Happy Birthday Tobin!

Posted on December 20, 2018 by Abbie

Our Wild Thing turned one in October! Tobin is every bit the rambunctious, fun and happy wild thing that he was when he was born. He brings us so much joy and, at times, scares us with his bravery to try anything.

Our friend Mr. J helped us celebrate at our church care group by bringing a cookie cake! And a sweet teddy bear!

Tobin’s Wild Thing cake. It suited him well.

He seemed to enjoy the cake!

I even found a Wild Thing shirt with matching pants and hat. Yes. He was adorable!

Doughnuts for a birthday breakfast? Of course!

Tobin enjoyed opening presents and the paper proved more fun than the actual gifts!

This boy is definitely going to keep us on our toes. We love his adventurous spirit. Mark and I both say that Tobin is our comic relief when bear things a little too heavily. We are going to love watching him grow this next year.

All the World’s a Stage

Posted on December 19, 2018 by Abbie

When Ceili Rain tried out for Cheaper by the Dozen back in May, she was totally bit by the acting bug. We were thrilled to see that our local Christian theater company opened up theater classes for kids this year. She loved every single week and the end of class performance was great!

Perfectly Posed 2018

Posted on December 18, 2018 by Abbie

Our annual pictures turned out amazing, despite the fact that I totally didn’t even think about the leaves not changing colors yet (we had a late fall season this year). I chalk it up to a wonderful photographer and bribing my kids. Ya’ll, don’t judge. The only time I bribe this crew is for family pictures which we use for Christmas cards, grandparents’ gifts and to plaster on our wall for a whole year. The proof is in the pudding. Ya’ll see for yourselves.

Our perfectly posed picture. Good but not really our personalities jumping out like the one below.

If only Malachi was actually looking at the camera…but this was my choice for our family picture because it’s us.

These were just two of the amazing pictures of my girls! Seriously, aren’t they precious?!

She shot this picture as it started pouring rain and we realized we didn’t have a boys picture. They regrouped. She shot this one picture. Then we ran like wild fire to get out of the rain.

My kids melt my heart! Picking just one of Tobin was too hard. We managed but I had to show off the other ones:

We’ll just call these his one year pictures. Emmie’s pictures were equally as hard. How do you really choose a super heroes one good picture?

Great Family Bake Off

Posted on December 17, 2018 by Abbie

We usually try to plan a weekend getaway when surgery day approaches. It helps us relax and just enjoy being a family before all the craziness. That didn’t happen with everyone’s extra curricular activities and life in general. So, we settled for a couple of family days. We had planned a day of family pictures and then off to Colonial Days but the bottom fell out (it was pouring rain for all you non-Southerners) right as we finished pictures. So, we went for plan B. Eat out and then do a family bake-off judged by our sweet neighbors.

We split the kids up into two teams and told them to use either pumpkin or apple and then we let them go. There was laughing and dancing and good-natured ribbing all afternoon.

Runner Up: Pumpkin Cheesecake Snickerdoodles

While everyone finished up the baking we sent Mark off to create our pumpkin masterpieces. Tobin helped a little.

With all the “help,” Mark’s talent still shown through. By the way, the lights int eh back of the last picture are most definitely cat eyes from Winter.

You Got a Friend

Posted on December 16, 2018 by Abbie

Emmie is such a social kiddo. She absolutely adores making friends with kids her age. And let me tell you, she could care less if they look different than her or act different than her. She just really cares about people and making sure they are included in everything no matter what. Her sweet friends seem to care about her too which is even more special. So, of course, I had to get pictures of her friends before we flew out to California. Those pictures were great for her to look at post surgery and helped us see some good Emmie smiles. I just had to share those pics of her adorable friends.

E and Emmie were in ballet together last year and E’s mom and I hit it off when I found out most of her kids were adopted from Ukraine. Their family didn’t do ballet this year but I was so excited that E’s brother and sister took a theater class with Ceili Rain. Emmie was thrilled too because E had gymnastics right after theater and Emmie had ballet. They got an hour play time together for ten weeks and hopefully, they’ll get that when they start back in January!

