Kevin has been out town this whole week and we have definitely missed him, especially with all the storms we have been having! We finally got some sleep last night after they dropped all the tornado warnings for the day. Tuesday night the kids and I camped out in a members basement all night. It's been crazy for sure!

On to the good news- we have a preschool graduate! :) Scott gets to go to kindergarten next year and he couldn't be more thrilled. He is so excited for all day kindergarten because at home he takes an hour quiet time while his sisters nap, and he thinks at kindergarten they will get to play and learn all day with NO quiet time...we'll see bud-I think they do quiet time too :)

He also started up baseball and is having a blast already- mainly because he's on his best friend Mason's team the Mud Puppies. Baseball is HUGE here and Scott is the only player who has never played. All the kids here start playing baseball at age 3, so his team has been playing together 3 years.

 He's getting the hang of it though

 These pictures were taken last week when the weather was absolutely amazing. We are sure enjoying having our little swing set too!

They go through Popsicles like nobody's business

They have been having a blast with Scott's truck, especially now that we've figured out how to squeeze Ari in the middle- so cute!

 This one's for Grandma- look! We have a little bird living in the tree house you got us-so cute

I was honestly just thinking while we were driving home from church yesterday how I'm really starting to love living here in Missouri ... and then something like this happens only an hour from our house and I want to move far far away. This was from Good Morning America this morning

This video is shocking and Joplin is only 1 hour from where we live! We were getting debri here in our town...x-rays and insulation falling from the sky that was from the hospital there in Joplin. So crazy!

Here's some pictures we took from our front yard

After it was all over with we had a double rainbow in our backyard. All over the news they were saying it was a sign of hope for those affected in the tornado

 Arianna's 15 month checkup!

31 3/4 inches tall and 22 pounds

Sunday night we watch America's funniest home videos because the kids never let us miss. They know it's coming and they get so excited. So Sunday night we were all cuddled up with our blankets and Ari was wandering around. We were all trying to get Ari to come cuddle up with us but guess who she picked? Just like usual..

When Scott is at school, Hailey plays!

 It was so cute watching Hailey giggle and laugh as she drove around Scott's wheels the other day. She had so much fun!

Okay so quite a while ago I had pictures of Scott riding his bike without training wheels. He got really discouraged for a while and wouldn't ride it and in fact he put his training wheels back on himself. Finally last week with his training wheels off he was riding around in the garage just playing around and I think that gave him the courage to give it another shot which later turned out to be an obsession and now he is flying down around neighborhood every day.

he doesn't even take off his helmet when he comes in the house because he knows he'll be right back outside to ride it some more. Just in time too- this Thursday is bike day at his preschool when all the kids get to bring their bikes and ride them around! Fun!

A few things you might not know about Arianna...

She LOVES hats. I mean she finds them around and puts them on herself and if you try to remove them she will scream at you. It's the same thing with hoods to shirts...they have to be on her head- silly girl (oh and she also loved when Scott shared his oreos from his soccer game)

Even more than hats, Ari LOVES popcorn. She hears it popping and waits by your feet patiently for her bowl. Wait, did I say patiently? I didn't mean that part

eats it in 1 minute and then begs for more

and when she's eaten all hers and stolen the rest of ours and there's none left- she gets mad

 I didn't mean for this post to be so long been then I remembered a bunch of pics from my cell phone from the last few weeks!

We have a minor league baseball team the Springfield Cardinals and Kevin's work got us tickets this last Monday night. Best part was they came with all you can eat food, snacks and drinks. Scott ate 2 entire hot dogs with buns, chips, 4 or 5 cookies, popcorn and 3 drinks

 Ari only cared about the popcorn and going up and down the stairs 30 times

 free t-shirts and everything- we will definitely be doing that again! (maybe next time without the kids :)

Our neighborhood also had a subdivision garage sale this weekend with about 20 houses participating. We had so much fun wandering around looking at everyone stuff and even scored a swing set for $25! Actually my neighbors were mad at me for taking that one because they were waiting to be the first to buy it Saturday morning and I knocked on the lady's door Friday afternoon and bought it before she opened her sale for Saturday. Oh well-you snooze you loose! :)  It needs a little TLC, but for 25 bucks you can't beat that!

Last week on a nice morning I wanted to run with the girls in the jogger, but Hailey wanted to ride her bike. I told her that was fine but she would have to keep the pace with me running.

this is her when we started

and 1 1/2 miles later...

I was so proud of her! She fell 2 times when we just started and I asked if she wanted to put the bike away and hop in the stroller. She said, "No mom! I want to do this!" I told her we were going to the park about half way there and that helped keep her spirits up. When she got there she said, "Mom, did I not know the park was so far?" It was cute. Needless to say I ended up jogging back with both girls in the stroller and a bike on top :)  She is so competitive with outdoors and sports, especially with herself. She puts her mind to it and wants to do it.

Scott was so excited he got a metal at his last soccer game last week. He did so great and just loves it so much! He started baseball this week and wasn't too thrilled at first, but he's already starting to like it...he just likes to stick with what he's good at. He's not as competitive as the other kids. Like when he hit the ball, he set the bat down softly on the ground before he ran to 1st. Most kids chuck their bats when they hit. Then after 2nd he ran to the pitcher mound, oops. We'll get the hang of it :) He doesn't give up though, and always has a good attitude.

Last Friday night was the father son camp out- this is always Scott's favorite time of the year. I don't think this kid loves anything more than camping. Kevin took a half day and so they got to go up early and enjoy the outdoors. They had a blast for sure!

While they were at the camp out Hailey, Ari and I went to the zoo. After the zoo we got some dinner, went to a self serve frozen yogurt place, and rented Tangled.

We came home and put Ari to bed and Hailey and I got out our sleeping bags in the living room at her normal bedtime and curled up with popcorn and watched her favorite movie. It was so much fun spending that alone time with her! After it was 10 pm and we decided sleeping on the floor wasn't so much fun, she got to sleep with me in my bed.

Happy Mother's Day to me for these cutie pies! :) I am soooo lucky to be the mom of these three beautiful, fun, sweet spirits. Mother's Day is always just really personal for me-I just enjoy the day (although chaotic as usual) thinking about what being a mom means to me. - I really am so blessed!

Ari is usually so unsure of her surroundings, but after working with her for about 15 minutes last week at the park, she figured out how to climb the stairs and go down the slide all by herself! Such a proud moment :)

getting situated

my favorite part...trying to push off to go down

wee! Of course she did it like 8 times and then cried when it was time to go home. It's so fun to get to do big things!

Let Hailey tell you how hot it's been the last few days!

I gave each of them a squirt bottle filled with water so they could mist themselves when they got too hot. Soon Hailey had all the kids following her around the park begging to be squirted to cool off. They said that she came up with the name "Spraylee" for herself. Such a cutie pie.

We have been working hard trying to get what was weeds to look like grass, and that trickled down to wanting to plant some flowers and trim up the bushes. We spent some of the weekend doing some yard work. Kevin made this cute little wall around our tree because I the kids and I needed a flower planter :)

 

The kids had a blast helping.



I can tell already they are going to be living in their swimsuits this summer!

Arianna was having a ball playing with all of the water buckets 

 ta da!

Here's our front yard before

and after (getting rid of arbor and rose bush, lawn treatments, weed pickings, bush trimmings and new tree ring) Kevin wants to build shutters and we are going to do another planter in front of the left windows but that will have to wait until after we get a garden going.... The kids are nagging to get that going right away-they loved it so much last year :)