Happy Thanksgiving from the Houstons!

A quick catch up post first… 

Maddox loves advertising for our dine out nights with our school!

He also enjoys posing with the Christmas decor at our church (he requested this picture).

Beau is getting in the Christmas spirit as well! He loves sitting by the tree in his bed.

Zack worked hard to get our outside tree decorated for the upcoming holiday season. 

Emmy represented her class for the school-wide spelling bee! She ended up tied for 3rd in the final round! I have organized this event for many years. It was so much fun (and possibly nerve-racking) to have my niece participating in the spelling competition!

The cousins matching in their Mario Kart shirts!

I got to see Wicked with friends!

The boys got haircuts before Thanksgiving! Don’t they look like they love each other?!

Zander went to his first concert to see Fit For A King with Zack! He got to meet the band and crowd surf! What a night for our preteen!?

Zander has been enjoying a lot of sports lately! Four days a week he is playing boys’ volleyball for his middle school. He plays soccer two to three days a week for his elite travel soccer team. He also tries to talk his Grandpa into playing golf any chance he can get! Zander beat Grandpa when playing nine holes earlier this week. (This is something I was never able to do when I golfed with my dad growing up!) Zander loves this time with Grandpa!

We celebrated Thanksgiving with the Cantrells on Thursday!

 Today, we were able to celebrate with the Bakewells!

Zack took point on the turkey which was delicious as always! Zander wanted to try a new dessert recipe, a giant buckeye cookie.  It was a hit and enjoyed by all!

Ryan T. Bailey…. One of our very best friends met our Savior on October 31st. Zack and I are having a hard time processing that we won’t get to talk to him again on this earth but cling to the promise that God will restore all things in His timing. Zack knew Ryan since preschool and I had the privilege of calling him one of my best friends since high school. I was Ryan’s senior prom date and even helped him pick out the engagement ring for his wife, Jessica. The Bailey family would often stop to see us on their way back home to visit family.  Ryan was the one that asked if Zack Houston could join us for one of our Bakewell hang outs when everyone was home from college… and the rest is history as they say… 21 years ago this month, because of Ryan, Zack walked back into my life and the boys we have are due to this union. It is hard to put into words the friend Ryan has been to us over the years. He will be missed beyond measure. Prayers for his family and friends…. may all the positive memories shared be a comfort during this difficult time.

All the things!

Life has been a whirlwind lately so I will just hit the positive highlights as we’ve experienced deep loss in the last two weeks with the passing of one of our best friends. I’m not really ready to write much at this point since Zack and I are in shock and are trying to deal with our grief. I hope I have more words to capture my thoughts in the coming weeks… but for now…. Here has been the “good” for the Houstons…

Zander saved up and bought an electric scooter and loves it!

Maddox finished out his soccer season with a tournament last weekend. The final goal scored was by our Madman with a perfectly placed penalty kick! Onto basketball for this 10 year old!

We celebrated the Kennedy kids birthdays with treats at school and our annual zoo day!

Maddox got to help out at our school’s dine out night!

Zander started his volleyball season with a pretty big cheering section! I am finding I love middle school sports! It might be a challenge to get there after work but the atmosphere and camaraderie of his teammates makes for an enjoyable and exciting afternoon!

Happy Halloween 2025

Halloween was on a Friday this year! Fun was had at school and in the neighborhood! It looked a little different this year since Zander was on a youth retreat the weekend of Halloween so we had a smaller crew to trick or treat, just daddy and Maddox! We still have a ton of candy at the house!

Came home a little tired Sunday afternoon!

Maddox and I got to cheer on Eli at his games on Saturday while daddy was doing inventory at work and Zander was at camp.

Just to document… Zander practices in all kinds of weather… soccer this week was cold and wet! He made his middle school’s volleyball team so hopefully the climate-controlled environment of those games will balance out the outdoor soccer practices and games still ahead before the new year!

Happy 10th Birthday Maddox!

