Homecoming Week

This week was spirit week at Jackson's school leading up to Homecoming last night. Jackson was super excited to participate in the silly themes each day. 

Pajama Day

 (aka-- acting like a goofball in the morning day. Well, that's every day!)

Tacky Tourist Day 

(do NOT call his bug-out bag a fanny pack. You have been warned.)

Superhero Day! 

Twin Day. Jackson and his cousin, Gabe, won the best costumes for their class!

School Spirit Day. He's all decked out in blue-- including his hair!

We went to the games last night and had a good time. The games were great! Isabelle wanted to join in with some school spirit so she got some blue hair, too! 

This is Jackson's BFF at school. I love this pic!

We didn't stick around for the announcing of the homecoming court and crowning of the king and queen. Caroline was sleepy and we are in no place to play any kind of sleep roulette by keeping her up too late. The kids stayed with Grandma Linda to watch and then she brought them home. 

I don't have any pictures of the royalty from this year, but I here's a shot of the homecoming king back from 2002. Bet ya didn't know I married such a stud! :)

(No, that's not a picture of me. However, Allison and I are routinely mistaken for one another at church, practically on a weekly basis. Even our kids do it!) 

I just love Jackson's school. It's Derek's alma mater and the school is a ministry of our church. Jackson has the most amazing teacher and his class size is just right! We have friends and family who work and teach at the school and there is such a comfort in having complete trust and confidence when you send your kid away for so many hours in a day. When you love the school so much, it's easy to haveso much school spirit, which made this week super fun!

Enjoying the park in January

Over the past two weeks we have enjoyed a few record-breaking warm days. Yesterday, it was 70° and so we headed straight to the park after picking up Jackson from school and stayed until dinner time. 

We had a blast at one of our favorite parks. Caroline loved the baby swings and I just stood in amazement wondering how she got so big! :)

I do believe snow is in the forecast for this weekend, but the kids are eager to use the sleds they got for Christmas so they'll be thrilled if it does. Even if the weather does get yucky, it was a wonderful treat to have some nice days in the middle of winter!

Four Months: Caroline

Dear Sweet Caroline,

You turned four months this week. It's been four months since we all fell in love with you and it just keeps getting better and better! 

You have recently really started showing us your personality-- and it's adorable, of course! You like to smile and squeal when you're happy. You also like to squeal when you're upset and so that can get tricky trying to differentiate. You are still a pretty easy going kiddo! You'll sleep despite the noise at a basketball game and you'll smile at anyone who holds you. 

You are particular about a few things: you need to swaddled to sleep (and sometimes just to relax) and you want to be facing out when being held. You strongly oppose changing clothes and we have nicknamed your carseat the torture chamber because you simply hate being buckled in.

What have you been up to this month? Well, you found your fingers. And you love to have them in your mouth! One day, Isabelle was playing with you and she said, "do you have lollipops on those fingers, huh?" I thought it was so funny and sweet and so we refer to your first two fingers as your lollipops. 

You also love this little ball. Actually, I might love it more. It's perfect for your little hands to grasp and it keeps those hands from bothering you! Those cute little hands are known to frustrate you from time to time and toys are a great distraction. It's so neat to watch you learn to play with toys! Of course, they all go into your mouth. 

You are learning new things each day and it's fun to watch. You like to sit in your bumbo seat and be included in whatever we do as a family. You also started playing in the bounce-a-roo. You like to play with the toys and kick your little feet! 

You eat about every 3 hours during the day with a longer stretch in the afternoon because you take a long nap. You definitely clock in more sleeping hours than the rest of my kiddos. Sometimes, you'll sleep past 9am if we don't have to load up to take Jackson to school. Now, if only we could get you to sleep through the night! 

You were actually quite an easy sleeper prior to getting the flu. But one of the side effects of Tamiflu is an upset tummy and so while you were sick, you had really restless sleep. We haven't quite recovered your good sleeping patterns yet. Daddy and I are forming a game plan because there are nights, like last night, when we both are getting up 3-4 times each! It's the hours in between 1:00-6:00am. Before and after those hours, you sleep like a champ. We love you to pieces, we really really do. However, we'd really love to not see those eyes or hear those fusses over night. (I hate to resort to peer pressure. I mean, your brother was sleeping 12 hours at night by now.....).

