22 Months Old

Elisabeth, you are 22 months old! I say it every month, but you are just so big! Summer has been such a blast with you this year. Last year you were a baby who was needy and honestly crashed some of our fun, but this summer has been such fun with you. You're big and independent and dramatic and we just all have a ball with you around.

You pretty much talk in complete sentences all the time now. I understand practically everything you say, and it's very rare for you to attempt to communicate something, and me not know what you're wanting (whether you actually get what you want or not is another story). You say the cutest phrases. You say, "Can I" ("TanI") all the time.

I hear this all day:

Tan I have dat?
Tan I see?
Tan I tum (come)?
Tan I do it?
Tan I have some?

You string all the words together and talk so fast and it's really just plain adorable.

And instead of saying yeah or uh huh, you precisely say "yes" when you're answering questions and it's usually in an ecstatic loud tone or an overly dramatic whiny tone. But I love how precisely you always answer with "yes." And you Sweet Girl say, "Thank You" and "You're Welcome" all the time too. We're working on please, but in general you have great manners and always respond cheerfully.

I still hear "I do it myself" all the time too. And you've started saying, "Mommy, watch dis twick" all the time too

As always, you're the boss of your brothers. One morning when we were in Weatherford, you overheard me telling Samuel to get dressed, and I walked into you attempting to put his underwear on him (over his jammies of course). You have no problems keeping up with them and I can't believe I hear words like Darth Vader, Chewbacca, and Ninja Turtles coming out of my darling Princess' mouth :).

You love your brothers so much. Every morning when you wake up you ask where they are (and where Daddy is too). You always tell people that "Daddy's at work." When we drop the boys off anywhere and yell "Bye Nathan and ask him "Tan I have a hug, Nathan? Tan I have a Tiss?" Seriously, it's the sweetest thing in the world. 

You absolutely love the swimming pool. You jump in, paddle around, fill up cups of water, get dolphin rides from Daddy and have all sorts of fun. You ask to go to the swimming pool every single day and always insist that "Daddy tum too."

Your favorite toys right now are baby dolls and everything associated with them. You feed your babies, rock and hum to them (also the sweetest thing ever), put them night night. You're such a good mommy to them. You also like to play kitchen and tea party. And you also really like to play with cars and vroom them around. You're getting more interested in coloring, but it doesn't hold your attention very long. When we are outside you always want to swing, climb, blow bubbles or color with sidewalk chalk.

You changed your mind ALL the time when you're watching TV, and it's starting to drive us crazy. In general your favorite TV shows right now are Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, Super Why, Special Agent OSO, and Paw Patrol, but you can't make it through ten minutes of any episode before you're asking for something different. When you can't make up your mind about anything, Daddy is quick to remind me that you are a girl. You like to drink your milk and watch a show in the morning and at bedtime.

You continue to nap really well. You snuggle in and know it's time to go to sleep. You nap for about 90 minutes each afternoon. You're staying up a little later these days and going to bed at the same time as your brothers. So we read books and do our bedtime routine as a whole family now. You're always the first one of the three asleep though. You have to have a cup of "fesh wata," be covered up with two specific blankets and have your Baby Margaret next to you before you'll tell me good night and let me leave the room.

You can get into really grumpy moods and have a hard time resetting or snapping out of a fit. Whew, still trying to figure out a way to reset you :). When you do start feeling better, you'll say, "I happy now Mommy." You have big emotions. When you're happy you light up a room and cheer up anyone around you, but when you're sad or angry you can dampen the mood of our entire family.

You are my little encourager. You cheer on your brothers and say, "good job Sammy" or "Yay, you did it" for every little thing. You cheer for yourself all the time too. I can't wait to see that trait continue to develop as you get older. It's one of my favorite things about you.

I sure love you, Baby Girl and look forward to seeing your beautiful smile and sweet voice every morning.

Life Lately- The Rest of May

May is always a busy month with lots of fun and special activities and celebrations.

I took this picture on the last day I took Nathan to Pre-K, and then I cried on the way home thinking about the great year he had.

He had such a wonderful year and learned and grew and matured so much. He learned all the tools he needs to start reading soon, talked my ear off about all the cool science experiments, made huge improvements in his handwriting, made new friends without me initiating it, and had so many wonderful memories and experiences- field trips, parties and programs. The next time I take him to school it will be Kindergarten! I am so grateful for a great year, great teachers, and the best transition to school for my oldest, and I'm also especially thankful for the two crazies I wrangled at drop off everyday who give me two more opportunities to be a Pre-K mom.

While we were on our cruise, these boys had their last days of school.

Samuel had a great year too (although he was really partial to the days when Nathan had school and he didn't. He asked the other day when Nathan will go back to school so he can play with me without Nathan).

On the last day of school they had inflatables for the kids, and even though it rained they still let them play on them. Nathan laughed that they turned into water inflatables because of the rain.

Last day of school with Nathan's sweet friend Levi who was his ride to and from school while we were gone.

Since school's been out, Nathan has been doing a lot of this. All day. Everyday. He takes them apart and builds them again, over and over and over.

He had an AWANA awards assembly at the end of May too. This boy is no longer in Cubbies. He'll be in Sparks next year! Ah! (And Samuel will be our new Cubby, and Elisabeth our Puggle. My gracious, they grow up fast!)

He had a great year in AWANA and worked really hard learning his verses every week.

We've also been having lots and lots of play dates since summer started. One of the things that makes me sad about Kindergarten is that day time play dates will be harder to come by. And we all love play dates in our family! So we are planning to cram in as many as possible this summer.

Nathan has no problems playing at a house full of girls!

And the kids always have the best time (I do too!) at Levi and Audrey's house!

