Photo Shoot

Last month, my sister and I had our kids' picture taken by a sweet girl, Stacy Buxton Mitchell, from DeQuincy. She has a two-year-old herself, so she knew just how to get our little ones to smile and be happy, all while playing in the park!

I'm telling you folks. This is the way to go. No more portrait studio sitting fees and all that jazz. Stacy spent a couple hours with our guys doing their normal thang, took a million photos, and gave us the CD so that we can have all the prints we want!! Amazing!

It's a good thing, because I could have never narrowed it down in a portrait package. I couldn't hardly narrow it down just for this posting! Thankfully I spared you from having to look at every picture, but picked out my faves. (I have a lot of faves :)

Enjoy!

our 3 cuties: carson (2) , jude (10 months) and noah (2 years, 9 months)

my sweet nephew carson turns 2 on saturday!

this is frame-able

fascinating shoes :)

those eyes will melt your heart

probably my most favorite picture

jude was happy the whole time

he makes these eyes at us all the time

he already knows how to manipulate :)

we were standing close by on this one

Train Ride and Picnic

Last Wednesday we rode the Forest Park Miniature Train and ate a picnic at the Botanical Gardens with Meredith, Sawyer, and Jax. The weather was beautiful. The boys played together well. And it was incredibly nice to have adult conversation with another mom.

Thanks for inviting us Meredith!

our little green guys
noah, sawyer, jax, me and jude after the train ride

jude and jax enjoying their lunch in the wagon

Noah enjoyed pulling friends around. This time Sawyer and Jude were in for the ride.

209 ELC Art Show

A couple of weeks ago, we attended the ELC Art Show/Auction at Noah's school. All of his talented masterpieces were on display for everyone to see. I can't believe this is our third year to go to his Art Show! You can see last year's post here.

I was able to enjoy the event this year as a mom and less as a teacher, which was a fun change. I did help man a booth for a little while. And actually helped decorate the day of the fundraiser. I enjoyed putting all the fun center pieces together for the "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" theme.

I neglected to take pictures of Noah's artwork or of any of the festivities, but my friend Becky took these pictures and shared them with me.

The food included hot dogs, fries, popcorn, lemonade, and cotton candy. Can you tell what the kids loved most of all?
Noah and his friend Katie enjoying cotton candy for the first time.

Jude enjoyed his first time attending an art show outside of my womb :)

Next year Jude will be in his own class. Our plan is for me to teach the 3-4 year old class and the boys will each go to their classes. I'm excited about being able to teach little ones again. I'm thankful for the part-time work to help our family. And for our boys to be able to go to a pre-school program. Next year we'll have 2 little ones' art work to awe over!

Resurrection Weekend and the Railroad Festival

This weekend we travelled to Louisiana to celebrate the Resurrection of our risen Lord with our family. It also was the weekend of the DeQuincy Railroad Festival. The boys enjoyed riding rides, eating good food, visiting with family, and attending church on Resurrection Sunday.

We began our trip at 5:30 a.m. on Good Friday. We made record time and arrived about 11:15 a.m. just in time for a yummy Crawfish Boil. We ate until we were stuffed and then let the kids rest before going to the festival. We spent the evening eating hamburgers and letting the kids play in the park and ride carnival rides. It was Gospel Music Night, so we also had good entertainment.

our family riding the carousal

clay and the boys getting ready to go to the festival on saturday

jude enjoying his high view

Many times during the weekend Noah would make himself at home by jumping on a ride with a complete stranger! He chose girls every time. Thankfully, the girls didn't mind sharing the ride seat with him.

I don't have a picture of Noah on the rollercoaster, but it was his favorite ride of all. It was quite the "big boy" ride and we thought he would be too scared to ride it. He's so brave. He referred to it as the "Pink Dinosaur".

After a full Saturday morning of rides and food we drove to Dry Creek to spend time with Iles'. Noah enjoyed going to the Eggstravaganza at Dry Creek Baptist Church. He loved sliding on the huge blowup slide. We were awarded the opportunity to teach the lesson of patience when Noah discovered he had to wait in line before climbing up the slide :)my brave little jumper

here's noah "patiently" waiting with uncle gordy until his turn to slide

Jack and Noah like the same things and enjoy playing together. Here they are with Dee and Uncle Clint.

Here are the Iles men plus Mrs. DeDe

Clay, Jude, Terry, Noah, Bro. Curt, Jack, Mrs. DeDe, and Clint

After eating a delicious dinner we returned to DeQuincy to enjoy the last few hours of the festival. Noah and Carson had the most fun at the end. They loved riding the rides over and over and sliding down the big slide at the park.

That night KK said that Carson was saying "Railroad Feestival" in his sleep!

here's landon and noah wrestling on the couch on sunday morning

On Sunday morning we joined the rest of my family in attending Bible Baptist Church. It's such a blessing to worship together with our family of believers. It was a special service to celebrate that our Savior has risen! Noah made up a song on the way to church that I didn't understand except for one message- The Cross. How beautiful that my young son is becoming more and more aware of the gospel of Jesus Christ!