Emmie’s last ballet class before surgery was the dress up class. It’s safe to say that the whole reason Emmie loves ballet is for her friends in class…especially C. They seem to be growing closer and when C’s mama texted me that C reached out to hold Emmie’s hand during class (totally unprompted and totally uncharacteristic of C), my heart melted. These girls and their teacher (also in the picture) are absolutely adorable together.

C. had a special birthday before we headed out too. It was a princess/super hero dress up party. Naturally, Emmie had to come as Super Ems. She loved meeting Arial! And the cupcake frosting!

Seeing my girl love on others and want to have a good time with others is such a treat. She seems to get just how and what a person needs. Ya’ll, this kid is loud and boisterous and fun around her siblings. C doesn’t like that and Emmie is never like that around her. She can sit quietly with her but then turn around and yell and scream with her other friend, E. I love watching this part of her personality grow.

September Randoms

Posted on December 15, 2018 by Abbie

Our picture journal of random happenings in September.

Another scoli-mom told me about these brace undershirts called Brace Buddies. I was pretty impressed with them. It took Emmie awhile to warm up to change but in the long run, the ones we purchased made a nice addition to her brace undershirts. And they are fun to play hide and seek in!

Date day with Mark and Nacho Mama’s! It was yummy!

Our local downtown is fun and entertaining. We love seeing all the light boxes painted up and Mark insisted I get in a picture with the Godfather of Soul.

On another date night, Mark and I were deep in discussion about Emmie and her brain but stopped at a Starbucks drive thru. When the lady asked how we were doing, Mark was honest and said, “Meh.” The barista was incredibly sweet and gave us not one but TWO drinks for free. AND made it a venti. When we told her we were going through some things with our daughter possibly having surgery, she was even more sweet. We love these little “God hugs” to remind us we are not alone.

Tobin was checking out his new bike seat. I can’t wait to take him on adventures.

Emmie decided one day that her doggy needed to be adjusted. One of our loving chiropractors, Dr. H agreed to help doggy out.

Left is Tobin at 10 1/2 months. Right is Malachi at 18 months! My little chunky monkey T!

Braces help with breakdancing! Who knew?

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Pit stops

Posted on December 14, 2018 by Abbie

We broke up our long drive to and from the beach with pit stops. On the way down, we stopped at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival and park for lunch. We got attacked by ducks and practiced our performances on the outdoor stage and checked out the fountain.

On the way back, we stopped in Tuskegee. We gave the kids a choice between the Airmen Museum or George Washington Carver’s home. The kids had just finished listening to an audiobook on George Washington Carver but didn’t know much about the Tuskegee Airmen. So, they voted for the Tuskegee Airmen museum. Ya’ll, if you are anywhere near Tuskegee, Alabama GO! It was a great museum that honored the men and women who worked and trained there. We were all so impressed. Once again, the kids didn’t want to leave! They loved reading all of the information. My heart was so happy.

We spent an hour plus in the intro hanger before we actually made it to the real museum. We had no idea we weren’t in the real museum until we ventured to the other one!

Flying Angels

Posted on December 13, 2018 by Abbie

Mark and I have never been to the Naval Aviation Museum and made this a top priority. We also made sure we went on a day the Blue Angels were practicing. The kids have never seen them fly. It was a very, very hot day but the kids persevered and enjoyed the show! They also really enjoyed the museum. This was the first time my kids have been to a museum and were sad to actually leave because they didn’t see everything and read everything! Progress!

Meet us at the Track

Posted on December 12, 2018 by Abbie

We took the kids out for an afternoon at the race track and arcade. We had almost the whole place to ourselves (homeschool advantages!) which meant a lot of family versus family races! I would just like to note that despite Ceili Rain’s fear, I did not wreck and actually pulled ahead of everyone!