Inspired

I have fallen off the blogging bandwagon too many times to even count.  I go back and forth on if spending my precious down time each day is best spent blogging or doing something else, such as MORE laundry!  Trust me, this family of five can definitely bury a mom in laundry! 

To make a long story short, which I am awful at, I am back to blogging because of an interaction with another mom to three.  I found her blog through the wonderful world of Facebook and after clicking on the link, I found myself looking at the picture of a mom to one of the players on Grace's basketball team.  In the four weeks of practice, I had sat near her but we had never spoke.  She would quietly sit, watching practice and her two little girls as they used the gym as a good spot to get out all that pent up energy. 

Her blog was AMAZING!  I could not stop reading and spent two hours that night reading blog posts about her connection to God, love for her children and family, and a true love of living life to its fullest that I envied.  Seriously, go take a look, I swear you will also get sucked in!

At the next practice, to the embarassment of my husband, I introduced myself and told her my love of her blog.  Hopefully she did not find me crazy and I truly enjoyed our talk.  I LOVE how a blog opened my eyes to what an amazing person was sitting right down from me.  I also loved that she had taken the time to document her family's life, I know she will look back some day and be thankful for doing this.

So, in the "Shawn version" of making a long story short (which is obviously not short at all!), I am back to blogging again!  My goal is to be more intentional with my blogging, still focusing on our day to day lives, but also trying to push myself to blog about other subjects that are important to me and hopefully help me step out of my comfort zone!

Back, back again!

Well, we have another little baby on the way so I figured it was time to dust off the old blog and get back to tracking the adventures of our little family! So much has happened since I last blogged, it has been almost a year!

For the short story, here you go: Ella turned 1 in October, we tell family at Christmas time that we are done having children, find out early January to our surprise that we are pregnant with baby #3, in April Grace turns 5 while she is on an amazing trip to Chicago with just Pat and I, we have an ultrasound early May and find out we are breaking the girl streak with a little boy, leave our daycare in late May and have the girls at home with a wonderful babysitter, Shawn tells her work in late May that she will be leaving work for good at the end of August to be a SAHM, in July move Ella into Grace's room where they have bunk beds and spend endless hours at night giggling, spend the summer doing lots of amazing and fun things, and that brings us to today, with 3 weeks to go till our little one joins this world and Grace officially starts Kindergarten!

As you can tell from reading the above, life has been crazy, fun, surprising, and overall just exhausting at times! Don't get me wrong, raising two little girls is a lot of fun and I would not trade to for the world, but Pat and I know the craziness has only begun! Now that you are caught up a little, I will share some fun pictures and leave off for the night! I plan on doing my best to really keep up on the blog this time but bear with me, life just always seems to get in the way!

Family Dinner

We had a family dinner tonight at the Roth household and it was as always a fun time! We have the addition of Kevin to the group which makes it more of an even split between girls and boys!

Super Why!

Grace is a huge fan of the show Super Why! and when she saw a poster of them at GVSU she said she had to go! There was a free kids night and we invited Pat's parents along for the fun- Grace loved meeting Super Why and Alpha Pig (and from the excitement on Pat's face, I believe he was too!)

Grandparent's Day

While Pat was gone, my mom came down for the night and then went to Gracie's Grandparent's day with Pat's mom. They had so much fun! Grace was a spoiled girl with both grandmas there and also got to enjoy showing off her daily routine while they were there. I am stealing these pictures from Pam, one is of Gracie and her grandmas and the other is with her best friend from school, Lily.

The beautiful Riverwalk and home sweet home!

I just got back from an amazing work trip to San Antonio and trying to play catch up again. We had a fantastic time and although I was sad to leave, it is so nice to be back home! I missed my sweet girls and Pat and came back to flowers and lots of love from all of them! Guess they missed mom being home! Pat did a fantastic job with the girls and keeping everything together while I was gone.

Here are just a couple picture from the fun!

The last week

So, while Pat was enjoying a vacation in Minnesota with his family, enjoying these types of sights and activities...







I was, with the help of family and friends, dealing with two sick little girls! It was a crazy week, definitely not a week of fun pictures, I am happy to report that we have two little girls who are definitely feeling better and even got a couple cute pictures today! I do have some fun pictures from up north and Grandparent's Day at Grace's school, so I will share those later this weekend.

So happy to have our family back together and healthy!

Sweet sister cuddles

So grown up and such a great helper for me all week!

LOVE our girls!

Can you tell someone is very in love with her big sister?

Cuddling with Stephie (who was also a huge help this past week)

And this is the look I get everytime I take pictures of Ella!

Wrestling daddy...they are very happy to have him back!