Rackets, Bats and More

Amelia continues to take tennis lessons every week and really enjoys it.

Oh to be as humble as a six year old: Amelia's coach said to her while they were warming up, "Wow, Amelia, you are doing awesome, you must have been practicing." To which Amelia responded, "No, I haven't practiced, I'm just that good."

Amelia and her coach will get into rallies and Amelia has to count how many times they can hit it back and forth, around 10 hits she starts to get the giggles and by 15 or 16 she can barely control herself with all the laughing. Her favorite is when one of her shots nails her coach, she thinks it's a riot.

Luke has started his t-ball season! Grandma Joan came for a visit last week and got to cheer on Luke for two games.

Go slugger!

Luke waiting to field a ball. Luke told me he likes football better. I think the waiting around in baseball bores him. Mommy would rather have him play baseball than football though, it seems he wouldn't be as clobbered as in football.

Amelia's school had their annual field day this week too. Amelia hippity hopping to the finish line!

Practicing her hula hoop skills.

Gotta love an old favorite, sack races. Amelia's highlight of the day was the girls in her class beating the boys in her class in the tug of war. Girls rule!

Spring has Sprung!

It has been a cold winter by southern standards, but I think spring has finally sprung. Thank goodness. The kids have been spending most afternoons outside, so that is always a good sign. We finally filled Addison's water table with water and they all had fun splashing around in it.

Addison Kate sporting one of her 12 swimsuits.

Still healing from her first "shiner."

Luke and Amelia have recently begun to climb, hang, and jump from our trees. I am waiting for the thud, scream and then the first cast of our family.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Amelia was a very cute leprechaun for St. Patricks Day.

Amelia loves being a big sister and she is so responsible. I am starting to think maybe by seven she can be my official babysitter? What, too young?

Happy St. Patrick's Day! We all dressed in green but that was all the celebration at our house this year. I was so disappointed in myself, especially with my Irish heritage. So many of my friends did such fun things for their kids, green water in the toilet, green eggs for breakfast, etc. Every year I vow to myself I will be a good mommy on St. Patrick's Day and every year I forget. Well, this year I did remember but it was when I sat straight up in bed at 3 am and was like, oh crud, I forgot the leprechaun stuff again. Stephen probably would have been less than thrilled if I dragged him out of bed to dye the toilet water green. Oh well, there is always next year. At least Amelia and Luke both celebrated at school with lots of green food and St. Paddy's day fun.

Fun on the swings x 3.

Look at Addison's swing face. This is what she does whenever she is on the swing, she closes her eyes and wrinkles up her nose. But she loves the swing, when we are outside she waddles over to it and points at it and yells at me until I put her in it. But then, this face every time. So, then I try to take her out and she screams and practically gouges my eyes out. Whatever, maybe she gets motion sick? Maybe she is just odd.

My handsome Luke. Luke had school pictures at school and was very proud of his dapper look.

Big Girl

Look at this big girl flying down the slide! When did it happen, when did we go from having a baby to a babbling, yelling, laughing, banging, running toddler?

Whee!!!!

Look at those chompers on that girl :) Addison makes herself known wherever she is. She will laugh and tickle and tease and then yell right in your face, as loud as her little lungs allow, if she changes her mind about something. She adores reading books and will sit in any lap and have some sorry sucker read to her all day if anyone allows her to. She carries these huge books around, "Buk? Buk? Buk?" until someone sits down and then she scoots her little behind into your lap. She is learning to speak a lot more words now, everyday a few more crop up. She can say flower, balloon, eagle, cheese, bath, night night, and so many more. What is really fun is quizzing her from her books. She can point out everything in her books, "Addison, where are the fish, puppies, tricycle, tree, strawberries, etc. It always fascinates me to realize how much knowledge little baby brains can hold.

I love this picture, she just looks like such a little rascal.

Aloha!

No, we don't have any travel plans to Hawaii...yet. But we did have a fun Spring Fling Luau at our church this weekend. Everyone got all decked out in their Luau gear, it was pretty cute. Amelia's "grass" skirt I made out of Mardi Gras beads because it is something we always have plenty of around this house. She loved the way it made noise when she walked but seriously, it must have weighed like five pounds. She didn't complain a bit, she loved it!

Hula, hula, hula.

"Look at me, I'm so cute!" Stephen made Addison her hula skirt out of leftover leis.

Considering it was a church function I left my coconut bra and grass skirt at home.

Church dinner was delicious, grilled ribs, grilled pineapple and Hawaiian chicken and fruit kabobs, yummy! Plenty of fun games were planned too. One of the games was to decorate a pineapple. Luke and I were on the same team and thought our Polly the Pineapple with her coconut bikini and grass skirt was a sure bet to win big. We were robbed.

Amelia enjoyed the hula hoop contest, she was the first one to jump up and volunteer.

Addison enjoyed deciding which chocolate cookie she was going to eat first.

Two Deployments down, one to go...

