Tickens, Open House, Baseball, Easter, Oreo, TSwift, Eclipse, Shep Zoo, Gym Meet, Boys at Lake, Tennis, Ellis is 10

Apparently Shep and London are after school ice cream buddies!

Love it when we can catch Otter smiling!

Ellis, Meredith, Savannah (Savvy), and Sua call themselves the “OG Tickens” (how they came up with that name I have no idea), but these 4 are always together and basically live at my house and I absolutely love this for Ellis!

We had Open House the other day and I thought Shep’s mannequin looked just like him, lol

Couldn’t think of 3 better words to describe Shep than “funny, shy, and happy”!

Mrs. Marr is Shep, Ellis, and Grace’s dyslexia teacher and she’s wonderful!

I CANNOT believe I completely forgot to take a pic of this big 5th grader at his very last Open House– total mom fail! I did however get this adorable pic of him after his 11 year checkup! This is the prize he chose afterward, for being a brave boy with his shots, lol.

Brooks is playing for 2 teams again this season. He’s the number one player on his rec team, the Pirates, and it’s so good for his confidence and so fun to watch him dominate and shine!

No stealing 2nd when Brooks is behind the plate!

Epic double play!

Brooks’ AAA 11U team is way more advanced, but he definitely holds his own and is a solid and consistent batter!

An awesome Dad photographer from the team got these cool action shots…

Brooks had a tournament over the Easter weekend but we already had our usual plans to spend Easter at the lake with Adam’s family. I stayed back with Brooks while Adam, Ellis and Shep headed to the lake on Good Friday. Unfortunately, Brooks’ team lost, but fortunately we were able to get up to the lake much sooner!

Here are some pics they sent me from the Friday and Saturday during the day up at the lake that Brooks and I missed…

It was warm outside, but the lake was still freezing!

Breakfast crew!

Dying Easter eggs!

Love this pic of the two of them!

Cuties / Trouble!

Love our backyard!

Stroems brought their new toy!

This kid, lol!

Just living their best lives!

Good Friday Dinner!

Silly boys love their Aunt Kelly!

The Easter bunny came!

Ellis…I mean the Easter Bunnie left them a note!

Everyone’s awake and ready to see their baskets!

Scoping out the eggs!

Our “little” or “not so little” bunnies!

Perfect representation of all their personalities…

Ready for the hunt!

Checking out their loot…

Watching the show from a distance, lol

And that’s a wrap!

Love this video Ellis made of all of her Easter basket goodies!

Dressed and ready for church!

Proud Grandma with all of her “babies”!

My whole world! P.S. I think Brooks and I have the same smile!

Cutest Chapel on a Hill I ever did see!

My view inside the church!

Loves them!

Loves him!

Loves her!

My beautiful tree climber!

I feel so blessed to have the absolute BEST in-laws in the entire world!!!

That smile lights up my world!

Ellis drew this picture on the sidewalk outside of the church of the cross with the cloth in the empty tomb above, and the stone rolled away on the side. We had such a wonderful weekend celebrating our Risen Savior in our little slice of heaven!

And when we got back in town this happened…..

Meet Oreo Milkshake Wayne Dimmick!

Our handsome Aussie Doodle from Ohio born on 1/28/24

I mean seriously, just look at his gorgeous coloring! And yes, he has one blue and one brown eye!

It was love at first sight!

Adam picked him up from the airport early Friday morning while the kids were at school, so I got lots of snuggles before Ellis stole him from me! Here is the video of him and Otter meeting for the first time…

Playing in the backyard for the first time!

It took them a while to learn how to play with each other, and they still mostly ignore each other, but I know they will be BFF’s in no time!

On our way to surprise Ellis after school!

I knew Ellis would be excited, but I had no idea she was going to react like this! Favorite video of all time!!!!

Soulmates!

Ellis came up with this plan on how to surprise the boys!

They were smitten and in love too!

Look at those handsome boys!

Ellis went to a birthday party later that night and the mom sent us this picture. It brought me so much joy to see Ellis’ confidence and knowing that she felt comfortable enough to just rock her beautiful bald head in front of all those girls!

