May

Ellis and I slid into May and our first “Fun Friday” at our old stomping grounds…Hat Creek! I used to take the kids here for play dates and sometimes after little league baseball games!

Ellis loves anything that’s nostalgic, and she also recently decided (all on her own) to go gluten free! Almost everything at Hat Creek is gluten free, so it’s our new go to fast food restaurant! I’ve been telling Ellis for years it would help so much with her inflammation, but she had to come to that conclusion in her own time. We also recently did another very expensive blood panel to check her viral load and levels, and discovered that everything has decreased significantly! The IVIG and homeopathy are working! Slow and steady, two steps forward and one step back, but we’re moving. Her mycotoxin mold levels were still pretty high, and the Dr. thinks it’s mostly from food. She said the best place to start is to cut out gluten. Ellis literally told me she wanted to go gluten free less than a week before we got her blood work back. That’s what I like to call a “God Wink”! Praying once the gluten is out of her system she starts to feel so much better!

Friday night movie with his buddies and Ms. Tiffany!

They’re so tough!

At the end of every year the band students have an outside critiqued solo Saturday performance to help decide placement for the next year. They have to dress up and encourage parents to sit in on it and watch!

I’m just in awe of percussion and all of the different instruments they have to learn! I’m happy to report that Brooks made the next band level up for next year, which is called symphonic band!

From killing it on the drums to killing it on the fields!

Weekends in the spring are for baseball!

Ellis has been begging to try hibachi, which funny enough, none of us have ever eaten. We finally decided to go one random Sunday night after baseball!

Our chef was hilarious and so much fun!

They asked if we were celebrating anything and Ellis told them her birthday was a week and a half ago, lol!

I guess a month of celebrating wasn’t enough!

So yummy and so glad the kids are “kind of” becoming more adventurous eaters!

I love that Brooks wants to do and try all the things! His middle school had a wrestling club with after school practices and one big end of season take down style tournament.

They were guaranteed 3 matches in their weight class, with 3 minutes in each match to get as many take downs as they could, or until one of them reached 5 takedowns.

This was his first ever match, and poor buddy didn’t get one single take down. A lot of these kiddos do some kind of Jiujitsu or taekwondo, and the only experience Brooks has is watching WWE and play wrestling with Shep. I could tell he was so timid and nervous…

He got back out there for round 2 and tried again!

He tried so hard, but unfortunately, no takedowns in this round either.

Round 3 – let’s go Brooks!

I wanted so badly for him to get at least one takedown. He was so mad on the car ride home. I think it’s safe to say wrestling is not his sport, but I was still so darn proud of him for trying something new!

In case you haven’t gotten enough of Brooks yet, here he is at his final spring whole band concert!

I love when they play fun pop songs! Here’s a popular hit called “Soda Pop”!

I like how you can usually hear percussion over all the other instruments. You can hear Brooks if you know what to listen for!

I also love how percussion gets to come to the front at the end of the performance to bow! Love how Brooks always gives me a big handsome smile too!

Last lunch of the year with our sweet Sheppy!

Last “Fun Friday” of the year we got our nails done…

…and then I talked Ellis into going to the movies with me!

I really wanted to go see the Michael Jackson movie! It was so good and Ellis made it almost until the end. She got scared after the part where his hair caught on fire while filming the Pepsi commercial and we had to leave. I was proud of her for making it that far since she pretty much wanted to leave as soon as we got there. In addition to cutting out gluten Ellis’ Dr. also put her on a 4 step mold detox protocol. The first step included a charcoal binder. We had a lot of trouble with this binder in the past, but we thought it was because we were giving it to her at the same time as her anxiety medicine and they were canceling each other out. I made sure I didn’t do that this time, but even after spreading them out we still noticed an immediate spike in Ellis’ anxiety. I continued to give her the charcoal for about a week and made it to the second step in her protocol, but it just got so bad we had to stop. The only change was this mold detox, so we definitely thought it had to be that causing all of the anxiety and panic attacks. I just want to get this mold out of her, but this protocol is just way to harsh on her body and causing more harm than good.

