Rain

The rain. The constant rain. I'm pretty sure it has been a solid 2 weeks of rain everyday. So, I absolutely love the rain, I love how beautiful it makes everything, but... along with everything else, too much of a good thing is a bad thing. We have been under constant flood warnings, and flash flood warnings for the past week. There is just so much water! We have had to back wash our pool a couple  times, just so the water level would go down, along with homes and roads being flooded, It's just time for some sunshine. Also we have some house projects underway, and our contractor can't do anything with this rain... so really rain, let's maybe take a break. 

It hasn't slowed us down any, playing outside, and the kids have been loving the puddles and runoff on our street. Yes, I totally let my kids play in the street. A: I'm right there, and B: no one EVER drives on our road unless they are parking in front of a house, which is rare during the day. So don't worry, we're safe. 

One fantastic thing about the Texas rain, is that it's warm, so playing out in it is a total must. We have had some fun, playing in those puddles, and having sticks and leafs float on down to the main street. If I hadn't insisted the kids get into warm baths before dinner, than they would have stayed out there forever! They were loving it! 

She told me she needed a rest from the puddle jumping... in the puddle. 

She then decided she needed to take a nap. By the time we went inside, she was soaked from head to toe. She could have cared less. 

The clouds rolling through were so pretty! 

Owen LOVED throwing sticks in the water and watching them be washed away!

We had a pretty good view of the storm coming over. It really was so pretty! And everything is so green! 

June is tired of the rain too. She just wanted to go swimming so bad, and since its been day after day of rain, I decided what the heck, and let her go swim.

So even though we have taken full advantage of these rainy days, we are ready for sun and warmth. We are ready for the gloom to disappear and have some happy sun rays on our skin. Summer, get here soon!! 

Mother's Day

Let me first tell you that Mother's day is kind of my favorite. Not kind of, it is my favorite. I love the reason behind it, I love that it really involves me not having to plan anything, and though I truly feel loved every single day from my little family, I get that little extra sweetness from my kiddos and the love of my life. You see, every holiday that most people have to themselves (like their birthday) involves them to sit back and enjoy the ride, well with my birthday so close to Christmas I feel, I still am in constant planning mode during that time and I'm still buying gifts for everyone and all that. So Mother's day is truly a day of just relaxation. Oh and for the record, Dan makes my birthdays pretty special. He's a good egg. 

Ok, so Mother's day. It was a wonderful relaxing day! It was first fantastic because we thought Dan was leaving that day for a business trip, but it turns out he didn't leave until Monday! It was a nice surprise!

 I woke up around 7am to what sounded like Tornado sirens going off. The kids hadn't woken up yet, and Dan was still asleep also. So I just laid there, trying to really wake myself up and thinking "Are those sirens real?" I was a bit confused. I woke Dan up, thinking that maybe we should check out what the news was saying about these storms. So we went out on the couch and turned on the news and the rain was POURING down. We couldn't even see out our back door, it was raining so hard. We sat and watched the weather for a bit, the weather lady said the sirens were going off, due to the wind, so we didn't really feel it necessary to wake up the kids and get into our "tornado shelter". It was a pretty heavy duty storm, but we were safe inside, and it was actually fantastic to cuddle up with Dan, kids still asleep, and just watch the news and the storm. It was a good Mother's day wakeup. 

Dan is asleep on my lap. One of his favorite things is when I scratch and pull the gel out of his hair. Its one of my favorites too. 

It continued to rain all day. It was dark outside, so it meant the kids slept in! It was so nice!! 

Once the kids woke up, Dan and June made me my favorite breakfast. French Toast with powder sugar. And roses from our yard. The rain had destroyed most of them, but we were lucky to have two still in bloom. 

We enjoyed out morning, and then got ready for church. I of course had to get a picture with my two little ones that actually made me a mother. Though they refused to look at the camera because they were too intrigued with being in my arms at the same time. 

June sang in Sacrament with the Primary children for the first time. She didn't even hesitate going up there, and she made her way to the front. She is barley tall enough to even see over the stand, but she was SO beyond cute standing up there. She kept waving and giving us thumbs up! They sang "I Often Go Walking" and my heart just about came out of my chest. I had to wipe away tears of pure love. I just could not help but feel so much love being a mother. It was a perfect little performance for her first time. After she ran back to our bench and said "I cannot wait to do that again!" She was so excited!

The rest of church was good, I did my usual duties running around like crazy, and I sat in with Owen during Nursery for the second hour and Dan took the third hour. He is having such a hard time staying awake during this time frame, so he's extra cranky. We have a few plans up our sleeves, so we are hoping that will help in the weeks to come. 

