More pictures of my sweet loves

My wild child with the wild hair!!

Our babysitter has a horse that we all went to ride. It was so much fun.

Our neighbor and friends Eric and Katie are about to have baby Luke any day!!

That chubby little smile makes my day.

5 months, what???

We love when Aunt Joy comes to visit. This girl is amazing!!!

One last DC picture.

How I've missed you

It's so hard to organize photos on blogger. Sorry about the random order.

Laura's play

Oh, Blog, how I've missed you. But not enough to take time away from my sweet growing babies. Seems that it's hard to get a spare moment these days. And no, Lauren, my energy has not increased since having 3 children, you just get a little better at pretending. I don't complain about lack of sleep anymore, uh, usually. I'm just realizing that's part of it. I'm loving these spring days. I had forgotten how wonderful it is to let your kids play outside all day. The boys enjoy it so. Some days are a little too windy for Marley, but she hangs in there.

Let's see...since I last updated: I ran a 1/2 marathon, traveled to DC with Nate and Marley for Nate's coding conference, had a week away from the boys which is the longest ever that we've been apart (they were in LR at the Grandparents), and bought a house (long story b/c we were planning on renting). Ah....life. You just never know!

So...the half marathon first. My first goal was to finish it. The more I trained my goal changed. I decided to run more than I walked. And as the training continued my goal changed again. I decided I wanted to run the whole thing...slow or not I would not walk. Well, I achieved my goal!!! I did not walk, I ran the whole long 13.1 miles!!!! It was awesome. Nate and I split up at mile one and he beat me by 3 minutes. My finishing time was 2 hours 19 minutes. I'm so proud of that. I didn't cry at the end but got a little emotional. When we met up with our families I told the boys I did it for them. Shepherd said "we go to Arkansas now?" They didn't have a clue.Thank you to our families for supporting us and being there at the end. I actually went running yesterday "just for fun". It was a short 3 miles. How easy is that?!?

Marley's first plane ride. She was an angel!!!

DC was wonderful. Nate and I desperately needed some time without having to discipline. It was so good to just focus on each other, oh yeah, and Marley. All the sudden one kid seems really easy. We did some sightseeing and then 3 days Nate was in conference. He would come back to our hotel room for his 9:30 morning break and Marley and I would still be snoozing! Sleep when the baby sleeps...right?

So after our half we ate lunch and then headed to look for our rental house. We wanted to rent for various reasons, including saving money, seeing where we ended up doing life, church etc. I had arranged for us to look at 8 or so rental homes. Well, by Sunday about half of those were still left to rent. One was a dump and the other 3 were just okay. We found ourselves saying "maybe we should just pay $100 more a month for somthing better". And still there was nothing we felt good about. We were so discouraged. We laid in bed Sunday night and Nate suggested we look at something to buy. We hadn't even thought about this since we WERE going to RENT. Nate said it'd be "perfect if we could find something move in ready that we could update as money and time allowed". God honored above and beyond that idea. By Monday night we found "the house" and were ready to make an offer. Our new house is preforclosure and we are getting an AWESOME deal. (and you know I love a good deal) It's clean and move in ready, but has some wild paint colors and gold accessories that need to go. It's 4 bedroom, 3,466 sq. feet. All bedrooms are upstairs. We are so excited. It's on a cul-d-sac which is perfect for my boys.

To see more house pictures go to www.ellingtoncourt.blogspot.com

I'll be posting more pictures of our fun life as I get time. stay tune.

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The Pressures

wanted to sleep with a birthday toy.

no more sippy cups---I'm 4!!!

Do you feel the pressure? As a mom? As a wife? As a friend?

I've been trying to focus more on family and just being the mom that loves and has time to give to her children. Yet the pressure seeps in. Not sure where the pressure's coming from exactly, but I know Satan is involved. If I could stop and see my life as Christ sees it. Oh the beauty He sees and the love He gives. Yet I get busy. I try to clean more. I want to be the cute, fashionable, skinny, homecookin', organized, exercised, Bible reading, community involved, fill in the blank...mom! (and I have a whole other list of my pressures as a wife.) Not sure where I'm going with this, but I know that so many of you feel the same.

I feel God calling me to focus more on him and less on pleasing others (must learn this every. single. day.). More on the simple, less on the busy. More on the kids, less on the laundry (and yet it must get done).

Must go to bed. Enjoy the pictures.