It’s so hard to catch this cutie smiling, so I have to document it when we do!

We have the coolest friends! Eric turned 50 and Anne Marie rented a suite at the hotel attached to the PGA golf course in Frisco!

She also hired a private chef!

The room had an awesome patio overlooking the golf course!

Anne Marie, me, and Morgan met through our husbands playing golf together and have connected even more over the years with book club and tennis!

The Dudes!

The Ladies!

The chef was amazing and Morgan was cracking me up with her facial expressions, lol

Get in my belly!

The whole gang!

Brooks had a free weekend of baseball, and instead of taking it easy he signed up to guest play for his old team, the Pirates. Atta boy, Brooks!

It also happened to be Mother’s Day weekend, and there’s truly nothing I’d rather do than watch my boys play ball! Unfortunately, a pretty gnarly storm came through and the rest of the games were canceled. Shep’s sweet coach had these awesome rings made for us. Darn rain and lightening ruined our mother/son photo opp on the field and the boys had to wait and give us our rings back at home.

Shep was so excited to give it to me, it was so cute!

Rain still couldn’t stop these boys from playing some wiffle ball!

It’s Mother’s Day, so you HAVE to take a picture for mommy!

Love these crazy kids!

All my other amazing gifts from the kiddos!

From Shep…I love you mom you are the best mom ever. You help me when I’m crying and you feed me and I love you mom!

From Ellis…dear mom thank you so much for protecting me and helping me through all the panic attacks. Thank you for being the best mom you can be and thank you for coming on fun adventures with me! Love the cute little canvas she made for me too!

Brooks has better handwriting than me, so you can definitely read it on your own!

Canceled baseball and rainy weather call for a chicken tortilla soup take out kind of dinner!

The best gifts of all!

The dumpling and squishy phase is still going strong for Ellis. These uv dumplings are pretty cool!

Ellis has also decided that she’s ready to start taking a 30 minute tumbling private once a week again. It’s such good exercise for her and she has so much flexibility and natural talent!

Almost couldn’t fit it in before the end of the school year, but it’s time for our annual “skip day”!!!

So glad Ellis decided to come with us this year!

Welp she made it inside, and that’s as far she got, but honestly, I was so proud of her and surprised she made it that far. I was shocked she even wanted to try, but she genuinely seemed so excited. She had a full on panic attack and literally tried to run out of the park into the car. Thankful Adam is able to take his work calls from the car and drove over an our to come pick her up, so the boys and I could still have our skip day! I hate PANS and anxiety and just keep praying for healing, so Ellis can enjoy all the things she used to love 🙏. That mold detox definitely set her back and I’m really hoping and praying we can get her back to her baseline quickly.

Let’s do this boys!

They even got me on a few rides!

It was hot and more crowded than we were hoping, but thankfully they have these cooling stations!

Brothers and best friends!

One day these boys will realize how cool their mom is!! Who wants to go to school when you could be at Six Flags!!!!

Annual skip day success!

The next day we got a bit of rain and then the most beautiful double rainbow appeared over our house!!

The rainbow was a greeting for Grandma and Aunt Kelly who came into town for the weekend to watch some baseball!

We finally were able to give Grandma her 70th birthday present, a custom necklace with the birthstone of all 5 of her grandkids!

Unfortunately, I missed the rainbow and surprising Grandma with her gift because I was headed to give my mom a surprise of her own! Every year my mom, sisters, and I do a girls trip, but in recent years my mom has started feeling uncomfortable leaving my Dad by himself for the weekend. Jodie saw a reel on instagram with this amazing idea of surprising your grandparents or parents with a surprise sleepover at their house. When she told us her idea we were all immediately on board! Our mom couldn’t come to us, so we came to her! We had to come up with a plan to make sure my parents were going to be at home. Janel asked them if her boys could have a sleepover at their house while her and Justin did a date night. Of course they said yes, and so our plan of tricking them into thinking they were babysitting their grandsons worked!! Little did they know all of us sisters met at the front of their neighborhood and took turns surprising them from oldest to youngest. Joanne was nervous to go first but she did such a good job acting and recording all of our entrances!!!! My dad looked so confused, lol, and my knows how much Joanne loves her nephews so she really thought she just wanted to hang out with them!?

