Happy Memorial Day!

We had a wonderful and busy Memorial weekend! Chevy's parent's came into town from Michigan. They were a great help with the kids and the kids just love them and spending time with them! I will get into detail about our weekend later, but I just wanted to leave you with a few pictures from our Monday outside.

Ryan and I worked on our garden. This is our first garden! We planted green peppers, tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, and pumpkins. We are new to this and we will see how it goes. I love gardening and I think the kids will love to see what will grow, especially Avielle!

Chevy put this nice mini fence in and the other pieces didn't match the ones he put in, so he needs to return them and put new ones in. That means that tomorrow the garden will be officially done!

I'm An Auntie Again!

My sister had her baby today after 24 hours of labor! Yesterday her water broke and she went to the hospital and she was dilated at a 2! First of all, I don't think I know of any women who's water have broke! So, needless to say I was quite shocked! Since she was only at a 2, labor was long. There was talk of a C-section, but as soon as my sister heard this she was determined to get her out and she did!

At noon today my niece, Penelope Phyllis Brinn was born at 8 pounds 12 oz and 21 inches long. She is adorable and it was so fun holding her today and seeing the new parent's in action.

This is my mom holding Penny. It is neat that now my parent's have 4 boy grandchildren and 4 girl grandchildren. The family is a growing. :)

Things Are Changing!

Our Tuesday class, that we have been attending since September has now ended. :( I almost got a little tearful as we left, because I just love the structure of the program and Miss Lauren, their teacher. She has been such a helper to me with my three kids. It is not always easy to go places or do things with three kids, but Miss Lauren would just jump in and spend individual time with my kids while I was with the other two. I have always struggled and have felt torn as I want to give my children each my undivided attention. God has taught me a lot that I can stretch my attention, but when I have special alone time with my kids I try to really interact with them and make them feel special.

Tonight the older two didn't have naps so they went to bed at 7:30 and Ellie wasn't tired yet, because she had a long nap. Chevy and I played with Ellie. She was in her glory just running around and tackling Chevy and I. We colored together and put puzzles together. It was so fun just to focus on her! :)

This coming Monday is my last day of teaching until the fall starts up again. I am one who really like routine, and with our daily routine stopping, it will take time for me to adjust. I know that it will be nice not to rush out the door every morning. When September comes three days aweek the kids will need to be at preschool at 8:00 in the morning! Yikes! I know that Anderson will be ready, but my two girl's as of late like to sleep in!

Here are some more pictures of the children at their last class. The McMahon girls joined our class about two sessions ago. I think they had a lot of fun too!

Ellie gets so excited when we come to class. She runs around the place as if she owns it! I'm thinking that next year I will continue the class with just Ellie, because Avi and Anderson will be in preschool.

Ellie and Steph playing at the sand table together.

Anderson working on the train. We had so many crafts that we did and I just loved that we could make a mess there and I didn't need to make a mess at my house!

Mother's Day

My mother was in charge of the Harvest Bible Women's retreat. The retreat was over Mother's Day weekend which was perfect for us mother's to rest and spend time with God. My Mom led the retreat so well! She was completely organized and she did a wonderful job speaking! I'm so proud of you Mom!

The retreat focused on the role of your life. Lucinda talked about the script that God wrote for our lives and becoming the main characters of our lives. It was very motivating and gave hope to know that God is in control of our lives and we need to stop sitting on the side lines and live our lives for Him and to the fullest potential He has written for us.

These beautiful ladies are my Grammie, sister Jenny, and my mom

This is our third annual retreat that we were all together.

left to right: sister Meghan, sister Jamie, sister Jenny, myself, Grammie and my Mom

We went to Sweet Tomato for Mother's Day brunch. Here is GG helping Avi open her juice box.

During the weekend the men took care of the kiddos and then on Mother's Day they brought the kids up and spent a special day with the Mom's.

After our brunch we went back to the hotel and we all went swimming. The kids had so much fun jumping in the pool with their floaties. This summer Anderson and Avi are taking swim lessons I can't wait to see what they learn!

Florida Part 7

This is our last day on our vacation. These were taken at our condo!

This concludes our trip! It was an amazing trip and I just loved that we were able to spend time as a family. Chevy had is tax business and worked late after his regular job. It had been a long time since we just all spent time together. Thank you for viewing all of our pictures! I took 600 pictures while we were there!

Florida Part 6

On Thursday, we went to Disney World, the happiest place for kids, right? Our day there didn't start off so well. As we were driving to Disney World Chevy asked me to get him some sunglasses out of the glove department. I opened it and found a bunch of old snacks stored in it. I quickly realized that there might be another mouse in our car. Now, about a month ago we had a mouse in our car and we trapped it. I thought, great now we have brought a mouse from Illinois to Florida and became really upset. I don't know about you, but when I have a mouse around my belongings I feel very violated! (Luckily there wasn't a new mouse, but these things were from the old mouse.) Starting off the day that way was not fun.



As we get all the kids out of the car we get the two strollers out and then head over to the tram. Then they tell us to get all the kids out of the stroller and then get the kids on the tram and fold the strollers and put the strollers on our laps! When you have three small kids and two strollers this sounds impossible and it takes a lot of effort.

As I'm pulling Ellie out of the stroller I feel something wet. Yes, Ellie pooped through her Minnie Mouse shorts that I had bought for her a month ago and couldn't wait for her to wear to Disney World. After we got off the tram I tell Ryan and we are nowhere near a bathroom. Ryan says lets just change her here on the brick pavement having her stand up. I need to tell you this was a messy diaper! As we are doing this I'm just thinking about the next tram coming in and what do the people see as the enter such a special place that they are paying an arm and a leg to be at? Our daughter and poop all over her bottom!

After we got her all cleaned up we went to go pay an arm and a leg to get into Disney. Now Ryan and I are not in the best moods with each other, just from our morning together. Then we pay $300 dollars just to get into Disney World. We are praying that our day gets better.

The day did get better, but Disney was packed with people. All of the other parks we went were empty, so this came as a shock to see all the long lines. It was a hot day, so it made standing in line a bit difficult. All in all, the kids did really well. We had a lot of fun together meeting the characters and spending time with the McMahon's and Lyman's.

This is cousin Brittney holding Avi during the parade where we saw a lot of Disney character's. The mice from Cinderella all came up to Avi and pointed at her shirt of Cinderella.

It is nice that all the rides at Disney the whole family are able to go on. Now there are a couple that they can't, but not many.

This Anderson on "It's a Small World."

Ellie was so good and took her nap in the stroller.

It was so funny that our friend's the Lyman's were also down in Florida around the same time as us. We met up at Disney World! Who can say that? We ate lunch together and then went on my favorite ride, "It's a Small World." In this picture, Mackenzie and Ellie were saying hi to Katie.

Katie Grace and Ellie having fun together!

We stood in line to meet Aladdin and Jasmine, but when it came to time to meet them Avi really didn't have any interest. Aladdin and Jasmine were amazing they totally played the part of their characters!

Anderson and Mackenzie holding hands

This is Avi's favorite princess

We went and saw Mickey and Minnie's house

They had such cute hats for the kids and if you paid extra they put the kids names on the back of them. This is the cutest picture of the day!

Avi didn't quite like getting her picture with Mickey and Minnie!

While we were walking around Disney I heard some commotion and looked down in the stroller and saw that Ellie decided to sit on Avi's lap!

At 8:00, we sat down to watch the night time parade, which was amazing! They had a 10:00 fireworks show, but we decided to take the kids back. It takes a while to get out of the park, since you either need to take the fairy or shuttle. Then you need to take the tram back to the car. So we watched the fireworks from the parking lot.