At Night at the Fox

Aunt Jessica always gives the kids a choice for their birthday and Christmas gifts, the can choose an experience or presents. This year their choice was they could have presents or go and see Beauty and the Beast at the Fox, and both of my small people chose to go see Beauty and the Beast. Their very good friends chose to go as well. It was such a fun night. I got to get 3 little girls and one handsome man ready to go to the show.





They all came back and said it was a wonderful time and that they enjoyed everything about the show. It was a great experience and fun time for all.

A Mouse's Tale

Our church did the cutest Christmas Program this year. It was called a Mouse's Tale. Leanna was an adorable Julie Mouse and Hudson had the cutest little role as Darryl the Donkey! It was all about the animals in the stable and their story about the night baby Jesus was born. Truly a fun and funny and heartwarming little story. Our friends were shepherds and Cory the dancing Camel and some truly funny sheep.

Some pictures from the play. With the stipulation these pictures aren't the greatest and I am so thankful I videotaped this play. It was so funny and so sweet.





The kids worked so hard on this play and did a truly wonderful job. I am so thankful for my small people who were so excited to do this play with family and friends.

1st Grade Christmas Party

This is Leanna and her friend Lindsey at their Christmas Party! Isn't this a fun picture to start this off with :)



Here are the kids sitting in a circle playing hot potato with their Secret Santa Exchange gifts. It was a great idea and everyone had a fun time getting a special present.


This is Leanna with her special gift. It was full of princess awesomeness! What more could a little girl want. Not to mention it was full of crafty coloring fabulousness? Leanna's favorite!


A great time was had by all and I am so thankful that I just get to be there and be a part of her time in class. I am also glad that she wants her momma there...that is probably the best feeling of all.

Hudson's PreSchool Program!

I love watching my boy sing I must say. His preschool play for Christmas was so much fun and they all did such a great job!

Some pictures of the fun event!


These kids were so cute! They did such an amazing job.


Of course I had to take a picture of me and my boy! Our favorite pictures somehow always end up being the silly face ones.


He was so serious when he was singing. It was fun to watch my normally all over the place boy stand so very tall and still and concentrate on making sure he did it right.


Hudson and his classmates all worked really hard and did a great job!
It was a great way to end our week and start really getting into the Christmas spirit.

Nolan meets Santa Claus again ;)

SJID had the cutest little Christmas party this year. They even had Santa Claus come out. It was so great! Almost everyone was so excited to see him and get to hang out.



He loved Santa Claus. Which is so weird for me because both Leanna and Hudson HATED Santa Clause at this age!

And of course I had to have my picture taken with the boy. Gotta sneak those pictures in so they know I was present SOMETIMES ;)

I loved watching all the little guys waiting to take their turns to sit on Santa's lap. It was so fun and then cookies and milk afterwards! No pictures of that as I was busy making sure that nothing got spilled or dropped.

100!!!

My Nana is an amazing woman! And she just celebrated her 100th birthday!

So of course there was a party to celebrate!

She was so surprised!


Her cake was phenomenal! It was 4 trees each one represented 25 years of her life and the leaves on each tree were some of the important events for those years. Like when she became a nurse, when she retired, when she became a grandma, a great-grandma and when she took trips. It was really an awesome idea!


You can't look at this woman and tell me she isn't beautiful!


This our family with my Nana. Her and Nolan have special ears together! Nolan absolutely loves her. He kept holding her hand and giving her kisses all night. Really one of the cutest things ever.

Best and Worst Wednesday

Best part of being thrifty: A basically brand new toy for a friend for his first birthday!
Worst part: Buying something that didn't have batteries in it... now I am praying it works... cause I have to go buy batteries since I don't have any handy.

Best part of Wednesday: I don't have to cook dinner because the lovely ladies at church do it.
Worst part of Wednesday: They are cooking the exact same thing that we had for dinner on Monday.

Best part about my two year old: He makes me laugh.

Worst part about my two year old: Today I have been laughing to keep from crying!

Best part about blogging again: I really like taking a few seconds out of my day or night and recording some things that happened.
Worst part about blogging again: I feel guilty if I don't post or if there aren't any pictures...Weird I know.

Happy Wednesday!
Momma to 3
*Shay B*

The boys and my friend....

(Brief Disclaimer: All photos in this post are done by my dear and very talented friend Naomi who is the sister of the friend in this post)

I have a very amazing and awesome friend Nathan. He loves my small people. He is ridiculously patient and kind with them. He never has any problems including them into whatever he is doing.