After church we enjoyed lunch with the extended Mitchell family and then returned to Fort Worth. It was quick weekend full of activities that we thoroughly enjoyed!

jude's first haircut

Even though Jude is only 9 months, he was in need of a haircut. I was going to do it myself, but then thought it would be fun to bring him to Cool Cuts for his first haircut. He even sat in the same taxi chair that Noah sat in for his first cut. You can see pictures of Noah's first cut here. Enjoy!

Before the cut- look how the hair hangs over his ears and dangles in the front of his face
no more forehead hair- yea!

Look how cute my sweet baby boy looks now! He's growing way too fast.

the iles boys

Here are some recent pictures of my boys:

All 3 boys in Noah's bed as daddy reads them a bedtime story
Noah and Jude sharing a morning snack
(I did not put the snack in this colander. This is all Noah's doing.)

They were caught by the camera!

Here they are watching an afternoon Spring thunderstorm. Or should I say Noah is watching out the window and Jude is watching Noah watch out the window?

spring break

Okay, so Spring Break was back several weeks ago- in mid-March, but I still thought I'd share with you what we were up to....

We said good-bye to our dear friends, Jason and Melissa, who moved to our home-state of Louisiana. They will be working at Louisiana College. We're jealous of Clint, Amanda, Jack and Terry who all live so close to them now. Noah and Jude really miss their MeMe and JJ :(

Noah and Jude saying goodbye the night before moving day.

The boys and I went to Louisiana to visit our families during Spring Break because Clay was in Illinois preaching a revival for one of his seminary classes.
Noah and Jude riding the tractor with PaPa

Noah and PaPa enjoying a fire

(By the way, Noah loves building "fires" at our house now too. He puts pencil colors in a colander and "lights" the "fire" with a marker which he pretends to flick like a lighter. So cute!)

Although I neglected to take pictures of the boys with their Dee (sorry Mrs. DeDe!) we had a fabulous time with her as well. She took great care of us and fed us very well! We also got to visit with MeMe Iles, the Glasers, the Campbells, and a Sunday visit with Terry, Clint, Amanda, and Jack!

After visiting the Iles' we headed on over to visit my family in DeQuincy.

Pops greeted us at the door and both boys lept into his arms

Noah immediately wanted to ride the 4-wheeler. He and Pops have a great time outside together.

Dad treated me by cooking Crawfish Etoufee' and Steak, rice, and gravy during my visit. I felt just a little bit spoiled.

Noah and Carson enjoyed quite a few popsicles together. They are such good buddies!

Grammie, the boys and I had a fun day at the park on the last day of my visit. We enjoyed a game of baseball in the park, playing on the slides, a Dollar Store run, and eating lunch at A.J.'s Cafe- yum, yum! I got a fried-shrimp poboy so I could get in some more Louisiana eating before going back to the no-seafood land of Fort Worth.

Grammie helped Jude slide down the slide for the first time.

Jude loved his first play day at the park.

Jude loves giving kisses to his Uncle Landon.

On Wednesday afternoon we had Carson, Noah and Jude's picture taken. Stacy Buxton Mitchell was brave enough to take on our 3 little ones at a park in DeQuincy. The pictures turned out great! I'll post them when my CD arrives in the mail (KK!)

We enjoyed eating dinner with the Schreves and Mallards our first night in town. We were also able to visit several times with Nana. Aunt Kay came over to visit on our last evening and was sweet to give Noah a bath. He still talks about "Kay" and the great time they had together.

Thursday morning we left early and made our way back to Fort Worth. I was crazy enough to think that I could manage to find the airport, park, and get two kids into the airport to pick up Clay on time. What was I thinking? The Tom-Tom does not give precise directions to the DFW Airport. Imagine that? It decided to lead me to the corporate offices. How helpful. Well we did actually make it on time. However, the plane arrived early and never gave the correct gate information. So, the boys and I (weary from traveling for 7 hours) parked in the first terminal and walked, and walked, and walked...and finally gave up. We sat for a while and I changed Jude's diaper and clothes. We then started our journey again. Jude ended up on my hip while Noah was in the stroller. A man took one look at me and said, "I really admire you". I was thinking "I don't!". We called Clay and he was still waiting on his bags, so we toughed it out and finished the last leg of the hike to the Baggage Claim. I was so relieved to see my tall husband in the crowd. It seemed so much easier to get back to the car even with Clay's big suitcase and carry on added to the bunch. Did I mention that Noah also had a poopy diaper all this time and I mistakenly left his diaper and change of clothes in the car back in Tin-Buck-Two? We decided it would be best to stop and get ice-cream on the way home. I've decided when Clay goes to Mali this May, I will not be picking him up at the airport when he arrives home. We'll look forward to him arriving on our front door step!