"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved." Ephesians 1:3-6

Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Project 52: March 29-April 4

 
Sunday Snapshot:
Brent added a new sprinkler here and had dug a hole.  The kids of course LOVED it! Dirt is so entertaining.


Oh this boy.  Enjoying this stage of life with him.  Soaking it all up and enjoying his laughs and smiles.



Summer is here--time for weekly splash pad visits!




My "big guys" :)
 

 
 



On Good Friday we swam at Mimi and Papa's pool and had a picnic lunch :)


We still have to eat dinner on Good Friday, so we had our family over for Friday Night Meatballs before church.  All 16 of us!
 

 



Saturday was the annual Frazey Easter Picnic.  Such a fun way to celebrate the Easter weekend with our friends and family.  We had a breakfast, hunted for eggs, and the kids heard Tank tell the good news of the Gospel in the story of Jesus's death and resurrection.
 

 

 






 

 



After the picnic we went to Grandma and Tank's to dye eggs. The kids did a great job.




 

"I'm supposed to use a spoon?"




The girls from our small group at my friend Kristin's baby shower on Saturday afternoon.
 

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Project 52: March 22-28

 
We spent the morning a neighborhood park and the kids were finding these little balls in the sand.  What started out as them hoarding and fighting over these little balls turned out to be a beautiful encouragement and fun time for us all.  We ended up walking all around the park to find more and the teens in our neighborhood must play a lot of airsoft here because we found a lot!  There were times the kids were having a hard time spotting one so I would point it out and was encouraged by Raelynn's selfless generosity to say one of her siblings could pick that one up.  Or when Declan and Elliana's cups spilled on different occasions watching the kids help each other pick them up so joyfully.  God is in us and is with us and is so kind to show me beauty in the simple and mundane.

We celebrated Grant and Garrett's birthday this week! The last of the March birthdays!
The kids know that the boys play with those little balls they collected so they were excited to give the balls to them.  While at the park Declan also found a little nerf gun bullet and knows that he has seen those at Grant and Garrett's house as well, so he was so excited to save it and give it to them!

The new play set peeks over the wall a little bit.  Sometimes I will take just one child with me to walk to the mailbox and the others will stand on the 'look-out' and shout and wave.  Oh, if this photo only had sound.  Our poor neighbors.....

busy and helpful hands:)

 

just caught them sitting so sweetly in the chair together reading books.  And they even smiled when I came up to take a picture to capture the moment! yay!


I took each single twist and split it to make two twists.  Loving this style!

Elliana loves that she can reach the swing and twist herself up to spin around

 
Kevin, Eric, and Brent at a church basketball tournament on Saturday
 

Project 52: March 15-21

 
 Sunday Snapshots:





Sunday evening we had an all church picnic at our neighborhood park.  It was such a fun time with something for everyone.  We ate food, played basketball, football, bocce ball, bag toss, Frisbee, flew kites, and many just sat and chatted.  We also had a time of prayer. It was a lot of fun and such perfect weather!!





 

 





Monday is grocery shopping day.  Couldn't believe it when I saw there was a prize in the Corn Pops box!! We had planned to get them anyway because Daddy likes them (well, so do the kids!) so we got three boxes so each big kid could get a prize.  And it worked out nicely that there was a different prize in each box! They were spoons--Elsa, Nemo, and Mike from Monsters Inc.  They didn't work so well to eat with so the kids play with them in the dirt outside:)  It was just so fun and brought back childhood memories of digging through the cereal to find the toy.  And can you believe they even packaged the spoon to be on the outside of the cereal bag?!

 
 
 
 
Brent's birthday was this week.  Raelynn helped me make the cake by opening up all the Reeses's cups for me.  We had all the family over for Someburros and cake on Tuesday.  On Wednesday, his birthday, we were able to go out to The Keg for a date night to celebrate.

 




So many helpers! So fun celebrating daddy!!





Mimi is so patient and fun with the kids.  The kids like to brush her hair and of course she says yes.  I remember doing this with my Grandma when I was little, so I'm happy to see they are making those memories, too.  It's that extra special attention and allowing them to do something out of the ordinary that they love!




Mimi treated the kids to the carnival at Freestone this week.  It has now been a month since this event took place, and I can say that my kids still thank God for the "boats" every time they pray.  It was a special time for them!
 

 


 


The boys are playing so much more with one another all the time.  Declan sure makes colt laugh and enjoys doing so.  They really enjoy being with each other, which is so fun to see!






We were having a rough morning at home.  We were all short on patience and had forgotten about giving one another grace.  Sometimes a change of scenery helps---so we went to Target.  The kids needed some new shoes so I thought it was a great idea to take them all shoe shopping at Target.  haha.  It started off really fun with this picture--whenever we are at Target the kids want a picture with this dog and I find it something I can say "yes" to and let them enjoy the moment.  But then it was not so fun after this.  As we traveled on to fill up on diapers and move along to the shoe aisle, the kids had had about enough of Target.  One child trying on shoes at a time because they need mama's help leaves the other kids in the shopping cart just sitting there.  That is never a recipe for quiet, calm, fun.  And ya know those carts at target that have the big red seats...yeah, I will always buckle them up from now on because after Elliana had got her shoes I just set her back up in the seat and next thing I know she is bending over to pick up the empty water bottle (because water just spilled everywhere) and falls face first down on the cart.  Enter in the tears.  And if you have heard her tears, you know they aren't quiet.  We had lots of looks...we were those people.  Life happens, not one of our best moments, but surely not going to be our worst.

 


We continued Friday Night Meatballs this week and had another full house.  It is so wonderful to see the kids' excitement to set the table and serve our guests.  Every week Raelynn asks "who will be coming over for guests?" and we have been so blessed by the friends gathered around our table.
This week happened to be March Madness so the guy enjoyed the basketball game after dinner while the kids ran wild in the backyard.  Usually we put a movie on for the kids...it was a fun time by all!



the sign of a great night!

 

 
 
 
 
Saturday we had a couple's game night with our small group.  SO fun!