Parker's 1st Dance Recital

I am pretty sure I witnessed the cutest thing I have ever seen today. All the little girls at the dance recital were PRECIOUS! Something about little girls in little fluffy tutu's, chubby little legs, white ruffle socks, tap shoes with big bows, hair all curled with so much excitement is absolutely precious. 

All the girls did so good. I was proud of all the little ones that were doing it for their first time and I loved seeing a few dances of veterans and girls on their 2nd and 3rd year (maybe longer).

They had dress rehearsal the night before so Parker talked non stop about it Friday night and Saturday morning. She even gave me a pep talk on the way to recital letting me know that the room we sit in was going to be "just a little bit dark and that I didn't have to be scared"...ha! She was especially excited that her Nana, Papa, Gigi, Great Grandma, Pops, Cara, Landon, Laney & Kip were all coming to see her! And of course mommy, daddy and brother but we got the back burner ;)

Parker did so good!! I am so proud of our little girl. She really surprised me. I was thinking I was going to see a little curly haired girl being shy, not knowing what to do and looking off at the teacher...like most 1st year dancers..haha. NOPE! All the girls did awesome!! She was so happy to see me afterwards and tell me all about the finale. The finale they all walk out onto the stage, class by class, holding their flowers. Then the dance instructors, owners, helpers walk out and all the girls wave and say bye and then the "cards" shut (curtains). Parker walked me through that procedure a million times so I guess she was really excited about that part. This dance studio is amazing. I loved every year there and I am so happy Parker got to experience it as well.

And here are pictures of our little boogie baby!

 Of course she is standing next to her bestie :)

I love these girls! I'm sad we missed Elizabeth. 

The 2 on the right fight like sisters but are obsessed with eachother!!! Cute but scary at the same time...it starts so young haha!

Their cuteness is unreal!!

So proud of our little girl!

Dance pictures

Miss Taylor is Parker's teacher. I grew up with Taylor in the dance studio and her mom is the owner of the dance studio. Even though it makes me feel super old I love having Taylor as Parker's teacher. She loves these kids and they love her. Parker and I are constantly playing "Miss Taylor and Miss Kelsey" as we dance in the living room. Thank you Taylor for loving my little girl and teaching her the beginning of her dance life!! I'm really sad we won't be there next year :( 

Miss Kelsey is a senior this year and student teaches Parker's class with Miss Taylor. She is an amazing teacher and dancer and I give her huge props since I know working with that many kids can't be easy. Parker adores Miss Kelsey and I am so thankful we had a full year with with her.

Thank you Dee Ann's Studio for a wonderful first year of dance!

Mothers Day

Happy Mothers Day to my wonderful mom. My mom has always been my best friend. We talk every single day. I am happy when she is happy and sad when she is sad. I have a soft spot for my mom and dad. Not only is she a wonferul mom but she is an awesome Nana to our kids. I don't know what I am going to do after we move and not see eachother every week :( For now I will cherrish every moment we spend together.

Last night my mom & niece came to church with us and then we had a fancy little meal at Rosas :)

LOVE YOU MOM!

The other joy about Mother's Day is knowing I have 2 amazing little kids & husband. I love my kids and their personalities. I love not sleeping in on the weekends and being woke up by a little girl kissing my cheek. I love picking up all their toys over and over again every day. I l ove watching them sleep. I love to hear "I love you momma" from Parker. I love when Liam says "mama". I love picking out their clothes every night and getting things ready for school the next day. I love watching them play together in the bath tub every night and laughing so hard! I love everything about being a mom & thank God for my sweet little beauties.

Tanner is never good at holding onto gifts. They just sit there and torture him so I always end up opening my gifts, for any occasion, early. Saturday evening I decided to open my Mother's Day gift. I knew he had been working on something but never imagined this.

A photo box & an accordian book for my sweet family! Tanner knows I love my kids & love pictures so he couldn't go wrong. He went and bought their outfits, lined up a photographer, had my mom take me to dinner, managed to make Parker keep quiet, & ordered them! I am so impressed and amazed at all the work he did.

I love every single picture. I love how they aren't perfectly matched, Parker's hair isn't fixed how I would normally fix it, and how my husbands handwriting isn't the best. But all those make it the best present I have received!! I love the inperfection of the details because my little babies are perfect!!

 Parker had to throw in her "teapot" pose =)

 haha, I love that the sign is almost as big as Liam

Happy Mother's Day to all the mommies, soon to be mommies, & trying mommies. It's not only about being a mom. It's about being the women God put us here for. We were put here to be more and do more than being a mommy. Pastor Patrick gave a wonderful sermon yesterday on this. I will share more later.

Crawling!

We have a crawler on our hands! Little man started crawling a few days ago and now he is really on the move. He is just a little shy of his 10 month birthday. He is a little slow and gets tired pretty easily so he just takes a quick break and goes back at it. He loves opening cabinet doors and pulling things out at school so I guess we will have to start child proofing everything again. So proud of my chunky little guy! 



Parker's 1st Bible Verse

At church, each Sunday, Parker's class learns bible verses. Her latest one she has been praticing so hard at. The week before last they said she did good but wasn't quite there. This past Sunday she woke up saying her bible verse. She was really excited about it! When we picked her up from class she was smiling ear to ear because she earned her Ring Pop! She was able to say her bible verse not only once but 20 times...haha. This totally sounds like my child...doesn't...stop...talking :)

So proud of our little girl! It's amazing the things these kids remember. The song on air 1 about a ship in the night came on Saturday and she just busted out singing it. They really do listen to the songs playing in the car.

"Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another."

John 13:34

Parker wanted a picture with her bible :)

Parker

This little girl is growing up extremely fast. She is learning so much at school, loving her time at dance class, has a personality completely opposite of mine at this age and has crazy amounts of energy!