Jeanne ringing the doorbell really threw them for a loop!

After the “party” aka Janel showed up without her boys I think they figured it out, but they just thought it was going to be a sleepover with the daughters that live in Houston.

Joanne didn’t get it on video, but I finally made our mom cry!!!

We tried to trick her into thinking Jodie really wasn’t going to be able to make it because of her kids sports, but she wasn’t buying it!

We didn’t want my mom to have to worry about anything, so we planned every last detail. We ordered take out for dinner and Joanne even pre made a casserole for breakfast!

I saw this “shot” gun at the liquor store for super cheep and I just had to get it. I was envisioning it being the same as the saki gun they used when we went to hibachi the other night with the family, but clearly it did not shoot as far as I thought, lol.

Jodie was such a good sport and gave me a second chance!

Then it was on to our favorite part of every girls trip— sitting around the table, playing silly games, and laughing until we cry….

Mom is such a good sport and always gets the biggest laughs out of all of us! My Dad was smiling from ear to ear and just shaking his head listening to all of us laughing from the living room! I love it the most that he loves seeing our mom happy!

Eskimo kisses, lol

The game we played is called “Chardonnay Go” and has the most outlandish and hilarious challenges. Laughter is just so good for the soul!

Meanwhile, back in McKinney, Ellis somehow talked Aunt Kelly into waking up at 7am and sitting in line with her for three hours to get into Five Below. They were doing a national “golden ticket” event where only one dumpling in the US had a golden ticket with a $1,000 voucher inside of it!

This craze just blows my mind, lol

She didn’t get the “golden ticket”, but she FaceTimed me and was so excited to show me that she got a rare glitter dumpling!

Now onto the real reason they came in town!!

So glad they got to see Brooks play some ball!!

Our Saturday plans in Houston started with a little side of good ‘ole sisterly drama, but ended with perfection and coming full circle. I originally suggested the highly recommended Trellis Spa at the Houstonian for a nice relaxing spa day and dinner out, but not everyone was on board with my idea. We hemmed and hawed and argued and took forever to come up with a new plan, but finally agreed to a day in Galveston on the beach with pedicures, lunch, and a visit with our Aunt Jo on the way back. Those plans fell through last minute when we found out Galveston was hosting a “jeep” weekend, and we figured it would be jam packed. We were scrambling to come up with another plan. I called the Trellis Spa on a whim thinking there was no way they’d have 6 spa openings on a Saturday with just two days notice. That place gets booked up on the weekends months in advance. What do you know, the stars aligned, and they just so happened to have 4 massages and two facial openings sprinkled throughout the day! It was fate! Relaxation mode was activated!!!

It worked out perfectly, because while some were getting treatments the rest of us got to relax out on the patio by the soaking tubs! The weather turned out to be perfect too!

It’s become my thing to surprise everyone with fun little gifts for our girls trips and I absolutely LOVE doing it!

Matching swim cover ups with our signature J1-J5 and Mom5 logos!

I also got us these cute beach bags because we were supposed to go to the beach, hence the swim cover up’s too. I probably would’ve gotten us robes if I knew we’d end up at the spa. It was too late to change the custom things I ordered, but I think they still worked out, and I filled our beach bags with a few “spa” things!

Played some Mexican Train while we waited for everyone to finish up their spa treatments!

We nixed our fancy dinner plans and opted for left overs, comfy clothes, and Astros on the couch. Just the 7 of us haven’t been together like this (just us) probably since Joanne graduated from college, 30+ years ago! What a special night!

If we had a nickel for every time someone said, “your poor dad”, we’d be a very rich family. I’m sure he’s loved (mostly) every minute of having a houseful of women though! I really enjoyed getting to hang with him for a bit, watching the ‘Stros, and then he went to bed while us ladies stayed up until after midnight playing games and laughing until we cried again!

