Mother's Day

The whole clan on Mother's Day

All of us kids with my great mom!!

Me and my sweet boys - I am a blessed lady!!!

I had hoped to get some better pictures of Mother's Day from my sister, but decided to just steal some poor quality ones form my uncle's facebook page. We had a great morning at the Farm at South Mountain. The food was amazing. The kids had tons of space to run around and play which made sitting around eating actually enjoyable. The weather was beautiful for May in AZ. I was surrounded by the people I love most and I didn't have to cook a meal all day long!!

I have three boys so I am going to limit myself to three of the things I love most about being a mom:

- I LOVE putting my boys to bed - everything that goes with it - reading stories, singing songs, laying with each of them and listening to them talk about their day, praying with them and getting good-night hugs and kisses. A couple of weeks ago I was picking up the boys' room while they were waiting in their bunk bed. Davis said, "Come up here Mom, I forgot I hid a surprise for you up here." I came up the ladder and he JUMPED at me with a huge hug and told me I was the best mom ever. So sweet!!

- I LOVE watching them learn new things or be proud of something they have accomplished. Davis has learned a lot of new school related things in the past couple of months and he is so excited for himself. I really like watching those "lights" come on for him. Parker is a great helper and he is always proud to show me when he has done an "unasked for" chore for me. Both boys also get excited to tell me something they learned at BSF or Sunday school. We reread the stories or talk about them later in the mornings after and they like to help retell the story with the things they remember.

- I LOVE watching them build relationships with each other. Ever since Davis first became a brother, I have prayed that God would use their relationships with each other for a unique purpose for His Kingdom. I have asked God to make them best friends and one another's biggest encourager. Obviously, this is probably always going to be a work in progress :) but in those times when I sit back and see them doing something really kind for each other or just playing really sweetly with one another, or chatting together in bed before lights out - my heart is full of joy for those answered prayers and to see them learning to love each other.

I am a very blessed momma! I have a wonderful mom, sister and "mom" friends who encourage me daily and help me to be a better mom and set amazing examples for me to follow. I have a husband who tells me often how grateful he is that I take care of our boys and he allows me to be home with them (an amazing blessing!) And I have three little boys that I love more than I ever imagined possible. Happy Mother's Day indeed!

Rawhide

My in-laws brought G this raccoon skin cap - so cute - and he loves it - it is like a stuffed animal he can wear!! haha

We all know my boys LOVE themselves some Rawhide. When my in-laws told us that there was a farmers market and yummy breakfast out there right now, we were excited to have another reason to take the boys out there. They had a ton of fun running around like cowboys - as usual - and the breakfast was very yummy. I know it runs through the month of May if you are interested. The farmers market was also really nice - seems like it is getting too hot for most of the produce but there were still a couple of vendors out there. We bought some delicious green onions, tomatoes, and some crazy hot habanero salsa.

The End of Hiking Season

Hiking at Papago with Logan for his birthday - playing in huge rocks - super fun for all the boys!

Mark and the boys on South Mountain

Parker and Gray on my back - wouldn't look at the camera

Davis and E - hiking buddies

All three boys on the way down - arm in arm - love it!

One more try to get a picture of Grayson - still not feeling it :) Hiking with the boys these past couple of months has been so fun! Most of the time we went with the Johnson clan, but we were able to go up as a small fam too. The boys are always so proud of themselves when we get done and Parker really likes to look out over the valley at the stop point on the way up to the "house". It really is an amazing way to see God in the magnificent things He has created. Sometimes Davis would get really tired on a pass and it was also cool to see how encouraged he was when he was able to keep going and finish. We have had so much fun doing this on Sunday mornings and will really miss it in the hot summer months. Hopefully by the time it cools down and we get going again, Parker will be big enough to come down on his own :)

Davis

Well, it took me over a week to finally posting a Davis update to accompany the ones I did for his brothers so that is reflective of the busy pace we have been keeping around here. Something to do just about everyday which isn't the usual pace I prefer. The biggest addition to the schedule is those daily swim lessons, but both the big boys love to go and are doing amazing so it is worth it.

Davis has been doing preschool work at home. This has been an unexpected joy for me to watch him learn new things and watch his mind grow and develop. I don't know yet what school holds for us next year, but I know that if this changes, I will really miss getting to be a big part of his learning process. After meeting with Anne Stirber (family/ex-teacher) early in the fall, I decided that the focus of what we would work on at home would be the phonemic awareness stuff. It was so cool to watch Davis grow from not know/separating sounds to really understanding and enjoying learning that. One of his favorite games, whether "in school" or not is to take turns separating words by their sounds and having the other person guess the word. Well, I couldn't exactly see progress in him making the visual connection to the sounds. All of a sudden, last week when we were working with sounds and letters on his magnet board, it just started to click for him. He start making those connections between hearing sounds and seeing them in the letters on the board and just started reading the short words and even building words himself by sounding them out. It was really, really cool to me!! Isn't God just an amazing Creator - I see Him all the time as I watch Davis' mind grow and develop.

Let's see . . . anything else new for Davis? He almost always has a pocket full of collected rocks . . . nope, not new :) My Gram did just tell me yesterday that my mom always had a pockets full of rocks she had picked up . . . . hmmmm, genetic? He has learned to ride his bike without training wheels - this happened about a month ago - can't remember if I had mentioned it before but I am an awesome mom and haven't taken a picture yet. By "learned" to ride his bike, I really mean he just got on and did it - truly amazing - that athleticism/balance/skill is NOT from his mother. He has also done really, really well at swim lessons. He has always had strong skills from early ISR lessons, but this year he really learned freestyle well and I can tell he is going to have a great time in the water this summer. Beach/pool here we come!!!!

I also continue to see God's grace in teaching Davis His Word. Davis really likes to read his Bible and has asks regularly to read, reread the story of the Passover through the Resurrection in our Jesus, Bible Story Book. We talked and read a lot about it at Easter time and he learned a lot about it in BSF. When we read at home, he like to tell me thing he remembers about the story from BSF that aren't in the Story Book Bible we read at home. He also asks great questions like, "When Jesus died on the cross, could His heart still pray to God? How was God in heaven and dying on the cross at the same time?". Sometimes he asks things that I can't fully wrap my mind around either. I'm thankful he has a desire to read and learn. I pray that God would be merciful in allowing that to grow into a saving faith in Davis.