Parker is an amazing big sister to Liam. She loves to wake him up in the mornings with us, plays with him on the floor and likes for him to play in her room. They even take baths with eachother now and they both LOVE it. Parker can get Liam to laugh so loud!

At school they have been practicing writing their names. They all have to sign in each morning. She has gotten really good at it. She can recognize all letters though she still gets M & W confused. She also knows how to spell BIBLE, GOD & LILLIE . I've come to realize that if you make any word into a song she will learn to spell it haha. We have been attending Stonegate for awhile now and she really enjoys her class. She came home 2 weeks ago singing "Give your heart to Jesus" with the hand motions...so precious! She has become quite the cuddler. She always wants to get blankets and cuddle on the couch while eaither watching the first Narnia or the 3rd one. In school we had to read, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and I never thought anything of it except for it was wierd. Now knowing the storyline and watching it a million times I have grown to love it! We bought the 3rd one for our trip a few weeks ago and that one is also fun to watch...you should really check them out!

Our little smart, pretty & loving daughter also has another side to her. She is in a "I know everything, I don't have to listen to you, I get everything I want" phase. wheeeeew! She is wearing me out! She doesn't stop talking & will ask the same question 10 times even if we answered her the 1st time. I know I know, we will miss this one day so we try to cherrish all 10 times of the same question haha...not really :)

I can't believe she is about to be 4 :((((

~Crazy Love~

Yep...I am crazy in love with this handsome dude! Liam's teacher, Mrs. Haydee, loves her little Liam. She is constantly buying him gifts (I think he is her favorite). Last week she bought him 2 polo shirts and this polo hat so we had to get his picture in it last night. My son has a huge noggin so the cap fit :)



Liam has also been trying to crawl! Really, just now you ask? Yep, lazy just like his sister was :)

He has begun to take a few crawls here and there but will splat on his belly. He is also trying hard to pull up on things. When standing and holding on to something he does great. He has 3 teefers on bottom and

Dr R said his top 2 will be coming out over the next couple of weeks.

Painting with Spirits!

My friends & I had a Painting with Spirits party last Friday! We had so much fun drinking wine, eating yummy food, chatting with the girls and of course painting our pump jacks...only in Midland :)

Watch our video below to see more info if you would like to host one of your own. She now even does kids parties which I can't wait to do! We had 22 girls come!

Girls Night Out

Weekend

Saturday night, after a looooong day of company picnic, we went to eat at Osakas for Nana's 80th birthday! Wow, what a blessing to get to have an 80th birthday. God is good!

I adore this picture...only because I love that little boys can run around with just shorts on and it be no big thing :)

Oreo is the neighborhood cat. It came up to this house a few years back. They started feeding it and now it hangs out on their porch. It is the sweetest cat we have ever met. It knows no stranger, loves to be pet, will jump down & come to you when he hears his name and will rub all over you & even lay on his back for you to pet his tummy! Parker loves to "go find Oreo" everyday after school. Since Tanner has allergies to cats we will never have our own so Oreo will do :)



Hyatt Wild Oack Ranch

My brother & sister in law were planning a trip to South Padre & asked us to come along. We knew we wouldn't make it to SP with Liam in tow (his first real trip & just getting over being sick). We decided to go with them to San Antonio & stay a couple nights. We came home & they headed to SP. I'm glad we came home when we did because Liam had another ear infection. We are now onto the 3 set of antibiotics.

We had stayed at the Hyatt Hill Country Resort last Spring & loved it. I wanted to try something different that had heated water. As I was searching I came across this time-share hotel called the
Hyatt Wild Oak Ranch. I read tons of reviews and looked at pics and knew we had to stay there.

It was amazing!!! They have a few condos set aside for non time-shares. We booked 2 nights (saturday-Monday) but then Tanner found out he had to come back to work on Monday so we tried booking it for Friday night too since we couldn't cancel Sunday night. Anyways, it was booked Friday so we had to stay at a random hotel close by. Liam was a nightmare. He wasn't over his ear infection and we couldn't just let him cry it out because we were in a hotel. So I was up the entire night with him and then Tanner took over the following night.

So here is all our gear backed for a quick 2 night stay in San Antonio...babies require so much stuff!!!

Onto the hotel. This condo was 2 bedroom, 2 bath, living room, full kitchen, huge balcony, washer/dryer, granite countertops, AMAZING!! Much nicer than our home. The master bedroom & bathroom were crazy big & super nice! It had awesome indoor/outdoor heated pools with fun slides, a lazy river, kids camp, playground, awesome scenery, putting green, and the list goes on. The pools stay at a wonderful 85 degrees during the cold months. I just wish we could have stayed longer...we will definitely be going back!
These pictures honestly don't do it justice...check more out for yourself here

Eventhough Liam was up all night we were still able to have a great time during the day with family. I love Laney & Kip so much and love getting to spend so much time with them & take fun trips. I hope the kids grow up to be great friends!

Eating at the restaurant onsite

 Prettiest girls in the world!!

 Love these kids

Glad someone is getting a nap...

 

 The other Hayes fam

The last night there we took the kids to the riverwalk for some good eating and a little shopping for the mommas. Note: The Riverwalk mall is really really sad. With as much tourists they get youw ould think a lot of good stores would move in.

Kids passed out on the way home so we got some adult conversation time :)

 

Easter 2013

I never got to blog about Easter but we spent the whole day reflecting on the wonderful sacrifice that was made for all of us. We even got to tell the story to Parker in a way that she would understand. She loves retelling the story now!

 Little man Easter morning

 

Sweet babies! Parker's favorite pose involves that hand sticking out like a teapot now :)

Fun Easter egg hunt at a local park with cousins!

Cousins but fight like sisters!