to see how much this kiddo has learned!  I'm constantly amazed at how quickly my oldest is growing up.  He impresses me daily - mostly with his tender heart and his curiosity.  He has managed to become an avid reader, a lover of story writing and science, and a kid that loves to dance and sing (his teachers are always telling me about his sweet dance moves and I couldn't be prouder.) :)

While in Ms. Hughes room, I snuck a picture of his Kindergarten class pic and his 2nd grade one too :)

What else happened in April...

WE MOVED!!!!  Andy and I have talked a lot about one day getting a bigger house and one day moving to Farragut - which is where our lives are centered for the most part.  However, it took one woman running the stop sign in front of our house back in September 2017 to set that in motion.  The day that woman almost collided with my minivan set in motion a series of events that told us we needed to move.  To be fair, I loved our yard.  Not house, but yard.  Our house, as nice as it was, was not enough room for our family and frankly we bought it knowing that we would one day move.  I think that I always had that in the back of my mind when we lived there.  That this wasn't it.  However, I loved that yard.  It was an amazing yard.  When we moved in, it had overgrown flowerbed, weeds everywhere, and a backyard that would make you shudder.  I'll never forget standing in the front corner bed of our house, covered in sweat and dirt, baby monitor quietly buzzing next to me while Jack slept for his afternoon nap, ripping out vines and weeds that had climbed into the utility pole, and a neighbor driving by slowed down to cheer me on and thank me for making the first house you see when you drive into the neighborhood a pleasant sight.  I felt encouraged.  Andy and I worked our butts off to build beds, plant things we knew would grow and would give me peace (plants do that - it's weird i realize that).  So I was not in a hurry to move.  We had poured a lot of sweat, money, and time into our yard.  And it was the perfect backyard for kids - it was huge and lovely.  

But in September 2017, a woman blew right through the 4 way stop that our house was situated on.  I was approaching this stop sign with all three kids in the van.  I came to a stop and looked around and seeing no one,  I started to turn right to leave the neighborhood.  Then a woman in a light blue CRV blew through the stop sign going at least 40 mph.  I slammed on my brakes and blasted my horn so long and loud that Andy called my phone and said, " Was that you?"  After I told him that a woman almost t-boned us, he called the county.  The county offered a solution.  A raised island in the middle of the intersection that would slow people down and prevent them from blowing through the 4 way stop of our neighborhood.  It was going to be two inches high.  And in order to do this, the county had to send the proposal out to the neighborhood to see if they would like to sit down and talk about this.  That's when the sh*t hit the fan. The neighborhood FB page went ape thinking this was a horrible idea.  I was told I was ruining the neighborhood and how dare I instigate this idea without asking the neighborhood what they thought. (keep in mind the postcard the county sent out about the proposal was a request to know what the neighborhood thought...these are not the smartest of folks I realized.)  A rude woman named Beth S. came to my door at 8:30 on a Saturday and said she was more concerned about her boat not being able to make it through the 4 way stop island and if I was so worried about my children's safety I should keep them in the backyard.

That was it.  When that happened, Andy and I started looking on realtor.com.  Religiously.  We decided we had had enough of our neighborhood.  We wanted a house that was nowhere near a stop sign and that was tucked as far back in a neighborhood with no outlet so there was no cut through traffic.  

And we found it.  In March.  In April we moved into our perfect house.

The backyard will require so much landscaping and I'm pumped.  It is smaller than our old yard but it has much more useable space.

The day after we got the key, I took the kids over there with Happy Meals to eat in our new home.  They were pumped. :)

We moved on 4/20.  It was exhausting, difficult, tiring, and rewarding all at once.  This is our house.  I remember seeing this house on realtor.com back in December and thinking, "This looks like our house."  Learn to trust your gut.

This made me give a big sigh of relief.  When the kitchen works, the house works.

our backyard with our new fence!!!! The middle bed is coming out soon but I love my husband for agreeing to a fence right off the bat.  Pretzel is pumped.

The day after we moved, Jack had First Communion Dress Rehearsal.  As you can see, I planned to leave out his outfit, just not his shoes.  He still looked damn cool.

Below is the chaos of that weekend.

Lucy's room before and after.  (Her room might be my favorite.)

This is actually not chaos.  It's the cleanest this room has been since moving in.

Jack's room

Charlie got his very own big boy bed!

Jack's piggy bank was one of the few casualties from the move.

Added layer of fun with moving to a new house- birthdays!!!  Andy turned 39!  This guy is simply my favorite.  Here is the breakdown of roles when it came to house hunting and moving..

Me:  figure out which house I wanted
Andy:  everything else.

This guy carried the weight and the frustration and the details and every single damn thing involved.  I hate playing 1950s housewife at times but this time I didn't mind. He took care of ALL OF IT.   In retrospect, he deserved a bigger piece of cake.



And then, Jack turned 8!!!! How???? How is my first born 8?  We were a little stumped when it came to gifts bc all he talked about was being a writer like RL Stine.  And he said all the time that RL Stine wrote with a typewriter.  So Andy and I caved and bought him an old 90s typewriter off Ebay to surprise him with :)

He loved it :)

This kid melts my heart over and over.  God knew I needed a tender hearted, creative, loving little red head as my first born.  I'm so grateful for him.

The weekend of his bday was also the weekend of his first confession and communion!  This kid has a squeaky clean soul now :)

First Communion for these besties!

And these besties too!

This makes my heart so happy.

My handsome little boy. Fun fact: he's wearing the same jacket my brother wore at his first communion.  My mom is an amazing hoarder :)

Oh Andy.

So excited for this kid and his Catholic journey.  He is way more religious and thoughtful than I was that this age. I'm so proud of him.  Again and again.