After Church, we got home, Owen went to bed and Dan took over from there. Him and June would not let me help at all with dinner. I got in some comfy clothes and watched the rest of the baseball game. June and Dan were adorable making me dinner. They were having the funniest conversations and June would come check on me every once in a while, and to make sure that I DID NOT go into the kitchen. She took this Mother's Day stuff seriously! 

At one point, she came and laid by me, and told Dan that she just wanted to snuggle with Mommy for a bit. And snuggle we did. It wouldn't be a June and Mommy snuggle without some selfies. 

After dinner, and Dan did the dishes (which was super awesome! I mean he helps with the dishes all the time, but he told me to go sit and enjoy while he cleaned up the entire kitchen!) and I went and hung out with June. 

Once Owen woke up, the rain had taken a break, so we decided to get out and enjoy some fresh air. We planned to just walk our usual Sunday loop, so we weren't really planning on puddle jumping. My mistake! We made it about 10 feed from the house, and we spent the rest of the afternoon jumping in puddles! 

The weather was warm and perfect for puddles. 

June was loving it! She was soaked by the time we went home, but it took us all we had to get her to come inside!

Owen had fun walking back and forth in the water. He loved splashing it with his hands and following June around. He goes anywhere his sister is. He loves June. 

We played to our hearts content and of course Owen woke up with a cold this morning. I'm pretty sure this kid has no immune system. I feel its the male pattern in this house hold. June rarely gets sick, and when she does, she recovers quickly. I too rarely get sick... but Dan and Owen, someone sneezes and they get a cold. 

We came inside, and Dan got both kids bathed and ready for bed. He really let me relax. So nice! After we gave the kids a bedtime snack, I opened Mother's day presents. Dan spoiled me. He got me some goodies from William and Sonoma and that was super awesome, but the real fun surprise was a bag full of my favorite snacks and drinks along with my very own blanket that he made!!

A while ago, I made a tied blanket for June. She saw the "Frozen" fabric one day while we were at Hobby Lobby, so I made her a blanket it from it. She started calling it her "ComfyCozy" and the name stuck. So she always asks for her ComfyCozy! 

For Easter I had made Dan his very own "ComfyCozy" and June loved how they were twins! 

Some how, which I don't even know where he found the time, Dan made me my very own comfy cozy. Oh man folks, I married right. It was such a fun surprise and I love having my very own ComfyCozy. It's even skulls to match Dans, and minkee on the back. I love it. We are such a blanket family, so it's so fun to each have our own comfy cozies!! 

Owen would have one, but he goes off on a rampage if he's covered with a blanket, so for now it's just us three with our comfy cozies. 

We got the kids to bed and enjoyed our last night together for a week. Dan's travels always make me sad, and I miss him terribly. I feel like such a high school girl, but I totally sprayed some of his cologne on my blanket so it smelled like him. 

So Mother's day was wonderful. I am beyond words grateful to be a mother and try my hardest to not take it for granted. Mother's day was hard those years of not getting pregnant, so I try to remember how it felt and hug my babies a little tighter and give thanks that they are in my life. Being a mother suits me. I actually enjoy it, even the bad days, because the bad days make me realize how many good days I  have being a mother. I just really like being a mom and I know it's super cliche to say "I wouldn't trade it for anything" but I really wouldn't trade it for anything.

A shout out to my mom as well... who is just the best and I love so much. Thanks for teaching me how to love life, and how to live it to the fullest.  Love you mom. 

Camping... and All its Glory

So it seems that us and camping just do not mix well. It always seems to be a bit of a struggle for us... Let's start from the beginning.

We actually had plans to camp the previous weekend, but the weather was down right horrible with Tornado Warnings all over the place, so instead we ended up getting a babysitter for the night and having dinner with friends (which was pretty awesome!)

So after telling little June bug that she would have to wait yet another week to go camping was not a proud moment, but things happen and she understood pretty well. 

Friday, I had every packed and ready to go, except for the fire wood which we figured we would just pick up on our way out of town. We planned to leave by 1pm and pretty much be up to the camp site by 2pm, set up and have the afternoon to play. 

No. that plan did not happen.

It ended up taking us an hour just to find firewood. Turns out there is a shortage of wood because of all the snow/ice storms that happened a few months ago. Dan eventually found some! 