Thankfully, back in McKinney Brooks and Shep’s games didn’t overlap. Brooks had early games and Shep had late ones, so they got to see both boys play!

Shep thrives when he has fans in the stands!

Love these two and my four sisters more than words! I’m so glad everything worked out and we were able to pull off the biggest sleepover surprise for our Mom! Blessed beyond measure and heading back to McKinney with an overflowing heart full of gratitude!

I asked Brooks to put together a video of us surprising our Mom and boy did he deliver! I’ve watched this a thousand times and can’t help but smile every time I watch it!

I also made this fun little weekend recap video for us girls to enjoy!

Last week of school of course they have all the themes and all the celebrations! Western Day is one I can definitely get behind! Love this little cowboy!

Our bestie twins graduated from the 5th grade, so of course we had to go and cheer for them!

My other daughter! It’s not lost on me that her name is Grace 🙏

This stud got Invisalign to help him become even more handsome, as if that’s even possible! The blue thing is his mouth guard that’s supposed to help him push his trays into place. We let him choose between braces and Invisalign since they were the same price and he’s responsible, and he chose Invisalign. Wish this was an option back in my day, you can’t even tell when he has them in his mouth.

Dream Drop Needoh score on this fabulous day, even though we had to drive over an hour for it! It’s worth it to see that smile!

Couldn’t help but notice that the clouds looked like mountains in the distance. If only, lol

Schools almost out which means one last Mom’s Brunch with my favorites!

Took Shep to his outdoor basketball practice and instead of waiting in the car and listening to my audible book like I usually do, I decided to walk around our community pond. Spotted two tarantulas on my little walk! Nature and all of God’s creatures just fascinate me!

Last day of fourth grade for Sheppy!!! So not ready for him to start his last year of elementary school and for that era to end for us.

Ellis’ last day was actually last week, but we forgot to record it. So proud of this girl for keeping up with her peers and completing 6th grade from home!

Last year of 7th grade for this teenager. Him and Shep will be the big men on campus next year going into 5th and 8th grade!

Growing up WAAAAAAAY too fast!

💙❤️💙

Of course we had to go dumpling hunting while the boys were at their last day of school!

She scored and we ran into Ms. Tiffany!

We made a quick pit stop to bring Ms. Nancy a coffee and a dumpling to give to one of her underprivileged kiddos (Ellis’ idea).

Nancy was so appreciative!

Here’s the beautiful little girl that lives with her grandma and was so excited to get her very first dumpling!

Next up was Oreo’s check up vet appointment!

A little Michael Jackson entertainment at the vet while we waited!

Ellis and I signed up to pass out popsicles at Shep’s last day of school party, but apparently they had the times wrong on the sign up sheet so we just missed it. Shep was bummed, but I’m glad we got to see him for a hot second in the hallway!

It also meant we got to do more dumpling hunting though!

Ellis definitely racked up on the last day of school!!

Hacky sack is back and Adam is totally here for it!

Last day of school Adam, Shep, Ellis and the pups headed to the lake, and I stayed back with Brooks so he could go to his first swim practice of the season. He and a few buddies hung out, ate some Canes, and went night swimming at Hunter’s for a bit!

After swim practice the next day Brooks and I headed to the lake to meet up with everyone for the Memorial Day weekend! I immediately went into relaxation mode and started on my favorite activity!

Love that being at the lake gets us outside!

This handsome young man wore his cowboy hat all weekend!

The Cisneros woke up before sunrise and made the 5+ hour trek to the lake from Houston, so they could have the whole day with us on Friday!

Ellis and Maddy made these cute little videos all weekend…

First time out on the lake for the season!!!!

Ellis and Maddie are excited about the lake!

It was supposed to rain all weekend, but we ended up having gorgeous weather during the day!

Our poor float has seen better days and wasn’t holding any air.

Dinner at Hemmingway’s!

Love these two besties!

The girls!

The Cisneros’

The Dimmick’s!

Dimneros!

After dinner sunset boat ride back to the house!

My favorite place to watch the sunset!

The next day Ellis and Maddie were back at it with their silly dance videos…

We got in a full day on the boat and then it started pouring in the afternoon. Ellis just couldn’t help herself!