He is probably Hudson's very best friend. To Hudson he is just one big giant toy. Thankfully Nathan loves my boy for who he is. I love him for that. Nolan just thinks he is cool cause he will rough house and play hard with him. A lot of people tend to back away a little from being so "rough" with him and Nathan will toss him like a sack of potatoes.

The other day Nathan and his sister Naomi came over to hang out and grab a tool. It was awesome cause Naomi has been in Texas since getting married (I miss her lots) so it was fun to visit. Nathan had to work on Sasha (his motorcycle) and he let the kids hang out in the garage with him. The pictures in this post were taken during that!

Momma to 3
*Shay B*

Fall Fun with Friends

Hudson's very best friend Craig got to come over and play while his momma went on a field trip with one of his brothers. I decided since it was a cold and rainy day to try and have some kind of plan...

So thanks to pinterest we made fall fingerprint trees. Thankfully everyone had a good time and it took the better part of almost two hours. Which for the boys is a long amount of time of sitting still and being interested in what I have them doing!





It was a fun afternoon :)

Working Out...

I have been keeping up with my working out. I have not been as consistent as I should have been but it has been CRAZY! I can't workout during the day and making myself leave the house after bed time is soooo hard. I always feel better when I work out though. So I have been trying to make myself go at least twice a week. I also work out once a week with a trainer (thanks to some birthday money and a gift from a friend) and I also split the cost with another lady who trains with me!!!

I am running mostly. I am trying to get in enough shape to run a 5k in the spring/summer. I would love to do a half at some point in my life. It definitely isn't something in the near future.

Up until tonight my personal 1 mile time was 12:38 but last night I smashed it by 37 seconds!!! That's right I ran 1 mile in 12:01!!!! It was crazy awesome. My two mile time wasn't as good as it has been or should have been but I was still okay with it as well 25:02.

There was a time when doing .5 miles was overwhelming. The sheer fact that I am walk/running two miles!?!?! Well that speaks in and of itself. I like feeling good about myself and I am hoping my Christmas time to have my mile time down under 11:15!!!

Busy, Busy, Busy

It seems like here lately all we do is run around! But the kids are involved in some great things and so we just keep going, going and going!

Leanna and Hudson are both doing soccer and karate. Leanna is in 1st grade now (which makes me feel super old), Hudson is doing 3 days a week at preschool as is Nolan. They both go on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Thankfully I have a great friend who is able to help with drop off and pick-up because Nolan's school is so very far away.

Nolan is just doing crazy well at school though! He loves it. His language and speech development in just the last two months since school started is insane to me! We went from maybe 10-20 words
(that others could understand) he probably has between 75 and 100 now! We are still working on the getting him to wear his hearing aids ALL the time without taking them out or hiding them or losing them. But we are getting so much better.

Hudson has surprised me with how well he is doing with school. To be honest I expected him to be in trouble for being to rough or not paying attention...but that hasn't been the case at all! He loves school and has made friends. It has been awesome! He is learning to write his letters and has started to show an interest in learning how to read.

Leanna is rocking the school thing. She tested for the REACH program at the end of the school year last year and she passed! REACH is an acronym for recognizing excellence in Academic and Creative Honors.She loves it. She gets to go and hang out with other REACH kids once a week and they work on unit studies (they just finished a CSI study and she learned about things like DNA and fingerprints and evidence processing! It was very cool)

So we are just humming along with lots going on! Soccer finishes up in the next two weeks and I am sad to say but I am excited it is almost finished. It will be nice to not have to schedule everything around soccer practices and games for a little while!

Time to run. Laundry is calling to me!

*Shay B*

Best and Worst Wednesday

So I have been a long time reader of a blog called Bakersdozen and she recently started a Best and Worst Wednesday and I love it! So I though with my return it would be something I would start doing.


Best part of today: I got more than 3 hours of sleep.
Worst part of today: They weren't all together.


Best part of Nolan's school: He loves it and has had a language explosion in the last two months since it started.
Worst part of Nolan's school: The drive there! Today we were 20 minutes late thanks to an accident...ugh...


Best part of this week so far: Sneaking pieces of Halloween Candy!
Worst part of this week so far: Halloween hangover!!!

If you would like to participate head on over to Renee's blog and link up! It is a fun thing for sure!

Welcome Back?

Kinda sorta...

