A month worth of blogs in one…

Somehow life has been so busy that I just realized I have almost a month worth of blogs I’m behind on! So I’ll attempt to get caught up now…
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-3rd Annual pillows-

On Good Friday Daddy took off of work to go with our lil monsters and I to deliver 100+ homemade pillows, 40+ cards from Aub’s 4th grade class & Mad’s Kindergarten class, & bracelets from knot geek to our local Methodist Children’s hospital for our 3rd consecutive year. Once again our family and friends pulled together to help our children achieve their goal. The generosity and kindness of others never ceases to amaze me and I will forever be thankful to the folks that help teach our children such a priceless lesson in giving to others year after year.

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-Easter 2015!-

This was our first year with Budah grown and moved out. One of the things that mama’s don’t enjoy about their babies growing up.

We got a surprise visit from Gi-Gi! These little lovelies have come to truly love this kind soul. We were all happy that she was here in time to dye Easter eggs with us & even got to watch the girls wake up to see what Peter Cottontail brought for them and their Easter egg hunt before she had to say goodbye. Next time Paw-Paw needs to tag along:) All three girls helped with cooking dinner. Aub made the green bean casserole, Mad made deviled eggs, & Bitty made and decorated a cake. I simply love their help in the kitchen and enjoy teaching them family traditions and the secrets to family recipes.

Oh and how cute are these little peeps that Maw-Maw Shu Shu made for her grandbabies?

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-Mad’s first field trip!-

Traditionally each year daddy & I have tried to split it up so that both of us get to experience the joy of our lil monsters’ school days. Usually he does field trips & I do class parties. This year however has been a little tricky and things have been exciting and busy for daddy at work. So I get to do field trips this year! Thankfully he’s been able to do a few class parties with me this year too! So Bitty & I were able to tag along for her kindergarten zoo field trip! It was lots of fun. Though I’m still not sure how this little munchkin is old enough for field trips? I can hardly wait to see what the future holds for our five year old lil monster and so thankful I’m able to be a housewife and watch so much of it first hand.

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-Viva Fiesta!-

A first and a last, sigh. This year was Aub’s last school Fiesta float parade and Mad’s very first. It’s a school tradition I’ve come to love in Texas, mostly because it reminds me of my childhood too. We did Mardi Gras float parades and always looked forward to making one out of a shoe box. Each year we do a different theme. This year Aub’s was all about the color PURPLE! Her absolute favorite color. Mad’s was zoo themed since she had recently gone to the zoo. She has already decided next year should be a star wars float. Maw-Maw, Bitty, & I enjoyed watching all of the kiddos march through their school with so much pride over the floats they had made. And of course I got video for Daddy to watch two of his favorite little munchkins after work. Aub loved that we worked purple mardi Gras beads into her theme and Mad got so excited we started gluing every toy animal she could find including a dog and pig to her zoo themed float.

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-My hubster-

This has been quite the exciting month for my love. He was one of a few selected for a six month program at work that brings huge opportunities his way! I really couldn’t be prouder of my better half. He works so hard for our family all the while still managing to keep up with our small veteran owned business and never allowing any of it to get in the way of our family time. My little self proclaimed black sheep is one helluva husband and father!

And just when we think things couldn’t get more exciting for him we get the word that a song he submitted was selected to be a bonus track on the Rancid tribute album….RANCID!!! Are you kidding me? This is a huge deal and such an incredible honor for him. I swear this man of mine stayed on cloud nine for days and rightfully so! It’s one thing for me to have such a blessing to be able to have watched him share his musical talent with our four lil monsters over the years. Memories of him playing guitars with our son and singing with our girls are cherished beyond words. Or the time he had a friend help him professionally record the Rascal Flatt song “Broken Road” for me for our anniversary. But this, this is a dream come true for him and I am beyond proud of him!

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-Letter to GG-

Aub’s class has daily journal topics. Her teacher gave them a topic to write a letter to someone they miss. Aub wrote to my Maw-Maw that passed away seven years before I had her. We’ve always talked about her to our lil monsters a lot because she was such a huge part of my life. Really anyone that knew her would understand why. Aub shared her journal with me and said I could share it here. It absolutely melted this mama’s heart. She’s got such a genuine little soul and I have no doubt my Maw-Maw is watching over our children. We have a tradition of releasing balloons to “send them to heaven” to GG after any party since we live so far from her resting place. It’s something that has been a very special tradition to our lil monsters.

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-Called to the office-

After having our lil Mad home sick for a week it of course made me nervous when I got a call from the school. Even more so when I realized it wasn’t about Mad at all, in fact it was a call from the assistant principal about Aub. Aub?

It turns out my instinct was right. There was no way I was getting a call from a principal because our daughter had done something wrong, quite the opposite! Aub’s teacher was given the task to select ONE student for a leadership award…and she picked our little girl! I of course would love to share the picture of her here happily holding her certificate and ribbon, with her big brown eyes full of pride and the sweetest smile ever. But we opt to never post things that include their schools name for safety reasons and I opt to not share pictures of our children on my blog for personal reasons. I will however say it was a very precious moment. And hearing the principal gushing over her actually made me cry. You see this little gal was so stressed last week over the STARR test, and this was exactly what she needed to boost her back up!

These are the things that were checked off on her certificate:
•Be proactive
•Begin with the end in mind
•First things first
•Think win-win
•Caring
•Trustworthy
•Respect
•Responsibility

And this is what her teacher wrote about her:
“Aub is always on task, prepared and an active listener. She truly takes school seriously and feels it is important. I am so lucky to have her in my class!”

We are so proud of her. She truly has such a huge heart and can easily be her worst critic. This was a special reminder of her daily hard work and well deserved. To surprise her after school Maw-Maw took the girls for ice cream. And after getting her dance pictures taken Daddy & I took her out for a special dinner just the three of us. Keep up the good work sugar plum, there is absolutely nothing you can’t do!