Spring/Early Summer Highlights

I am so behind on blogging that I would basically abandon ship at this point but this is the easiest way for me to keep a digital record of family pictures and memories to catalog and access those pictures months or years later whenever I need them for photo calendars or scrapbooks so I will continue on!

This spring was full with homeschooling and wrapping up the school year (James is moving onto second and Jude to 4K), our tenth wedding anniversary, youth ministry events, soccer for James and Jude (his first organized sport), lots more sickness for everyone which eventually lead to our discovering of significant mold in our home and being displaced from home for around two months during the mold remediation and Stephen being diagnosed with adult-onset asthma triggered by the mold (whew! thats a whole story in itself that I don't have time to document here), Joah's second birthday and Jude's fourth birthday, and the start of the summer in youth ministry which is non-stop. The boys and I just had a week together while Stephen was gone to M-Fuge and I was proud of how I was able to hold down the fort with him gone and all the fun that we had and memories made (although I know that a lot of that was due to lots of prayers and God strengthening me but it was a special week full of fun activities: splash pad, bouncy place, magic show, etc.)

Here are some of the things that have been happening (in pictures) since my last post of our family vacation back in February:

Made a birthday cake for James after we returned from our family vacation in Florida because I had no oven /kitchen while we were there!

Stone Mountain Snow Tubing Youth Fellowship 

Park Fun

Monster Jam in Atlanta this time (one of the boys Christmas gifts)! The boys love it (all of them - even though Joah is covering his ears!) It was so much better with a bigger arena than what we were used to in Birmingham.

Joah's first time blowing bubbles himself!

This pretty much sums up his personality! Although he can't eat that tray full of cheese anymore...
(He is either lactose intolerant or Cow Milk Protein Intolerant. It's not a histamine reaction but is an intolerance with his gut, but it could explain his anemia as well. We don't know until we do more testing but basically he throws up after dairy so this has been a big adjustment to cut it out. Occasionally this intolerance can be triggered by sickness which he's had a lot of (pneumonia) from the mold so we're praying his gut can heal and he can grow out of it.) Whew! That's a whole other saga/story that can be documented fully here!

Stephen's parents sent us this picture while we were gone for the day celebrating our
10th wedding anniversary and I thought it was really cute! 

Flying Kites!

McWane Center Plane Simulator

Joah loves Donkey from Shrek so I took a picture at our pastor's barn for him.

Backwards day for James at church. Look closely at him!

James and Jude played on the same soccer team together!

Tenth anniversary picture (our tradition on this chair)! Before we headed out. We had planned a second day of fun but Joah got sick with pneumonia so we spent the day at Children's After Hours instead. Once everyone gets well, I just need to get brave and leave them for at least a night so we can get away and just be fully refreshed because this year has been a hard one.