Thankful Thursday - Life is so sweet!

A couple of weeks ago we packed up the kids and headed to our old stomping grounds of SFA in Nacogdoches for a night. Andrew has had the awesome opportunity to speak to a couple hundred college students about once a month this past school year at a Wednesday night service called Great Escape. It truly has been a full circle type of experience with us because Great Escape is the event we both attended each Wednesday night while we were there in college. (It is also the place where Andrew asked me out for the 1st time.;) So, there are a lot of fun memories that surround Great Escape and now we are on the other side lead and guiding the college students. It is so surreal at times! I love that we can just "pick up and go" right now. No kiddos in school or sports. We can just go and enjoy the fun family time. (If that is what you want to call sleeping in a hotel room with 3 kids 4 and under. :) East Texas is absolutely beautiful in the spring and before we headed back home we decided to stop and take some pictures...

We stopped by this azalea garden and I am not exaggerating when I say that it was an absolutely gorgeous place!! Here are some of our attemps at getting pics of the kids. :)

Aren't they so cute! I look at these pictures and can't believe how big they are all getting!!

Ainsley was having a blast!

My adorable boy who needs a hair cut oh so badly. :)

This picture pretty much sums up Audrey right now. :) Such a cutie!

Austin took this pic and he did a great job!

LOVE this sweet pic!! So very thankful today for my precious kids and hubby. I am truly blessed!

Silly Girls!

Two days a week Austin goes to pre-school at a church in McKinney. (Which has been WONDERFUL for him!!) During those days it is mostly just me and the girls. It has been a great way for the two of them to play together and just do girl things while brother is at school. I love to watch how their relationship is growing! Last week both girls were being super silly, so I grabbed my camera and we had a fun few minutes taking pictures and looking at them. (Audrey wants to look at every pic after I take it. :)

This is why I went and grabbed my camera. Look at this girl! I can't remember why she didn't have any clothes on, but it was most likely b/c she had a leaky diaper. ;) Ains has one of her shoes, one of her brother's shoes, and her sisters backpack on. She walked around like this for like half an hour so proud of herself. It was too cute!

Then there was her big sis. Audrey was being a "statue" in this pic. :)

And then she ran to put one of Mommy's necklaces and her Sunday shoes on to take more pics. (Don't really know what this face is! :) There are no shoes, jewelry or make-up safe at my house right now! Somehow both girls always migrate to our bathroom to "play". It's good times! ;)

Such a sweet smile! I love the time I have with my girls!

Sweet Friend Reunions

A couple of weeks ago, we met up with some sweet college friends and their kiddos at the Ft. Worth Zoo. It was so great to hang out as "moms"!

Amber, me, Whitney, Anna and Sarah

What precious girls and friends!

Here is one of the best pics I could get of all of our kiddos. :)


My sweet boy



Audrey posing with the pink flamingos - some of her favs b/c they are pink of course!!

Ainsley at the end of the day - she was wiped out!

These are Anna's 2 precious boys that her and Chris adopted from Africa last year. Look how beautiful they are!!

Amber and Jack. He is such a sweet little guy! And look at those baby blues!! Just like his beautiful mommy! :)

Whitney and Anna - they now have something so special in common! Whitney and her husband just adopted a precious baby boy from Africa as well! It was so amazing to watch these two with their boys! Two incredible and godly mommies! I love it!

Sarah has been one of my besties since college and I love her dearly! She is just "that" friend for me. We don't have to talk often and I still know that she will always be there for me if I ever needed her. She is an amazing person and mom! Can't wait to meet her new baby girl this summer!

Amber and Anna - such beautiful women from the inside out! Anna and her family leave for missions in east Asia this fall. She has such an amazing servant's heart and her parents (Jim and Marcy, and really their entire family :) mean so much to me and Andrew. We wouldn't be who we are today in ministry without their influence in our lives so many years ago. We praise God for the Carters!! :)

That same week I had a Southern Living at Home event in Waco. Two of my sweet friends - Ariel and Mandy came and it was such a fun night for girl time! Love you, girls!

Easter 2010

I am just now getting to putting up our Easter pictures because of the many Disney World posts. :) Easter is always a wonderful time for our family and as the kids get older and start "getting" the event that our whole faith is based upon it is going to be even more special. What a beautiful picture the cross is of Christ's redeeming love and the amazing power of His resurrection fills me with such awe every year. At this point we are so excited about our kids one day surrendering their lives to the Lord. What a celebration those days are going to be! I can't wait!

The Saturday before Easter I took Audrey to get her very first manicure and pedicure! This absolutely one of my favorite was of pampering myself and it was so fun to share it with my girly-girl. She was so cute. Audrey was convinced that when we got there SHE was the one who was going to be doing the painting. She did great though after she realized that some other lady was going to be "painting" on her. :)

Manicure

About to get a pedicure

It was a fun experience and a great way for just the two of us to do something special together. I have a feeling we will be having lots of days like this in the future!


