March 2019

March began with soccer games jumping right in. Elara and Eden started soccer for the first time. 

Elara's team were red and called "The Daredevils".

Eden's team were purple and called "The Strikers".

Kael stayed with "The FC Guardians".

Poor Connor felt super left out, but LOVED getting to practice with Elara sometimes. This kept us SUPER busy while Dad was gone for the last two months and right up until he was able to come home. Mostly I was able to take pictures of Elara and not much of the other kiddos.

Eden scored 2 goals on her first game. They also had subs that first game and then all of a sudden like 6 people on her team quit.

 Alyssa, Eden, and Angel

These girls were an awesome offense.

 Elara would be so tired from her game that by the time Eden's came in the afternoon she usually curled up like this and tried to sleep or get out of the sun or rain.

Eden and Elara love holding all the babies.

 This last year for church I was over activity days for the girls ages 8-11. We had so many fun projects. We took on a service project and planted some flowers for a lady at church who broke her arm. Eden loves going to these activities and learning new things and  helping people. Elara officially cannot wait until she "officially" can attend the activities.

 Elara had a kindergarten program and she had a speaking part. Connor and I came to watch and they had the older kids at school watch the program too. She did a great job and enjoyed seeing her siblings for a bit.

Eden loved being able to see Connor at school briefly. 

 Once home Connor and I fond a tiny baby lizard and loved holding it for a second.

Preparations for Eden's birthday party got full into swing.

She decided on a pokemon party and loves Bulbasaur.

We LOVE getting packages from Daddy! He sent home some new books and treats.

 More Pokemon preparations.

It started getting hot out so we invited friends over to come play in the water on the trampoline with us.  And we started a new Pizza Friday tradition. We make or buy pizza every Friday whenever possible.

We worked SO hard to clean all the leaves so we could plant grass before Dad comes home.

Soccer EVERY Saturday all day long. 

Eden's games were in the afternoon and we were all pretty burned out by that time. She got to start the kickoff though and that was fun to watch.

Connor always found a way to entertain himself. The game was next to a baseball field so he loved playing in the dirt.

Got Eden's Pinata finished.

Then, came spring break! It was much needed. We took off to Corpus for a beach day.

It doesn't matter what is going on or how hard life is to get there, but once I get to the beach I feel rejuvenated and full of life. I'm certain it's my happy place.

The entire spring break the kids still had soccer practice, so we still somehow ran around like crazy.

Eden's practice thankfully had a playground by it to pass the time for the other kids waiting around.

 

After getting back from the beach the next day Merlin was NOT looking so great. We weren't sure what was wrong, but it wasn't good. I took him to the vet and sadly it was Merlin's time to go. I knew when the animals would die it would most likely be when Derek wasn't around, and it was pretty much as horrific as I imagined. The tears and everything was just so hard.

We left Merlin over night at the vet and the next day we were going to head up to the Pinkston's to do a camping trip for Kael to earn cub scout badges. So we went to the vet right before leaving and had them put Merlin to sleep, and we were able to get some last photos with him. Then we took him up to the Pinkston's to be buried. It was hard, but having family so close was so comforting and took our blues away. The next day as we were preparing to leave Andrew and Eric helped us to bury Merlin.

 At the Veterinary office

We also had birthday's to celebrate. Juli's birthday was that week, so we made a smash cake for her. The boys made an adult sized high chair for her to eat the cake in and we had a good time still.

Rob was visiting and a bunch of others and we had a good fire pit and roasted hot dogs and marshmellows. It sure beat being sad about Merlin.

 Sleeping in the tent was great. Kael was learning to set up the tent and picked the location which had some poking sticks underground that happened to deflate my air mattress. So I basically slept on the hard earth with feet in my face. But otherwise it was quite lovely.

The next day we set off to bury Merlin and head home.

Sad music was played.

 It was a beautiful spring day. The kids painted rocks to go over his grave. We miss him and in Kael's words, "Merlin was the best present from Santa ever. The best pet." 

Till we meet again Merlin.

Grandma Sapp saved the day. She sent spring break dollars for the dollar store so off we immediately went to cheer us up and it did not disappoint.