“MadMan” Maddox,

You are officially double digits and I cannot believe we’ve had you with us for a whole decade! You wanted a sports themed birthday party so we used our church’s activity center and filled it with all the sports (basketball, soccer, football, corn hole and volleyball) for our sports loving kid! You have such an energetic, optimistic, kind personality that makes it easy to celebrate you!! I love watching you with your friends- how you encourage them, celebrate with them and genuinely light up when you are around others! You have the most generous spirit- sharing anything you have with anyone that asks you for a favor. You continue to have an incredible smile and a resilience to get back up (whether if it’s physically picking yourself up after taking a hard hit on the soccer field or if it’s at school and you get a less than desirable grade- determined to work harder, to learn more, to be better). You continue to memorize verses at AWANA (almost finished with your third book out of four). You love being outside, watching football (really any sports event), spending time with family or arranging play dates with friends. You have your mama’s extrovert personality and love any opportunity to see others. You are so smart (working out complex math problems in your head), a hard worker (asking your teacher for an additional charter book to keep working on your reading and improve your grade - since reading isn’t your favorite subject- haha), and flexible to join whatever plan comes your way! We have Monday nights this fall, just the two of us, while Zander has soccer practice and I love these moments with you, cuddling and reading. I thank God that He blessed us a decade ago with your arrival- two weeks early (catching us off guard as you sometimes still do). You were always meant to be the member that completes our family and we are so thankful it is YOU!

Love you MadMan!

Love, 

Your Mama:)

Lunch at Don Juan’s on your actual birthday 

Singing to you at church with your cousins and Grammy 

Opening presents on your birthday 

Breakfast in “bed”…. You slept downstairs in the living room with your brother so you could watch college football the night before.

A fire pit on your birthday…. Complete with s’mores!

Last Night in the Single Digits

Daddy brought lunch to school a couple days after your birthday and I brought donuts as a sweet treat for your class after lunch.

Fourth Grade - School Picture 

Fall Fun!

This weekend had all things fall for the Houstons! We started with our school’s fall festival Friday night (where Kristen and I were in charge of games again). Zander ran one of the games, Maddox ran around using all of his pre-purchased tickets, Zack supervised all the fun and I ran around ensuring games were running smoothly and appropriately stocked with prizes! I was worn out by Saturday morning but we had two soccer games (Mollie came to Maddox’s game), grocery shopping and haircuts to make for a full day “off”. On Sunday, we had our church’s fall festival where Zander and his middle school friends hosted a pit crew themed trunk for the “trunk or treat” while Maddox got to fill his pumpkin bucket with tons of candy while dressed as Spider-Man. We met up with a chef and firefighter to ensure a picture of the cousin crew. 

Dressing up as traffic cones during the car rider line in the mornings and afternoons to advertise for the fall festival at school….

In other news, Zack will be starting a new job in a couple weeks! He is still working for the same company that he has been with for 20 years but will be the High Performance Flooring Sales Representative for the Central Region of our state. With this new role, he will no longer be managing a store location and will spend more time on the road visiting various customers and stores while also working from home some (which I think Beau will enjoy the most). Due to the travel aspects of his new job, he was provided a company car for these visits. He went to pick it up this past week and the boys enjoyed looking at daddy’s new work “ride”. We are so blessed by how hard Zack works for our family and continue to pray for God’s provision through this new opportunity.

Author Visit

Two weeks ago, this soccer player had a hat trick (and only played the second half of the game as striker! ). He didn’t allow any goals scored on him while he played goalie for the first half! This kid sure is athletic!

It was National Frappe Day… it called for an overpriced sweet treat!;)

Zander had a soccer game 2 hours away last weekend… which meant we got home after 11:00 p.m. on a Friday night! We were all tired after the busy week and long drive back home!

A laid back breakfast was just what we needed that Saturday morning after the late night travels.

Dinner with friends this week!

Zander got to meet his favorite author this past weekend. He has read most of Alan Gratz’ books and owns many of them as well.  He came home with five signed books and his two favorites were personalized with a greeting addressed to him. It was such a fun afternoon for me and my oldest. We got to check out the first part of Maddox’s soccer game prior to the author visit. It was a wet afternoon on the soccer field but our Madman had a blast scoring two goals on offense and not allowing any goals when playing goalkeeper.