No Time for Bloggin'

After this past week, I have a much greater appreciation for those non homeschooling moms out there. I haven't posted this past week due to lack of time and sheer exhaustion! We participated in the Amazon Expedition Vacation Bible School at our church which meant waking up early, getting three sleepy children dressed, fed and ready for "school" along with myself and bringing 6 kids total to church and back. I was in charge of photography throughout the week and put together a slide show that we played at the VBS party on Friday night. It truly was an absolute blast and we all had an incredible week but I must say how thankful I am to not have to go ANYWHERE this week. I guess we are pretty spoiled that homeschooling allows us to live a more slow paced life style and we completely enjoy being able to sleep in and take things at our own pace. Now I understand how busy moms who work outside the home and are ushering kids to and from school each day just don't have time or energy for blogs among many other things. Now don't get me wrong, we do stay super busy throughout our school year attending field trips, park days, P.E., and homeschool classes but it's the early morning rushing around thing every single morning that overwhelms me and just wears me out! So I have been busy playing "catch up" with the things that got pushed aside this past week.
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Overall we had an amazing week and weekend at church and made some memories that I hope will stick with us forever. Church was pretty much our second home this past week. After spending all week there, then attending the Friday night VBS party, we wound up staying there until after 10:00 for our church's Friday night coffee house which is basically an open mic night for local teens. If you ever want to witness something really cool, stop by any Friday night and you will be amazed! Fletch was so hilarious as he sat "on stage" playing the piano while Terry sang. I totally wish I had a picture of the outrageous faces he was making while playing. He was being a total ham and loving every minute of it and especially the applause and the people cheering him on by yelling out his name. He has always loved music and this was his first appearance with an audience larger that the four of us. He is truly the funniest little guy! Saturday after attending a baby shower for one of the members of our church, Josh and I attended a dinner fundraiser for the storm team of our church. The kids went to church where they were babysat by some of their favorite big friends of church. Then after picking them up at 10:15, we went home to get some sleep before going back in the morning for an awesome service where the kids got to sing for the congregation. We had such a fun yet very fulfilling week that lead us to much spiritual growth.
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Here are some of my favorite pictures taken throughout the week...

{singing a song "and the children lift up their hands..."}

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{the older kids at snack time}
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{there were sweet smiling faces were everywhere}
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{craft time}

{Colton was the hula hoop champion is his age group... who knew!}
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{one of our friends at VBS was a blue tongue skink!}
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{Gracie and our neighbor aka Gracie's BFF!}

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{faith like a child...}

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{I wish I could share them all. I seriously had over a 100 good ones!}

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{And here are a few of my crazy boy...}

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Kaya Margaret

I'm a little late on this post but wanted to share that on Friday the 20th, by adorable little niece turned three! We had so much fun attending her two birthday parties on Friday. She had a pool party in the morning for her friends then a party in the evening for the family. Kaya has the sweetest yet spunkiest little personality and it has been a joy these past three years to watch her bloom into a little lady. I love you Kaya and am so proud of you!

{one of Kaya's b-day gifts}
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{colton, lauren & abby}

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{fletch and his poppy}

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***flashback to last year***

{I came across this picture of Kaya from her birthday last year while we were in the Keys. It doesn't get much sweeter than that!}

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Dinner Guest

We had a nice dinner last night eating out on the back porch to enjoy the beautiful evening when a dinner guest arrived unannounced. His name was Hardrock. Of course, being the nature lover that he is, Colton immediately jumped out of his seat to go catch our guest and invite him for dinner. Also, following in Mr. Miyagi's footsteps, Colton is an amazing fly catcher. So what do you think he does next? That's right he goes hunting for the perfect meal for our guest. This is how it played out in photographs. (Yes, you know me, I had to run and grab my camera : ) I assure you that Hardrock was completely unharmed during his dining experience and left our home feeling full and satisfied.

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{look at the poor fly's eyes! I guess everyone has to eat!}

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{do you see it in his mouth? sorry about the mechanic's fingernails!}

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{how about a little broccoli?}

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{safe and sound with a full belly. ..no... he's not dead!}

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Thanks for joining us Hardrock!

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Senorita

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I just love this retro spanish inspired fabric that has classic women of the 50's dressed up and ready to go to a fiesta. It is filled with bright colors, beautiful spanish ladies and lots of Mexican exotics. Muy hermosa!

