Ah, soaking up these last few long, lazy days with my girl. Our summer anthem, "Riptide" by Vance Joy, playing on the speakers by the pool and all is right in our little world.
It's hard to live in two worlds. It's hard to convey our life in a post on Facebook, a quick phone call to a family member, various blog posts that I've tried to start over the last few months. Moments happen and the gravity of it all seems to fade upon retelling an astoundingly accurate observation Audrey made or the pride in Will's eyes the first time she asked him to go fishing with him.
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| my one (and only) solo selfie |
Yet, as parents we rarely post about ourselves and instead we make efforts to re-tell those treasured moments, a picture we capture of our entire world, and we are behind the camera, trying to convey to everyone how much this life we have means to us. It's hard to do.
I finally feel like I have put roots down in Georgia and as those roots grow, the harder and harder it is for me to take time to catch everyone up with all of the adventures we have been on, the absolute joy Audrey has brought us, and what a blessing it has been watching her grow up before our eyes, the dynamics of marriage and co-parenting. As much as I want to write everything out to share, it's so hard to put down in words her nature; the way she acts like a 20-year-old and makes plans with her friends on the weekends, the way she tells me to that I "need to be patient" when I ask her to do something, the pride in her eyes when she filled her first sticker chart when we potty trained, her gentle nature, her love for worship and prayer, and her kind heart that causes me to randomly scoop her into my arms and tell her I love her at least one hundred times a day. It's been such a strange transition. I feel by my silence that I've left everyone behind, but I suppose that is part of growing up and making your own family. For those who are still following my little blog, here is the mother of all updates, complete with 72 total pictures. Hoping this doesn't crash your browser :)
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| Hands On Children's Museum with Poppa |
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| Mancinos, round 1 |
As we do every year, we enjoyed our trip to Michigan to stay with Grandma Carolyn and see family. We had fun meeting Aunt Lynda in Ann Arbor on our first day and then coming back later that week to play at the Children's Museum. Of course there was Mancinos, which I'm pretty sure we will never be able to eat at again after some horrible timing of catching a bad stomach bug. I powered through it and got my grinder fix again the next day, much to the horror of Grandma Carolyn.
Fall brought cooler weather (around November) and lots of fun activities at our (future) church, little did we know what an amazing church family we would find after we accepted an invitation from a friend to attend a fall festival there!
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| sweet girls running circles around each other at the fall festival |
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| park adventures! |
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| Ann and I at Thanksgiving |
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| Yep, definitely related! |
Thanksgiving came and went with a nasty double ear infection for Audrey that prevented us from traveling. Lucky for us, my dad is
amazing and made the trip down to see us right before Christmas. We love having him here and we definitely had a great time with Audrey and having movie nights and bonfires after she went to bed. Of course we drove to Ellianos every day for some good ol southern coffee & delicacies, the boys went and shot guns one day while Audrey napped and I worked on dinner, and we went and rode the train at the swamp park to see all the Christmas lights. We mostly just relaxed and enjoyed good company, entertainment by Audrey, and feeling togetherness around the holidays.
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| Tea with Poppa |
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| Refill, please! |
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| Poppa's girl :) |
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| A holiday visit from Grandma & Grandpa |
Grandma & Grandpa Gertz also made a visit on their way home! We had a great night out with them and Audrey loved showing them her room and our little Christmas tree.
Christmas was certainly a lot more fun this year. Audrey really got into decorating the tree and wrapping presents. Her favorite part of wrapping was when I was done with the roll and she could play swords with Will. She is still terrified of Santa and asked to bake Christmas cookies with "sprinklers" every day.
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| Trying to resist touching EV-ER-Y-THING on the Christmas tree |
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| wrapping paper roll sword fight! |
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| Early present from Jen Jen and Pop, a new tricycle! |
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| Christmas Eve |
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| Look at all those "sprinklers" |
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| first day of preschool! |
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two hours before her regular bedtime
after her first day at school, bless! |
One of the biggest changes that came with the new year, was Audrey starting Preschool at our local YMCA! We had been on the wait list for a while and a spot opened up right at the first of the year. It was definitely a transition but Audrey has just blossomed since she started going there. It was definitely the right move for her! She has met the sweetest little friends and just adores all of her teachers. The feeling is definitely mutual! She can now write her name, say a few Bible verses, sing hymns, read her favorite book, "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See," and has developed social skills and adjusted to a teacher-student setting. She loves going to school every day, even more on the days that they do special activities like two weeks of swim lessons, water park fun days, picnics, Easter egg hunts, and my personal favorite, Moms & Muffins breakfasts, as well as Dads & Doughnuts.
It is so sweet to see her and her classmates in action together! More often than not, it turns into a big selfie fest. Like I said, I really have the ultimate (almost) "threenager."
