Oh how I wish I had never stopped writing in here. It will be hard to fill in the gaps. Lots of memories lost. Time has just gotten away from me.

I avoided this blog like the plague after I wrote that post about my dad because I didn’t want to see it. Well I just read it for the first time and balled like a baby. just last night we were sitting out back and the boys picked up their clubs and started hitting balls. How I wish my dad was sitting out there with us to see how they all love golf.

But I do want to write again. I think this will be a treasure to my kids one day and to me and Tim when the kids are all grown up.

And so… it’s Sunday afternoon 2021. So much has changed. So much evil has happened in 2 years time in ways I’d never believe, had I not lived it. But today is lovely. I’m sipping coffee with Tim. Football is on and the kids are playing board games. I hate football but for some reason the sound of it comforts me in the fall. I’m not watching at all lol but I can hear it as I read. They’re losing as always. The kids are laughing and then arguing over who is winning their game. Silas is napping. Sauce is on. I really couldn’t paint a better Sunday in my mind. We started the day with church. My Sunday school class was the largest it’s ever been which makes me so happy. Signs that we are returning to normal. It brings me so much joy to teach little kids about God. Sometimes I can’t believe I’m qualified to do such a thing really. After church Tim dropped me home and took all the kids out to breakfast and to run errands. He’s so dreamy.. I rested a bit. Called my sisters and put on my apron to start cooking and cleaning. The book I’m readings says it’s important to wear your uniform and apparently that uniform is a dress and an apron. So I’m playing the part and I have to say it did put me in a good mood.

Yesterday was so amazing too. I really could pinch myself because life seems so perfect. I got up early and read a book on my porch swing. Uncle Matt built this swing for me and it’s my favorite thing. When everyone woke up we got dressed for the pumpkin patch. It ended up being the cutest place. I thought it was even better than the one we drove all the way to South Carolina for last year. It was like stepping into a hallmark movie. It had everything a small town fall festival would have in a movie and it wasn’t crowded at all. There were people but not madness. Country music played through the speakers and cool wind blew with a cloudy sky. Perfection for a pretend fall day in Florida. PRETEND has become a specialty of mine and probably most moms living in today’s world. We are experts now. But all that is for another day. Here are the beautiful memories made yesterday.

We came home to the long awaited home movie premier of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. We made butterbeer and homemade popcorn. Homemade popcorn always reminds me of my dad.

Then we grilled some London Broil like Mama June always did and we ate outside. The smell of the grill and kids running around just made me feel like my childhood. It was a really great day. I snapped this picture of our eaten dinner because it just felt like such a good memory.

I’m really just trying to catch up so I can start writing about what’s currently going on. Trying to remember all the detailed sweet things they say and do is hard.

I signed Timmy and Grace up for a 4 week soccer clinic and they totally loved it.

Victoria got married to Mr. Brandon!

We went for on the most amazing boat ride field trip. We saw so many dolphins and 2 manatees. It felt like vacation honestly.

We wrote out Valentines cards to hand out at the nursing home with our friends.

We went to Lion Country Safari and Lydia was obsessed with the giraffes and the big kids were big enough to ride the rides alone. And we were all obsessed with the ostrich.

Erica had a baby. Lol seriously it’s been such a crazy beginning for 2018. Sweet little Madeline came a little early and she’s just perfect.

Grace and Daddy had their annual father daughter dance. I love these memories he’s making with her.

We attended our first Valentine card exchange and we had the best time making our mailboxes.

I threw Lydia’s baby friends a Valentine party. I love that she has her own group of friends.

I took some pretty portraits because duh.

On Valentines morning I made XO pancakes and strawberry milk in their new heart cups. They were so happy. Pretty meals make my kids feel so special.

We did some candy heart school work. First we graphed then by color and then we added water to the colors to see if it would make water paint. Then Aunt Sam surprised us with the cutest Valentine gift basket. She’s the best!

We celebrated Ash Wednesday with our church friends. We practiced putting ashes on each other’s foreheads with black eyeshadow.

The kids served at the Lenten soup dinner for our church. They were a huge hit in their aprons and chef hats.

Grace really loves art. Like it’s definitely a passion for her. I love when the kids can do their art outside. Makes me feel super.

We went to visit little cousin Jackson and mmm check out this cuteness. First Lydia totally looks like a boss and Jackson is such a love. I love how their little chunky hands holding on to each other.

Timmy and Daddy had their first Cub Scout camp out. Timmy has been dreaming of this night. He is officially going to he a Tiger and Daddy is going to his den leader. I’m really so proud of my man. Who knew sexy was a man leading a Cub Scout group. Timmy wanted a picture from all sides in his new uniform.

Well is girls had a little celebration of our own complete with makeovers and a fancy bath.

Little Rosary is not so little these days. These pictures are 2 months and 4 months!

We learned about America for Presidents Day. We focused on American symbols and songs. Timmy labeled a map with the states he knew – Florida, Wyoming and Texas because of his buddy Lukas. We read so many books about the USA and even more books about bald eagles. I’m trying to follow their lead on what they’re interested in and then get a lot of books to read on what they’re seen most excited about within our units.

