Farris family blog: 2015

This month has been a lot of fun with friends and family coming into visit. Uncle Troy and Aunt Holly and the kiddos new cousin McCoy came for a visit from Virginia! It was great and a lot of fun to have Bret's whole family be able to stay here with us. His parents and Aunt Pat also came in town as well. The kids loved meeting McCoy and would always talk about how cute he was. Tucker, also woke him up from his nap and they all 4 had play time in the crib. That poor kid was probably ready to leave. Our kids more so think of new babies as a new pet. Always up in his face and rubbing his head. I am so grateful we have enough room in our house to have so many stay so comfortably. I love nothing more than having our house full of people. It makes me so very happy. The kids had races on Pops and Daddy's shoulders in the backyard and played and played all weekend. Troy and Holly will move overseas here soon and I am sad we don't get to see them more often. Would love to have them closer, but they are excited for their new adventure.

Bret had his first weekend with all three kiddos by himself when I went away for a girls weekend in Galveston. They seemed to have a great time playing (and building ramps) to which I came home to Tucker with some serious bumps and bruises, which is funny because it happens all the time whether I am here or not. Our boys just do not.stop and go so hard. I had some of my friends tell me what an incredible and patient dad Bret is. Which I already knew, but I love hearing everyone who saw him at church and at birthday parties just see how amazing he is with our kiddos. So grateful to be married to a man who loves all of us with everything he has in him.

The next weekend the MS 150 came through Bastrop. My mom and Lauren were both riding in it, so we got to catch both of them on their way through Bastrop! That was so fun to see them, except Tucker did not understand why in the world he could not ride his bike with my mom. All day long after my mom left, the boys kept asking, "Did Itsy win the race?" "Did she get the trophy?" They were obsessed. They are so competitive in everything it truly does scare me. They race everywhere and even to see who pees first in the toilet. We already have our hands full with their obsession with being first and winning. It may the death of Bret and I, even though we knew it was coming. Lord, please give us so much patience in loving them well when they lose.

Carter's friend Bella has come over to play some Friday's the past few weeks while her mom works at their restaurant. It is fun to have one of Carter's closest friends have a restaurant in town as well. We are so thankful for their family and friendship with them. Bella makes it so much easier when she comes over because all my kids adore her so much. They walk in hand in hand to the park(when I can't even get them to hold my hand), but they play so well together. Carter has had friends pick him up from school lately to go to their house to play. All these little things just make him feel so grown up. I want to freeze time forever right now before he starts school. I told him the other day how I was going to miss him so much next year and he told me, "Mom, I will be home with you on Saturday and Sunday, but I really will miss you too." He tells me all the time right now, "You are the best mom I could ever have." It melts me. He is always whispering in my ear how much he loves me and him and Tuck are constantly bringing me all the flowers from our yard. I sure do love those sweet boys. I asked Carter the other day why they love to wrestle and fight so much. He said, " mommy God made us to fight." He is so right. He is most of the time. He was made to fight. I pray his little heart just loves Jesus with all He has because He is going to change the world. Every night right now he wants to sing "all in all" to me or "holy,holy, holy." I used to sing to him, but now he wants to sing to me every night and listening to sweet voice-there is just nothing better. He really does love to talk about Jesus and how He is the strongest and bravest superhero. He told me that tonight at our mother/son date night at CFA. As much as I don't want him to grow up, I love watching who he is becoming. He is so helpful, he loves to do his chores and he is such a boy. He loves to swing on the rings and monkey bars at the park, he loves to try new tricks on his bike like standing up or getting on and off of his new big boy bike. He is so determined and I can't wait to see where it takes him. He is such a gem.

Oh my sweet Tucker. Tonight at the date night he was sitting on my lap and we were making our silliest faces at each other. He loves to squeeze my checks and I love when it makes him belly laugh. One of the questions they had on the table tonight was, "Would you rather be a spider for a week or an elephant for a year?" C said he would rather be a spider and we asked Tuck and he responded, "PUMA". He is so obessesed with pumas. He also LOVES to ride his bike right now after Bret put new training wheels on it. Except you can't call it his bike....ever. It is his "bike training"- If you or anyone else says anything other than bike training he will correct you. It is so hilarious. I smile so big every.single.time he says bike training. I am laughing as I type this. Oh all the Tucker-isms we have. "oh right""That's inertia"(he learned on a show, so he will just say "that's intertion at random times" "Well, that wasn't expected" "This can't be happening"...Or the other day he woke up from his nap and Carter had woken up first and I hear him at the top of the stairs saying, "Mommy, Carter's gone. I am never going to find him again. This is terrible." D.R.A.M.A I was telling Bret the other day how I can imitate all of our kids dancing perfectly. T has perfected the side to side step dance move. R has got the shake with her arms down and know the little bounce with the knees and C is our break dancer with the spin moves and the shoulders working. I love so much that our kids love to dance. LOVE IT SO VERY MUCH. Tucker loves Bret so much. When Bret was gone this past week he said "NOOOO he can't leave." He always wants to go in and cuddle with Bret in the morning." He is also in love with Team umizoomi and wants to watch it constantly. The boys had me move Rylie's swing off the back porch in between their swings on the play set and it is so cute how they say we have family kid swing time now. They always tell me how they wish their were two more swings so all five of us could swing together. I wish that too. Nothing makes me happier than when we are all together.