February and March are such "blah" months. We really don't have a true winter here, so it's really just an inbetween time where it's not cold, but it's not warm enough to be outside for a long time either. Enter: lake fishing. Not as cold as being on the water, freedom to let Audrey run around if she gets tired of fishing. The first time Audrey asked Will if she could go fishing with him, I thought his heart was going to explode, and mine as well. Will and I have always loved fishing together, and I've had to take a hiatus from going with him all the time since Audrey was not old enough to go. The times I did get to go were few and far between over the last two years. Ever since Audrey has expressed interest in fishing, we have done A LOT of it!
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| first day at our new church! |
The new year also brought us to a new church. I have really enjoyed going to church with Will's parents, but it felt like it was time to find my own little community and Pine Valley was definitely it for us! My good friend Katy had invited us to the fall festival back in November and we finally took the plunge around the first of the year to go there full time. Of course we still attend with Will's parents when we can, but I just love PV and the amazing people that have welcomed us with open arms! Audrey loves to go up front and sing praise with Miss Cindy and prefers to sit next to me for sermon instead of going to children's church which I adore. I love that she is so captivated by the message (and of course coloring my bulletin with Blakely).
Before we unofficially/officially started going to Pine Valley full time, we did attend the Hymnal Dedication Ceremony where Will's parents had individual hymnals dedicated to all of their children and grandchildren. It was very sweet and I was touched by the gesture. They have never once called or treated me like their daughter "in law" (most people ask Ann and I if we are sisters!) But I've never seen it actually written down like that.
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| my beauty |
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| loves to dress up on Sundays! |
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outgrowing the first smock i ever bought her
(that she's been wearing since she was a year old haha!)
*cry* |
And now for some random pictures that don't necessarily have a story to go with them but are just a little peek at the day-to-day Boatright life!
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| hanging out with Benji |
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| sleepover with Aunt Ann |
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her love for tractors was short lived
after she actually got on a real tractor ha!! |
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| our favorite cold-weather activity! |
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| showing me her new shoes |
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| the coolest chick ;) |
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| "i'm like you now, mommy!" |
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| watching the first summer storm roll in from the front porch |
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| hunting for eggs! |
Audrey also enjoyed Easter a lot more this year than last year. She hated the Easter bunny, but loved all of the Easter egg hunts she got to do! One of my best friends held her annual Easter egg hunt at their house which was a hit (minus Audrey running in fear of the Easter bunny). Then she got to do a hunt at church, at school, and at her Jen Jen's house on Easter Sunday. by the time Easter was over, our house was overflowing with Easter eggs! I actually found a few that I missed when I was putting them up the other day.
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| family <3 |
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| one of my very favorite pictures of Audrey :) :) |
Summer crept up quickly and I cut my hours back at work to part time so I could enjoy more time with my family and less time running a business and never sleeping! After months of reaching out to Will about joining the steelworkers union as a welder for the railroad, he finally accepted an offer from GATX and has been working first and second shift there since January. He really loves his work, and the pay and benefits are great. I'm so thankful I was able to take some time to cut back and slow down a little! Here's some of our summer fun!
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| first ice cream and park date of the year! |
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| walking to meet friends at the playgound |
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| drying out after a warm rain shower on our walk |
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| water slide day at school!! she loved it!! |
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wedding season! one of my good friends
and Audrey's old babysitter got married to her college sweetheart! |
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lots of fun trips riding the boat down the river
and parking it on a sandbar for the day! |
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| "Audrey's Island" << our favorite place on the river |
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| birthday party fun with one of her BFFs! |
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| seriously, these girls love each other |
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| first pony ride!!!! she had a blast! |
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| happy 3rd birthday, Kayden! |
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^^ this is Audrey and Kayden at this time last year!
what a huge difference a year makes! |
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dinner out with Miss Resa and her son, James!
they have acted like brother & sister since they moment they met!
we are so excited to go to the beach with them this weekend! |
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| happy fourth of july! |
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| red, white, and blue babies! |
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| sooo excited for the fireworks! |
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lots of long phone talks with my dad lately,
i miss him so much! |
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family pool days at the country club with Audrey's
school friends and their families! |
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early showers so we have time to walk down to the nursery
at the end of our road and look at all the flowers |
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| team grocery shopping with Hannah & Kayden |
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lazy weekends where waking up to play in bed in
undies and a t-shirt is all that's on our agenda |
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yes, that said undies up there!!
Audrey is completely potty trained! |
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Will and I enjoyed a long weekend away to Amelia Island over Memorial Day!
it was three blissful days of beach, bocce ball, and beer :) |
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we also celebrated our OMG we've known each
other for 10 years now?!?! anniversary in June! |
There is one more update I need to give but I'm out of time so it will have to happen later this week. I hope you've enjoyed this post as much as I've enjoyed reminiscing over the last year! We love you and miss you all!
Since the weather cools down so much in October, beach trips are more for playing and dining out than actually getting in the water. We love to go to Neptune Beach on St. Simon's Island in the fall. They have a huge playground, shopping and restaurants, a nice little beach to walk down that ends at a gorgeous pier. We love going there!
