February

Feburary was chalkfull of busy weekends.

Ashton had his pinewood derby. He kept coming in in 2nd place. I think it just motivated David for next year.

Ashton's basketball season also ended.

Lacey and I coached his little team and boy was I in over my head.

Also our YW Volleyball season ended. Our girls won the Stake Championship. I was so darn proud of them!

Cassie was released as my 1st counselor to go into the Stake YW Presidency. It was pretty much devastating to both of us.

Rachel got lots of snuggles from everyone.

I went to a few Valentine's Day Parties at the school. Splitting time between three classrooms in the same 90 minute window is no joke.

Hannah got a seriously awesome goody bag.

And one weekend after David and I went on a date we decided to go buy some cats for the kids who had been begging for pets.

Scotty LOVED picking them up. I'm pretty sure the cats didn't love it.

And then we found out David was pretty allergic. So after 6 days we had to take them back. There were lots of tears. So we bribed them with a trip to Chuck E Cheese.

Someday soon I'm sure we will miss the fact that a trip to Chuck E Cheese or a cookie could solve all their problems. We're living it up while we can!

January

Winter was good to us! We went to the zoo with friends.

 David and I decided we can have frozen yogurt if we want to for dinner because we're adults now.

The kids were thrilled with that idea. Then they were hungry again by 6:30 so we had to feed them dinner anyway. 

 One night Scotty drew all over his face and I didn't get mad so the rest followed suit.

 Also in January, Mallie came home from school one day and said her eye hurt. We thought she had a piece of dirt in there so we tried to flush it out and told her she'd be fine. Then on the second day she was crying every time the sun was over head and or the lights were really bright. I knew something else was wrong so I asumed it was a scratched retina. By the fourth day it was swollen. I started to worry that my google diagnosis was wrong. It was Friday so I decided I had better get her into the doctor before the weekend in case it got worse. If y'all are unfamiliar with the ways of the army medical world it means same day appointments are rare and there is nothing to do but head to the ER if you went to see a doctor the same day. So I went to the ER with Scotty and Rachel and Mal. Thank goodness I was smart enough to send Lucy to a friend's house because we were at the hospital for almost 5 hours.

You should have seen the first round of ER doctors looking at me like I was crazy when I told them I was there because she had something in her eye. They soon realized it was beyond something they could handle.

It's okay this is blurry. This was us he entire time at the hospital trying to keep Scotty from touching every single piece of medical equipment he could get his hands on. After several hours we finally got into opthamology.

 Turns out it was an infection in her eye. Something that made them pretty nervous because it was close to her pupil. Nervous enough that they opened up the office just for her to come in on Saturday so they could check it again to make sure it was getting better.
This girl was amazing through it all. They all kept saying how she was the best behaved 5 year old they had ever seen. She was patient and calm even when they put in the stinging drops over and over again. So glad she is all better and it was definitely a testament to me that sometimes as a Mom you just know something is not okay.

Blue Bonnets 2016

On Easter Sunday David hopped on a flight for a CE course. So the kids and I decided to be adventurous and look for a blue bonnet field. We drove for 20 minutes and I saw a little opening up behind the trees and spotted blue!! There were blue bonnets as far as the eye could see and it was the most amazing field of them I had ever seen. We were the only ones there and the kids took off running. 

 That's Ashton behind her. Gotta love big brothers.

Aw I love Texas.