One last video of Ellis and Maddie in the rain!

The rain let up for a bit and we got this beautiful rainbow overlooking the backyard!

We had non refundable tickets to see Wade Bowen at the General Store that evening, but unfortunately, it started storming again and the rain never let up. We had an early evening and played some Mexican train instead.

The Cisneros had to leave early on Memorial Day, so we had a day on the lake just us. We saw this little cutie off the pier next to our boat slip. He’s a harmless little guy that was just trying to cool off!

Love having company up at the lake, but it’s always so nice to have a day to decompress and hang with just the fam!

Matching with my little bestie, who’s always stealing my makeup and clothes these days!

Got us a new float and the kids love to face this way now!

Wipe out!

Such crazy daredevils who are always pushing the limits, lol…

This man right here hardly ever says no when the kids ask him to play with them. It happens a lot and never goes unnoticed by me and I hope not them either. He is always soft tossing them baseballs, spotting Brooks on the weight bench, spotting Ellis or watching her on her tumble track, and shooting hoops with them at the lake. I hope they always remember, and do the same with their kiddos one day as well!

Gotta get that yearly Memorial Day sunset pic on the cliff!

Gosh I wish I was that flexible!

Finally finished her and she’s a beaut!

The plan was to go to the Astros game at the Rangers stadium on the way home from the lake, but we forgot about the dogs, lol. We dropped them off real quick and then headed to Arlington!

Ellis’ started panicking on the drive home and got herself all worked up thinking about the loud overwhelming stadium. She wanted to come to the game with us so bad, but she just couldn’t do it. My heart hurts for her, but I have hope she’ll get there again one day.

Thankfully she was able to stay with Ms. Nancy and Hunter took her place!

Love him!

We didn’t win but we came back and put up some runs and got to see Yordan go yard!

Summer officially started when we got back from the lake, and this girl is keeping herself busy crocheting!!

This is what summer nights are made of!

I’m not sure if I mentioned this on here or not, but Ellis’ on and off friend since kindergarten (her name is Maddy also) was recently diagnosed with alopecia. She was so so good to Ellis during some pretty hard times and I was really hoping Ellis would be there for her as well, especially since she can relate. Unfortunately, empathy is a struggle for Ellis, she feels it but has a hard time expressing it. Friendships are so hard for her right now too, and I’m not pushing anything. Praying these two can come back together again one day and be a huge support for each other 🙏

It just blows my mind that we actually have to get up earlier in the summer than we do during the school year because of swim team. Nothing like those sun rises though! I fully support this kind of discipline and responsibility and it makes me so proud that Brooks voluntarily wants to do this! I drop him off at the pool Monday-Friday at 6:45 and don’t pick him up until 11! He is such a great self motivated kid!

I love that these little cuties specifically ask for Brooks out of all the junior coaches and only want him in the water with them!

I can’t ever say no to these sweet girls! Anything to get Ellis out of the house! Libby is Grace’s best friend and she is truly one of the kindest humans on the planet. She is always so inclusive and nice to Ellis.

Ellis wanted to share her little claw machine obsession with them!

Never have I ever seen this kid take a nap. Those early morning swim practices are catching up to him!

I have prayed and prayed for Brooks to find a good group of friends, and I’m so thankful he has these amazing boys!

Friday night summer fun on the patio of the golf club! It’s been a minute and the weather couldn’t have been more perfect! Sweet girls!

Crazy boys!

Amazing friends!

Swim team during the week and baseball on the weekends!! He doesn’t ever stop! Like mother like son, lol

Sweet Grace came to keep Ellis company during her infusion. This month she experienced more anxiety than she has in a really long time. We even had to skip a day because she just couldn’t work through her anxiety. She pushed through though and she did it, thanks to her INCREDIBLE nurse! So dang proud of her!

Grace surprised her with a carrot squishy to tell her she was proud of her too!!

Love her heart and just so thankful for her continued kindness toward Ellis. They’ve had their ups and downs, but she’s been one of her constants! She’s family 🥰