Why did I ever stop???

Adams dog Toby died early this morning.  My heart is so sad and my eyes won't stop crying.  Dogs to us are literally our family.  They live inside with us, they have family pictures, we love them sometimes more than our kids.  I had remembered that a few years ago I had blogged about Toby so I began searching for it, and in doing so I scrolled through a lot of old posts and then my heart became more sad.  I love looking back to see what we were doing, what was fun, what was hard, what was dumb.  It has been waaaaay toooooo long since I have blogged about what we are up to.  For me this is something I must do.  I must make the time I must make this a priority.  I don't want to have anymore regret about not documenting about the journey of this life that I have been given!

My Little Man

I am still madly and deeply in love with Mr. Crew. He melts my heart every single day. I love that amongst all these girls he is all boy. You hand him a baby doll and he throws it on the ground. He loves machines of all kinds. He wants to pull the string on the blower, he pushes buttons on the trimmers he loves the weed eaters. When he hears the lawn mowers he can't get outside fast enough. He is happy to sit on them even when they aren't moving. He loves the dirt and the sand and to get dirty. He loves to throw everything, anywhere and everywhere. He loves to rough house, he loves dogs. I took him to one of Lexis ball tournaments and I kept losing him, everytime I found him he had found some ones dog and was petting it. Shaun got chickens (heaven help me) and Crew loves to chase them and squeal while he is running around the yard. He loves being outside and thoroughly enjoys hanging out with his dad. He LOVES to eat all the time. He rarely gives kisses and only snuggles sometimes. He has the sweetest smile and waves Hi and Bye to everyone he sees. When he cries big huge tears run down his face and my heart is broken. He still only says Mama, owie, and sometimes ott oh. Somehow we are all pretty good at figuring out what he wants. He has captured the hearts of many, we can't get enough of him!

Where to Start

When you start blogging again it is hard to decide do I start from where I left off, or do I start fresh. I think I will start fresh and throw catch up posts every now and again.
Life is crazy as it is for everyone. It never stops and it only gets busier. We have had one awesome school year with lots of events in between.

MaKaya started competing with her dance team last year. She fell madly in love with dancing and progressed quite quickly. This year she decided she wanted to compete a solo. We hired a teacher to choreograph and teach MaKaya her dance. There was a lot of blood sweat and tears that went into this solo. The first time she competed she did awesome. She was very first and she rocked the house. We made sure to watch her 7 components, my mom and I were very confident she had it in the bag!!! Awards began, they announced MaKayas division, 5th place goes to MaKaya Kearns. I am certain my jaw dropped to the ground. I was shocked, MaKaya was heart broken. She walked to get her award came back and burst into tears. It was hard for me to keep my composure I was dying inside. I'm one of those moms that can admit when her kid isn't the best, but this time she was the best and I was more than surprised that she placed so low. Instead of getting down in the dumps we took our discouragement and turned it into determination. MaKaya took her judging sheets and worked on all the areas they told her to. She practiced every single day multiple times. I had a number of different people look at her dance to help clean it up. We were on a mission and no one was going to stop us.

The next competition came up and we were ready. Once again she did amazing and we stayed to watch her 5 components. We both felt great about her performance but didn't get our hopes up too high. The memories of the last competition were still fresh on our minds. When awards began and MaKayas division was called my heart was literally beating out of my chest. 4th place was called, then 3rd, then 2nd, then 1st and oh my gosh Queen was called MaKaya Kearns. She won she won she won!!! I couldn't hold back the emotion this time. She was so ecstatic. She couldn't stop smiling and neither could I. What a sweet adventure to go from last place to first. We were all on cloud nine. The next time she competed her solo she took Queen again. I hope MaKaya always remembers that with hard work and determination anything is possible!

Halloween Fun!

Halloween was a lot of work this year. Maybe Halloween is always alot of work and I just forget. Glad I don't have to put makeup on myself and 3 others everyday.

I haven't mentioned for a while that I really love my neighborhood. We really love getting together and don't do it enough. So I decided to have a little shindig. It was really low key but lots of fun. The kids and adults all had a good time.

I decided that this year we were going to dress up with a theme. We were all Supers. Lexi wasn't too sure about being a Super but in the end she liked it. It was really fun. I now want to have a theme every year.

Searching for the right Pumpkin

Whats Halloween without a pumpkin patch. I love love love pumpkins. I'm not quite sure why I love them so much. Almost all of my Halloween decor is pumpkins. I thoroughly enjoy walking around a pumpkin patch searching for the perfect pumpkin. This year we went to a patch in Lake Shore and they had the best pumpkins ever. They were the prettiest color of orange and ranged from all shapes and sizes. It was the perfect fall weather for pumpkin hunting.

I LOVE being a Witch

Instead of playing Bunco this month we decided to have a Witches party. It was fun seeing everyones attire. I really do have great friends!

Baby is ONE!

This is what I looked like many times a day
His Cake that he never ate

He was still happy even though he was sick

He loved this card, it plays music when you open it

He got this outfit a week later from Steph. He thought he looked so cute. I love him!

I know every mom says it, but how did this year go by soooo fast. My baby is 1 and it kindof makes me sad. He has been such a blessing in my life. He brings me so much happiness and joy pure and utter joy. He is so happy all the time and has each member of our family smitten. He is sweet as can be.

My poor little guy has had a run with sickness. First he had hand mouth and foot. None of my kids have ever had this and man it is a bad one. He had all these sores in his mouth that made eating and drinking so painful. He had a fever of 102 and was throwing up and had diarrhea. After that was over he got little blisters on his fingers. This lasted 10 days. We were healthy for less than a week and then the stomach flu hit. He literally threw up and had diarrhea for 8 days. I have never seen anyone be so sick. It was starting to scare me. I was so afraid he was going to die. My Dr. told me that the only reason he was not in the hospital was because I was still breastfeeding. Breast milk is easier to absorb and digest. He lost 2 lbs. He was even sick on his birfday and didn't get to eat any cake. Sad.

Finally he is better and is eating everything in sight. This boy can eat. He can eat a whole bowl of oatmeal and entire PB&J sandwich. He can out eat Savanna and MaKaya. If I am not careful he will stuff the entire sandwich in his mouth. When he sees food and wants to eat he says mmmm mmmm mmmm. He does this all the time. He always wants to eat. Maybe he is making up for lost time. He crawls all over the place and plays so good with his toys. He loves his blankie. He loves to sit and ride on his dads riding lawn mowers. Big tears are shed when he has to get off. I never knew how much I would love having a little boy. He is so fantastic it really makes me want to have another one. Help me please!!!

He is 60% in weight

He is off the charts for height

He is off the charts for head