First Date

Blake and I went on our very first official date tonight. Tyler and I have gone a couple of times, but tonight Blake and I started dating.

Jeremy gave Blake his check card (he didn't have any cash, we never do) and he gave him a few tips on dating Mom. He opened the car door for me and held my hand. He paid for our burrito at Chipotle, then we went to Academy Sports (a.k.a Sports Academy) and then he treated us to Jamba Juice. At Chipotle Blake insisted that we sit on the tall stools instead of a booth or chairs. He says "That is where boys and girls sit that really like each other." Academy Sports is Blake's all time favorite store. He can spend hours in there. We looked at guns, fishing bait, balls and everything else. He was in heaven. I told him I needed to get Gray a birthday gift and he said "That's ok, I will let you borrow my card." On the way home he said "Really you took me on a date because you drived."

He planned our next date to go play paintball. We will have to see about that.

It was such a precious time. I want to remember every detail of my first date with my sweet Blake.

The River

I hope everyone had a great Memorial Day. We relaxed with our family at the Pedernales River. It was so peaceful and relaxing. The boys absolutely loved it. We will go back. It was a test run and now I have a list of things I need when we go back. (crocs for everyone, bigger floats, and a trash bag) Check out Jeremy's blog to get more info on the day, actually too much info if you ask me.

Here is Grayson loving it. He did eat some sand and rocks I am sure. Uncle Wade is in the back ground teaching Tyler and Blake how to skip rocks.
Blake and Tyler played the whole time. Well, they did stop for two seconds to put away a sandwich.
Jax and Sam chilling at the waters edge. They don't stop long enough to get a good picture.

What?????

Kids are so funny, aren't they? They are quite entertaining just by the things that they say. Here are a few comments that have been said in our house recently. Warning: Most comments are totally inappropriate. I have four boys what can I say?

1. When Sam has diarrhea, he says "it's allergies and that he is allergic" Just Saturday, yelling from the bathroom (he does every time, so I can turn the light and the air (fan) on, he said "Mom, I have so much allergies, ugh!"

2. "Mom, Gray has a treasure in his nose." said Blake

3. "If you say WHATEVER (with attitude) it's bad, but if you say whatever (sweet), that's ok!" says Sam

These are just a few!

Happy Mother's Day

I had a wonderful Mother's Day weekend. We spent time with our friends in Dallas and celebrated Jeremy's graduation. On Sunday Jeremy got us a hotel for the night. We let the boys swim and we had movie night (pics above). Gray was really into climbing in the cabinets. It was so fun. I feel so blessed that all these sweet boys are mine. Gray loved riding on this thing! Obviously!

Tyler with Gray in the pool. Gray also loved swimming!

Congratulations!!!

Jeremy graduated from seminary this last weekend. We are so proud of him! We got a "Go Dad" in this picture. Blake during the 2 hour and 15 minute commencement!
Tyler and his buddies during the commencement. Too bad Blake can't read yet.

BBQ

Friday night of Jeremy's graduation weekend DTS threw a BBQ for all of the graduates and their families. It was so fun! They had bounce houses and pony rides. Here is Tyler, Laney in the background, and Miller riding. Laney and Blake's close up turned out blurry for some reason.
Laney, Sam, Blake, Miller, Tyler, Knox and Boone! We adore both of these families. Thank you to the Allen's and the Tison's for making our DTS experience so great!!

Sweet Brothers

Sam and the Park

Highlights

Ok, I know, I know, I haven't blogged in forever!! I also hate that I have no pictures to post just yet! What is blogging without pictures anyway? We have been ridiculously busy the last three weeks. My hubby http://www.freechapelaustin.blogspot.com/ and my sister http://www.familyofmills.blogspot.com/ have kept up better than I on what has been going on. I am going to just highlight a few things that you will not read on their blogs.

* Lindsey and Derek kept the three oldest boys while Jeremy and I went to a Church Planting Conference in Birmingham. Three things that happened while I was away.

1. Random person that used to live in my house came over and walked through my house to see what I have done to it. Weird!!

2. Blake and Sam were throwing balls at one of our neighbors garage door and woke them up!

3. Blake taught himself how to ride a bike without training wheels. He asked Aunt Lindsey to take the wheels off and he was gone. He is only four, but fearless. This one I am sorry I missed. The other two not so much!

*We had our first Preview Service! Jeremy can tell you more about it on his blog!

Highlights:

1. My garage is no longer mine. It is the Free Chapel Storage Unit. I had three people drive by and stop because they thought I was having a garage sale. When have you ever seen people selling stage lights at a garage sale?

