Fullness!

Guess I have some catching up to do! Last Monday, Zakkai had his first belt-testing in Tae Kwon Do! It was very cool to watch! He did a great job and is now a very proud orange belt!

 

 

He even got to break a board at the end! I will keep working on uploading the video. I've watched it about 10 times and it makes me so happy!

 

 

And I snuck back in after he fell asleep that night to get a picture of him sleeping with his broken board and TKD belts under his bed:) So cute!

 

The only thing I asked for on Mother's Day (not that I would ask for anything anyways!) was a picture. My standard request:) Can't believe how big my babies are getting! Yeah, yeah, I know they aren't babies but I tell them they will always be my babies!

Pretty Little Miss!

I just love this picture of E and her grandma-great!! They are good buddies;)

We were trying to take pictures outside of the 4 generations but it was SO windy and none of us were happy for various reasons with the pictures. Our hair was blowing, it made our dresses blow up and made us look pregnant, etc:) Still, a memory to treasure!

Eliana had her preschool graduation last week, too! The other teacher and I worked with both classes to teach them some songs to sing. Eliana did great during the rehearsals and after one song during the program, totally froze:( She was so upset and if I made any eye contact with her, she got really sad! It broke my heart! She felt much better when she went to sit with her Mugga and Grandma and opened her graduation gift of a Frozen t-shirt! Elsa makes everything better:)

We found a cute local restaurant to eat lunch after church on Sunday! Besides it being a beautiful afternoon to sit on the patio and hanging out as a family, it was awesome because the kids ate free! Now that's our kind of meal:) Love this princess!

My handsome pre-teen:)

My partner in crime!

Mr Blue Eyes!

I made a dress last week (in between all that craziness!) and was SO excited to wear it on Sunday! I just love how it turned out!

The back.

Fancy details!

Me modeling it;)

 Samuel (and Ben) had a game bright and early Saturday morning and won! Samuel even got to pitch for a bit and struck out two kids! He got two hits and was proud to show off a slight bruise from being hit with the baseball. A badge of honor, I guess:)

All in all, except for feeling under the weather for a few days, it was a very good, albeit busy week and weekend! Life is full these days:)

Little Angel:)

 Happy Friday!

This was during Eliana's concert last night. Still can't get over how stinkin' cute it was!! The little boy in the top left hand corner shouted out every single song. He was SO loud but it was really funny. He is also the teacher's son:)

Miss Niki helping Eliana Angel off the stage:)

So sweet!

We hung around and talked my mom into taking some family pictures for us. We haven't taken one since 2012!

This is not bad for an impromptu picture!

Eliana and Miss Niki:)

One more picture of our cutie!

Have a great Friday night!

Eliana's special day and Lolly.

 We just got back from Eliana's special preschool concert. Oh my goodness, it was so stinkin' cute!! I'll have some videos soon:)

She has been talking about this night for weeks! And practicing, too:) I did her hair in special braids today. C.u.t.e.

She got herself all dressed up and looking so beautiful tonight!!

So excited!

She even had a matching coat! This adorable outfit was given to us by a friend whose daughter has outgrown it. Love it! She was SO cute during the performance. She just kept looking at us and giving us the sweetest smile! She almost didn't even want to sing, she just wanted to keep looking at us!

At church, we have the most beautiful nativity set I have ever seen. Not sure if you can read the paper but it was made in Italy.

It is set up in the big lobby area and it is so....holy feeling. You immediately feel hushed and contemplative.

I wish I could capture the beauty of the sculptures. It's really amazing.

Meet Lolly. She joined our family yesterday:) I've never been into the whole Elf on the Shelf thing. Have you seen the crazy, er, really excited people on facebook with their elaborate Elf schemes?? That will not be us, thank you very much! I don't have time for that sort of thing!!

My aunt found this in a good deal and gave it to us and Eliana immediately wanted it and was very happy it was a girl:) I whipped her up a little Christmas skirt because we can't have naked elves around our house! She will hide in some different spots so the kids can find her in the morning. They already adore that kind of game, especially Eliana and have been playing it with stuffed animals and toys lately. Kind of a fun little thing to do.

