Summer 2014 Bucket List-August Fun!

While we haven't technically completed everything on our list, we sure have enjoyed one last summer month of sweet memories with Maddie Grace, Makenzie & Ashton Kate. And who is to say that we can't extend it into September...it's still plenty warm enough most days to still be considered "summer." This summer really did fly by and it's hard to believe how quickly our little girls are growing up. Kendall and I talk regularly at night once we finally plop down on the couch and have all the littles asleep about how we know we truly will miss this stage..even on our hardest of nights we know that it's true. So for the sake of chronicling our lives as a family of five with all pink, here are August's highlights:

#21: Ice Cream After Dinner!

#22: Try Out Burger Fi in Auburn

#23: Starbucks Date with Mommy

#24: Visit Books a Million to Read & Play

#25: Paint on Easel

#26: Another Zoo Trip with Friends from First Pres

#27: Visit a Local Farmer's Market

#28: Play School...Again =)

#29: Play in Bath Tub with Little Sis

#30: Capture the Sweetness of Family Worship Time!

#31: Celebrate Friends' Birthdays at Monkey Park

#32: Imaginative Play with Mommy-Today's Adventure: Train Ride to NYC =)

#33: Play in Sandbox

#34:Make Root Beer Floats with Sprite & Sprinkles!

#35: Make Cookies with Mommy

#36:Visit Great G-Dad with Abbie & Evie

#37: Learn How to Use Scissors

#38: Park Play Dates with Church Friends

#39: Build Sand Castles/Jump Waves at the Beach

#40: Imaginative Play: Being Pregnant (they play this almost every day!)

So incredibly thankful for each day God grants me the opportunity to be these little girls mommy! What an incredible task to wake up each day and attempt to model the love of Christ to them in tangible ways throughout the day. The house may be a wreck and dinner might not be on the table, but one thing is for sure... these girls know they are loved. I love spending my days pouring into them and by God's grace, striving to teach them about Jesus in the ordinary things that occur throughout our days. Intentionally planning these fun things has spiced up our days and given us joy. And teaching them to find joy in the little things has helped I pray to cultivate thankful hearts for every good gift!

Ashton Kate's 10 Month Update

 

 
10 MONTH STATS:

Weight: around 21 lbs

Clothes: mostly 9 months, some 12 month

Diapers: Size 3

Teeth: NONE!

Ashton Kate Currie,

Oh sweet girl, how can we even begin to put into words how much we love you and adore you! You are simply adorable and melt our hearts on a daily basis! (more like hourly!) With each passing day, our love for you continues to grow deeper and deeper and truly it’s hard to fathom that the Lord loves you even more than that. This month has been SUCH an incredible joy to be your parents! We have loved watching you become super independent and seeing the world through your little blue eyes. You LOVE crawling everywhere and being where the action is! Your sisters adore you and want you to do everything with them which works out well since you are starting to invade their territory and their toys. =) You have THE BEST personality and you wave to everyone and love to wave to say hello and bye bye! You’ll even wave at every car that drives by-pretty precious! With that being said, you are into EVERYTHING! We had forgotten what life was like with a little one who needs the house baby-proofed! =) You are opening drawers, standing and pulling up on everything, unloading shelves of books, pulling out magazines, eating lint, fuzz, grass, leaves, rocks from the fireplace-you name it and it has probably entered your mouth! You love to be on the go and you can’t stand to be restrained in a saucer or in our arms these days! If you are awake, you want to be moving! You love exploring any and every little nook and cranny so needless to say your world has expanded times a million now that you are a professional crawler! And you have gotten quite fast lately! We can officially not let you out of our sight anymore or you’re gone! But we praise God for every milestone and every new skill He graciously allows you to master. We don’t take it for granted that today you are alive and well! You are the most precious little thing and we love spending our days with you dear one! We are praying for the day when you will realize just how much you need a Savior and we cannot wait to begin pouring into your little heart how much Jesus loves you and longs to have YOUR heart! We love you Miss Ashton Kate and we always will sweet girl!

Love, Mommy & Daddy

Milestone and Memories from 9-10 months:

-It’s official: You are finally an even more amazing sleeper! We usually don’t hear a peep out of you once we put you down! You usually sleep 11.5-12.5 hrs consistently each night and what a blessing that has been for us! Your bedtime is between 7:30 & 8 and then you usually start your day around 7:30-8:15am. We are so thankful!

