Daddy time

Baseball season this year has been tough.  Who am I kidding?  Baseball season is always tough for us. But this year, Riley and Jude both miss their Daddy on game nights.  Most weeks, he is gone for three nights, but lately, he has been gone four to five nights a week.  So hard on everyone in the family. 

But when he is here, they soak him up.  When he gets home from practice, the three of them play so hard together. It is so fun to watch them love on him and him love on them.  As you can see here, this is "coffee time" on one Saturday morning. Where he is, there you will find the kids.  

I admire that he is so dedicated to a sport he loves and a team he has such influence over.  I love that he wants to show the players how to handle all kinds of situations in a manner that glorifies the Lord and lifts the team. But so much more than that, I am so blessed, no, we are so blessed that this man has such a heart for his children. 

Packing in all the fun

Since the house is officially under contract, we are officially packing. You know me, you know how I love organization and to me, this is part of being organized.  A chance to get control of what we have and organize it.  I love it. 

We've been gathering boxes and packing what we don't need in the next few weeks.  This begs the question with me, if we won't need it in the next few weeks, so we need it at all?  I am the one in the family that is quick to sell or donation or trash what we don't need.  Woody is the opposite.  Maybe I should wait until he is here before I start purging.  If you look closely, you can see Jude's head behind the boxes. He carried both of those boxes all the way up the stairs for us.

And this is Riley, supervising the carrying of the boxes from the Tahoe into the house.  She gets this from me.

Last Thursday during our Kid Swap, we made a box castle out of the empty boxes we have.  The kids LOVED this, for a few minutes.

And if you have a castle, you need a princess, and a ball, and a ball gown to twirl in.

And if you have a castle, there is a prince or knight in shining armor who has to climb the castle to rescue the princess.  (This wasn't actually happening in our castle, but it makes for a cute post.  Jude is a climber, but he didn't get far in this castle.)

After about 4 minutes of castle fun, the walls came down.  Who knew boxes could be so much fun that kids would forsake all other toys (for 4 minutes) for empty, brown boxes?

We are really looking forward to the move.  No, I am looking forward to the move.  Woody is dreading the actual move.  Riley wants to go through her room and belongings everyday and ask what is coming with us and what is staying.  Jude just wants to climb.

SO BLESSED.

Young Love

My friend, Kari, and I do a "Kid Swap" each week.  She watches my kids on Monday mornings and I watch hers on Thursday mornings.  This has been such a blessing to me and I hope I have been a blessing to Kari and her girls too.  Sarah, whom you see in the foreground, is 11 days older than Jude.  We assumed they would be boyfriend and girlfriend.  But their relationship has developed into more of a brother/sister kind.  They play, fight, run, share, not share, etc together.  Caroline is Sarah's little sister.  She is 13 months younger than Jude and Sarah. And I believe this is the object of Jude's affections. This morning he walked up to her two different times and said, "I love you Caroline." Which sounded more like "Ah wuv ooh, Cayline."  So precious! I wish I could have gotten a picture of this, or them, but my hands are always full of something or the kids are running toward the camera to see themselves in the viewfinder. How fun to watch all of these kids grow up and learn what sharing means, and how hard it can be!  

Beautiful Round Flowers

Our yard is covered in dandelions.  I wonder why?  Because Riley and Jude think they are beautiful round flowers and the peddles are meant to be blown into the yard. :) As much as I don't enjoy the weeds in my yard, I do love the joy they bring the kids.  It helps that the yard is one of the few duties in our lives that does not fall under my jurisdiction. 

Our spring afternoons have been spent hanging out on the front sidewalk drawing with chalk and picking those beautiful flowers.

Sheer delight!

Told you, COVERED. 

Speaking of covered, oh how we are covered by God's grace.  Our house is officially under contract and our expected closing date will be here before I know it.  We are so blessed that the house has sold and we are one step closer to moving into Bentonville. We have been praying hard since November that the house would sell and God has heard us and been fully faithful to all of His promises, no matter how much needless worry I have devoted to it. We are not worthy, but are basking in Lord's grace and mercy.  What an awesome God we serve.

Riley-isms

If you are paying attention, you'll see that this post is in April, and this picture is from January.  I have a good excuse, really.  We got a new computer and I haven't had the chance to update my pictures to the new Mac.  

So for the latest in Riley language:  

• We saw a Disney princess book at the library a few weeks ago, but it was in Spanish, so we didn't check it out.  She told me, "The princess book was in Spanish, but we only speak whale."  Too much "Finding Nemo"?
• "I am a princess and you are a witch." This randomly came up while we were playing the other day. Fitting.  Hm, wonder if I should be worried about this one?
• "Pooping is a lot more fun than puking."  I don't know that this even needs explanation.
• And one of her current favorite snacks right now is "smarshmallows".

Sadly today, she pronounced "color" correctly instead of her usual "Co-yer". Sad face. I love how she pronounces her "th" sounds as "ya".  Oh they do grow up too fast.

Home Sweet Home?

I might be crazy.  Last year, I swore that I would not put my house on the market again with toddlers during baseball season.  Never say never. Our house went on the market, again, January 20th. And this explains the lack of blog postings this year.

After 3 months of this, I'm pretty sure I am completely crazy.  On the surface, it doesn't seem like that's a big deal.  But then three out of the four of us are here almost all the time.  And you have to keep your house show-ready.  And Woody is not here most of the time because of baseball season.  Oh, and the two toddlers here have NO concept of cleaning up after themselves. Oh, and the emergence of gray hair. Awesome. I am Crazy.

We feel like this is the time to list it.  We feel God-led.  And God has provided comfort and peace -and believe it or not joy- during this trial. We know that God will honor our desire for us to live closer to Woody's work and therefore see him more, as well as give me the opportunity to stay at home with the kids until they go to school.  He is so faithful and my faith has grown so much!

So we wait with hope.