life lately 3.26.19

This past Sunday, Kevyn finished up her season with Washington County Juniors.  She played up on an 11U team (it was the only option...  there was no 10U team) and she did great!  We were hesitant to let her tryout knowing she would be practicing 30 minutes away, twice a week, but we went for it.  We were absolutely thrilled to see another local girl there trying out for the same team!  I immediately went up to that momma and told (not asked!  lol!) that we would be carpooling!  Everything worked out just fine!  

I think she ended up having 9 tournaments over the course of three months.  We missed one due to a ski trip.  All of her tournaments were in the Houston area except one which was in the Austin area.  And with all of her tournaments, she either played or worked at 8 which meant we had to be there by 7:15.  Which also meant we were usually leaving our house shortly after 5.  Ugh!

I should have taken more pictures of her season.  (This is one of my reasons for wanting to start blogging again!)  She started the season strong for her age (yes, I might be biased ;) ) and continued to improve the entire season.  Now we are (un)patiently waiting for the next opportunity for her to play volleyball again!



This is what most of her car rides home from tournaments looked like.  Sweet girl!


The six of us made it to three of her tournaments, but for the remainder it was just her and Jeff.  I always stayed back with the rest of the crew to shuffle them to where they needed to be.  

Sunday afternoon, after Kevyn & Jeff got home from Houston and the rest of us got home from Kelby's soccer game, Jeff grilled outside and the kids put together a wiffle ball game.  This picture of "C" cracks me up!  We kept telling him he needed to keep his eyes on the ball!  



I'm not exactly sure what is going on here...  At one point I heard it was their house and then later I heard it was their store...  Haha!


The kids always love walking a few blocks over to Grandma & Grandpa's house!  And they especially love it when she takes them for golf-cart rides (or "red gator" rides as C & G say). 


Currently our life is filled with home visits and paperwork.  I completely understand that this is a necessary part of the process, but I will be so thankful when the boys are finally adopted and we no longer have people in our house all the time.  

One evening, (at 6:30... ugh!) we were preparing for our Adoption Home Study and my family seemed to just fall apart.  This was the big home study you hear adoptive parents freak out about...  It's a really big deal.  About an hour before we were expecting the lady to arrive, Jeff takes the kids on a bike ride and C crashes his bike leaving a big knot on his head.  Normal kid accident, right?  Not in the world we are currently living in!  Everything gets questioned and documented.  Ack!


We picked up pizza for dinner and as we were preparing to eat, we noticed G was having some kind of allergic reaction to something.  We put both boys in the shower to hopefully remove whatever was bothering him and then we gave G some Benadryl.  The picture below was after his eyes started to open again...  


And then the Benadryl kicked in...  The boys needed to get interviewed too so we had to pep this boy back up!  Never a dull moment...


The home study ended up fine and was turned in with "no concerns."  They did question C about the knot on his head, but thankfully our home study lady didn't make a big deal out of it. 

A couple of funnies that I want to document for later on...

1.  Kelby picks on the boys.  She's not really being mean, she just likes to pick.  It's her way of playing with them.  The boys will sometimes get upset and we will tell them to tell Kelby to "quit being mean."  So when the home study lady was asking C if he liked his sisters, he said "Yes, but Kelby is always mean to me..."  Haha! 

2.  When Kelby was asked if she likes the boys, her answer was "They don't bother me that much...  Plus, I only have like 6 years left in this house..."  Oh, Kelby... 

Moving on...

These two bookends happened to coordinate one Sunday for church so it had to be documented.


And these two little Cowboy Superheroes went with me to take Kelby to soccer practice one evening.  They were wearing all the things!  Haha!


That's a little bit of our life lately!

~becky

hello

i'm back.  hopefully for good.  i took one look at my old blog and it gave me all the feels.  and now that the girls are older, they enjoy going back and looking at my old posts too.  

so there is no way i can actually get this blog completely caught up with everything we've done over the past 3+ years.  maybe i'll go back and do a "catch up" post periodically...  maybe i'll just pretend that the hiatus didn't happen...  i guess we'll see.  ;)

a lot has happened since my last post when kelby turned 10...  kelby is now 12 and kevyn is 10.  they've both grown into the sweetest girls and make me really proud on the daily.  kelby has declared soccer her sport (but we think she's pretty good at basketball too) and kevyn has become our volleyball player.  they both are on traveling teams and it can get kinda crazy on weekends when their games overlap.  (i'm currently typing this at 5:45 am on a sunday morning after sending jeff & kevyn to houston for a tournament.  kelby has a soccer game today at 2.)

we've also gone on some pretty awesome trips.  i do hope that i'll eventually go back and do posts on each of these vacations...  they were each so amazing!






probably the biggest and most exciting news is that our family is growing!  we are in the process of adding the sweetest 4 and 5 yo boys to our family!  the adoption will not be final for a few more months so until then i won't be sharing much about them.  we are ALL just so excited!

ok, this is it for today.  i'll be back with a little life lately post.  i'm really excited to be back!