-Still 4 feedings a day-nursing first thing in the morning and then mommy is pumping for the other 3-just easier these days with trying to take care of the twins too and you being so distracted! Has made our days a lot easier lately! 8, 12, 4, & 7:30 is our typical schedule! You are so much more of a predictable baby than we’ve ever experienced!

-You also are an excellent eater! You eat 3 meals a day and you eat when the twins eat. You will still eat some squeeze packs and some homemade pureed baby foods but generally you prefer to feed yourself. So that’s what we do unless we’re out and about! You will eat just about anything we put on your tray. The one thing you don’t seem to be crazy about so far is eggs and avocados but we keep on trying! =) You love blueberries, raspberries, grapes, bananas, strawberries, mandarin oranges, pears, peaches (really any fruit!) and then you also will go to town on butternut squash, peas, sweet potatoes, green beans, broccoli, carrots, graham crackers, hummus on bread (you love!!), black beans, cheese, ad yogurt! You are not picky AT ALL! Again, we are so grateful!

-You are extrememly MOBILE these days! Crawling has been mastered as well as pulling up which means you are on the go and you are everywhere!! You were scooching across the rug with one knee up and one down around 9.75months and while you could get everywhere you wanted to go, it was not an official “crawl.” By 10 months we could officially say you were a CRAWLER! You definitely took your sweet time which was fine by us because nowadays we can’t count on you to stay put…ever!

-Pulling up is another favorite pastime and you will do it everywhere-the bathtub (10mo), your crib, holding onto bookshelves, the couch, in the kitchen, the play house-just about anywhere!

-Waving to everybody and pointing at things are two of your favorite things to do these days! This began around 9.5months and has only progressively become more of an all day activity for you! Right at 10months it now sounds like you are saying “hi” and “bye bye” while you are waving!

-Everything, I mean everything goes straight to your mouth-fuzz, lint, hair, stickers, tags, grass, leaves so we do a retrieval of these items daily! Your very favorite thing to put in your mouth is the little white knob off the door stops in each room-we have had to remove them all to make sure you don’t choke on them! =)

-You love splashing in water and love when you get to spend time taking your bath. I’ll be honest and say most of your baths are in and out to complete the task at hand, but on the occasion you get to play, you absolutely love it!!

-No longer content sitting in our laps with a toy-you want be down and moving constantly! You are wild lately and containing you is becoming more and more difficult! As long as you are down on the ground playing though, you’re usually content!

-Pretty happy baby most of the time, but you despise being wiped off after mealtime and having your diaper changed. You cry just about every time. =( so sorry baby girl-fact of life!

-Important dates this month: 8/5-went from laying down to sitting up in the crib; 8/6-drank an ounce out of your straw sippy cup! 8/13-pulled up again to standing position in crib; 8/17-waved at G-Dad for the first time; 8/17-first real fever (102degrees); 8/20-rode in the “car” for the 1^st time at Publix! 8/25-signed “more” to mommy at breakfast; 8/26-an official CRAWLER!! Moving all the way across the rug!

Football Eve....for 2014!

There's quite an anticipation in the air...you can just feel it as you drive around, see people milling around downtown sporting their tiger apparel, and see cars & RV's roll into town...and it's no different at our house this season. We're excited. Excited to be in a house this time around. A place to call home. A place to host family and friends. A place to enjoy coming home to after game days.Three little girls to enjoy fall with. There's a little added joy as a new season of football is right around the corner...as in tomorrow. =) And we're ready. Aubie has been added to the door just in time and daddy was able to take off work today to enjoy some family memories in town.

So to celebrate football season 2014, we decided to take the girls to Toomer's and Samford for some good ole' fashioned fun! Our first stop was to get some lemonade and ice cream cookie sandwiches-YUM! The girls enjoyed every last morsel and every last sip given to them. SO FUN bringing our little ones back to a special spot in Auburn!

Next up was a little walk around Samford and a family picture in the blazing heat by the sign (for memories sake!)

Love our three little blessings! Oh how life has changed greatly since our college days and I wouldn't have it any other way!

And lastly, we rushed home to get a late late catnap in for the girls before our first load of visitors arrived for the year! We enjoyed grabbing dinner out and then hearing a little bit of the band play! Then it was off to bed for the wee ones on this football eve night....