Rylie girl. Oh Rylie girl. The past two days she has started screaming at the top of her lungs. Just really loudly. It is funny, but more kinda scary. Hoping it is gone before next week. Ha. This girl right now is trying to grow up too fast. She looks too big and acts too big. One of her favorite things right now is to get her shoes on, get one of the boys backpacks, turn around for us to put it on and then wave bye to us and walk out the door. What.in.the.world?? She is 15 months old. Not ok sweet girl. She loves to do all her sign language right now as well. It is so sweet. She loves to show us her nose, eyes, ears, mouth and hair right now as well, oh and of course-belly. every kids fave. Now when she is hungry she RUNS to her high chair and just waits for you to put her in and just sits there waiting hoping food comes ever so soon. I sure do love that. She is also so into bike riding and goes and tries to climb into the back of our bikes to go on a bike ride. She is kinda in the just walk wherever I want to go phase now. You can look up and she will be down the sidewalk of the street. Yikes. We are working on the last four teeth right now. R loves to wear her teething necklace, but I am so over teething and they cannot get in fast enough. Our girl sure is one tough kiddo though. She may be small, but the girl can hold her own.

May has a lot of birthday parties, end of school year stuff and I am sure lots of other fun to be had! We are already living it up in our little blue pool everyday! More memories to come soon!

Girls weekend

Well C and R look adorable

She loves some polynesian sauce

Taking off down the street

MS150!

Naked swimming and lunch on the swing!

Sweet Cousins

Bella and the boys

SUPER DAD

Bath time!

These two playing on the bed together

say AHHHH

Park selfie

FAMILY

We went to Houston for Spring Break and it was a really fun week with friends and family. My mom has some friends staying with her right now, so we stayed with Amy and her family this week. The weather ended up being so warm and sunny, so the kids played and played outside together in the creek and in the sprinkler. My mom took the boys one of the days we were there and took them to a special birthday treat. She took Tucker to build a bear and he got a ninja turtle (which is what he always wanted as he always says:)) and Carter picked out this huge lego set at the lego store! We had a big pizza night one evening at my mom's house and Tucker opted to stay with my mom and go to work with her one day too. He sure does love my mom and its so special when they get that one on one time. We ended up staying in Houston Tuesday through Friday and came back around naptime Friday afternoon. Got to see and spend time with both my sisters, which was alot of fun because I had not seen them since Christmas! Titus has gotten so big! Bret was in Atlanta for a day that week, so he wasn't able to come with us. :/ That weekend when we came back, Bret and I celebrated our 32nd birthday! My sweet mom came in for the whole day on Sunday and so Bret and I got a whole day date. It was perfect. We went and kayaked on town lake, ate at torchy's tacos for lunch and then saw a movie, then had dinner at a mexican restaurant in Austin. It was the perfect day for us to celebrate 32! Bret got me some new running shoes and clothes, and I got him a new grill! We have so been needing one. The kids had so much fun with my mom staying at the park for a few hours, then getting to watch big hero 6 that night with her. It is Carter's very favorite movie right now and he will tell anyone who will listen the whole movie from start to finish. ha. That was the movie I took him to see on our special birthday date. It was so fun and I loved getting to spend the day with him. He just sure knows how to melt your heart right now.

Yesterday was my dad's 60th birthday! We were planning on surprising him one weekend, but then him and Maggie planned a trip to Mexico. So a few weeks ago on a Sunday we surprised him at his house! My sisters and I all took him down to Galveston for the day, for dinner and some play time on the beach. It was such a fun trip for everyone. The kids got to play at my dad's house for a little while and ride his new four wheeler and his horses before we left, so that was a lot of fun too! We took my dad's to Nick's grille right on the seawall. The kids were so excited to celebrate my dad and they had so much fun at the beach. This was Rylie's first beach trip and when I put her down on the sand, she darted for the water not realizing how cold it would be when it pretty much knocked her over! She still had so much fun playing(mostly eating) the sand. Tucker, is Bret's child because Bret does not like the sand and doesn't like to be sticky or dirty and Tucker kept saying "It is too dusty". Ha. I carried him and Rylie to go play in the waves most of the time. With the exception of when Tucker had to go to the bathroom, to which he just pulled down his pants and peed right into the ocean. Pictured below. Carter on the other hand it my child at the beach. I would say 95% of the time he reminds me of Bret, but he loves the waves and the sand. He ran so far in so quickly I thought he was going to drown he got out there so quick. He loved playing in the waves, digging in the sand and just running around like crazy through the water. We had so much fun watching the kiddos play at the beach. Ana and Titus joined us down there as well, so that was a lot of fun. You know your kids traveled for a whole year when driving 6 hours in a car(down to Galveston and back) didn't really phase them at all. So thankful they are such easy travelers. It made the day so fun and easy for everyone!