Now off to bed with me!

TGIF

Hey! We made it! We just got internet hooked up a half an hour ago and one of my first stops into the internet world is my good old blog:)

We moved on Monday and were reminded all over again of how much stuff we have. Yuck. We moved a ton of boxes over the weekend by ourselves and weren't sure how we would find people to help us, as most of our family is "broken." But God provided again and people came out of the woodworks, including a guy we just met at church a couple of weeks ago!

Not only did we move everything in on Monday, on Tuesday the boys started their new school and Eliana started preschool! It was totally overload for everyone and most of us were exhausted and more emotional than normal. The boys hadn't slept well our first night here (and so neither did I!) and were just overwhelmed. Thankfully, we all made it through the first day.

We had to find help getting people places this week because of our car situation~one car! We are praying that we can find a cheap second car asap. One answer to prayer is that the boys' school has a bus that stops right in front of our neighborhood! There are SOO many kids in the neighborhood that they fill up a whole bus so it's a one-stop bus that goes straight to/from school. It takes us 2 minutes to walk to the bus stop. The boys aren't thrilled with riding the bus and I do miss walking them to school, like we have the past 3 years but this is so helpful right now.

I have been working very hard the past few days unpacking and trying to make a semblance of a home for us! Pictures coming soon.....:)

For now, we are all looking forward to hanging out together in our new home this weekend. TGIF!

Kindergarten Ph.D.

I just got home from a parent orientation for Zakkai's new preschool and I am feeling 1000% sure that this is the right decision, the right place for him! Thank you, Lord!

I got to meet his new teacher, who is very nice and Zakkai gets to go meet the teachers and see his classroom tomorrow.

I am so amazed at how accelerated preschool is these days. It used to be that preschool was such an optional thing and people barely went. It was pretty much like childcare. Now preschool is the new kindergarten and kindergarten is the new first grade! And so on...

I can't believe how quickly and how hard the schools are pushing kids these days. You are waaaay behind if you enter kindergarten without knowing numbers, counting, independent skills and even pre-reading. Crazy! I don't know how I feel about it all. On one hand, the poor kids are going to be in full-time school for the next 13 years and that ONLY high school. Then you add 4 years of college and possibly more for graduate school.

What is the rush?? On the other small hand, I am impressed at how quickly Samuel increased his knowledge this past year, although it was overwhelming in the speed at which it came at us. It kind of makes me sad that Zakkai is starting it already and pretty soon I'll be rushing him off to kinder-college.

I think I'll keep Eliana at home forever.
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We actually set up the ladder to the boys' bunk beds tonight! If you remember, we put it off when we first put together the beds last summer for safety reasons. A.K.A. Zakkai.

But Samuel has been sleeping on the floor all summer (his own choice!) due to the heat and getting up in the early hours of the morning to use the bathroom. Now that the weather's cooler, he wants to be back in his snuggly bed so to prepare for happy sleep for all of us, we put together the ladder. Hopefully, Zakkai won't fall out of bed in the middle of the night and bump in to it...
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Eliana has become my little shadow buddy lately. She is starting to crawl to my legs and pull-up partway, wanting me to pick her up. She even reaches out for me sometimes if Ben is holding her, after she's gotten in her daddy snuggles:) We went to a friend's house to play Monday and she wouldn't let me even think about putting her down for at least a 1/2 an hour. And then she played within a 6 inch radius around me;)

She is starting to pick up sign-language which is so fun to see!! She signs "All Done" after us and "Light" and is trying to do "Train," which is a very important sign when you live right next to a train track! It's so fun to watch this explosion of development in her. She is such a happy baby who clearly knows she is loved and loves in return.

Zakkai's heart melted in a puddle yesterday when, while he was playing on his stomach on the ground, she crawled over and got halfway on his back and laid her head down on him:)

She's a heartbreaker, this one!