Baby Boy

I haven't blogged about our little boy yet. He is due at the end of August. I'm 23 weeks and feeling him kick quite a bit. Everything looked healthy at the 20 week ultrasound! It has been fun to see the kids talk about him and get SO excited about him coming. They talk about all of the things they want to help with and teach him. The name suggestions have been pretty interesting.. usually similar names to the toys they own or characters on the shows they watch. Ben and I are still deliberating on the name. We have a few things in his room now, like his bedding and car seat that we bought from our neighbor. Such cute stuff. Worry will be my companion till the end, but I'm enjoying every kick. Can't wait to meet our little man!

Katelyn

Katelyn is 3. That pretty much sums it up. She is incredibly cute, loves the word no, and thinks that she is the boss. She is my little helper most of the time and is so good. But she also likes to have her opinion on everything. I love her laugh and her love of dresses.

She has so many faces for me when I get the camera out.

Katelyn always has a bag. And probably 3 of them. Some of the messiest times at our house are because of all of the little bags of stuff the Katelyn has collected, dumped, spread out, and then some. We are working on minimizing the bags of stuff. I finally put my foot down on the pantry items. I was having a hard time finding all of my ingredients for dinner. But now, she makes sure she is right by me on a chair any time I am cooking.

Mini me - minus the curls. I remember thinking my mom was so funny when she talked on the phone. I love that she puts her apron on when I have mine on.

Katelyn has been pretty jealous of all of the attention Troy and Liam get at the piano. I will find her at the piano sometimes, but every now and then I'll let her play the harp if I'm right there. She loves to talk/sing songs. She talks about things while kind of singing. It's adorable.

Liam

Liam is so stinking cute at this age. He made a lunch for himself. It included the drink, croutons, and fruit snacks (which he already ate.) I was working on something else for way too long, and just let him bring it. Better lunch tomorrow..

This picture reminds us a lot of Ben as a little boy. 

Acting out the "Ants Go Marching" song at preschool.

Liam is a willing boy. He will try things when I ask him to. He hopped on the bike with little hesitation and learned very quickly.

Liam is also starting swim team. He is in the younger group, so they get lots of help this first week. He loved it yesterday and I'm excited for him to become a strong swimmer!

Troy

Troy is excited to finish first grade. He has loved his teacher. She is our neighbor and I teach her daughter piano. He struggles with always following directions, but has tried hard this last week to be obedient. He has been very proud of himself. I'm grateful that he will keep trying. 

Troy had to have his two bottom teeth pulled. He wanted to take a picture. It looks a little creepy. His adult teeth had already broken through behind them. It was quite the ordeal. He acted really funny from the medicine for a few hours. Sweet guy. The tooth fairy gave him 5 dollars. I may end up regretting that, but I felt so bad for him. He got a mixel with it.

Troy does quite a few art projects at school. These are some of them. He absolutely loves art projects.

Troy and Liam both learned how to ride bikes. Thanks to my neighbor who helped me take off their pedals. I was convinced that's how they needed to learn because I had watched an REI video about it.  I had been trying to take them off for a couple of months. I got one off, but we could not get the other off. Come to find out, we were turning the wrong way. Win. Ken Torbit is so handy and has every tool imaginable. He got them off and in two days they figured it out. It took quite a bit of convincing for Troy to try it. But with the pedals off, he was willing to at least try that part.

The next big thing is swim team. It started yesterday. Troy had to stop half way through because he swallowed a bunch of water. BUT he is willing to try again today. I have learned that Troy has a hard time with things at first, but catches up an excels. I sure hope that this is the pattern again..

Charlotte

I have been busy with my music, primary presidency, and mostly being a mom to our kids. A role that I don't take lightly. I fail in so many ways, but I do keep trying and look for ways to teach the most essential principles of the gospel, good morals, and love. Ben and I both worry a lot about what our kids are really soaking in. I have the most time with them, so I feel a lot of that responsibility. I'm grateful for their patience with me.

I recently played the harp at the cocktail hour of the Noyes Fine Arts Foundation Gala. I know one of the people over it from stake music things. I should have gotten a picture with the violinist. She was amazing and we had a great time playing together. Coincidentally, it was at the same location as the wedding I played at in January. 

Last week I had my spring recital, movie themed. All of the students got to play a song from a famous movie. I had a hard time choosing one easy enough for Liam, so we stuck with Twinkle Twinkle.

I was so proud of all of the students. They worked hard on their pieces. It's hard to perform songs that people know the tune to. I closed the night playing the theme from Pirates of the Caribbean.

I'm over the baptisms in our ward, so I get to coordinate and attend those. I have learned a lot from the spirit that is at those meetings.
Preschool is ending this month and Liam has absolutely loved it. I feel like this group has actually been the calmest that I've had, so it's been great ;)
I finished up my last tennis lesson in March, now that I'm getting bigger. I hope to get back into it after.

Ben

 Ben has been working hard. He loves his job as a civil engineer. He thrives in land development. I love hearing about all of his projects and what he is working on.

Ben is a busy man and doesn't get to sit much lately. But when he is, he is usually surrounded with all three children. Scripture time is always a challenge with these high energy bodies, but they also like to be close to dad. 

