Makes My Teacher Heart Proud

Hailey amazes me everyday with her vocabulary, attention to detail and new skills I didn't know she had. But last week my teacher heart loved seeing two more skills.
Sorting: We were playing with a box of her little figurines. There were ponies, palace pets, and mickey friends. Hailey sorted them independently by type. She's done things like that before but what amazed me was when she said "Let's do it again by color!" It was so neat to see her process and realize that the same group of things could be sorted different ways.

 

Then she had to stuff them all in her pockets :)

She has just started to get into coloring pictures. Yesterday we were coloring a picture together and on the back was a color-by-number so I told her how to do it. We worked thru it together because she didn't quite get to color the whole block for each number. But she found every number by herself and colored it the right color!

My big girl is growing up and learning so many new things. I can't even think to what she'll be doing in the fall!

Mother's Day

I am so thankful that God chose me to be the Mommy for these two amazing little people! They teach me humility, grace, gratefulness and a whole new level of love everyday. They are worth every sleepless night, clothes washed and folded, dish washed, hug given, snuggle before bed and kiss on the forehead. They teach me more about God's goodness and love than I every thought possible. I love seeing these two together but it does make me long for the day I will get to meet my other little angel in heaven. I am grateful that the Lord entrusted me with these to raise, love and teach about Him.

And we know there are no sweet pictures without a few good out-takes

Oh well. I love that they make me a Mommy!

He's growing...

Reece is growing so quickly! I can't believe he will be three months old next week! Here are a few updated pictures of my favorite little boy...

Playing with Hailey on the floor. I LOVE this picture

 Having some tummy time

 Sometimes you need Daddy to talk to you about baseball during tummy time

Cute boy in his hat ready to play outside

 All of my loves cuddling on Hailey's bed before bedtime one night

 Sweet boy in Daddy's favorite sleeper

One night Reece needed a few extra snuggles from Mommy

"Praying" before church one morning. Ha!

 Big boy sitting in the bumbo

We love you Reece Anthony!

Strawberry Picking

We went strawberry picking today! I had been watching the strawberry fields and wanting to go for a few weeks and we finally made the time this morning! It was the perfect weather to be outside.

We picked up our buckets and were ready to hit the fields. Hailey was so excited and talked the whole way there (really about 5 minutes from our house) about only picking red strawberries and not green or white ones.

Ryan was just as excited about finding good strawberries.

Although Hailey was excited about finding strawberries I think she was even more excited about carrying around her own basket and filling it up.

We walked our way down the entire field and ended up with a big bucket of juicy red strawberries. And if you're wondering about Reece, he fell asleep about halfway down the field and enjoyed a nice nap in the sling.
After getting home I think Hailey ate her weight in berries. I can't wait to get to the strawberry baking!

Reece's first day in the Nursery

Sunday was Reece's first day in the nursery at church. Isn't he looking so big?!

They said he did great and even gave them a big smile! So thankful for the volunteers who love on my babies.

Life Lately: The End of April

Life lately is non-stop. Between my little gymnast

and sweet boy

there isn't a lot of down time. But that's ok...we wouldn't trade it for the world. (Well, maybe a nap, but not for the world) And Reece is not a thumb sucker but he happened to get it into his mouth one day and just looked too cute not to get a picture.

I finally caught this little boy's smile on camera and what was he doing? Pulling his sister's pony's hair. Little brother terrorizing his big sister already. Thankfully Hailey didn't seem to mind. She was being so sweet and trying to show Reece her ponies.

We also started the Epley band this month. They will be accepting requests soon.

And why can't you play with your sled at the end of April when it's 75 degrees outside?!

You know we've been doing lots of spring crafts around here! A day doesn't go by that my little artist doesn't ask for a craft. I've actually come up with some cute ones thanks to pinterest...we work together. They give me the idea, and I tweak it to work for us. I saw an idea on there to make a flower out of scrapbook paper but tweaked it to my needs. I simply cut out the pieces of a flower (petals, stem and leaf) and gave them to Hailey to glue into a picture. She did pretty well with it and asked to do it again so the second time I made it a little harder adding grass, clouds and a sun.

I love seeing her creativity!


We took dinner to some friends that had a baby recently and Hailey insisted on taking a picture with them. Ha! Think we do that often?

And I think this technically happened on May 1st but hey, it's my blog...Ryan, Hailey and I were sitting outside on the porch while Reece napped. Ryan had just finished mowing the grass and still had his ear buds attached to his phone. Hailey put them in her ears and called them "ear phones" which actually made me a little sad because she used to say "ear bones". But she asked him what he was listening to so he turned on his baseball podcast for her. She put in one ear phone and gave him the other. She was actually listening and making commentary on what the radio people were saying! It was hilarious! And made a sweet picture of my hubby and big girl.  :)

Now...onto May!

Quick Trip to Charlotte

Since Ryan and Hailey didn't get to go to Charlotte just before Easter, we made a trip there over the weekend. We left Friday morning and went to Ryan's parent's house. Hailey was SOOOO excited to see her Mimi. Ryan and I drove separately because we were leaving the truck in Charlotte to be sold, and Hailey and Ryan arrived first, so she had a few uninterrupted minutes with Mimi. In fact, when Reece and I arrived Hailey wasn't too happy to have to share Mimi. She was glad when I went to feed him and wouldn't even let Ryan come out on the patio to play with her and Mimi.
We actually left both kids at their house and ran the truck down to my parents then we got to have a lunch date! It was so nice to just sit and talk without being exhausted at the end of a day or interrupted by a million other things. Thank you Mimi!
That afternoon we went to visit PawPaw (Ryan's grandfather). Hailey has been really into puzzles lately and I told her that PawPaw loves puzzles so she insisted that we bring her pony puzzle for them to do together. It was so sweet!

That night Rebecca (Ryan's sister) came over for dinner and she and Hailey had the best time! They played play-doh, ate dinner together and then disappeared into the back of the house and all I know is I heard lots of laughing and talking. Then Rebecca ran home to get her dog so Hailey could play with him. She got to stay up late outside with Mimi and Rebecca which made her day.

Saturday morning we ate breakfast and then went to my parent's house for the day. It was Julie's birthday so she and Trey brought the boys over to play and hang out. Let me tell you, those three had the BEST time together. It took them a little while to warm up and all figure out how to play together but once they did it was hilarious!

three monkeys relaxing after lunch

 Grams and Das have these storage ottomans in the living room and they decided they were going to ride in them. This is something that my dad has done with them several times but this time Tucker pushed.

 They are a mess!

Hailey also had some book reading time with Das.

Hailey was not ready to go when we had to leave. Seeing them all play together makes me excited for them growing up and getting to do it more often. It was be really crazy when Reece and baby Cheeley get in on the action too! Get ready Grams!

After singing Happy Birthday to Julie and eating some cake, it was time to head home. It was a quick trip but such a fun one! Can't wait to do it again soon!

...and since there are no pictures of Reece, here you go...first time in the bumbo...real boys use pink