So anyway, I was out and about having coffee in a cup from a coffee shop, getting a facial, getting a haircut, listening to adult music…all that good stuff. It was so great! And then this morning, I was sitting on the couch with my sweet Blythe and she says, “Mommy, when are you gonna go do stuff again so I can stay with Daddy?” I thought, oh how sweet, she had so much fun with her Daddy. And then she said, “Because he plays with me a lot more than you sometimes do.”

Wow. Honesty from a 4 year old. I immediately start trying to justify in my head why I can’t play with her every second of every day and there are things that just need to be done. We have to have clean clothes, I have to load to the dishwasher, I’ve got things to sew, pictures to edit, blah, blah, blah…and then she interupts my thoughts. She leans into me, cuddles into my arm and says, “Mommy, I love you so much.” And then everything was okay.

And in that moment I heard the Lord say to me, “She knows. You have given her that security to know she is loved. And that kind of security doesn’t just come from one day, but from her 4 years of  life.”

And so I sighed…happily.

I am just starting with this past weekend, January 30-31, 2010. First of all, I can’t even believe it is 2010…which my kids say should be said twenty-ten, not two-thousand and ten.  Why?  Because Micha said, and only that.

Now for the weekend: 

It snowed a bunch the end of last week.  I was so excited because I love winter and snow and being bundled and cozy and drinking hot chocolate and warm fires and…you get the idea.  So I was really excited when it started snowing and it kept snowing.  The last time we had a really good snow like this was when Luke was a baby and we were stuck in Dallas.  So anyway, I was happy about it.  School was cancelled Thursday and Friday and we didn’t leave the house until Saturday night for church.  Loved it!

The kids were super excited too!  They played in it a lot.  Friday they played in the backyard, but somehow I missed those pics. Here are the pictures from Saturday and Sunday.

Saturday, we played in the front and made snowmen and sledded down our little slope.  And when I say we made snowmen, Brooks made a creepy snowMAN.

The kids helped for awhile, but got bored so we figured a way to sled…on our swimming floaties.  Great fun!

Sunday we went sledding at Medipark  and had a super fun time.  We had never been before.  Well, the kids had never been before.   And we tried to be a little safer than when we were younger.  No trains of tubes or sleds.  No pulling behind cars.  Just some good ole sledding fun.   The kids (Luke and Karsen and Brooks) did go on a few jumps where Karsen nearly landed on her head, but she didn’t and is fine, praise the Lord!  But it was a pretty good little flip.

Here are some pics from all the fun!

I mean really, is there anything cuter?  She had so much fun!

I tried to get some cute pics of them sitting on the sled, but Blythe was not too happy about me stopping the sledding to get pictures…

And here are the big kids!

Oh wait, that’s Brooks!

Karsen had some pretty awesome falls.

I was able to sneak in one pic of me and Blythe that we took while the kids were doing their jumps.  Still not happy about not sledding.

We had fun!

We had a  great trip!  I just loooovvvve San Antonio!  We went Father’s Day Sunday through Thursday. 

Sunday when we got there we went to dinner on the Riverwalk.  Brooks got to choose since it was Father’s day and he chose steak.  We then went walking around the river.

Here are the kids after the walk. 

The next day we went to the zoo and the Riverwalk again.  I took most of the zoo pictures on the other camera, so I don’t have those here but I do have some from the river.  I wanted to get some good sweet sibling pictures and individual shots of them too. Well, this is what I got.

So not too bad.  But we decided to go to the Alamo and try again.  The Alamo had already closed for the day so we just played outside of it for awhile.  It was still fun.

And I love this one because they are all very distracted by something.

And some more fun pics that I just like. 

Poor Luke. 

And I love this one of Brooks and the girls.

Okay…so there is part one.   Maybe I can do part two tonight or in the morning.  And I mean it this time.

Well today I found the time.  It’s going to be a short one, but at least I did it.

It’s a great Luke story.  Sometimes I wonder what goes on in his head, and every once in a while I get a glimpse.

Luke:  Mommy, why didn’t you name me Rico?

Me:  What??? (laughing like crazy inside)

Luke:  Why didn’t you name me Rico?  I think Rico Boyett sounds really cool!

Me:  Well, yes it does.  But we decided that we liked the name Luke.  All you kids have a Biblical name, and your Biblical name is Luke. 

Luke:  But you also chose it because of Luke Skywalker, right?  Because he is cool.

Me:  (really trying not to be sarcastic) It only made it better.

