My 30th birthday is on Sunday the 8th and my best friend Alicia has the same birthday! This last Tuesday she surprised me and took me out for a massage, manicure, pedicure, and a margarita! We had a wonderful time. My body was so relaxed and my heart was so full of joy when our evening was over. Her friendship is the best birthday present!

Last weekend some friends gave us white twin beds that bunk for the girls. They are old wood beds that have curvy spindly head boards and foot boards and when they are bunked they are shorter than the normal bunk bed. I love them. So, we moved Mallory out of the crib and into a bed. As we were taking the crib down we all got sad. It has been up in our house for 7 years and all three babies have slept in it. They all wanted to get in and say one last goodbye. James was the most emotional, he cried hard for about five minutes. He has such a tender heart...so sweet. I will post a pic of the girls room when we actually get the beds bunked (we have to do a few things to spruce them up and make them safe).

Over spring break we took our annual Henslee/Morris camping trip. We went to Robbers Cave in southeast OK. This was on the bluff. It had rained the entire week before we left and was still raining as we drove into the park but as we pulled into our campsite the rain stopped and never returned. The rest of the days were sunny and beautiful. Everything went great this trip. We had everything we needed. No one was sick. Mallory's ears did start draining the minute we got there and of course I didn't take her drops but I was so thankful for those tubes because she was happy the whole time in spite of an ear infection. On a side note but related to ears, the past month I have been feeling like Kinley can't hear me. We had her regular check up with the ENT (her tubes fell out in the Fall) and he said she has a lot of fluid on both ears and probably really can't hear me. He wants to give it one more month then put tubes back in if the fluid is still there.

James posing after some hard core rock climbing.

Derrick and Rachel were heating oil for a fish fry and Derrick went to the bathroom. Josh, Rachel and I were doing other things and all the sudden the dutch oven went up in flames. The Oil in the pot had caught on fire. Josh took it off the fire and it burned like this for about five minutes. It was crazy but thankfully the ground was good and wet so the fire didn't spread.

Josh and I went to Rome the last week in February because he earned his second Edward Jones trip in a row!! We had a fabulous time. The weather was perfect. Travel went well and all the details were taken care of for us. The city was beautiful and it was all exactly like the movies make it seem. I just knew I would be disappointed with reality but I wasn't at all. There were even accordion players on the street corners playing traditional Italian music!

One day we took a train south to Sorrento. It was beautiful. We had the famous Lemoncello (it is an alcoholic beverage that was invented in Sorrento because of their large supply of lemons. We went in a shop and asked for a sample and the guy got out a little dixie cup and poured us each about two ounces. We asked where we could get a glass and he said the bar around the corner. We went to the bar and asked for a glass. The guy got out two little dixie cups and poured us each about 2 oz! They were 4 euros each! We should have stuck with the samples! It was a REALLY sour drink that burned all the way down. They like it strong in Italy!

That is the dome on St. Peter's.

This is inside St. Peter's. It was beautiful and extravagant. The architecture and detail amazed me. We climbed to the top of St. Peter's dome and enjoyed the view of the city. It was about 540 steps to the top and it was a very tight and winding staircase.

Josh took illegal pictures in the Sistine Chapel.

A random church made a beautiful picture.

Our hotel, the Westin Excelsior, is apparently an icon in Rome. Many US presidents, Frank Sinatra, the Beatles and other famous people have stayed there through the years. It was a nice hotel and the coffee was wonderful!

Josh has already earned the next trip and we are in the midst of deciding where to go. We love working for Jones and feel extremely blessed to have this amazing job.

James has been having a really difficult time talking kindly to people. This is generational sin continuing it's cycle right before my eyes! It makes me so sad but I am serious about it stopping it, so we have been working on it a lot. We recently made a family covenant that we all helped write and set up our own consequences for breaking it. It has been going well so far. We got the idea from Gary Smalley's book The Key to Your Child's Heart. I would definitely recommend every parent to read it.

Below are his two favorite bears. He does all kinds of things with them. Here they have easter eggs as hats and they are tied together. Yesterday we made one of them clothing.

One day the whole family was in the car and James and Kinley had been fighting a lot. James was being really mean and Kinley finally said "Bubba, don't you know that God made you to be kind and that Jesus died on the cross for your sins"!! We were like preach it girl! If only we all really knew how God sees us and let Jesus' death cleanse our sins and give us the power to love.

We were listening to a praise song that said something about "His grace" and Kinley said "His grace?? I'm His grace!!" (her middle name is Grace).

I asked Kinley to write the alphabet for me and this is what she did. I did give her a copy of the alphabet to look at.

James has continued to do really well at school. He had a downturn after Christmas when he just seemed bored out of his mind but he has recovered. He is soaking up every bit of information he can these days. It is fun to watch and it makes me want to hang on to it. I hope his love of learning sticks around.

James is playing T-Ball at the Y. It is his first sport or organized activity. I'm pretty pumped that we made it 6.5 years! He is loving T-Ball and doing really well at it so far. Josh is helping coach and James thinks that is awesome. Entertaining the girls during the game is no fun though. I need some tips from more seasoned mom's!

James built this tower of blocks by himself. You don't think he's OCD and Type A personality do you?

Lunch time serenade. Mallory sings London Bridge.