Happy Flag Day! 

Again, not great, but thought you should see almost-baseball-size hail. Just one of these will knock your windshield out, your house windows out, and damage your roof pretty much immediately. Fun times! 

Sorry it's not great - but the one in the middle is a golfball, the other two are hailstones. If you get enough of these in your car windshield, it looks like it's been shot out. 

VBS and Gardening

For those who are interested, VBS has started at our church. This is Azx3's second year to go, and he loves it! I am really praying for him this week (it's Sunday-Thursday night from 6-8:30), as I was his age when I accepted Christ in VBS. ***hint, hint to those of you prayer warriors....**** :D

By the way, have I mentioned I've taken up container gardening? Yep, I have. Partly due to my friend Jen's incredible tomatoes, partly due to that spring feeling of new beginnings, growing things, etc. Actually, it really kinda started with Azx3 bringing home a little thing from Mission Friends where they had planted sunflower seeds. So I went to go get a pot for that, and came home with 3 pots, planting soil, and tomato seeds. I am loving it! I'll get to the reason why I'm only using pots and not just putting things in the ground in a minute, but it is too much fun! And addicting - I love going out in the morning and seeing what has grown/changed. Now I'm up to 2 tomato seedlings, Azx3's monster sunflower plants (but no buds yet), 2 cucumber plants, 2 watermelon seedlings, 1 cucumber squash seedling, and some pumpkin seeds that haven't done anything yet - but I just planted them yesterday.

The main reason I am doing them in pots has been our crazy weather lately. In the last two-three weeks, we have had major rain (like over an inch each time), major hail (have you ever seen/even heard of baseball-sized hail?), and even some tornadoes for a grand total of almost every other night with a storm. Now I realize the porch won't save them from a tornado, but I know keeping them out of the hail has saved them already. We've been very fortunate to not have had any damage here at my house, but many people in the city have had multiple nights of major hail damage to their roofs, cars, and many of the local farmers are having to start over crop-wise this late in the season. I'll see if I can find a few pictures to post - you gotta see this stuff to believe it!

Azx4 loved the elephants. Really.  

Down to H-Town

So we went this weekend down to H-town to help my parents move the rest of my sister's stuff. It was mostly fun - when you're moving, whether your stuff or someone else's, it's just not all fun. Sorry, but it's not. My mom rode with the kids and I in the car, while my dad stood on the accelerator in the moving truck to lead the way. :p Then we all rode together on the way home, which was some good family time. It was so nice to see my sister and "the Grand Aunt" while we were down there. I don't know who missed whom the most: my sister or my kids. Plus it was just too long since we'd seen TGA period.

The kids really did a good job behaving in spite of all the moving stuff going on. I'm afraid I might not have been the most patient or understanding (particularly when I felt hot and irritable!!) but again, for the most part it was fun. I la-la-loved Central Market! Let me just say that if we ever move there, I could definitely blow the whole budget there, not just the grocery part. We just don't have anything even close here. Plus, I loved the little shopping area where we ate breakfast at Le Peep's. (I think it would win for my all-time fav breakfast place!)

One thing we did do that really helped the kids was escape to the zoo. (I say escape as it was in the middle of unloading the moving truck in two different places - an almost 2-yr-old, a 5-yr-old, and a pg lady ain't much good for that.) Azx3 was fabulous about understanding that we could stay until GrandMommy called, and never fussed a whit. We were there for a couple of hours and saw pretty much everything we wanted to. It's been interesting, as this is the first thing Azx4 seems to really "remember" and recall. In detail - she's remembered previous outings to say, Grammy's house, or Chuck-e-Cheese's, but never anything we did or saw there. Now, if you ask her what we saw at the zoo, she'll list her top 3 (and in the order we saw them too!): the giraffe (grr-aff), elephant (eh-fant), and the owl (owwww-lll, hoo-hoo!).

For inquiring minds that want to know, our summer is getting busy: we leave on the 24th for almost a full 2-week vacation, I want us to get back to H-town before the end of summer, we're going to Abilene the 2nd weekend of July, and we are going to Grammy and Papa's maybe the first weekend in August before school starts. I guess better to get our traveling in now, before Azx3 can't go because of school (is he really old enough to say that yet?!?!?) and I get too big and far along to travel. Phew!