Some more pretty.

Happy New Years! This night used to mean late night partying and drinking and now it’s kid cocktails and 8 PM bedtimes. And I love it!

It rained so we were excited to try out our new umbrellas and rain boots from Christmas.

Denver turned 16!

We visited Kennedy Space Center for the first time. It was awesome! My kids really fell in love with Space that day. That trip was a great intro into our space unit.Herr are some of our space unit activities.

We made our compost bin finally. Timmy has been begging for years to go this. He’s fascinated by it.

We started our garden. We planted carrots, eggplant, basil, romaine, cucumbers, sweet peas, tomatoes and a bell pepper. I let the kids do it all. We read a book about gardening and growing your own food before we started and we all learned a lot.

Then I took them to a farmers vegetable garden to show them what ours could look like if we worked hard. This was a great day. They were covered in mud from head to toe but we had so much fun learning about what was ripe and the different types of vegetables. I loved seeing Lydia’s little fingers picking cherry tomatoes mixed with all the mud on her hands. She’s really getting so big and she’s starting to want to be part of our school time.

We visited an orange grove. They showed us everything about running a citrus farm from planting the seeds, to picking the fruit, sorting out the good the bad and the perfect and then washing them, polishing and packaging. It was a very educational trip. The kids were able to try 3 different oranges, orange juice and orange ice cream. You can see in the pictures who loved the oranges and who didn’t.

Next we learned about all things cold. We had a snow party with our friends. I bought fake snow for them to play with, we made snowmen snacks and did a 5 senses activity with snow cone ice, that’s the closest thing to snow we can get here.

Then we learned about the coldest places on Earth. Of course we studied penguins because we love them. We learned how the mom and dad take turns keeping their babies warm and off the ice. Timmy practiced with the egg since that’s the Dads job and Grace took care of the baby penguin just like a mom penguin. We learned how they stay warm because they’re feather have a wax that keeps the water rolling off. We learned a lot about polar bears, for one they have black skin so that they can absorb as much of the suns heat as they can. I taught that by having them bake chocolate cupcakes “polar bear body” and covering it with vanilla icing “fur.” And I made them polar bear hot chocolate! We did the blubber experiment with crisco and Timmy made a marshmallow hibernation den. We learned about what animals hibernate and which ones stick it out and who flies south. We watched the Frozen Planet, side note lots of animals die in that movie.

We made blessing bags for the homeless with our church friends.

And here’s some pretty portraits for this camera obsessed mama. I love these little faces!

Well this year got a little complicated when Timmy wrote out his Christmas list….

Yup that’s a Puppy. And yea our Santa does not disappoint and he kinda takes it to the max. So we have an English Mastiff named Rosary now. There is nothing like a puppy under the tree. Nothing. Best Christmas ever.

Christmas time in pictures…

There was a Santa’s Spa Party and I tho k it’s a new tradition that is gonna stick. It was too cute.

There was also a Christmas in Naples. My mom is the cutest. Her and Tom go all out for these kids and by all out I mean they got them a unicorn 🦄 for Christmas. It was a beautiful little mini vacation for Christmas.

Christmas Eve Snowman Contest! And the Christmas Eve pageant 💗

And this man. Ugh. I’m so blessed to call him mine.

Timmy’s birthday was so awesome minus the fact that he was totally sick day 2 of the celebration. I don’t know that we will be able to top it in the years to come. We went a little overboard but it was worth it. It’s hard to believe he’s 6 and I want to soak up all the magic before he’s grown and too cool for us.

Every year we go away for Timmy’s birthday and usually to Disney. Because Timmy’s birthday is in December we never want him to feel like it is overlooked because it’s so close to Christmas. This year we went to Orlando for the Polar Express train. This is Timmy’s all time favorite movie. It’s safe to say we’ve watched it 100 times in the last 6 years. I can’t say enough good things about it. It was so magical.

All the characters were spot on. Outside there were elves and Christmas light displays. Inside hot chocolate, cookies and a bell for everyone. Santa. The kid who knew everything. The homeless ghost guy. It was just so amazing.

Our vacation didn’t stop there. We took Timmy zip lining and Florida ice skating in our favorite little town with Florida snow and to Sea World. Memaw, Tom, Sam and Nick all cane with us. It would have been perfect if Timmy was feeling better. I don’t know what happened but he got like a 24 hour bug with fever and puking. Even Grace got some special treatment. Aunt Sam took her on a Cinderella horse carriage.

It was a celebration for a prince and he totally deserves it. I love him because he is my first baby and my only son but I also love him because he is such a good person. He loves people and Jesus in a way that I could never have taught him. He really inspires me and Tim to be better people and he doesn’t even know it. He tells me he loves me at least 5 times a day every single day. He makes my life so sweet.

This is one of my favorite things. This show just puts us right in the mood for Christmas. I don’t know that there will be another one though because Grace just doesn’t love ballet. Well that’s not 100% true. Grace loves ballet, Grace does NOT love being told how to do ballet. She actually told me she doesn’t need lessons because she already knows it all. I mean can she get any cuter or sassy. She was a beautiful ballerina while it lasted and maybe she.’lol go back one day.

