Extreme Fathering

My sister in law and I exited stage right a few weekends back. Thus leaving our husbands with many female children, so they decided to combine forces. We joked they should have had a camera following them all weekend! I'm tired just looking at the pictures!

Beignets...

mmmmm!
This festival is a big deal around these parts-the girls all made real wooden boats and floated them...
I can't believe Ava did this-but the hamster balls were a big hit!


Yeah, her hair is pink.
I mean really, face painting?
Solemn kitty
Beautiful sisters!



They carved pumpkins...

Baked the seeds...
Went swimming...

Went out for ice cream...
and fried chicken :)...
The boys did escape for a little bit of fun!
But then back to the grind at the playground!
Made it to church EARLY-
And finished off the trip with snoballs!
Hats off to two of the best men/dads/fathers I know for treating our 8 girls to the best weekend of their lives!!!! :)

My Childbirth Resume

I have been induced.

I have had an epidural.

I have had natural childbirth.

I have had precipitous childbirth.

I have had an emergency c-section.

I have had a miscarriage.

One thing I have never done? Given birth to a boy. Until now.

We are so beyond excited to welcome a little man to our family. Who might have to sometimes wear pink. Or play with babies. But Mark is really manly so I'm sure he will be fine.

Praising God for a 4th healthy baby. We are so thankful!!!

Do yourself a favor and go on ahead and listen to the song "I get to be the One" by JJ Heller. I tried 6 ways from Sunday to get it on here, but can't. So go find it. It sums up how I feel, and is just lovely. If you have a child joining your family any time soon in any fashion-you will especially enjoy. :)

I GET TO BE THE ONE

Words and Music by Dave and JJ Heller

Well hello, little baby
Your eyes have never seen the sun
You should know, little baby
That I am the lucky one

I get to be the one to hold your hand
I get to be the one
Through birthdays and broken bones
I’ll be there to watch you grow
I get to be the one

Don’t feel alone now, little baby
Do you hear me singing you a song?
I can’t wait to show you, little baby
How to crawl, how to walk, and how to run

Chorus

How does someone so small hold my heart so tightly?
I don’t even know you
I love you completely

Some kind of wonderful

Happy Birthday to our 3 year old!!!

I've said it before, and I'll say it again (hopefully) this girl is just a delight. I don't think she's really been grumpy yet. Or acted 2. She is just a little piece of yum. Like my friend Katie said once, you just want to bake her into little Kaiya cookies and eat her. :)

Kaiya's birthday was while we were on our roadtrip. It was a really, really, crazy day. A whole blog post on it's own. To the dear friends who received my traumatic texts that day, bless you. But thankfully I think Kaiya was oblivious!

She started off trying on hunting gear. Every 3 year old's dream.

I LOVE HAVING KIDS. I took Kaiya to the bathroom, and when we got back, you would have thought she and Ava hadn't seen each other for a month. They ran and hugged. So cute.
Reese was like-um, you guys? Can I hug too??
We were heading south to another city on our drive-and so we picked a town on the way and just started calling bakeries. (That's the kind of organized party planners we are.) Not sure Kaiya even knew who Hello Kitty was, but I asked for a pre made girls cake that they could write her name in purple on. Bingo.
We started with the celebratory pizza from Schlotzky's. Her favorite restaurant.***

***She has never been to Schlotzky's. But I wanted an original sandwich so badly I was hyperventilating and Mark is nice. So that's where we got food.

Thanks to the iphone, we found a lovely little park near the bakery.
After they ate, we sent them to play in the dirt like good girls.
THE PARTYERS!!! This is my darling friend Ali, who I haven't seen for YEARS! (one of the most artistic, creative, cool vintage stuff having people on the planet.) We just happened to be partying in Texarkana where she lives (our life is so random), so thanks to good old Facebook I sent her a message and she and sweet John Morris came and joined us for the good time! We love you Ali!
Meanwhile, Mark went to the car to wrap the gifts we bought at Wal Mart while the girls waited in the car. You know you want to be like us.
I kept everyone hidden while Mark brought the gifts in for the big reveal.

A new scooter!! And some other stuff. But she was mostly excited about the scooter.


Sweet Ali even brought some FABULOUS gifts with only 15 minutes notice.
Time for cake.
Good thing we had that pizza box since we of course didn't have a knife on hand.
Yum!

It was truly, one of the most fun birthday celebrations we have ever had. No planning, gifts and cake purchased en route, a random park, and so much happiness.
See? DELIGHTFUL.
Don't tell, but this might be our Christmas picture. Clearly it's a winner.
Happy Birthday to our beautiful girl! So excited to have had another wonderful year with you.

Some families camp.

We road trip. Mark was gonna head out for a work trip, and I felt that traveling all over and staying in hotels was a far superior option to being home without him for 4 days.

Oh my did we have fun! And one of the craziest days of our life. But mostly fun.

Before we left. These bench pictures are really making me laugh lately. Ava's new smiles are enough to send me over the edge.

A big highlight was seeing my OLD friend Hannah-she and I racked up more credit card debt and MAC makeup together than I did with probably anyone else ever. :) We also brought lots of children to the Lord, for what it's worth. It was so fun to see HER kiddos!

Sweet Norah
And that cutie pie Liv sandwiched amongst the DeKornies
I should have dug out an old picture of us wearing our expensive clothes and fancy makeup. But instead, I'm wearing a clip and I had to make it black and white. How times have changed. (thanks, Ava, for taking a picture for us ! :))
I don't know why Ava wouldn't cooperate with the nose check. Everyone else did.
I think I've mentioned how my kids think hotels are like Christmas morning. Happily singing their night time songs...
and praying...
And catching up the next morning on the day's news.
While Daddy was working we colored and all sorts of exciting things.
But the real fun is always when he's around.
Out to dinner! I'm kind of in love with this picture! He is such a good dad!
The best dinners out are when the children can roam freely.

Finally the long drive home...Sheriff found a comfy spot in the diaper basket
Reese found a paci I got for the new baby at the dr and tried to silence the doll

We were heading home some back roads...and starving....and finally came upon food after miles.
We walked in and you would have though we were at the Cheesecake Factory in a Friday Night! The place was packed, but they had a special room for us. :)
Like I said, the best dinners out-wish we could have this set up at every restaurant!
We had SUCH a blast. I love my family!!! And I love road trips!!!