2. As soon as we arrived at the theatre 7 a.m. with all four of my boys, Sam spilled his chocolate milk all over the floor. I was trying to clean it up as fast as I could so the manager wouldn't see it. Ugh

3. I lost Tyler for about 20 minutes at the theatre. Lindsey, Wade, and I were looking all over for him. He was in the bathroom!! We had a nice long talk about letting me know! Whew!!

*We traveled to West Palm Beach with Grayson and my Mom and Dad kept the three other boys. Highlights:

1. Our flight was late leaving Austin to Atlanta and we missed our connecting flight to WPB. Delta was so nice to put us up in a hotel by the airport. One word: Gross! Also, we didn't have any luggage, so same outfit the next day. Yuck!!

2. Gray started saying "cookie" and "cracker". This goes to show you how many of both of these things he had on the airplane.

3. While we were gone I thought Tyler was out of school on the Monday we were coming back. My Mom called that morning and said she was pretty sure they had school. She said the neighborhood was like a ghost town!! Free day for Ty!!

Honestly we have had an awesome last few weeks! We have been so blessed with family and friends. We love what God has called us to do. We are having a blast.

I will post pictures soon!!

Perseverance

Tyler's class hosted assembly today. I have never been to assembly at Tyler's new school. They have it every Friday morning. Anyway, for those of you who don't live in Texas, they are a little lets say Prideful about their state. Not only their state, but anything they are involved in. It started with the pledge of allegiance (Ok, I get that), then pledge to the Texas flag (I did know about this and I can't really bring myself to do it), then the Bee Cave Elementary pledge (what?), then the Bee Cave Elementary Song (seriously), then a moment of silence (ok), and then little program. It was sweet. All the boys and girls in the class had a line about perseverance with pictures of each child on a slide show and then they sang a Hannah Montana song, which was a great idea on Mrs. Hursh's part, because almost every elementary boy and girl love Hannah Montana. Last, but not least, not that we haven't done enough proud of our state and school stuff, we did the Bee Cave chant/cheer before dismissal to class. I needed perseverance not to roll my eyes during the Pledge of allegiance to the Texas flag.
Blake loved being there. It will be him next year.
Sam hated being in the stroller.
Gray also loved being there.

Future Ballers

Wade, Kimberly, Jax, Lawson, Derek, Lindsey, and Parker all came out to support the boys on Opening Day. Jax, Parker, and Gray are all going to be the same year in school and ball and everything else. So, we were talking about how great and fun it will be when they are all on the same team. With all these boys this will only be the first of many, many, many ball games. Stroller Brigade! Gray and Parker were hanging out and you probably can't see, but under the blankets all the way to the left is Lawson. You can see his tiny foot.

Take Me Out to the Ballpark

Baseball season has begun. Tyler and Blake are playing baseball this Spring. Tyler has two games a week and Blake has one plus a practice. We had opening day last weekend. They were really cute in their uniforms and they both did pretty good.
Blake is ready for that ball!!
Good Swing, Ty!!

Sunday Easter Celebration

Our sweet friends, Jason and Lisa Collins, invited us to their home for an Easter Celebration. It was a potluck afternoon dinner and Egg Hunt for the kiddos. It was really fun and we met some new people. Look how cute Jax is!!

It just wasn't happening.

This is the best we have!!!

Easter Morning

I love Easter. Amazingly enough, my kids slept in on Easter morning. Happy Easter to me, but doing Easter baskets and getting ready to be at church by 9:30 is a busy morning. Sam didn't say a word for the first 10 minutes. He just ate and ate and ate. You could tell Gray couldn't believe his good fortune of getting to eat chocolate in the morning. Sam would open an egg and 10 chocolate eggs would fall out and Gray would just go for it. I love it.

Green Easter Egg Hunt

We went to an Egg Hunt with some of our new friends on Saturday. Some of you may know Austin is pretty green. We have never been to an Egg Hunt quite like this. Real Egg shells filled with confetti and if you are lucky you win a Strawberry from one of the farms that has a booth there. Believe it or not the boys had fun. They loved cracking the eggs over their heads.

Lovin' the Toy Basket

Gray thinks it is great just to crawl right up in the toy basket and I guess Sam decided to join him. (It sort of looks like Gray has a toupee on)

Mini Square Cow Moovers

Spring Break

Lindsey and I took a 13 hour trip to Birmingham for Spring Break. Tyler was out of school and we wanted to go spend time with my Mom and Dad. So we all packed up the Odyssey and headed East. The trips were pretty flawless except one time I did accidentally kick Lindsey in the head climbing to the back for the 100th time.
I only have these pictures of Gray and Parker. They are at "Papa's Park" and all the baby swings were full. Also, they played on the ground, which my child kept eating the wood chips. You can see a wood chip on his face in the last picture.