William Patton's baby shower

Ella's 6th birthday

Ella is such a fun girl and loves a good dance party. She's been requesting a dance party at the house for her birthday for some time now. She had such a sweet group of girls over and they danced the night away. It was a really fun time!

Our annual family birthday party picture by the master window:

We had a local company put up the cutest yard signs as a surprise to the girls:

Since taking Ella to New York she has been asking me when I can take her somewhere to dance so that people will give her money, like she saw the street performers doing. So for her birthday she requested no gifts from her family and before the party started she danced for money 😬 for the family. She made $206! Does this make us questionable parents. 

Some of her fun friends dancing together under the disco ball:

She picks a spider cookie cake and monster cupcakes:

On her actual birthday she got to open a few gifts from us. She got a big girl bible, a kid sewing machine and some books. Then we headed to the toy store after school to pick a couple of things with her money and gift card. She got a pony and a bath bomb. We then took her to see the My Little Pony movie and to dinner at Shoguns. It was a fun day celebrating an amazing little girl. 

Kindergarten & 2nd grade

Y'all we are over a month into kindergarten and 2nd grade! Time is flying! I know I'm late but I cannot skip documenting these first days of school.

Meet the teacher was on a Friday night. It was the week prior to the 1st day, which was on a Wednesday. Reese got Mrs. Luokota. This is her 1st year to teach and so far she seems to be a perfect match for Reese. Ella got Mrs. Hooe. She has been teaching for a few years now and it is her 2nd year at Darr. Prior she taught at a school down the street where we have lots of friends. We have only heard amazing things from our friends at her previous school and friends that had her at our school last year. So far Ella is loving her! After meet the teacher we let the kindergartner pick where we ate dinner and she picked Golden Corral, wha-wha-wha. They loved every minute of picking whatever they wanted to put on their plates and they spent about an hour at the chocolate fountain.

These are some photos of the 1st day of school. I may be biased but I think they are the cutest little girls on earth. Emmie got them these adorable 1st day outfits.

Now that we are over a month in I can say with a bit more confidence that it is going to be a good year. We prayed hard for good teachers and I think we got just that. 1st grade was somewhat hard for R and she seems to be a little more confident in 2nd grade. I'm hoping we can keep the momentum up and stay ahead. These girls are such blessings and I love them with all my heart!

It's a BOY!!

Last night my sweet friend put together a small gender reveal get together for us. The idea was that Chelsea & Tyler, the Whatley's & Brown's would come over...we would get our parents and Carrie on FaceTime and do something small to find out if it was a boy or a girl. Since we did a ballooon release and the dogs were out back we did it in the front yard and lots of neighbors joined in the fun too. This was so special and so much fun and I absolutely cannot believe we are having a BOY! He is so loved and this is experience is going to be so new and fun. 

Baby #3

About 6 months ago I jotted down these notes after a conversation with Neal. Until this conversation we were both pretty sure that we were done at 2 children. But it seems that not of us had been having doubts.

6 months ago:

Tonight was the 1st night that we discussed the possibility of 3 children. Until tonight we were perfectly happy with 2 girls. But tonight I asked your father what he thought about another kid, and his response was "well we have 2 amazing care takers asleep in there". I knew then that he was in for trying for another child 😭😁. That makes me so emotional and so amazingly ecstatic all at the same time!

I am currently 11.5 weeks pregnant! I couldn't be more excited. We told Reese and Ella that we were pregnant on Father's Day weekend. The excitement level in those 2 is more fun than I even imagined. They are going to be the absolute best big sisters! On Thursday I have a doctors appointment that will confirm that it is only one baby (we are always anxious about the possibility of multiples since we have so much of it in our family). More to come on all of this!!

These are the announcements that he girls made for Neal's family.

These are the journal entries I wrote to tell the girls. 

Spring Break 2017

 Each year around Spring Break Neal has to travel to New York for market. This year was no different and he had to leave mid week during the week of Spring Break. My mom's Spring Break was the week before ours so we decided to start Spring Break early and took the girls out of school the Thursday and Friday prior. This was we got some time with Neal and my mom.

We headed down to Houston with an overnight stop in Dallas. Can you see the personality oozing out of these 2 crazy girls?

 

Of course no road trip to Houston isn't complete without a stop at Bucee's!

This Houston trip was one of my favorites. The activities we did were just a lot of fun (Imax movie premier of Beauty and the Beast, 1st American Girl store trip and 1st American Girl doll purchase, birthday celebrations with Grizzy even though it wasn't really either of their birthday yet, lots of good time with family, the zoo and a trip to Aunt Mau's house that is always a highlight).

On our way home we decided to spend a few days in Dallas as just a family of 4. We went to the Aquarium, the Science center and Top Golf. This was really fun time for us. We often drive through and stay the night in Dallas but never really explore.

This is the mark of a fun trip!

When we got back home it was time for Neal to head to New York. The girls and I had some really sweet time together, just the 3 of us. We spend hours at lake Atalanta one day playing in the water, riding multiple miles around the trail while I ran and playing on the playground.

We experimented with tie dye for the first time and loved our results. Notice my socks.

We did a lot of lounging around.

And we took Mr. Pickles on an adventure one day. They felt bad for Barkley so we walked her around the block before taking Mr. Pickles to Crystal Bridges trail so that she felt included too.

None of it was too elaborate but it will be a Spring Break that we all remember as a really good time.