Coming up for air!

 Hello friends and family from the hole that I have been hiding in! Phew!  What a few weeks this has been!  While I have a few minutes with the girls at school and Beck snoozing in the swing behind me, I should be busy unpacking boxes, finding clothes, sheets, bedspreads and the like - I felt the need to catch up on the blog! I have barely talked to friends these past few weeks in all of our craziness and hope to come out of all of this with some left! :) So glad you all can't see me right now as I look like a tired frazzled mom of 3 with dark circles under my eyes and frizzy hair pulled back in a pony tail - quite the sight for sore eyes!  But, life is great and I hope I don't sound like I am complaining - just trying to keep it real :)  We are officially in our new house - hooray!! I love every it so much and couldn't be happier.  Now, by being "in", this does not mean "settled". This means sitting here at our kitchen table in one of the girls play table chairs (hoping to go get kitchen table chairs tonight) and sleeping in sleeping bags on just our mattresses upstairs (beds are not set up yet -just mattresses on the floors!) and finding clothes out of suitcases every night.  We do not have couches or tvs and this is the first time I have gotten to use my new internet (as of today!).  I feel like I have been so out of touch with minimal internet these last few weeks! :)  We have had a busy few weeks, but busy in a good way and although I feel like i can't seem to get caught up on the things I need to do (and I have no idea what day it is!), I am so happy to be where I am and know that any day now, things will start to settled down! :)  Moving was a doozie - I hope to never move again in my life - it was that miserable.  Packing took well over a week and cleaning was blah, but, now the excitement of unpacking our new house awaits - the fun part!  We have been busy with tax season, Leadership Cobb, just moving in general and having three kids, nursing a newborn, the Great Locomotive Chase weekend in Marietta, Easter and Easter egg hunts, my dad's birthday, picking out paint colors, designing built-ins, etc, etc.  I signed up for a Be Yoga Be Introduced 4 week session before the moving began and have only made it to one of the three sessions so far b/c they have fallen on moving days! :(  I am excited to try it all out though and to hopefully get into it once life gives me a little more time.  As the school year is starting to wind down, the girls have also had busy schedules to keep us all going and seeing friends, which is nice.  I have also been so grateful for friends that are STILL bringing dinner for Beck's birth and more that keep calling and offering or dropping by with cakes with our big move.  I feel so blessed today, more than ever, to live in this community with people that make you realize every day how lucky we are!  Now, for some pictures from our last two weeks.  I also broke my phone two weeks ago and it works sporadically (typical!), so these are the only pictures I have. :)

Easter Egg Hunt at MCC - Ali found the golden egg and was so excited!  Both of the girls got their faces painted and got fun balloons and had so much fun!  Baby Beck was a trooper (as always!) and came along for the ride!  We spent that night (Easter Eve!) with my parents and headed back up to the club the next morning (after church) for Easter brunch....unfortunately, I did not make it home with a single picture!  And seeing as the rest of our Easter was filled with packing and moving, this is the only picture we have! :)

This little man has been hanging out.  I thank God every day for him - he is so laid back and along for the ride (doesn't really have a choice in that matter!) and has spent a lot of the last few weeks hanging in his chair or the swing or in different arms so that we could get everything done.  I am not sure how we would have gotten it all done if he hadn't and I still can't believe what a little trooper he has been!  I love him so!!

Ali has been a busy girl!  Her choir sang at Wednesday Night Supper last week and again this week at church. They had their end of  the year party last night!  She is gearing up for her recital next month for ballet and last week the parents got to come in for a sneak peak!

Last Friday was a big day - she got to go to West Side for the Teddy Bear Tour!  We have been looking forward to this for months!  And - as a bonus - Libby was in her group for the tour.  She was so excited and luckily not too devastated that the teddy bear (Bitty Baby) she wanted to take was packed up in a Pod...smart thinking Mama!  I was so proud of her and we are so excited about Kindergarten in a few months!!

 Rhodes has also been busy!  She had a performance on Tuesday at school for "All Afloat on Noah's Boat!" and she was so cute!  We took a video of it on our phone (will post later) and this was the only picture I got.  She was tired of the paparazzi, can you tell?  She is also SO excited about her recital next month for ballet and has been practicing on the stage - it is the cutest thing I have ever seen.  I have a video of that that I will try to post soon. She asks every day if she can go to ballet that day - it is by far her favorite activity!

And, in case you have not heard our latest drama.....on Thursday, Ryan and I were so excited.  We could see the light at the end of the tunnel and we got a key to the house, got the carpets cleaned that morning, and were waiting for them to dry before putting the mattresses in that.  The girls were so excited too and running around like crazy.  I had just gotten onto Rhodes for taking the bag of cotton balls into the empty playroom and throwing them onto the floor (and yelling "golf balls!!" - nut!) and was walking to the bathroom to put them up when I heard her crying.  If you know Rhodes, you know she is not a big cryer, unless she is really hurt.  I ran back in there and all I saw was blood.  All over her mouth, her clothes and some on the carpet.  She was devastated and she had knocked out her front tooth.  Moments like these are the hardest for me as a Mama....they are the moments I wonder if I am really cut out for this. I  try so hard to put on a brave face for her so that she will not be afraid, but my heart breaks as I watch my baby girl with a broken heard, begging to go back in time and get her tooth back and begging for me to take her to the tooth store to get a new one.  After I found a picture of Libby with a missing tooth, it made her feel a ton better when she realized it was cool to lose a tooth - but, after hearing at the dentist yesterday that the earlier you lose a tooth, the longer it takes to grow one back and that she may be 8 or 9 before she gets on there - I had a slight breakdown.  She looks so cute now (of course!) and I just want her to always be confident in her toothless smile and know how beautiful she is! :)  I keep reminding myself that if this is our biggest worry for our children's health, then we are very lucky!  She sure is a cute little snaggletooth! 

 So that's it for now - I just wasted way too much time typing this, but happy to be catching up!!  Will post soon about a big 2 month birthday we celebrated at our house yesterday! Thank you God for a fun new house, healthy children, and great family and friends that take care of us during this crazy times!