Then we drove up to our campsite and turns out that every campsite on Lake Lewisville was full. It really was our fault for not reserving a spot, and plus it was the first nice weekend of the season, so we can't be too mad at that, but we were pretty frustrated. We had been in the car for 2 hours trying to find a camp site that was open, and poor little June bug just kept saying "Will we ever go camping?!" The whole thing was dumb. 

Dan, once again saves the day, and found a camping ground actually relatively close to where we live, so we were happy about that. We go in and find ourselves a spot, thats even close to the little beach to swim in. After another long hour we were happy to have found a place to settle. 

Our friends met us up there a little bit after we got there and we all set up camp. 

Then we finally got to play!! It was a hot day, so we spent a while playing and splashing in the lake!

The kids were loving the water and scooping up the sand 

Range just hung out under the table and tried to stay cool. He isn't the greatest camping dog, he actually just goes into survival mode, until he can get home and sleep in his bed. 

The lake we were at was beautiful!

Dan being a floating duck

We realized it was getting pretty late and decided to get the kids out of the water, and get ready for dinner. 

Little June and Hennessey 

We are "Comfortable" campers, which means we bring as much comfort from home as we can. Air mattresses included. We have a 10 man tent, which is nice to fit all of us including two air mattresses and a pack n' play in the tent. June was having a blast jumping on them. 

The sunset was really pretty! 

After dinner we got all jammed up, had s'mores and sat around the fire. 

We all got the kids down to bed finally about 10pm. We knew it was going to be late, but we were camping and the girls were having fun. 

The little one's eventually fell asleep and it gave us adults some time to sit around the fire and just talk without any interruption. 

Around 12:30am we decided to call it a night. Owen started to stir a little so we went in our tent to be with them. He officially woke up in full out screams and thats when the real party began. 

I got him out of his pack n' play and laid with him on our air-mattress for a while, which June was on also, because she fell asleep telling ghost stories to Dan. So all 4 of us were sleeping on this air mattress. 

Owen wasn't having it. We knew going into camping that if anything did happen with Owen, I would take him home and June and Dan would spend the night. Thats what we did. I took Owen out about 1am and headed out of the camp site to go home. Well turns out this awesome camp site LOCKS THE GATE!! No one could come in or out! At first I just stared at it confused, trying to see if I could get around, or what... It just didn't seem safe to have us locked in, but it was. I called Dan, and at first he really didn't believe me, purely because of miscommunication and the fact that it was really late. 

I went back to the camp site, Dan hopped in the car and I took him to the entrance. He got out, looked around to see if there was anything we could do. Nope. Completely locked in. 

Owen had fallen asleep at this point, so we thought we might be able to transfer him to the tent.  He woke up immediately after we parked, and started crying the moment we got into the tent. I rocked with him a bit, but he really just wanted his own bed. So we headed back out to see if we could get out again. 

Once we got to the gate, Dan got out again and we even tried to unlock the lock. I don't know why we thought we could get the code... we were really tired! So eventually around 2am Dan went and woke up the camp owners... The guy was not to pleased and got mad at Dan telling him there are park rules and it closes at 10! Dan told him our son was sick, so then the guy felt bad and told us this "secret" way out. It was so bogus. 

Dan then walked back to the campsite about a quarter of a mile from the entrance in pure blackness, and I headed home. I finally got Owen settled and got myself to bed around 3am. 

Dan and June spent the night. 

The next morning I woke up about 7am and let Owen sleep until he woke up, which was about 8am. We got dressed, went and grabbed some donuts and headed back to our campsite. 

When we got there, Dan told me that around 5am the air mattress was completely sunk to the middle and him and June just kept rolling onto each other. So Dan slowly rolled himself off the air mattress and luckily found an extra sleeping bag on the ground that he crawled into. Hahaha I just pictured it in my head, and thought, wow what a good dad to stick it out! 

The rest of the morning/afternoon was really fun. We packed up and let the girls play for a while. The Anderson's brought a kite and the girls were loving it! 

While we packed up the kiddos stayed content and played around and inside the tents. 

We loaded up and got home around 1pm. We were all pretty tired. I got the kids bathed and Owen down for a nap while Dan unloaded the car. June watched a movie, and Dan and I crashed pretty hard. We all slept until about 4:45. 

Later that night Dan went to  "Avengers" with some friends while I got to soak in a chick flick and popcorn. It was a good ending to a crazy night of camping. The kids also slept in the next morning which was an extra bonus. 

All in all June had a blast and she hasn't been able to stop talking about camping since we got home. It was a lot of work, with lots of frustration, but in the end we did have a good time, and I guess it's just another story to add to our camping experiences!