Happy 13th Birthday Zander!

 Zander,

You are officially a teenager! I am so proud of the young man you are becoming! We have the best conversations on the way to soccer practice and I love the long car rides to your games that are out of town.  I love to hear how you think.  I love to hear you talk about school, what you are learning and what happens with your friends.  You continue to get all A's in 7th grade and were inducted into the Honor Society this year due to your academic, behavioral and leadership skills.  I love how passionate you are about learning new sports (taking every opportunity to practice volleyball, soccer and golf).  I love how you read your bible before bed in the evenings, taking notes on what you have read and challenging yourself to read through the bible.  You help with setting up and tearing down all the games during youth group on Wednesdays.  You are already looking for additional leadership opportunities at church (through the AV team).  I love your optimism about anything you do.  Your smile is contagious and your positive energy along with your encouragement helps me be a better mom.  Your smile might change this upcoming year as we will start the process of braces to straighten your teeth.... stay tuned...

We celebrated #13 BIG!  We went on your first ever cruise in March and were able to celebrate this milestone birthday after dinner one night with cake and singing.  You chose to have Jackson, Nathaniel, Austin and Max join us at Top Golf last Friday for some night time golfing!  We went to Jersey Mike's after church to celebrate with family.  You had cookie cakes at both celebrations (You and I both love cookie cakes)!  On your actual birthday, we went to Olive Garden (your pick) with Grammy and Grandpa to enjoy some delicious Italian and one more evening of desserts!  Going into this upcoming year, you will finish out middle school, already planning for high school by taking two classes for high school credit (Math 1 and Spanish).  I love how you plan ahead.  I love that you are collecting baseball cards and are organizing these cards into a system that works for you.  I will always be grateful that you were the one God picked to make me a mommy.  It has been one of my greatest joys to watch you grow this past year.

I love you,

Mom

Milestones and Ballfields

 

We got to celebrate Grammy’s 70th birthday on her actual birthday which was a small miracle considering the busy schedules all of our kids (and adults) have this time of year! Aunt Glenda came from Florida making the evening even more special. Grammy wanted time with her family for her birthday and I thought we were able to truly enjoy the time together. We are still waiting to celebrate my sister’s 40th birthday which will take place in a few weeks, on our next free night! Haha 

I got to chaperone Maddox’s field trip to Raleigh and had two of his best buds in our group! They were such a great group of boys to explore the science museum with! I think they had a blast. We were able to check out the Capitol Building and Legislative Building as well. Representative Zenger gave us a tour of the House floor to make our visit even more special. Maddox was worn out on the drive home but rallied for a baseball game as soon as we got back to town. Enzo, our two year old neighbor who loves Maddox, came to see him play. Most of our days have been spent on a baseball, softball or soccer field these days and I cherish every minute of seeing my favorite kids doing what they love!

Worn out after a long week!

Happy Easter from the Houstons

We have the best weekend celebrating our risen Savior! We are so thankful for Jesus paying the ultimate price and giving us the promise of salvation and eternity with Him. Happy Easter from the Houstons!

On Good Friday, we ate lunch at Chick-fil-A and enjoyed very large ice cream cones! Saturday, we went to the theaters to watch the new Super Mario Galaxy movie. Back to school on Easter Monday (a snow make up day) and back to the Monday selfies with the cousin crew!

This week, baseball starts back for Maddox! This means that we don’t have a free night until June…. I guess we will rest some this summer! Haha! Zander had a soccer scrimmage the same night as Maddox’s first baseball game. The Kennedys and Bakewells were at the ball field since Eli had a game and Emmy had practice at the same complex. It is rare to have three of the four cousins at the same place playing sports on a weeknight so we enjoyed being in the same location for once!

 

Annual Half Marathon

On Saturday, I ran my annual half marathon with my favorite running partner! Linds had a PR and I took 1st place in my age group (with a 1:51:08 chip time)! It was a cold, windy morning but that didn’t deter our faithful fans from showing up to cheer us on! 13.1 done for another year ;) Linds and I somehow found a way to run most weekends together with a crazy basketball schedule this winter and with late nights for both of us the night before, we were very excited about the outcome of our race results! Carmen surprised us at the start and finish line which was a special treat to have family and friends cheering us on! (At the start of the race, the “feels like” temperatures was 23 degrees due to the wind). The wind was rarely in our favor on the hills but the course was mostly greenway and neighborhoods which I enjoyed!

After the half marathon, we headed to the ball field to cheer on the Kennedy kids for their opening day games, kicking off the spring season of softball and baseball. After a full day outside, we went over to Grammy and Grandpa’s house for pizza and Easter egg coloring fun! The busy day wore us all out, as evident by Maddox falling asleep on the couch last night. This week I got to lead a field trip to City Hall and Chick-fil-A with our Student Council. My favorite girl went with us as her class’s representative. We had a March Madness themed curriculum night on Thursday and Maddox was a big help with the clean up and took home some of the prizes for completing his punch card. Friday night was spent about 1.5 hours away cheering on Z underneath the Friday night lights at a soccer stadium. They didn’t bring home the win but we got to enjoy beautiful weather and a pretty sunset before the rain came in for our drive home.