Oreo’s first bath!

Oreo’s first baseball game!

Oreo’s first friend!

Silly Shep put his sunglasses on Oreo!

Handsome boy took this selfie too!

So thankful for Ellis’ friend who treated her to a Taylor Swift cover band concert!

The girls sang their hearts out and had an absolute blast!

She even looked like Taylor Swift!

Dallas was in the viewing path of the total eclipse that won’t occur again in America for 20 more years! It was WAY cooler than we anticipated!

The total eclipse happened to fall on Joe’s birthday, and we surprised him with a viewing party in his backyard! It’s hard to tell from this video, but it got so dark and eerily quiet during the eclipse!

The clouds moved just in time!

You can’t see a thing with the eclipse glasses on, so I was impressed I actually got the 3 of us in this selfie!

Eclipse viewing party!

The kids got to go outside to view it too, since it happened in the middle of the school day!

My soon to be middle schooler trying out the instruments for band.

Tuba was his second choice!

He wasn’t a big fan of the trombone…

Trumpet was his 3rd choice…

He actually did really good on the clarinet and they definitely tried to push it on him, but this was his fourth choice. I didn’t get a video, but the drums / percussion were his first choice! Apparently it’s really hard to make percussion because it’s the most popular instrument choice, but according to the instructor he did really well! Hopefully we’ll find out soon which instrument they chose for him!

Got to be the chaperone again for Shep’s spring field trip!

We went to this cute little zoo in Gainesville, TX, and they had a black Bear!

The 3 boys I was responsible for!

Monkey’s were Shep’s favorite!

Camels!

Giraffe’s!

Shep’s other favorite was this random lizard, lol

If there’s a tree, Shep will climb it!

Lunch time!

Mrs. Maughan’s Magnificent 2nd Grade Class at the Frank Buck Zoo!

Mommy, look at this new dance I just made up 😂😂

First up was the beam for Ellis’ last meet of the season before state!

Floor!

Vault!

And Bars! She got a little too much power and fell, but I was so dang proud of her for getting right back up there and finishing strong!

She placed 5th on beam for her division!

And got a 3rd place medal for floor!

Overall for her division!

Her gym got 2nd place!

Ellis’ meet was over the 4 day weekend that both boys just so happened to not have tournaments, so the boys and Oreo headed to the lake!

First boat ride of 2024!

Crazy kids jumped into the freezing cold lake!

So excited about his lunch, lol!

Lover her!

The boys were at the lake while this one was………….

Getting her braces off!!!! Look at that beautiful smile!

Proud to announce that after 4 tennis matches I finally won my first match! We lost the first set 3-6, won the second one 6-3, and then won the tie break 10-6!!!!! This was Jill and I’s first time playing together and we rocked it!

Celebratory shots with my teammates!

Rare moment of these two laying next to each other! Otter usually tries to stay as far away from Oreo as possible.

Henry was Brooks’ first friend in kinder and here are the two of them now at the 5th grade Carnival 😭

So many fun rides at the carnival this year!

Daddy took the kids to the carnival while Mommy went to dinner with her girlfriends!

Ellis and Shep switched rooms so Ellis could have her own bathroom and boys could share. Ellis got a new loft bed for her room, so she gave Shep her old bed. I’m so proud of how I turned her girly white bed into a baseball bed for Shep!

Here is Ellis’ new awesome loft bed with a desk underneath! I’m proud to say that after 4 months she is finally sleeping in her room again 🙏!

Here’s her comfy new hammock chair she got for her birthday too!

Because Ellis got an expensive new bed set for her birthday, we told her no birthday party. Both boys had tournaments over the weekend too, so she was planning on spending her birthday watching them play, which I know she was excited about! The chance of rain was 100% on Saturday though, and I was betting on the games getting canceled, so I very last minute arranged a surprise party for Ellis! She had gymnastics on Saturday from 12-3, and her AMAZING friends were waiting to surprise her when she got back!