The kids beg Ben to either play on the tramp or play the Wii with them. Especially since I really don't like jumping as my belly gets bigger.

Ben leads our family nights and has been teaching the kids how to conduct. It's adorable. We miss Uncle Brayden and wrote him a letter a couple of weeks ago.

These were the kids questions completely on their own. Ben helped Katelyn write hers of course.

Ben is still over the teachers. He loves working with them.
Ben has had a goal to workout everyday, so he has been doing a lot of sit ups and push ups at night.
He finished our garage floor. He would be quick to chime in here and say that we did it together, but I only helped with the flakes. Usually I am all over this kind of thing, but I was pretty tired from activities that week and being in the first trimester. He worked on this late at night, for several nights, after doing a bunch of service with the young men that week (Eagle project.)

I'm grateful for all of his help when he is home and his work on the random projects in the house, like the random lighting issues, taking all of our old stuff to DI and the dump, and deep cleaning. I think one of Ben's top qualities is being a self motivated hard worker.

Houston Storm

So.. We need to document this ginormous storm. Luckily, our home was completely ok, but there was a lot of damage to so many in Houston and the surrounding areas. School ended up being cancelled for a week. Our neighbor's car was totaled because they tried to get through water that ended up being a lot deeper than they thought. Something that happened to a lot of people who have lived here for a long time. This storm was a lot worse than any of our neighbor's had seen in two decades, at least in our area. Ben tried to get to work three different ways, got a little too anxious and almost hurt the car but decided to turn around. Many lost power, and nearby neighborhoods had water covering their mailboxes. There was a lot of work to be done.

The storm started Sunday night, shortly after we had dinner with the Bick's. They have a new baby girl, and the kids were so jealous and asked if they could bring her home. Haha. So glad we know this wonderful family. I especially enjoy my talks with Roseanne, she is awesome.

Anyway, back to the storm.

At least the Temple got a once in a lifetime picture! That water is in the street that leads to the temple. The temple was fine because it was built up so high, but everything around it was flooded.

Last Sunday, the Bishop extended a call to all of the able adults to have an early sacrament meeting at 8:30 and then head out for several hours of clean up. They had to get everything out of the houses that had been flooded, including drywall and insulation up to your waist. Appliances, furniture, carpet, etc. I'm so grateful for the ability to organize service quickly in the church. Ben came home exhausted and well used. I was at the church helping with primary. It was a bit crazy since a lot of leaders were gone helping, but we made it!

Outdoors

We went camping with the Howard's to Krause Springs. It ended up being an amazing trip. We had a rocky start with Katelyn pooping outside, and then after trying to avoid it for a few minutes while we figured out how to move it, she stepped in it. Amazingly enough. We got it all cleaned up and ended up moving camp sites anyway. The water was absolutely freezing, but we tried our best to enjoy it. The men even did the rope swing a couple of times. But the best part was the beautiful scenery and having a great time with friends. 

I stole this picture from Hilary's FB page. ;)

Troy was very excited to see his first blue bonnets. He's been learning about them in school and even did an art project on them. He knows more about Texas than we do.

A couple weeks later we decided to go to a park that is near us and feed the ducks. This is what happened when I asked them to smile while I took a picture..

So, right during this time is when Katelyn started limping. There was not a specific event, I noticed on the way to my 20 week doctor's appt. It didn't go away, so we took her to the doctor. Then we went and got x-rays because they couldn't be done at the doctor's office... (I might change offices over that) to find that they couldn't see anything. She was still limping 2 weeks later, so we took her to an orthopedic pediatric doctor. He gave us a few explanations that it could be, but it would most likely heal on it's own. She is slowly getting better. Hopefully she will be back to normal soon.

Liam has been doing a great job during our "preschool" time in the afternoons while Katelyn naps. We are on lesson 65 of Learning to Read in 100 Lessons. He loves the BOB books, and thinks the Kindergarten workbook is fun.

Easter and General Conference

Easter was full of candy, bonding with the ward, and focusing on the Savior. We had great family nights and Sunday lessons about why Easter is so special. I'm incredibly grateful that the Savior was resurrected. And because He lives, we will be with our families again. That means a lot to me. Words can't even describe. 

Easter morning was busy with getting to church on time at 9 a.m. We had our Easter baskets after church and I didn't snap a pic before the kids changed. Katelyn stayed in her dress, of course. Any excuse to wear a dress. Troy likes to act very serious for pictures lately, and Liam is doing his best to stay standing still. 

The ward campout is a tradition that our ward does on Good Friday. School is out, and we get together in the afternoon and then stay the night. We had so much fun playing ultimate frisbee, the kids played on the playground, and up late playing games. The Easter egg hunt was in the morning and we had plenty of eggs.

While we waited for the eggs to be hidden, Rachel S. pulled out a giant parachute from her car. I need to get me one of those!

Katelyn isn't used to having so much candy all at once, I think she felt like she had to hide just in case we would stop her.

Ring pops were the favorite candy this year.

Conference was wonderful. I tried out these raspberry cinnamon rolls from melskitchencafe. They were SO good.

We watched conference with the Howards for the afternoon session. I am SO grateful for these good friends! Our kids love their girls and we love hanging out with them.