Erin Akin Carroll

I started this blog because I wanted to tell stories and remember things that are important to me, and I haven’t done a lot of that lately. Some of that is because of fear. Some of it is a desire to keep some things sacred.

Wednesday nights are my favorite. I’ve mentioned that around here before, but I just love Wednesday nights. We go to church, eat supper at church, and then the kids go to AWANA for Cubbies and Puggles and I go to choir. Todd goes to the Pastor’s Bible study. It’s just a fun family night and we get to see a lot of our friends.

I’m helping with four-year-old choir now, which is really just singing songs and doing fun motions with them. It’s a fun opportunity to see Hudson in that environment and to be in a role different than “mommy.”

Last night after dinner, Todd went home to get some work done and the kids and I stayed at church. After choir was over, I went to pick up the boys. I decided to get Hayes first and had the opportunity to eavesdrop on his sweet little class.

I watched him following directions and singing songs and falling right in line with his class. And it was such a big life moment for me. I’ve spent so much time worrying about sweet Hayes and his developing speech and hearing from his therapist that he needs to work on sitting still. And in that moment, I saw that he does follow directions and does participate and is doing exactly what he needs to be doing. And there was so much freedom in that moment. My boys is growing up and I’m so proud of him.

Hayes and I walked down the hall to get Hudson, and the boys immediately started doing what brothers do and weren’t able to keep their hands to themselves. Which usually leads me to separate them and silently pray that we can make it to the parking lot without a meltdown or fight. I was holding each of their hands and Hudson stopped mid-sentence and said, “Mommy? I love you so much.”

It was as if his little stream of consciousness was suddenly interrupted and he just had to tell me right in that moment. Goodness! I should do that more often and tell other people how I feel about them right when I think it. Because it was sure nice to hear from my four-year-old.

These are the things that I don’t want to forget.

*I was given the Jelly Cat bunnies for this post and there is a discount code available at the bottom of the post.

Hippity hoppity Easter’s on its way!

I love everything about celebrating Easter. It’s the most important day for me as a Christian and also just a beautiful spring celebration. We love being outside to hunt for Easter eggs, visiting the Easter bunny, giving the kids Easter baskets before church on Sunday morning.

I’ve started gathering up a few things to put in their Easter baskets and wanted to share some of those goodies with you!

The sweet girls from Peek a Whoo offered to send the boys each a monogrammed Jelly Cat bunny. If you’re not familiar with Jelly Cats, they’re pretty much the softest, most plush, snuggly stuffed animals in the history of ever. They fill my kids’ rooms and playroom and I’m so excited to give them these cute monogrammed bunnies for Easter!

I started browsing around on Peek a Whoo and wanted to give the boys a couple of these precious Zubels. They are the most adorable knit dolls. I got them each a pirate and a puppy.

I love to throw in some special books. This year, I wanted to give the boys my copies of Peter Rabbit from when I was a little girl. They are old and worn, but they are special. I also decided to give them an illustrated Bible. We have a bedtime Bible that we love but this one has beautiful images and is a lot of fun to sit down and look at.

We love to dye Easter eggs and fill plastic eggs with candy, too, of course. I can’t wait to give the boys their baskets this year.

Use code BUNNYBLUE for 10% off your Jelly Cat monogrammed bunnies!

Whoa… so it’s been a little while, huh? Things are good. We’re feeling settled and our hearts are still. Some of these little updates have already been mentioned on Instagram and all of my pictures are straight off my iPhone.

We drove up to Indiana for Todd’s college roommate’s wedding back in February. It was a really fun celebration and we loved getting to be with old and new friends for the weekend. Because there was so much snow in Indiana and my dad was traveling, we brought my mom back with us for a couple of weeks.

It’s always amazing how fast two weeks with my mom will fly by. She fits right in here and we settled into the sweetest rhythm. We saw The Lego Movie with the boys and had a little campout on the living room floor. We watched House of Cards and The Good Wife and just hung out. We went to the fabric store and got a start on Hayes’s big boy room. (He is still in a crib. I keep thinking that we’ll move him, but he’s never tried to climb out and we moved Hudson at 20 months, so I’m kind of enjoying having him in the crib…. where he can’t get out!) We had a tearful goodbye. Hudson dreaded KK’s departure for days. But we’ve already scheduled her next visit. We’re thankful for each day with her!

We celebrated St. Patrick’s Day by watching the annual parade on Devine Street and then going to some friends’ house for some outdoor fun. It was a great day.

Hudson is officially registered for Kindergarten. Oh my… time flies. He’s so ready and I’m the one who is dreading it.

I went to Los Angeles for less than 48 hours last week. Molly and I went on behalf of Dr. Smith’s to the Biggest Baby Shower. We handed out samples to expectant mothers and talked about why we love Dr. Smith’s. It was a lot of fun and the weather was absolutely amazing.

Then the dreaded stomach bug hit me, then hit Hudson, and then hit Todd. Now we’re all just praying that Hayes doesn’t get it!

Soccer practice started up again on Sunday afternoon. It’s amazing what a difference a year makes. Hudson loves it this year, whereas last year was kind of a disaster in the beginning. He has so much more confidence and understanding of what’s going on, and he talks about it like he loves it. I’m excited to watch them play.

Hayes isn’t playing yet. He’ll be 3 in May, so he didn’t make the age cut off. There are a lot of little siblings at our games and practices, so we just got Hayes his own ball and we’ll let him just pretend to play and watch what’s going on.

Hudson has declared that he wants to invite “his boys” over for a pajama party birthday party at his house. He’ll be five in June, so we have a  little bit of time to think about that. I had hoped to get by with a small family party this year, but I think we’ll just have a small party at home with his best buds and let them just play with toys and eat breakfast food.

We’ve been watching Frozen nonstop for the past few days, probably like every other family in America. The boys are obsessed and so am I!