Hooray, Daddy's home from Haiti! Just shy of 6 weeks of being deployed, Stephen came home! It was a great moment. The children were all asleep but he snuck in their rooms for kisses and hugs and we thought they all slept through it. But just as he was pulling away from Luke, Luke grabbed Stephen's hands and rubbed them up and down his little cheeks. It was so sweet, my tears just started flowing! We took a "fun day with Daddy" off of school day the next day. Here we are at the children's museum which Addison is old enough to enjoy now too. Then we enjoyed a lunch date together. We are all so thankful he is home but are proud of the work he did in Haiti. It was pretty nice because he got a lot of recognition this deployment for his efforts. He was interviewed on the local news and he made the front page in the paper so the children got to hear lots of, "We saw your daddy on the news, and in the paper" which helped them to realize what important work he was doing while he was away from them.
Daddy and Addison hard at play with the train table.
Luke making his own "cook show." Luke LOVES to watch the cooking channel, The Barefoot Contessa is his favorite cook and he watches so intently.
Amelia was the weather girl for the TV station, look at that pose. Oh boy, we are in trouble.
And in the meantime...Addison turned 13 months old! Ahhh, how did that happen. Believe it or not, this was the best shot I could get of her. She is off and running now and has no desire to stop to get her picture taken.

Haiti Missions

Stephen has been deployed for the Haiti humanitarian mission now for a little over 5 weeks. It seems like about 5 months but we are all hanging in there and proud of the work Daddy is doing. The picture above is Stephen on the C130 on the way to Haiti with the "Flat Stanley" Amelia made at school. Flat Stanley is a book series where Stanley can travel around the world in an envelope because he is flat. Amelia's school project was to send her Flat Stanley somewhere in a different state and have Flat Stanley come back with a report of that area. So Amelia definitely will have the coolest Flat Stanley project in school because he made it all the way to Haiti, Tampa, Walter Reed Hospital and lots of other places. We even have pictures of some Haitian children playing with Stanley. Pretty cool.
This picture melts my heart every time I look at it. It reminds me of what a special man I married.

Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow??

That's right, snow in Mississippi; it almost never happens. But it did, kind of. Here are the kids, "playing in the snow." Amelia had just gotten off the bus and the rain turned to kind of sleet/snow for a little while. The kids actually got a snow day the next day because the forecast said the coast might get 1-3 inches which is unheard of. We had no accumulation at all, mostly rain but it would have been kind of cool had it stuck.
The next morning on the snow day, it actually turned to real snowflakes we could catch so I sent them out to play again. I love Luke's face.
Amelia dancing in the snowflakes.
Happy Valentine's Day with Addison Kate. Addison and I had a lovely Valentine's Day just for two. Amelia and Luke had gone to spend the weekend at Grandma and Grandpa's Florida house and Stephen was still deployed. Addison and I shared a yummy dinner, a whirlpool bath for two and lots of kisses. I wish we could have all been together but at least I had my littlest Valentine with me.

Throw Me Somethin' Mister and Who Dat!

Okay the pictures got a little out of order but... this is our Star Football player! Luke is playing flag football and he is on The Saints and his number is 9! He is very excited to have Drew Brees jersey and he has been really enjoying football, a little too much sometimes. It is supposed to be flag football but he and his little friends get a little carried away sometimes and it turns into full out tackle. Football seems to be more up Luke's alley than Aikido, time will tell I guess. Luke has some fantastic coaches and they are really supportive and make sure everyone gets a turn to run the ball. It is so cute to watch them out there. Last week Lukey scored three touchdowns, I have never seen a bigger smile on a kids' face. His coaches told him his daddy would be so proud and that he was the MVP of the game! Luke told everyone "I am the MBP!" Amelia said, "What's that?" Luke shrugged and said, "I don't know."

It's party time down in the south these days, between Mardi Gras and the Saints, everyone has been in good spirits. This is our third Ocean Springs Mardi Gras parade and it was freezing our first year, warm and beautiful our second year and now freezing again our third year! You never know what you'll get in January around here. The kids had a great time tailgating before the parade, drinking hot cocoa and eating lots of yummy food and of course came home with bags and bags of beads now that they have perfected shouting, "Throw me somethin' mister!"
Addison's second Mardi Gras parade, what a trooper! Although this year she and I just came to tailgate and party and then went home for a nap before the parade. I thought having 100's of beads thrown at her might freak her out a bit.
Mardi Gras loot. This is what I allowed in the house at least, all the candy, stuffed animals, frisbees, cups, bibles, etc. I strongly advised were good things to keep in the garage :)
That's Luke with the ball running for a touchdown with the other team trailing behind! Go Luke! It's funny to hear my little guy with his team yelling, "Who Dat!"

Superbowl Party! Geaux Saints!!!!
WHO DAT!!!!!!!!!!! It was fun to watch my children getting into it, they have turned into big Saints fans while living down here, it's hard not to. Who didn't want the Saints to win? I know I was cheering on the black and gold, especially when they were playing the Vikings in the playoff, ha ha Favre. Anyway, Luke told me, "Mom, I know Dad's a Bears Fan and you are a Packers Fan but the Saints are our family team." I thought that was a good way to handle it.
Little Saints fan running for a touchdown. We miss Daddy a lot, he has been gone about 2 1/2 weeks and has been on a lot of missions to Haiti. We wished we could have watched the game with you honey, we love you and miss you so much.