It has been a long time since I have blogged. Almost a year. I have decided to try it again. Just sparingly and when I have a moment. I miss recording things here for sure though. I miss writing things down. So I have decided to try to start things up again. We will see how well it goes :)

Life has been busy since I last put something in this little space on the internet.

Here's to just picking it back up.

Happy 1st of November to everyone!

Momma to 3
*Shay B.*

Cookies with friends

We thought it would be a super fun time to have friends over and make Valentine's Cookies. So we did. It was a fun time for the kids. They had free rain on the icing and sprinkles and to be fair the moms didn't have to bad of a time either ;)

Leanna and Cadence were by far the most serious decorators we had. They really enjoyed taking their time on the cookies.


Hudson was one of our most exuberant decorators. Quickly dashing from one sprinkle to the next.


Beth was very professional in her decorating. She had some of all of our favorites of the day!


These were just a few of our fabulous cookies. We made almost 4 dozen cookies. It was a great way to spend our afternoon!

Moving Countdown T-9 Days...

I may not live through this.

Something I read early this week on another mommy blogger's website has inspired me to look for the shaping, the learning and the purpose to everything...

The silver lining of walking in this challenge is...

1. I am learning patience. I am trying anyway. Hopefully my children see this.

2. I am learning the art of packing with small people helping.

3. My small people are learning the art of packing too.

4. I will have more space, my children will have a yard and my family will still have a home.

With that in mind. I am going now to work on packing and still loving my kids through it.

Pray for me. Pray for my babies. Pray for love and understanding.

And a little selfish here... please pray for the weather to STOP with the snow stuff. We have to move regardless of the weather and to be honest it would be simpler and nicer and easier with good weather.

Momma to 3
*Shay B*

Taking Pictures of Small People...

I love my small people they often make me laugh. They often make me wish to pull my hair out. They most certainly are my greatest trial of patience. They also are my greatest joy.

Picture taking of three small people?

AHHHH! Nolan wants to touch the camera, or oooh look a deer, or oh my goodness WHY ARE YOU TOUCHING ME SISTER, or oh wow I have a hand? Hudson has a thousand other things he would rather be doing, looking at, killing, creating, karate chopping and the list goes on and on and on. Leanna will sit and model for 45 minutes for me and never get grouchy.

And so I give you a few shots to show you what I mean. Up first Nolan.

Oh what you had that focused on me when I was further away? My bad! What is that? Can I touch it? Better yet can I lick it?

Oh that is so funny I am going to fall back and laugh hysterically... ready WATCH!

Oh look I have toes. I am going to bend over and touch them at the exact moment you snap the picture. Okay? Okay!

The best picture I got of the mister? Looking at the camera and midly in focus = winner!


Now for the Hudson man. He is sooo active and sitting still doesn't happen often. I often have to threaten BEG him to sit still and let me take ONE picture.

This picture screams Hudson... mischief in the making.

Then he had the NERVE to stick his tongue out at me!

But... then he laughed after sticking his tongue out at me and I got this one.

To be fair I think the first picture is my favorite just because it is SOOOOO Hudson.

Then there is Leanna... and I would show you three pictures of her...but really there is no point. They all look the same. She is sitting and smiling and well easy to photograph. So here is my favorite I took of her today.


Such a pretty little girl she is turning into. It makes my heart hurt to look at her.

Taking pictures of them is sometimes so rewarding... others not so much. But I do it because I know I won't remember if I don't. I know that I will look back on these and treasure them soooo much.

Momma to 3
*Shay B*

Snow Day...

I love snow. It is so pretty and white and clean... well until it gets tromped through anyway!

I mean what kid doesn't LOVE to play in the snow.

Hudson is a dive right in and get wet and messy and snowy and let's have a snowball fight. Leanna is more of a let's make snow angles and go sledding kind of kid. While Nolan... he is a "DON'T EVEN THINK OF PUTTING ME IN THAT COLD WET STUFF" kind of kid.

So even though it is FREEZING cold outside I let the kids get bundled up and play outside for a few minutes. I figured (and I can't believe I am going to say this) why not while it was WARMER out! That's right the warmest part of today? Was at 9:00 am. Which makes me shiver just to think that!

They had a lot of fun though...





Where was Nolan during all of the fun and COLD???

Inside. Warm and toasty. With a sippy cup of milk and his toys. Just the way he likes it!


At some point today or tomorrow I imagine sledding is going to be in order. They have been begging to go since the first snowflake fell yesterday. Pray for me okay?

Momma to 3
*Shay B*