*******

So there you go.  Thoughts that go on in my sweet Luke’s head.

More to come!

Here is Blythe in JoJo’s lap shortly after hearing Micha tell her happy birthday. 

She really did have a fun party .

She opened her presents.  And the big kids watched.

And I’m not quite sure what Luke is doing here, but I do like how Ellie is pretending not to notice.

The cake:

Blythe didn’t want to blow out her candle, so Karsen did it for her.

But she did want to eat it.

And she finished out the day playing Luke’s DS.  What a life!

And then I had to go and ruin the fun by telling her it was time for bed.

Thanks to everyone for the fun presents!  She loves them all!  And thank you Aimee for helping with some of the pictures. 

We had a happy party!!

As I like to share birthing stories on my kids’ birthdays, here’s the one about her.  So with my Blythe, I was induced because I asked.  I had an appointment 2 days after my due date, and my doctor said, “Well, let’s see how you look next week and if you still haven’t had her we’ll talk about inducing.”  And I said, “Well, could we talk about inducing this week?”  So he called the hospital and there was a space, so I took it.  So on the morning of March 28th I reported to the hospital at 7am and sat in the waiting room.  We sat there for about an hour or so when they told me they could get me started in the recovery room.  When you are 9 months plus pregnant, you take what you can get.  So they started everything around 9.  After a couple of hours, I finally got my own room.  Thank goodness!  Sharing a room with another woman who is in labor was really strange.  I am really quiet, and well…she was not.  I liked my own room much better.  So after about 9 hours of labor, with a few interesting things thrown in, my sweet Blythe Rachel was born.  Beautiful and healthy.  It was a good day!

Happy birthday tiny b!

And here it is Saturday.  The kids, and Brooks, got outside before me, so I missed all the pretty untouched snow.

This was Blythe checking it all out.  It was her first real snow.  However, it did snow the day she came home from the hospital, but she may not remember that.  The sunglasses were her choice because it was ‘bite’.

And here is the great snowman.  Notice Blythe keeping her eyes on him.  And she did not take her eyes off of him until we went inside.

This was also Blythe’s birthday!  We were going to have her party, but decided to cancel because we weren’t sure how the roads would be.  But we had fun the next day. 

Party to come!!

And we have done lots of stuff. 

I’ll start with our fun Spring Break trip we took.  We went for a great extended weekend to Great Wolf Logde, a hotel and  indoor water park,  in Grapevine.  Brooks’ mom decided that for her birthday, she wanted to take everyone (us, Jason, Aimee, Ellie, Owen, Chris, Micha, August, and JoJo and Pops) on a trip together. It was so much fun and I would recommend it to others. 

I did not get as many pictures as I should have of the actual water park, but the other Boyetts did.  You can see them here.  

We got to Dallas, or specifically Flower Mound, on Friday and spent the night at my dad’s house.  Then Saturday we met everyone at the hotel.  The kids were super excited when we got there and they could see what it all looked like and were ready to go play.  Here they are hanging out in the hotel waiting for the okay to go play.

So after we checked in, we played.

Here are the four oldest ready to go.

Here are the two youngest.  They were happy just to sit and splash.

As you can see, Blythe is not right next to August, for fear of being splashed.  It was probably a valid fear. 

Super cute Blythe and August pictures.

And here are some fun pictures from the weekend in no particular order.

If you notice that Blythe looks to be a little beat up, she had a rough few days.  Before we left for the trip, she fell and hit her head and nose on our concrete floor.  And then while at my dad’s, she fell into a chair and scraped the side of her head.  And then while walking around looking at all of the slides, she fell and busted her lip on the floor of the water park.  Poor baby.  She looks a little sad.

But still super cute!

Luke and Ellie going across the lily pads, a thing in one of the pools. 

Yikes!  They look a little scary.

We had a great time!  Thanks so much JoJo and Pops!

The rest of spring break!

We played outside.  It snowed…actually before we left so we didn’t get to see it.  And we just hung out and had fun.  Brooks went to a mini camp at the end of spring break.  You can check that out here.

We had a great spring break!

We sat around Friday night and just visited and caught up, even though all but one of us there still live in Amarillo.  Saturday we went walking, had lunch, played some slots, which I won $250, yes!! that’s what I said!!  And then ended the day with dinner at Casa Blanca, a very yummy Mexican food restaurant.  Went back to our condominium and talked and laughed some more.  It was a great time. 

Sunday we got up and headed home.  Thanks for the fun girls!  Love you all!