Now Timmy. He stole the show. He just loves being on stage. Watching him up there made me realize how little he still is. In our house he’s the big boy but on stage he was just a little 5 year old boy dancing his heart out.

He was so proud of himself. In this last picture he’s doing a cartwheel. Now I didn’t know it at the time but all week he was practicing cartwheels in the backyard. When he got off stage he was like mom did you seeee! I did a cartwheel even tho Ms Devin said I wasn’t ready to do cartwheels!

In these pictures you’ll see why I’m so sad Grace doesn’t want to do ballet anymore. Hopefully one day she changes her mind because she is the most beautiful little ballerina angel.

Timmy was so excited Max was there to cheer him on. That’s how Grace really feels about ballet lessons. Lol

It’s March. 2018. Every year I do the same thing. I get wrapped up in the holiday busyness and neglect my blog. And every year I hate my self for it.

So here’s to catching up and hoping I remember all the goodness.

Thanksgiving was awesome this year. We actually celebrated with our family on Friday instead of Thursday. That’s because we have a new family member, Brandon, Torias fiancé who works most holidays. And honestly I loved it.

Thanksgiving morning I woke up early with my little crew and started our baking.

They were so excited to help me. For our little family dinner we had lasagna. The next day we had the real turkey dinner with all my favorite people.We started a tradition last year where we put up the nativity the day after Thanksgiving and Tim surprised me with a few new pieces to our set.

One of the perks of homeschooling is that I can really focus on the hearts of my children as much as or even more than just the academics.

I hope these small moments really impact the way they live their adult lives.

One of the projects we worked on to show our thankfulness was thanksgiving boxes for deployed soldiers. We had the kids bring in all their hard candy from Halloween and I sent the moms a grocery list of the best care package items. I event decorated one of the boxes with a turkey. I let the kids decorate the other boxes.

We were given 4 addresses for deployed soldiers and we were so overwhelmed with the response for donations that we were able to pack up NINE boxes!

The kids wrote letters, colored pictures and then packed up the boxes. I had to do some rearranging after because the boxes were so overflowing.

We went to a turkey canvas painting class.

Our church packs up all the ingredients for a thanksgiving meal for families in need. This year we let Timmy and Grace do the grocery shopping. Then after mass we all gathered round to bless all that packed up bags of food. We were blessed to even see the people picking up their food. It is so special when you get a glimpse of the joy that your stewardship can bring others.

We are also fostering 2 little kittens this November. It is always a good lesson when you can show your kids that even Gods smallest creatures are worth our time. These 2 kittens cane to us at 2 weeks old because their mother became ill and stopped nursing. They are 4 weeks old now and doing well.

So I’m attempting a no photo November kind like no shave for the men. I’m not gonna take any pictures of my kids. Honestly I don’t think it’s healthy at least not at the rate that I’m snapping their photo. So here goes.

Disclaimer: I almost never stick to the goals that I set.

Since I’ll have no photos of the fun things they do I’ll have to do a better job of writing it all down.

Update: Totally failed. Made it 5 days without my camera.

Monday

They put together a time capsule. In Timmy’s was a bunny, a drum stick, mino’s food bowl & a baby book so that we can think about Lydia when she grows up and moves away. Grace won’t tell me what’s in hers. Typical Grace. They buried it themselves in the backyard.

Later in the day we laid on a blanket and red poetry from Where the Sidewalk Ends.

Timmy had piano and voice lessons. My church choir director seems to think very highly of Timmy and has offered him free lessons so we are grateful for that.

Timmy and Grace both had religious education and learned about helping others.

And hmmm guess I fell way behind because that was Monday like 3 weeks ago. So this is what we’ve been up to this November.

Baking.

Nature Hunts.

Frogs.

Went to a chocolate factory.

Had a Fall Festival and Mama was the face painter.

Grace came into my room tonight with a bunch of questions: Mom who did you play with when you were a kid, what kind of toys did you have, what shows did you watch? When I told her I played with my sisters she couldn’t understand why I still didn’t live with them because sisters live together. Funny how when you’re a kid you don’t realize that we don’t live together forever. & sad at the same time. She wanted to watch the Same shows I used to watch but Eurekas Castle isn’t on anymore lol. I found it on YouTube and we watched an episode of that and muppet babies and she she fell asleep in my arms. Such a sweet end to our day.

I’m burnt to a crisp. Only in Florida to you get a summer sunburn in late October. Luckily Dr Timmy lives here. He is just the sweetest. He brought my ice water and kept feeding it to me and touching my skin insisting I still needed more to cool down. “Mom what else can I do for you?” I could eat him up.

Lydia is selective with her lovin. Sometimes you ask her for a kiss and you get a big ole wet one, other times it’s quick shake of the head nooooooo. She thinks she’s so funny.

Grace just asked me if I knew who Santas girlfriend was. Lol

Lydia says Ready Set Gooooo