A perfect balance

This month is Birthday month around our house!

Actually, at our house we have 'Celebration Summer' 

Beginning with Ritchie's birthday in May, 

Ethan and Sophie in June, 

{10 days apart}

Our Anniversary on July 1st,

and Emma's birthday on July 4th!

{Abby{Sept} and Mommy {Dec} are the odd balls!}

Around our house Ethan is the 

Lone Ranger while Daddy's at work

and his sisters LOVE that! 

They love playing dress up with him, 

coloring with him, having tea parties 

with him, riding bikes, building a blanket fort, 

he happily joins just about any sort

 of play his sisters dream up!

And when Daddy's home they enjoy

all sorts of fun, including tickling Bubba til

he can't breath, playing catch, and of course

watching the Spurs in the NBA Finals!

He balances out our girly house with his

rowdy boy fun and we wouldn't have it any other way!

We got to celebrate our favorite little

 boy turning 3 a couple of weeks ago and 

we had such fun camping and relaxing at the lake!

Here are a few pics to see how

our sweet little boy has grown into the 

handsome, caring, gentle, loving little 3 year old he is!

Minutes old!

{He has NO idea how many girls are already crazy for him!}

{ESPECIALLY his Momma!}

{ONE year old!}

{18 months}

 {TWO years old!}

{2 1/2 yrs}

{Most Handsome THREE year old around!}

{A few of your favorite things:}

• Trucks {firetrucks, police cars, dump trucks, diggers, loaders, monster trucks, any truck in general}
• Air Planes {or as you call them 'E-planes'}
• Trains {lucky for you we see a lot of trains where we live!}
• Your fav shows-
• Thomas the train, Fireman Sam, Bob the Builder, Veggie Tales, Curious George and Handy Manny

{Fireman + Handy Manny = Ethan's dream cartoon!}

I will never ever get tired of this...

{he picked his Momma some flowers...

out of our neighbors yard when no one was looking

but look at that face!! The sweetest boy in the world!}

Ethan, 

You are the sweetest, charismatic, fun-loving,

kind-hearted, brother who lights

up our life! You complete our sweet family and 

we thank Jesus every day for our blue eyed, 

curly headed little blonde Bubbie!

Happy 3rd Birthday Ethan!

You have our hearts! :)

Funny Story...

This past Tuesday {6.11.13}

Miss Abby had her very first 

piano lesson! She has been quite 

anxious to join her big sister in

taking lessons and we have found

a fabulous teacher that had spots 

for both Emma and Abby! 

{back to back!!}

I wasn't sure I'd find someone 

that I liked as much as we liked

Emma's teacher in LBK but we found

a great new teacher who we LOVE!!

~Funny story~

The other day Abby ran to the store 

with me to grab a few things and after 

we got what we needed we got in the car

and were on our way home. We had taken

Daddy's car, {since the kids all think it is 'cooler' 

than the Mommy-mobile}

as we were driving Abby, quietly says from the back seat

A-"Momma, Daddy's car is clean"

Me-"Yep, Daddy's car is clean. Its usually just Daddy

who rides in it, so it stays clean, huh!"

A-"Yeah, your car's not clean...because we always

want to bring toys and food in your car"

Me-"Yeah, maybe we can all work together to try and keep

Mommy's car clean by taking in toys when we go inside!"

A-"Yes!! I'm sorry that I make messes all the time. I dont like making

messes all the time, and I wanna stop, but I just can't {brutally honest :)}

....I'm sorry Momma, I'll start helping you more around the house too!"

~~~Abigail Lane, age 4 

Isn't she the sweetest? I just admire her 

for many things, but in this instant for 

her precious little sense of humor. I'm

not sure she know's how really funny 

she actually is!! She just keeps

us all laughing all the time! Saying

the most unpredictably funny things 

out of the blue, all the time! 

Abby Beth Lane, you, 

truly are one in a million!

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Summer has officially begun and is in full swing

in North Texas! Let's just say that it has been

HOT!!

What do you do when its miserably hot outside?

Go to the pool of course! :)

Ethan in his new swim trunks :)

{isn't he a stud?}

Emma and Abby on their 1st Day of Swim Camp

at AquaKids! They go every day for 30 mins for 2 weeks!

They have both come SO far from where they 

started! When we started swimming lessons 

neither could swim at all, not even a little...

now they are both little fish! Miss Emma got moved

up to level 2 on the second day and has just blown 

us and her teachers away! She can now swim all the 

way across the pool by herself! She can swim forwards

and on her back as well! I'm so proud of her!!

Abby has learned SO much as well! She can swim 3/4 

of the way across the pool by herself and she goes 

farther every time! I'm very proud of her too! 

They are going to be swimming pro's after this

next week of lessons! 

Totally ready for the beach on the 4th with
Mammy, Poppy, Juju, & Babbo + Katie :)

{We cannot wait!!}

Sophie's ready for 4th of July on the Beach!!

So thankful for sweet new friends

 from our new Life Group!

Mothers Day + Sophie's Baby Dedication at 

Hillside 

{5.12.13}

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Getting ready to celebrate ONE year with this 

beauty in two short days!! 

{WE <3 SBL}

B.B.B. Award!

This past weekend we celebrated

one of our favorite boys in the whole

world!!

6/7/13

Ethan Thomas

turned 

3

years old!

What does an adorable, adventurous

little 3 year old want to do for his

special day?

...camping of course!! 

our fabulous campsite

the amazing view!

hot dogs + s'mores = 

one happy 3 year old!

sweet Sophie Belle enjoying

 a smoothie pouch! Yum!

 being the most adorable

little boy on earth!

{playing 'e-planes' with Momma!}

 Emma Grace enjoying her

summer break!

Taking a little dip in 

the swimming hole!

There was a cute story to go with this pic...

Sophie is most definitely a water baby. 

She.loves.water

Ethan is the exact opposite.

He.is.not.a.fan.of.water

he saw Sophie drift a few 'inches' 

away from Daddy and he began to 

hyperventilate and freak out shouting

'Sophie, SOPHIE, SOPHIE!!!' 

almost to tears because he thought

she was gonna get hurt. 

Not sure where this sudden surge of fear

of water started...but he was terrified that 

Sophie would float away and the lake would

devour his baby sissy. It was really the sweetest 

thing to see {in a weird way} as a Momma!

That protective instinct kicked in and all he 

knew was he needed to get help for his sweet baby!

I reassured him that Sophie was perfectly safe

with Daddy less than a foot away, yet he still

demanded that she be brought closer to shore!

We decided that it couldn't hurt and he then

relaxed and enjoyed himself once he knew that

his baby sister was safely on the beach!

Sweet big brother!