Destin with Mimi & Grandpa + AK's 1st Beach Trip!

What an incredibly fun, long weekend we just enjoyed down in Destin with Mimi & Grandpa and our three little punkins! We had hoped it would work out to make a trip down there this summer and time was running out, but we were so grateful to Kendall's uncle for sharing his beach house with us once again! What a gift it is to not have to worry about renting somewhere and be able to jump in the car and travel a few hours for some fun family memories! This was also Ashton Kate's first trip to the beach (if you don't count Costa Rica in there!) Not sure we can say her life was changed because of it or that she developed a love for the beautiful white sand, but she has officially been inaugurated into the "I've been to Destin..." group. =) We seriously had SO MUCH FUN and went nonstop from the time we arrived until we packed up the car! Mimi can make things happen when we've got a plan so we didn't waste a single non-napping minute =) The twins had a blast and have been asking when they can go back to the beach on a pretty regular basis...hard to explain to them this is slightly different than just running to Publix anytime we want, ha!

So here's how the weekend unfolded...daddy got home even earlier than expected so we hit the road right after lunch and arrived at our very favorite dinner spot just in time to not bother anyone hoping to actually enjoy a peaceful meal! We did the unthinkable and let them watch a short show while we enjoyed our meal. The things we said we would never do...so of course we documented it to remind us to show grace to others always...=) I'm sure everyone was thankful for that decision as well..and sure enough Tommy Bahama lived up to our expectations and enjoyment once again!

By the time we finished dinner, Mimi & Grandpa were almost to Destin so we headed over to Baytowne to wait for their arrival! Boy were the girls excited to see them and hurriedly show them the nearest carousel ride! Sweet Grandpa even volunteered to ride along with them! (the things they do for their grandchildren =) And then it was off to find some ice cream to finish off our first night down at the beach! (For the record, to little ones, it's not the beach if you are not on the sand...=)

All the kiddos slept really well which was a blessing if you know anything about the way our nights go typically...and they woke up excited to go pick out their donuts...

When AK woke up from her nap, we headed straight to the beach and barely survived two hours in the blazing heat (hottest weekend ever-hitting 99 and higher!) and attempted to eat our picnic lunch without mixing any sand into it. The twins had an absolute ball jumping waves and building sand castles with daddy and Grandpa. Good thing daddy got the creative/artistic gene in the family and is capable of impressing the girls with his building abilities! They loved his dolphin, turtle, whale, and Mickey just to name a few...

Nothing like the sun to wear some little ones out! It takes a lot to say that about Baby B in our house but safe to say she was out cold! So daddy had a little fun...=)

Nap time worked its wonders on our three girls (as much as naps can help toddlerhood =) and we headed to the Back Porch for dinner! We wanted to give Grandpa a good taste of all the fun spots in Destin as it was his first trip! Besides our clothes sticking to us because of the extremely high humidity, we had a great time!

And remember when I mentioned nothing could help "toddlerhood..." well this would be one of those times. Is it too much to ask to get one family picture?! We settled for the best we could get and threatened to take away her ice cream if she didn't smile...didn't seem to matter in her three year old world. =)

And of course no night is complete without dessert in Mimi's world. Good thing we had her along! =0)

And this little cutie pie? Well she is usually up for anything and just along for the ride! SO thankful for her joyful disposition! The Lord knew just what we needed! =)

 The next day we decided to venture into Seaside to enjoy lunch at the Great Southern Cafe! The food was fantastic and it's always fun to get out and see a new area at the beach! Especially a charming place like Seaside. 

We decided to spend the afternoon at the pool after naps rather than brave the beach again and no one objected to that decision! The water felt great and it was a whole lot less to haul with us and a much shorter walk too! Lots of little kids=Lot of little people gear! And a pool is much easier to contain non-swimmers I might add as well!

And to wrap up a wonderful weekend, we made our way to McGuire's for lunch before heading out of town! All three kids behaved wonderfully which was just icing on the cake from an already full and fun weekend! We even managed to sneak in a little adult conversation! 

We can't put into words how blessed and fortunate we feel to have families to share life with! What joy it is for us to spend time with Mimi & Grandpa and let our girls enjoy making such fun memories with their grandparents! We definitely don't take it for granted and are so thankful for this time to soak up Mimi and Grandpa all to ourselves! Thanks Mom and Dad for making the trip down and for loving us so well!