Happy 5th Birthday Avery!

Whew! What a day! Ms. Avery was the boss today and what a day she planned!

We started out bright and early. Before church we hit up Buttercrisp for donuts. 

King cake donut for the birthday girl!

We went to church and afterwards, she wanted macaroni from Panera Bread. We drove thru there, then headed to The Kids and Family Arena to play!

These girls had a fabulous time. Alexa is old enough to get up and around all the jumpers. And she is FEARLESS, so she had a great time. 

Sweet, sweet sisters. Avery is so sweet with Alexa, no matter how onery Alexa is being. 

This little bit had a blast in the arcade area. 

Goofy girls. 

 

When we got home from the bounce house, I realized we hadn't sung "Happy Birthday" to the birthday girl. The only thing we had in the house was a teeny tiny piece of king cake. She was a good sport about it :)

After we hung out at the house for a bit, Avery was ready for her next adventure: Buffalo Wild Wings. That's her favorite resturant right now (don't ask me, but we love it too!) She ordered more macaroni and watched college gymnastics on one of the big TVs. 

This little girl was a trooper all day. 

Two pieces of my heart!

And apparently, when you're five, this is how you take pictures now. Lord help us! Happy birthday Avery girl. We love you so much and hope you had an awesome day!

Avery's 5th Birthday Party!

We had a great weekend! Friday and Saturday we had a church leadership retreat, so the girls got to hang out with Grandma and Jericho. Saturday evening we treated the girls to chick-fil-a and got ready for Avery's birthday party on Sunday.

 We were up and ready bright and early Sunday morning for church. Big sis wasn't very interested in pictures, but little sis was being a ham!

 She finally joined in, and got her hair pulled!

 After church we finished the last minute details, the headed to NorthShore Gymnastics to party!

Avery takes gymnastics here on Tuesdays and she absolutely loves it. They also have really great birthday parties so this was the second year in a row she had chosen to have her party here.

 

 

Everyone had a great time! The slide and zip line are always a big hit.

 We had a great turn out!

 Happy birthday sweet girl. We love you so much!

 I cannot believe my first little baby is 5 years old!

The Birthday princess!

 She's got everyone wrapped around her little finger!

Everyone had a great time. We ended the weekend with Alexa puking all night! Praying it was just something she ate. Everything went beautifully and Avery says she had a great time!

 

New Years Resolutions

My focus word for this year is INTENTIONAL. I want to be more intentional with my time, my kids, with the things I put into my mind and my body. 

This led me to the New Years resolutions of daily prayer and bible study, less time on FB and social media, being more "present" when I am with my kids, clean eating/gym time, and giving up alcohol until at least Easter. I know these are very lofty goals, but even if don't complete them 100%, I feel like it will propel me to grow. 

That being said, I've spent a lot of time planning, to help make these resolutions a reality. I have a bible study that I've started that guides me through the New Teatament in 30 days. I've got meal plans and grocery lists for the clean eating. I've tried to outline a plan for the week with cleaning/errand/workout times.  

My prayer is that through this I can declutter my mind, my time and body in order to grow closer with The Lord, Josh, the girls and my friends and family. Prayers are appreciated and I hope I can blog the ups and downs of this journey on here. 

We ended the "eat whatever you want because healthy eating starts soon" streak with Buffalo Wild Wings and Bops custard tonight. So good and so ready for what lies ahead. This girl obviously enjoyed it too!

Happy New Years 2015!!!

We welcomed the New Year in with lots of friends and family. We started New Year's Eve with gumbo and s'mores at the Russos. Once Alexa was ready for bed we headed to the Leverts and snuggled her into the pack n play. Thankfully she slept through the ruckus. 

My sweet New Years kiss. 

The kids had a blast, except Julia who was terrified of the fireworks. New Year's Day we brought Avery to ride horses in Folsom. She loved it! We also swung by John and Ginese Barrett's house for cabbage, black eye peas and corned beef.

We headed to Hahnville today when Josh got off of work. We got a sack of oysters and char grilled them. The girls had a great time playing in an afternoon shower. It's 80 degrees here in January! It's been a great start to the new year!

December 2014

We had a December to remember this year. And the majority of it revolved around the Christmas season. We started off with Santa pictures on December 7th.

I love the crying Santa pictures. Poor Alexa freaked out as soon as we sat her down. The following weekend I was put on call from work on a Friday night, so we used that opportunity to see a live Nativity at Mandeville First Baptist Church and a huge light display at our local park. I didn't take any pictures but it was a great night.

 Avery's school Christmas play was December 19th. This little bit was being a ham before we left.

 Avery got to be Gabriel the angel. She was so beautiful and proud of her important role in the play (momma was too!)

 God bless their teachers, its like herding cats to get them all in some semblance of orders.

 I had to work Christmas Eve, but Josh took the girls to Christmas Mass at his parents church. I thought they looked so beautiful before they left.

 those eyes!

 Avery was up and ready to go at 4am, but had to wait till I got home from work at 7:30 to open presents. They were ready to go!

 Santa ate some of his gingerbread house.

 Alexa got all kinds of new stuff to play with!

 They probably would have been just as happy with the candy in their stockings. I had to make them stop eating to open presents!

 Avery was so excited about her rainbow loom kit.

 Christmas aftermath...

Avery also got a trampoline and spent most of Christmas morning jumping on that while momma took a nap from working all night. That afternoon, we headed down to Josh's grandparents house to celebrate with his family.

We had 9 kiddos ranging in age from 11 years old to 2 months. The house was bursting with kids and noise but love and family as well! The men fried some amazing turkeys and we had lots of sides and sweets to go with it. It was a great day and we are so blessed to have such a close knit loving family.