Happy Father's Day

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Anyone can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a DADDY! Happy Father's Day to all the Daddys in the world!!

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{and here's what happens when you don't cooperate during picture time...}

{a tribute to Michael Jackson. Hope this picture doesn't land on the front page of the Stuart News tomorrow ; ) }

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Pictures from the bike show...

{c & g in front of daddy's bike that he built}

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{josh and fletch listening to a local band }

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{fletch, studying the guitarists}

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The rest of the "gang" joined us later in the day for the Bayou Band concert who are a Creedence Clearwater Revival tribute band. What a fun day!

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Sillys, Smiles, and Motorcycles

I love my kiddos. Maternal love must be one of the most powerful things other than God. Lately I've really been trying to slow down life and enjoy each and every bit of them. They are just growing up way too fast for my liking (not that I have any control over it or anything : ) The fact that Gracie is almost 5 is enough to make me want to cry. Even though I'm sad that her innocence is leaving her, I love the person that she is growing up to be. She is a beautiful girl who is filled with love for God and it makes me feel so grateful that she will have her faith, hope and love to turn to in such a hard world to live in. I know I can't imagine living my life alone without Him and I certainly don't want my children to have to either. I just love how she goes about her day quietly singing praise songs, whether she's playing with Barbie's or swinging or helping me cook it's just a sound that melts my heart. She still is obsessed with wearing dresses and she has done a spin test on all of them to see which dresses twirl the best. I'm hoping to get time to make her a super twirly dress that I know she will just love. She just started taking Tae Kwon Do this week with Colton since ballet is over for the summer. She did really well and seemed to have a lot of fun with it although she told the Master several times throughout class how tired she was. When class was over she told me, "that was a lot of work!" Now we need to work on kicking without her pointed ballerina toe : )

Fletcher is Fletch. Busy, busy, busy, starting to really talk a lot and is still teething. The poor boy only has 10 teeth so he's still got a ways to go! Joyce took care of him last night while the rest of us went and saw "Kung Fu Panda" and commented on how smart he is. I think he understands much more than we think he's capable of. She mentioned how tidy he is in the way that if something falls over, he'll go and pick it up, or he'll make sure to put the chalks back in the box correctly. I'm starting to see "some" of this also but I still see more of him dumping out anything he can get his hands on or throwing things across the room without thinking twice about it. He typically has no concern about messes that he makes but hopefully this is a sign that he's slowly becoming more careful and not as destructive. My poor house can't handle much more! We're slowly starting to work on potty training. Colton was right around two when we started working on it but with Gracie we started much earlier and by her second birthday, she was wearing underwear all throughout the day. Fletch might be a little harder but he is showing some signs that he may be ready. All I can say is him taking off his dirty diapers and leaving messes for me to clean up is something that I am completely over! It's time to potty train this child!

Colton has been a busy boy lately! He's been bouncing around all over town from several of his friends houses, to golf world, to super play, to the movies, you name it, he's probably been there! He is still waiting patiently to lose his first tooth but the good news is that his bottom two are loose! Stay tuned!

Today Josh is at Stuart's first Treasure Coast Bike Show which we will join him at later. See the pictures at the bottom of his departure. Fletch kept saying "I ride, I ride, I ride". Then he watched his daddy's trail until he could no longer see him anymore. After coming inside he banged on the front door calling out "daddy! daddy!" for quite sometime. Poor little guy! He has had a strong connection to his daddy lately. During the day while daddy's at work, he'll occasionally bring me the phone and say "daa..eee". When I call him he'll "talk" to him until daddy can't talk any longer. He'll go on and on and on in his little gibberish talk. If only we knew what was on his mind. He'll be so excited later today when he gets to walk around seeing all the motorcycles with his favorite man in the entire world.



{gracie monkey'n around}
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{fletch dreaming of the day that he can join in the shaving cream baseball game with the big kids}
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{sarah, noticing his desire, made his day by helping him play}
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{silly lauren... ava & kaya's cousin}
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{lauren's little sister Abby having fun}

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{Daddy has the best hair stylist in town. Oh, by the way, if you see Josh, compliment him on his nearly shaved head... hmm, I wonder how that happened???}

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{say cheeeeeeeese!!!}
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And now for a little fun...

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I've been playing around with my pictures again...

man I wish I had more time to do this cause it's a blast!

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(photo editing that is : )

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{if you'd like to see the pictures better, click on them to enlarge}
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