Beginning and End.

This weekend was basically the beginning and the end of summer with Eli finally home. 

When we first heard Eli would be gone for 12 weeks for his training academy we were super sad about being apart for three months, but I think the heaviest hit was that the dates he'd be gone! His class took place May 15- August 4th in Quantico, Virginia meaning we would miss almost the entire summer. And we. love. summer. From pool days to baseball games to every weekend possible at the lake ... we are summer lovin' people. Eli and I both are huge lake lovers and it was like alllllllll the stars aligned when we started dating and he told me he loved Lake Ouachita as much as I did (anyone else just see the heavens part hear the "ahhhhhhhh" from heavens?) !  Meant to be. 

So what did we do our first weekend we could head to the lake this summer?? Call up our buddies and say "let's head to the water!!"

One of my fav parts of my job is all the amazing people I've met, and the Eickenhorst family from Houston, Texas is pretty dang near the top of that list! They were so sweet to drive all the way up Friday night! We went to dinner, came home and played games. One of my fav things to do!

Saturday morning MORE fun friends showed up, the Adams family and the James crew! It could NOT have been a more beautiful day!

We stayed out until the tiniest bit of daylight was left in the sky to drive back to the dock. It was a GREAT day. Unfortunately the sun didn't last into Sunday and it POURED all Saturday night. Melissa woke up Sunday morning and said "ya know, something I never thought I'd say is how much I love hearing rain pouring on a trailer!" 😂😂 

Since it was going to pour all day we cut our weekend short, but not before taking the Eicken-fam to a fun lunch at local hot spot, The Purple Cow. Burgers and purple shakes were had by all!

The kids head back to school tomorrow and I can't believe summer has come to a close. We're still going to weasel as many lake weekends we can out of August and September. Already looking forward to coming back again. 

Back to School Bash

It's Back to School for the Boone kids and tonight we lugged our pencil pouches, new composition notebooks, and freshly sharpened pencils up to the elementary school. Typing that made me realize that this our last "first day of school" for them to all be at the same school until Avery is a Senior in High School! Omg!!! Cue the tears!
Pulling myself together now. Sniff sniff.
We were super excited to hear who their teachers were yesterday because we had a couple repeats. Avery, Dalton, and Sawyer will be going into fifth, third and first grade respectively this year and we found out Tuesday that they've essentially shuffled the deck when it comes to which teachers are teaching each grade.

Avery has a brand new teacher, Mrs. Grace for fifth grade.

I can't even believe that she's old enough to be the big dog on campus this year! She wasn't really feeling me on my picture taking and gave me a "don't you dare make me" stare down when I started to ask for a pic with her new teacher. So, I didn't push.

 Dalton is our kiddo that really isn't crazy about change. So when he found out that his sweet first grade teacher, Mrs. Cunningham, had moved up to third grade and he was going to be in her classroom this year an infamous sheepish grin lit up his face.

More smiles were had in finding out our big FIRST grader was going to have his Kindergarten teacher again. Not only that, but it's in his very same classroom from last year! He all but jumped up and down when he found out! We LOVE Mrs. Schmitt!

We were walking down to Mrs. Schmitt's room hand in hand when Sawyer said "Mom, people aren't even going to know that I'm in first grade anymore. They're going to think I'm still little." I was telling him that no one was going to think that and that everyone knew he was big and strong. Right after I said that Sawyer looked down at our hands and said "then I guess I don't need to be holding my mom's hand anymore." My heart broke into about a hundred pieces. Not even kidding.

We have love, love, LOVED this sweet little school and all the families that fill it! So thankful for another year here!
One more fun summer filled weekend and then it's Back to School come Monday!

Wrapping up Spring Break

Yesterday Sawyer came up to me wide eyed after Avery had talked him through every page of her baby book.

 "Where's mine?

 I want see mine." 

I think my cheeks got a little hot as I explained that third children don't have baby books; it's just not in the cards for them. While babies of the family do enjoy leniency in things such as bedtimes, church attire, screen time and even daily hygiene, there are some downsides that are just a part of life for the last born.
Yes, I remember the days where I could use a variety of scalloped or zig zag scissors to cut carefully selected floral sheets of paper that I would then cover the themed pages with embossed stamps and beautiful stickers each perfectly highlighting the milestones of that first year of life. But then I had the second child. And the third. And such things moved to the back burner. I DID become a mommy blogger for several years and still hope to one day print off all those years of blog entries from the ole family blog (which you can check out here) ... but here we are again ... back burner.

Truth be told, I peruse pictures via my Facebook photo albums and Instagram archives to see their baby faces and hear their sweet baby voices way too often. And I know that one day their six, eight and nine year old selves will be just as far away as their toddler selves are now. And I'll want to know what we did in the day to day. The little stories that didn't make for a Facebook status or Instagram photo opp. Between school days, baseball weekends and the busyness of chasing three kids through life there's lots of sweet spots to remember and I'm going to do a better job at charting those here. I'm sure I'll throw in random thoughts ... things Jesus teaches me ... and other future fun as well. So ... YAY! Thanks for coming along for the ride. 

Spring Break was this past week and I went through a whole slew of random last minute getaway ideas before deciding to just stay put. Actually my husband told me we were staying put. So then I decided to go along with that. He's the practical one in the relationship. The kids were with Maw for most of the week as their cousins came down from NE Arkansas and they were able to have lots of family fun. Eli and I stayed home and enjoyed eating dinner late, sleeping in and having a little break ourselves. It was actually pretty great. 

The kids came home Friday night and we laid low by grabbing Chinese takeout and watching March Madness. The boys all three went to bed upset over the UCLA loss while Avery and I were less affected. Saturday Eli needed to go over to the lake to work on our boat dock so I told the kids to plan our day. No surprise that they wanted to go to Barnes and Noble ... so we did. Followed by a fancy lunch at Chili's and the movie theater to see Beauty and the Beast. I think we all enjoyed it way more than we thought we would. It was a pretty nice little Saturday.

Saturday night we made our own pizzas and there was more basketball to be watched until bedtime. We're totes wild around here.

After getting all tucked in with back rubs and chapters of new Barnes and Noble books read and lots of "just one more" goodnight hugs and kisses, I turned off the lights with each of them in their own beds.  However when I went to wake them up for church the next morning this is how I found them:

I love that they still love to sleep together and I find them snuggled up like puppies most mornings. Love them so.

After church we suited up in all our gear and went to see Dalton's baseball team scrimmage with a really great little team from Greenbriar.

I think it's safe to say we ALL love these games. It's super fun for Avery that several of the boys have sisters around her age who have turned into some of her best little friends. Sawyer gets treated just like one of the big boys. He practices with them and hangs out in the dugout and even usually assumes the role of the batboy. We've been missing the ballfields for sure!

One of my other favorite parts is getting to make new friends of course!! There are so many sweet mamas on our team!

Some of these kids we've played with on four and five different teams over the last few years; I love that part, too! They get better every season!

Another big bonus is one of the mama's, Jodiane Tritt, takes the BEST pictures during the games and shares them with out little team! HUGE perk!

Love him so much!

It was a good weekend around here! Hope yours was as well!