~becky

Double Digits

I have a kid in the double digits.  That’s just ridiculous.

Last Thursday Kelby turned 10 (gulp!) and, just like every birthday eve, as I tucked her in on Wednesday night I told her the story of her birth.  I told her again how stubborn she was in not wanting to come out of my tummy and how when she did she was screaming.  And I told her again how she really hasn’t changed that much since…  Still stubborn and still screaming.  She gets a kick out of it.

Thursday morning Dad woke up early to make her a special breakfast…  Monkey Bread.  Kelby LOVES bread!  Any kind of bread.  It might be the only thing she is not picky about.

I asked her to take a pic for me before we left for school and this is what I got…


Keep in mind that she picked out her clothes the night before knowing today was her birthday.  She fancy.  I actually had an outfit picked out (jeans, converse, and a nicer tee), but she told me my selection wouldn’t work with the game they are playing at recess…  She told me they are playing “torture chamber” and she is the boss.  She scares me. 

I asked her to retake the picture before walking into school.  She was holding her cookie cakes to share with her class and as I attempted to fix her headband I knocked one of the cookies cakes out of her hands and onto the ground.  #momfail  


This was actually incident #2 in a series of events that day that indicated Kelby turning 10 might have had me a little flustered.  #1 being forgetting the last run in the WOD at cross fit that morning and #3 realizing I had put my underwear on inside-out around lunch.  I’d like to say it ended at 3 but it didn’t…

That night we had her favorite for dinner…  Golden Chick.  {eye roll}


Friday evening we had a family dinner at our house to celebrate her.  We let the girls decide on their birthday dinner menu and Kelby’s selection included fried fish, french fries, hush puppies and fruit.  Girlfriend loves her fried food!  I added in a salad to the mix as well.



Grandma makes the best cakes!!!




Yes, there is a cat on our table.  Apparently we are those people...







Unfortunately the afterparty got a little crazy (usual late night rip stick contests) and ended with one going to the ER and ultimately a broken arm.  :((((  (We feel horrible Meagan!!!)

Saturday, after celebrating another classmates 10th birthday at the roller skating rink, the girls and I scurried around town to pick up supplies for Kelby’s “friend” party.  This included a stop at HEB where they were letting kids decorate cookies!  Perfect!  They were starting to get jittery from lack of sugar in the past 45 minutes...  ;) 



She invited all the girls in her class over to watch a movie outside.  The movie lasted approximately 45 minutes until they asked me if I could just turn it off so they could run around…  lol!  Ten year old girls + glow sticks at night = mega fun!




Yep, I didn't even take the cupcakes out of the plastic carrier...  It was basically her third party and I don't want her to get spoiled.



Happy Birthday my sweet girl!  Muah!!!!

Kevyn is Seven!

my baby turned seven.  and i'm not exactly thrilled about this.  i told her this is the last birthday i'll let her have.  but of course i was kidding.  maybe.

although i haven't gotten around to posting about it yet (let's be honest, i think we are all a little shocked i'm posting period), we celebrated kevyn's actual birthday at disneyland!  we all had a blast (as you will soon see hopefully) until our final day there and the trip home.  kevyn came down with a horrible stomach bug.  i'm sure it will be one of those things that we will look back on years from now and laugh at how horrible it was, but currently i think i'm suffering from a little ptsd.  it was horrible.  and this is coming from the mom who just got puked on.  i'm positive it was twice as miserable for kevyn.  needless to say we both reeked of vomit by the time we got home and went straight to the shower.

kevyn celebrated her birthday with friends at Horseshoe Junction after our trip.  everyone had so much fun celebrating kevyn!











happy birthday, sweet girl!

~becky


another great swim season!

our little swimmers had an awesome season!  both kevyn & natalie improved so much from last year!  and as it is with most sports, they seemed to be finding their groove just as the season comes to an end.  a few moms and i have vowed to find an indoor pool for these littles to practice in next winter so they can get a head start.  our swim team only has access to an outdoor pool and they typically start water training in april when it still very cold outside!  yet despite their lack of practice, our girls can still hang with the larger teams that do have indoor facilities.

because parents are required to volunteer at the meets, i didn't have the opportunity to get my camera out until the very last meet.  all the kids get marked first thing with their event #, heat #, and lane # on their forearms.  this is very helpful for the volunteers working the ready bench.  all the other body markings are to aid in optimal performance.  ;)  they sometimes get a little carried away...  


i love this set of pictures because it really shows how well kevyn has gotten with her dives by comparison to others her age.


kevyn is on the freestyle relay team for her age group.  at the last meet they smoked the other team by 30 seconds.  that's not an exaggeration.  i was just viewing the results online.  wowza!


much like last year, we still have to remind kevyn not to look for us.  and that we see her and she can look at us when she is done.  (it's really bad when she does the backstroke!)  she must have caught a glimpse of me taking her picture because i caught a few with her smiling.  silly girl.


nat has also improved so much on her diving...


...and her breaststroke technique!




way to go nat & kevyn!  so proud of you both and the awesome swim season!

~ becky