Easter morning I tried so very hard to make it as non-stressful as possible for both me and the kiddos. Since Andrew goes up to the church so early every Sunday, it is always a very interesting process of getting myself and all 3 kids out the door and at church by 9:30 every week. Some Sundays are better than others.:) Easter Sunday this year was a breeze! I don't know if it was that the kids are older or that I might finally be getting the hang of this whole"mom with toddlers" thing. ;) Either way, I was SO thankful!

Easter basket fun!

Our adorable kiddos in their Easter gear!

Notice how all 3 wanted to have their "lovies" in the pic. Whatever it takes! :)

About to hunt Easter eggs at the church

Austin of course took his hunting very seriously. :)

Sweet girl

Ainsley couldn't have been cuter that day!

Love this pic! Just wish Ains was in it. :)

After church (where my awesome hubby preached 3 great sermons!), we headed to Ft. Worth to celebrate with Andrew's family.

The best pic we could get with Grandma and Grandpa Werley. :)

Let Easter egg hunt #3 begin! We had one at our house on Saturday to hunt for the resurrection eggs.:)

Our sweet cousin Sophia was there with her Daddy. (We missed Aunt Alisha and cousin Peyton who were at home sick. Austin kept asking when Peyton was coming. :)

These two are about 8 weeks apart and so cute together! Who cares about eggs! Let's play with the rocks instead! ;)

It was a great day to celebrate our risen Lord!

The Best Birthday EVER!!!

So, it's not every day that you have a birthday while at Disney World! What a special and magical day it was for this little girl!

Audrey woke up and knew exactly what day it was and she was excited to put her "pretty birthday girl clothes" on.

I just love this sweet picture. Happy 3rd birthday baby girl!

Audrey was having WAY more fun than Ainsley. :)

Our 3 little munchkins

We gave Audrey a small gift for her to open, but what she loved the best was the card from her big brother.

It was a very cute moment watching how proud Austin was and how excited Audrey was to get a birthday card. These are the moments I want to remember forever!

We then headed out for our final day at Disney World and our 2nd fun day at the Magical Kingdom. We were all so excited and we definitely felt like "Disney pros" by day 4.

As soon as we walked into the park we noticed Snow White. This young lady was by far the BEST character we met all week long. She was amazing with Audrey talking about her birthday and the important things about being a princess now that she was older. Priceless moments!

We love you, Snow White!

While Aunt Zuzu, Austin, Audrey and I were visiting with Snow White my incredible hubby (and Ains) was up at Cinderella's Castle seeing if he could make reservations for a table of 6 for that morning for breakfast. Doesn't sound too challenging does it? Well, if you have been to Disney World before you know how difficult it can be to make reservations at the most sought after character dining hall in the entire park. Thanks to our trusty book, The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World (a MUST HAVE) we knew that people start making reservations for Cinderella's Castle 180 days in advance! (That's almost 6 months before you go!!) So, even though we tried before we left to make these reservations, the castle was always full. We actually did make reservations for a place called Chef Mickey's where we would eat with Mickey and friends, but I just really wanted Audrey to experience the castle with all the princesses (like any mom would. ;) The book told us to just go the day that you want to eat there and ask the nice people if anyone had cancelled. It was a far shot, but we thought we would just try. What would it hurt? WELL, my amazing husband was able to get us a table right then! I am telling you - unheard of!! (It's all that charm he has! I also love it when Daddy saves the day! ;) So, when he called me and said we had to be there right that minute Suzanne and I threw the older 2 in the stroller and ran through the park. I know we looked hilarious, but we were SO excited! What an awesome surprise!! God is so good to us!

Here we are with Cinderella. I love it!!

At the meal, the princesses would come up to your table and talk with you. It was like one princess after another. Audrey was in heaven! We know that she felt so special - like all of it was just for her birthday. She still talks about this experience every day. :)

Princess Aurora

Princess Jasmine - one of Audrey's favorite princesses.

The rest of the silly crew. Austin wasn't totally left out. He was handed a sword when he walked in and he loved that. :)

Princess Belle - look at Audrey's sweet smile! She definitely knew what to do at this point!

One happy Mommy! There is just something about watching your children be so happy. We can't give them everything they want, (nor should we) but it felt so great for us to give our little girl this.

They gave Audrey a fun icing-covered birthday treat with a candle on top and we sang happy birthday to her. Pretty sure she was getting used to all the attention and liking it! :)

After the meal (and yes! it was pricey, but worth every penny on my book), we headed back out to Fantasyland to ride some of our favorite rides again. We figured out that the Fast Pass system is definitely the best way to go! No waiting in lines! We were able to ride everything so quickly! It was awesome!

We loved the Philar Magic show! (Also one of Zuz's favs) The kids loved the 3-D glasses and how "real" the movie was.

We were not going to be able to leave Disney without riding Mickey's train around the Magical Kingdom. This was by far Austin's favorite part of the day. Our boy still loves all things trains!

This is pretty much what Andrew did all week. What a stud! :)

And finally! The last picture we took at Disney! LOVE that we could share this whole wonderful trip with Suzanne! Unforgettable! Thanks again for reading all of my reminiscent posts of Disney! No more - I PROMISE! :)