Last weekend was Easter weekend! We decided since we had just went to Houston that we would stay in Bastrop for the weekend. Plus, we really wanted to be at church to help and Bret had been asked to do the announcements for church for all three services. I am glad we stayed in town, because it was such a fun weekend together. My mom ended up coming in town on Friday to surprise the kids dressed as the Easter bunny. The boys LOVED it! Rylie, not so much! She was terrified of the Easter bunny. As soon as my mom took the costume off, Rylie went right to her, but everytime she put it on she did not like it at all! My mom hid some eggs for them outside, so they found those and gave them special new gifts. She bought the boys new swimsuits for the summer, and Rylie a beautiful dress for Easter! They swam all afternoon in their new swimsuits, which Rylie joined them in the pool and LOVED it. Then, that evening we went out to dinner with my mom before she headed home. It was such a great surprise from her. Saturday, Bret worked for awhile then that evening we decided to go do something fun in Austin. We took the kids to jumpland, which is a trampoline park in Austin. We all had a great time. Carter( and Bret ) were both doing flips all over the place. Tucker and Rylie had fun racing across the trampolines as well. We went to dinner at Chipotle after and then our kids slept like rock stars that night! Easter Sunday we went to church, then came home for lunch and naps. Bret hid all the eggs in our backyard for our kiddos and after naps we had our egg hunt. Carter was so sweet about making sure the little had the same amount of eggs as him and helping them find some. They all had more than candy than they could of ever dreamed from Carter's egg hunt at school that week, to hunting with my mom and now our own family one. Needless to say I made Bret take it all to work with him and share it with our team yesterday. Tucker was obsessed with the jelly beans and just kept asking for more "beans" in his eggs. I will have to say they made a bag of only red and pink starburst jellybeans and they are good:). Later that day we went for a family bike ride. All the kids LOVE going for a bike rides right now. Even Rylie will bring us a helmet to put on and go point to the bike seat. It is adorable. We grilled out some veggies and hot dogs that evening and had a great night. It was a great day. Carter would tell us the whole Easter story and had Bret read the story with him that week a few times. It was fun to hear him tell the story and be able to really show us and tell us what Easter is all about. I love watching him learn and grow. It never gets old.

During these last few weeks, Rylie started walking!! The boys love to imitate her walking like a zombie. She is all over the place these days. She loves to also use the bikes and her scooters now that she is stabilized. She is now more into things than ever before as well and thinks she can climb onto and into everything. The other day the back of our car was opened and she pulled up and crawled into the back of the suburban. Looks like I will have three climbers on my hands. Some of her favorite things right now are still her blanket, she walks with it everywhere, she loves when she wakes up to go to the boys rooms and play on the bed with them. She still loves food. All of it and any kind. Tomatoes off my salads are the things that gross me out the most, but I did crave those so much with her when I was pregnant which is crazy to me. She is constantly in the fridge and pantry bringing me food. I need a lock on both for her. She loves to climb up in the game room window and put squidz on the window. She does this adorable thing where she gasps when she sees something or gets so excited. She is obsessed with dogs. forever and ever. I went and bought her some new clothes this past week and can't get enough of her in her rompers. She is so very sweet and can be a little aggressive at time. (I blame the boys for that) She loves being with them and she tries to climb up the CFA playground with them as well now. I always have C bring her down for me:)

Tuck is 3 going on 30 these days. The things that come out of that kids mouth are hilarious. Recently, "This is terrible" "Oh no, not again." "What in tarnation?" "Please just give us another chance?" This morning at the park he went around telling everyone to be nice to each other. He plays his cards well. He is always the kids that will run up and give anyone the best hug, but he can turn on his I don't want to do this I don't care what you say in second. He says everything as if it is no big deal. I broke it mommy. Oh sorry. It is just always the consistent, oh yes, I did this. I guess it is good he is SO honest?? Not sure what to do about that yet. So, yay 3. Bret and I laugh a lot to say the least. He is so excited about every.little.thing we do, eat, or place we go. I sure do love that. His loudness may be getting louder. He will sing songs for us now and loves to read all the books where you find things in them. He also eats 3 bowls of cereal every morning. Ate 5 hot dogs the other night and I have no idea where he puts it all. He is such an incredibly fun kid. I can't imagine my days without him because he makes me smile so much with all his antics.

Carter is SO big. I really want him to stop growing. I even tell him all the time and he says "Mommy, I am going to keep getting bigger." sigh. I do know that. So I make him sit in my lap all the time (like at CG the other night) and we always go back and forth about how much we love each other. So, I am just gonna keep soaking all that up right now until he is too big to not do that all the time. The other day he had a rough night because he was so tired. He just pushed it too far, and he was so upset about it. I took away dessert and when we got home he was behaving so well and trying to work so hard to make it better. I ended up giving him some dessert. He just always tries so hard. I knew he was tired. Parenting is so very hard, but sometimes I really do just want to give my kids everything because I love them that much. It probably was the wrong choice, but it was worth it seeing him smile again before he went to bed. I am so thankful for grace. That we have the grace of Jesus washed over us so we can do and teach the same to our kiddos.