Levi
You are growing like a weed before my eyes, all tall now and with your face all slimmed out into a big boy face. I feel like I'm catching glimpses of you grown up. But you're still young and I love your sensitive, tender side. You still like to snuggle and you still ask to play with us. I know those days are probably numbered and I could definitely do better at savoring them. You recently discovered Harry Potter and have been flying through the audiobooks. However, we have to be careful around bedtime because they can be a little scary and now that we've moved Emery out of your room, it can be hard for you to go to bed at night. You've also been struggling with headaches so much this year and my heart just hurts for you because we don't know what to do about them. You have them about 4 times a week and so far nothing we've done has helped much. We've got an appointment scheduled with neurology but it isn't till June! I've got us on the wait list though so hopefully we can get you in sooner. We had your eyes checked and your visual acuity is great and allergy medicine didn't seem to help either. We're going to try going gluten-free this week at the advice of our pediatrician so we'll see how that goes!
In other news, your reading is really coming along thanks to all the hard work of your awesome 2nd grade teacher Mrs. Sullivan who has really done awesome with you! She has been a good partner with us, helping manage your struggles with attention and difficulties with phonics and I can tell she really cares about you.
Also, your drawing abilities are really quite amazing for your age. You did art camp for spring break and your astronaut picture was seriously so good! I was proud to show it off to our family. I want to encourage you to continue with it as long as it brings you joy.
You enjoyed basketball with Kyler but I don't think it was your favorite sport. Papi and Nona got you a basketball hoop for your birthday so we'll see if you keep practicing it.
You and Isla with your Valentines' boxes. I love how you can be so sweet with her!
You: "hey Mom! Let's see if I can fit in this hole I dug! pew pew pew"
You won an award at school this past week for giving creative suggestions to your group and getting along well with everyone.
You've been losing teeth lately and sometimes it makes you smile funny!
Ah my girl who lives large! You have started cheer and are really loving it. You like to perform and love dressing up! You have a strong sense of fairness lately and are quite competitive, especially with Levi. You are really coming along with your reading and can sound out phonetic words really well! You are very mothery towards Isla still even when she isn't always the nicest to you. You love school and like playing with your best friend Arya. In your own words you are "very into Stella Bats, Junie B Jones and gum." Haha. We are trying hard to get you to stop biting your nails and got some of that bitter stuff to put on them and you just hate it.
On Sundays or special occasions, you love choosing a special hairstyle from my Pinterest hair board or just making one up or letting me make one up for you!
You can't really see it in this picture but you love painting your own face! For this Sunday dinner, you were a tiger and your sweet cousins Noah and Silva were "helping" you learn how to ride a bike without training wheels.
Sweet matchy girls!
One of your school friends had a birthday party at Sweet & Sassy where you got to dress up and get your hair done and put on a little fashion show and it was pretty much your favorite thing ever! You've told me you want to do this at your next birthday party.
I love how you get proud of yourself when you do something challenging! You are definitely one to push yourself and keep trying hard things. Because you've been diligent at practicing your splits you can get all the way down to the floor now!
You had an absolute blast with cousin Silva at our spring break get-away weekend!
I loved seeing the two of you playing together!
Isla
My mischievous little buddy! I absolutely love hanging out with you on Mondays and Fridays and having you as my little tag-along. I tell you how we're buddies and you tell me "I'm the little buddy and you're the big buddy!" You are so strong-willed and independent and like to do things yourself such as take off your own clothes, put on your own clothes, put the lid on your cups, etc. I really have to watch you because you've gotten into the habit of stealing the car keys and leaving the house and getting into the car on your own! You also cause all sorts of trouble like getting water out of the sink and spilling it as you make "tea," getting into my make-up or your Desitin and getting it everywhere, climbing into the fridge (which you have figured out how to unlock on your own by climbing up the face of it all the way to the top!) etc. You are sooo cute and so loving. You give just the best hugs and tell me "I love you so much!" and my heart melts every time. You are such a strong, good climber and can easily scale our climbing wall all the way to the top on your own and can do flips on the bar with very little help at gymnastics. You LOVE gymnastics and excel at it. You love playing with your brother and sister and do your best to keep up with them. Unfortunately, you aren't always the sweetest with Emery and are in the bad habit of hitting her which we are trying to get you to stop doing! We're also trying to get you off your binkie but you definitely have other ideas and aren't ready to give that up yet!
You love your treats!
You also love going to the "dinosaur library" (the Frisco library). You can be a little bossy sometimes and told me exactly how to take this picture of you haha
I love these little pink Converse on you but I think you've already outgrown them!
You were pretty pleased with yourself for climbing up this thing at the park.
When Grandma most recently came to visit she told you the story of the 3 bears and the 3 little pigs and you LOVED them and asked her to tell them to you over and over again. And you ask me now to tell them to you still!
You put my lip stain on yourself before I caught you! When I caught you you said "ta-da!"
We went over to our friends the Ennis's house the other day and you made yourself comfortable and started "reading" a magazine.
You like to be my helper with the laundry and throw the clothes into the washer after I hand them to you.
When I went to take you out of your carseat the other day, you had taken off your socks and shoes and put your socks on your hands instead! You are just very silly and make yourself laugh all the time.
Speaking of silliness- you climbed up on the kitchen counter and made yourself a bed right there on the countertop with a blanket and pillow from the couch.
I love that you're eating your icecream with a fork!
Family Fun
As always, our family tends to stay busy. We've recently been enjoying playing Just Dance together a lot and hanging out in our backyard. We also went down to Gun Barrel City for Spring Break and stayed in an AirBNB with Matthew, Valerie, Silva and Emma and it was just the perfect get-away. It was so nice and relaxing to be able to hang out together as a family, play games together and just be away from our chores and to-do lists. You kiddos loved the hot tub and times with your cousin and aunts and uncle. We adults loved our adult time in the evening and just being together.
Our one and only snow day this year!
It's one of my very favorite things in the whole world to sit on our back patio in the evening and watch y'all play together and Eric play with you.
All dressed up for our neighbor Ms Joella's 80th birthday party!
While in Gun Barrel, we all went for a hike near a lake. I'm glad we got at least one picture of all of us together!
The hot tub was cool enough that it was basically just a miniature pool to you guys haha.
Just Dance!
Sometimes we go to the library together as a family and you kids really like putting the books in the return slot and watching them get machine sorted.
I love our life and I am so grateful to have my beautiful, wonderful, amazing children and husband!