~~~~~~~~~~

Emma and Abby started swimming lessons

on Monday and they go every day for 30 minutes

for the next two weeks!

{I'll be blogging about that later} :)

They are having a blast!!

 Ethan loves a good puzzle

{especially one with firetrucks on it! :)}

Ethan and his first tie!

{I HEART this boy!!}

 hovering...too much?!

never! I LOVE how he LOVES her!

{best.big.brother.award!}

These past three years seemed

to have just flown by and I can't 

get used to saying 3 instead of 2 year old!

But I'm working on it :) We are so crazy for 

our precious Bubby! We love your cautious, 

shy, adventurous, fun loving sweet spirit! 

We are drawn to your kindness and would

be absolutely lost without our sweet brother!

Thankful the Lord has blessed us with you, that

we get to be your Momma and Daddy and sisters!

We have much love for you,

Ethan Thomas Lane!

Happy Happy Birthday Bubby!

You share a lovely month for a birthday

with none other than your beloved

baby sister! In less than a week we'll be celebrating 

ONE year with our beauty, 

Sophie Belle 

Emma's Kinder Graduation

This past week we celebrated 

this adorable little cutie!

I'll admit...I have been struggling

with the fact that my baby is 

graduating from kindergarten!

I had a very hard time dropping her 

off at kindergarten the very first day

{missed that blog post? here ya go!}

You might imagine that I was not

ready for her precious little graduation!

But it was the sweetest little 

ceremony there ever was!

Mammy and Poppy and Juju 

make the trek in to FW to share in

our big girl's special day! 

{with Juju's purse :)}

{Emma + 2 of her favorites}

The sweet kindergarteners had 3 sweet 

little songs that they surprised us with followed

by Emma's principal, Mr. Hurst read a favorite 

book 'Love you forever' aloud and yes, it 

was most definitely a tear jerker! 

Juju and Sophie at Emma's 

graduation ceremony!

Isn't she the cutest?!

Emma and her sweet teacher, 

{grad hat on!}

{and one without!}

Gosh, I am one proud Momma!

We went for some fro-yo after to celebrate

and ran into a sweet friend from her class, Sofia!

Twinsies!

Here's a video of our girl on stage!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next morning we woke up and got 

Emma dressed in her swimmies 

for Splash day at school!

Mammy and Poppy and Abby dropped 

Emma off and took our sweet Abby girl

on a breakfast date!

A Minnie Mouse pancake!

Meanwhile, Momma got to go

up and spend time at Emma's splash day,

Just Emma and Momma!

{a big thank you to Mammy and Juju for holding

 down the fort while Mommy was gone!}

Emma and Sofia enjoying popsicles 

side walk chalk fun with my girl!

After lunch, Mammy and Juju headed home and 

Abby was dying to go play at splash day, so 

we headed back up to Emma's school to once

again, join in on the fun!

sprinkler fun!

Emma and Taytem!

Love these two beauties!

~~~~~~~~~~~~

And....this morning was Emma's 

very last day of kindergarten!

I decided to take our time and go a little later 

so we could miss the craziness of drop off time

so we could get some cute pictures!

Emma Grace!

Isn't she lovely? Less than 2 weeks til

we celebrate this beauty turning 1!

Picking up our Emma girl!

Sweet friends!

Class of 2026

Emma, Ainsley, Taytem and Micah!

Here are a few pics of Emma's 

first day of school to compare how

much she's grown!

Look out world!! Emma's now a 1st grader!! :)