We even made tie dye shirts at their house. Nathan is so proud of his (and was a little disappointed when I vetoed him wearing it to church on Sunday)

And these sweet girls were always next to each other playing the whole morning. It's fun seeing their friendship develop.

Showing off their awesome shirts!

Friday night we had a pizza and movie night. I let the boys "decorate" their own pizza

Our movie nights always start out like this...

And thirty minutes in, when the popcorn runs out, they always end up like this.

Nathan had his last soccer game on Saturday morning. Sweet sister is a great cheerleader.

He had a really fun season. He was on a team with some really awesome kids, and he had a blast every game. And of course the one time he scored a goal, I was out of town :(. He improved a lot especially for being one of the youngest on his team.

Saturday was also Matt's birthday. We had a Venezuela mission trip meeting that night, so we shared his cheesecake with the mission team.

I'm trying to be intentional about planning some fun activities with the kids each week this summer. So, on Tuesday, we went to the donut shop for breakfast as a special treat, and then visited a fun toy store we'd never been to. The kids got to play with the toy displays, look around, and pick out a small new toy to buy. We all had a great morning!

That evening Nathan had his end of the year soccer celebration that started with pizza with the team. Such sweet, sweet kids!

And the best part of the season is the medal. They had a fun celebration service for all the players. They had a karate demonstration too, so of course the minute we got home Nathan asked if he could do a karate show. He was pretty mesmerized by it!

This week, I also took Nathan on a Kindergarten date. He had his five year well check.

Afterward, we went to the enrollment center and enrolled him in Kindergarten. I thought I was fine, but there were a few tears.

After we enrolled him, we stopped and prayed for him, his teacher, and the kids who will be in his class and for a great first year of school for him.

Then this little Tiger and I went out to lunch at one of his favorite restaurants.

As we were walking out of the doctor's office, he said, "Mommy, those shots hurt more than I thought." Bless his heart, so after lunch, we decided we needed a special treat!

I just love this boy and treasure the one on one time I get to be with him. As we were eating our ice cream, he leaned over and said, "You're the best mommy in the whole world." Great day with my big boy!

Celebrating a Decade- Our Anniversary

We were cruising back home on Friday which was our ten year anniversary. It was wonderful to spend the whole day with Matt celebrating, reminiscing, and having fun.

We ate a lot, read a lot, dozed some, played some games, Matt did the Flow Rider surfing, played in the pool, called our babies and then got dressed up for a fancy dinner.

They must have known we were celebrating because lobster was on the menu at dinner!

It's so fun sharing the same anniversary with this awesome couple. It makes missing each others' weddings totally worth it! I'll take an anniversary trip with them any time.

I was reading a book a few months ago, and the author shared some marriage advice I'd never heard before. She encouraged couples to find good couple friends (Not just relationships where the wives are friends and the husbands tag along, but friendships where both couples are really good friends). When I read that, I immediately thought of Brooke and Corey, because Matt and I both enjoy both of them so much. We have matching families with kiddos at the same age, and it's always refreshing to spend time with them. Our whole cruise was enhanced in countless ways because they were with us.

I'm so very thankful to have been able to celebrate our first decade of marriage in such an extravagant way. Life with Littles is demanding and exhausting, and it's easy at times to put our marriage on the back burner while we wrangle life just trying to keep our kids alive (and not crying) everyday. It was incredible to be able to escape from the demands of everyday life and just have fun together experiencing new things.

This man made all my dreams come true. On our wedding day, when I thought about what our life would look like in ten years, I'm pretty sure every single dream has come true. Matt is such a diligent and passionate employee and has been thriving in his career which has given us the blessing of a beautiful home and most importantly the opportunity for me to stay home and take care of our babies everyday. And our three kids, well they are awesome. Parenting them is one of life's greatest joys. We are rooted in a town we love with family nearby, real friendships and a church family where we are connected, serving, and growing. God has blessed us beyond all my dreams, and everyday this wonderful man is by my side. If I could describe our ten years of marriage in one word, it would be Thankful.

Keeping with tradition we each came up with our top 5 moments of our TENTH year of marriage:

Matt's Top Five:
5. Promotion to Group Lead at FlightSafety
4. Nathan's 5th birthday party
3. Frontier city with the boys
2. Ziplining and Dunn's River Falls in Jamaica
1. Our date night in Pensacola

Angela's Top Five:
5. Christmas Day (even with a sick baby)
4. Frontier City with the boys
3. Elisabeth's Birthday Party/Samuel's Birthday Party/Nathan's Birthday Party (I loved them all for all different reasons!)
2. Date night in Pensacola
1. Ziplining and Dunn's River Falls in Jamaica

We also talked about some of our favorite moments of our entire marriage (We set a rule that they had to be non-Mommy/Daddy related)

Our vacations always end up being some of our very favorite moments (another reason why we make them a priority), so we talked a lot about celebrating our four year anniversary at Cinderella's castle at Disney World, our long weekend in Destin when Matt was working there, our snorkeling and excursions on our past cruises, Schlitterbahn, our date nights on our family beach vacations, etc.

The summer after we got married, our schedule was really easy. Neither of us had started grad school, so our evenings were open. I remember cooking new meals, going for walks, visiting the Shondelmyers :), and just having a great time being married.

Before Matt accepted his job at FlightSafety he brought me to Broken Arrow for the day to see if it was a place we wanted to live. We ate at Los Cabos, drove around aimlessly and imagined living and raising a family here.

The night we closed on our first house, we brought an air mattress and slept in our empty house.

Before we had kids we had friends over to play games, snack, and visit at least once a week. Those nights were so fun!

And now, our Friday night date nights are usually one of the highlights of our week. We always look forward to getting to eat out, go to a movie, or just veg out at home watching Netflix or doing other non-parenting related things.

It was special to think back on our first ten years of marriage and we are excited to see what the next ten bring!