Happy Birthday Zack!

We celebrated Zack’s 44th birthday this weekend and each year I’m with him, I’m more and more thankful for the husband and father he is and how God has blessed us with him as the leader of our home! He is so easy to celebrate even if he doesn’t like being celebrated! I took him out to Print Works Bistro for dinner the night before his birthday and we made sure to deliver him breakfast in bed (a Houston tradition) before going to Emmy’s baptism. It was so special to watch Emmy get baptized on Uncle Zack’s birthday. I’m so thankful for the promises of getting to spend eternity with my favorite girl…. A truly memorable day! We finished out Zack’s birthday with a trip to Raleigh to cheer on our favorite soccer player, Zander.  In other news, Maddox fell on the concrete the week before our cruise…. This boy leads with his face and has no fear no matter the activity, causing him to sometimes get injured, stressing this mama out. I’m thankful that his face cleared up before all the cruise pictures. ;) The boys do such a good job playing with our younger neighbors. Marjory sent me this picture with Enzo and thanked us for what great boys they are to include him… I thought it was a sweet picture of them playing together. For our final day of spring break (after our cruise), we were able to keep the annual tradition alive of our 7 mile bike/run around Salem Lake. The boys might have outgrown their bikes but have not outgrown this time with their mama! We unexpectedly had one additional day of spring break when tornado warnings were predicted in our area. We did spend about 30 minutes in our hall bathroom and a tree broke off, causing damage to our fence. We are thankful everyone is safe and the weather wasn’t as bad as they anticipated. The cousin crew enjoyed St Patrick’s Day shenanigans when we returned to school the following day. You will see pictures from our birthday date night and Emmy’s baptism. I wore the same dress I wore to her baby dedication nine years ago. I thought it was fitting to connect our family’s commitment to supporting Emmy’s faith all those years ago to the day she made her personal profession of faith public through believer’s baptism.  We are so blessed to have Emmy in our family and are rejoicing that she is forever in God’s family too. 

Spring Break Cruise 2026: Mexico

We loaded all ten of the Bakewells, Houstons and Kennedys into a 15- passenger van last Friday after work to make the trek down to Port Canaveral to board a cruise ship to Cozumel and Costa Maya, Mexico for five days and nights of eating, relaxing and exploring! We divided up the trip, driving five hours the first day, leaving about 4 hours left of the drive on Saturday morning before we boarded the ship. We got on board around 12:30 p.m. on Saturday and immediately began eating the best food! With an all-you-can-eat-buffet available 24-7, we didn’t go without food on this trip. We enjoyed daily ice cream treats as well (hence the daily selfies with my favorite girl). On our first day at sea, the boys loved playing basketball and miniature golf on/near the sports court. Zander tried the Flowrider where he could boogie board at the back of the ship. Dinners each night featured delicious appetizers, main courses (the boys ate steak each night) and dessert. We celebrated many milestones at these dinners: Grammy and Grandpa’s 45th wedding anniversary, Grammy’s 70th birthday, Aunt Lindsey’s 40th birthday and Zander’s 13th birthday. Daddy’s birthday is next weekend but since he doesn’t like a public celebration, Grandpa got him the lobster tail at dinner one night (instead of cake).;) At our first port (Cozumel), the Houstons and the Kennedys went on a dolphin excursion where we were able to pet the dolphin, Cielo, and watch her do many tricks. We also got to feed and pet a manatee and watch a sea lion presentation. The excursion also included unlimited food and drinks. For our second port (Costa Maya), the ten of us participated in Mayan culture: the adults had a tequila tasting, all of us saw Mayan ruins and finished out the tour with an authentic Mayan lunch (tacos). For our final day at sea, we enjoyed lounging on the upper deck, many rounds of ping pong, miniature golf, shuffleboard, chess, water slides (Aunt Lindsey and I tried this too) and Zander played in two different volleyball competitions (open play and the teens division). We had a wonderful trip filled with lots of fun, delicious food and memories to last a lifetime!

7th Grade Class Trip

Zack chaperoned Zander’s 7th grade class trip to Atlanta. They spent two days and one night exploring the area, checking out the World of Coca-Cola, a Hawks basketball game and the aquarium. Zack got assigned a more challenging group of boys to watch over, fulfilling his chaperone duties, while Zander hung out with his friends. I was thankful for a mom friend that snapped pictures of Z on the trip since Zack didn’t get much time with him. They came back late Friday night with an even greater appreciation for how blessed we are to have the boys God has given us!;) Maddox finished out his basketball season with a win, leading to an undefeated season! Zack had trophies made for each of the Boilermakers, and we planned a celebration to finish out the winning season. This group of boys was pretty special:  great teamwork, sportsmanship and motivation to do their very best on the court! We’ll miss our Saturdays watching the cousin crew in action and grabbing lunch together in between games. I guess it’s officially onto spring sports!