Out in Our Front Yard

We are so blessed, so fortunate to be able to play out in our front yard and our back yard. We have grass in both, and both are a really large size. (imho, anyways) Sometimes the front is a better bet, as there aren't any of our 4-legged beasts to lick, wack, stomp, or otherwise run over you or your toys there as well.

Today, Azx4 was fascinated by the birds out front. Normally we have a few, but they are rather fearful, and disappear as soon as you look their way. We have quite an assortment though: robins, blue jays, the occasional cardinal, doves, sparrows, and chickadees. We usually try and have some bird seed out front or back to make sure we always have friends to watch and listen to. I say all this to show you how commonplace these creatures are here, and why she was just discovering them today, I'll never know. But she stopped suddenly (almost falling over - love that toddler balance!) and looked and pointed and said in that cute amazement/whisper voice: "BIRD!" There were indeed a few chickadees investigating the edge of our grass to see if there was any leftover bird seed there. She ran toward them, stopped, crouched down, and then did her goofy ostrich-leg walk towards them. To my amazement, one actually stayed until she was within a foot. I wished I had my camera out - it would have been a great picture - she was almost down on the ground, with this bird less than a foot away looking right up at her. They stared at each other for a minute, then the bird hopped away, and she decided bubbles were more exciting.

Azx3 has gotten his first bicycle. He has a "schwinn" one, the smallest kind with training wheels, and a Hot Wheels helmet. He's really not sure about this yet - we'll probably get it out this weekend and test it. I think it's the height of the bike that bothers him - he wavers between "Oh I'm a big boy now! This is super cool!" to "Nope. Can't do it. Just can't do it." We'll see how he does when the rubber meets the road...

And speaking of bikes and training wheels, this all brought back memories of my first bike - it was blue, and I remember my dad working with me to ride it. (And no I don't remember EVER wearing a helmet.) I remember the first time he let go of me - no training wheels - on the driveway in Mansfield. I was so scared, concentrating on getting it right, remembering I had to pedal and steer all at once!, and hearing his reassuring voice, telling me that was the way, that I could do it. Brings a special grin to my face and my heart even now...

Update on us (Finally!)

Sorry it's been a while, but you know how life is with 2.5 little ones - busy and hectic and fun!! We're all doing well here.

Azx3 finally finished up soccer, and he loved it! He had a great time, a great team and coach, and just overall loved it! He scored a couple of goals over the season, and was excited about his trophy. We had a big pizza party at Chuck E Cheese's after the last game, so it was good to play around with his teammates there. If he wants to play again in the fall, we can request the same team, so that's nice to know.

Azx4 is really talking now. She's working on 3 and 4 word sentences. It's cute to see what she comes up with next. She's also started counting - from 1 to 10, she can get all the numbers in, usually not in the right order though. She's also working on her abc's - all letters she calls "c's", and she knows a few just by sight. Any letter "o" she can find a mile away. Have I mentioned she loves the Baby Mozart videos? Even the ones Bubba didn't like at her age.

I'm doing good relatively speaking. I'm at 13 weeks tomorrow, and by the way, thanks to all of you who sent out well wishes. I've sure needed them - been sick as all get out (way more than with the other two) since about 6 weeks. And I mean sick - all day, limited to pb&j, salads, chicken, and nothing that has even touched a drop of oil - whether fried, sauted, or whatever. It finally seems to be fading! I'm finally in maternity clothes too - got them all out of the attic and washed yesterday.

It's been really hot here lately. Yesterday we hit 101. Joy. It's just the end of May. However, it was pretty funny yesterday. The kids and I were playing around in the wading pool, and because of the shadows from the trees in the backyard and the clouds passing by, we had to get out because we were cold. The local news was on as we came in, and the weather guy announced we had just hit 101. I thought it was amusing.

Hope this finds you all well, and I will really make an effort to keep this updated more often.

The soccer champion! (while we're glad he had fun, it is nice to have our Saturdays back for a bit...) 

Happy Mother's Day!!