I love your sweet cheeks and I kiss all over them every single day. Sometimes I'll even get a giggle! Daddy and I love you so much sweet girl! XOXO

When friends came to visit

Back in December, I had two old friends fly in Kansas City! I met these girls ten years ago when we were summer missionaries in Myrtle Beach. Here we are with the rest of our Myrtle Beach gang back in our glory days. Stacey, Tricia, and I are in the front in orange, white, and red respectively. 

We had a mini-reunion in Baton Rouge in the fall of the same year, but I hadn't seen these girls ever since! I'm so thankful for facebook, twitter, instagram, and texting so we can stay in touch. It didn't even seem as if so much time had passed between getting together because we're so connected! Of course, being together in person is so much more awesome than any group text and we had a great time.

Here we are now... still baby-faced, but a decade older! We had so much fun!

We had plenty of fun just hanging around and doing nothing at all, which doesn't sounds all too exciting but it was cool just to be doing nothing with fun friends. Does that make sense to anyone? Well even when doing nothing is enjoyable, it certainly doesn't leave much to blog about. We had a good mix of hanging out, but also exploring the city. Here are some photos of the fun things we did. I borrowed a few of these pics from their instagram feeds. Thanks ladies! :) 

Welcome to Missouri Tricia and Brue!

The first Kansas City meal: Arthur Bryant's BBQ. Yuuuuuummm!!!

And then we toured The Roasterie. I'm not a coffee person and so I've never visited, but I knew we needed to visit when these gals were in town. It was actually quite interesting touring the facility. I hear the coffee is delicious if you like that sort of thing. I can attest that the hot chocolate was quite yummy.

Some of us had more fun than others...

We visited Christmas in the Park

And stopped by the Magic Tree. These pics just don't do any justice to this tree. It really is so cool!

We made a trip up to Crown Center and toured the Hallmark Visitor's Center. And of course we pushed the funnest button in all of Kansas City-- the one that makes the bows!

Afterwards, we visited Kaleidoscope. 

The kids painted.

They made the iconic puzzles, too!

After lunch, we enjoyed a fun production of Rudolph at the Coterie children's theater. It was a cute show!

After visiting for several days, Stacey flew back home to spend the holiday with her family. Then, the next day, Adam (Tricia's hubby) flew in! Adam spent the summer at Myrtle Beach with us, too. He's top center in the picture up top. This photo of Adam reminds me of him while we were summer missionaries -- only it was the backyard Bible club kiddos climbing on him instead of our own!

We spent a couple of jam-packed days celebrating the holiday and then we went about exploring the city some more. We visited Union Station.

And we walked over to check out Liberty Memorial.

I just LOVE this view!

While we were driving one night, we took a wrong turn. I honestly just loved getting to see the city from a completely different perspective! It's still my favorite skyline. 

Of course, a trip to Kansas City wouldn't be complete without a visit to what was formerly known as Oklahoma Joe's. The restaurant recently changed it's name to Joe's Kansas City BBQ. Regardless of the name, it's my favorite BBQ and I'll willingly accompany any visitor who wants to check it out!

I am so thankful that Tricia and Stacey (and Adam!) took the time and effort to come visit! They were probably just hoping that I'd stop sending "Top 10 reasons to visit KC" messages if they actually came.  When Derek and I are feeling up to traveling with three little kiddos, we're looking forward to visiting Stacey, her new little puppy, and checking out her new house in Charlotte. And then heading down to see Tricia, Adam, and Brue (and their new arrival coming this summer) in Baton Rouge. They have promised my kids that they could hold baby alligators. I haven't decided if that's a reason we should go or stay home! :)

Okay, so who's coming to visit next?????

A new 'do

Both of my kiddos have been long overdue for a hair cut. I decided to take the kiddos after school and they had a ton of fun. They barely even knew they were getting a hair cut. 

Jackson got his typical hair cut-- a modified child version of a high and tight. Belle was due for something new.  Her hair had grown really long (except for the bangs that Jack cut this summer, but those are slowly growing back!) and with the long hair came tons of tangles. She prefers to wear it down and so I wanted to try something new that would hopefully save her tears and me frustration. 

I love her new look. And apparently so do all of my facebook friends because nearly 100 people liked her photo. I wanted to say something like, "We just cut off several inches along with every last drop of baby girl," but I felt that might have been dramatic. Fortunately, so many other people have validated my thoughts: that my little girl looks so grown up. I can barely even believe that we are planning her 4th birthday next month. FOUR!

She sure is a sweetie, isn't she?