Pool Day

It's our last official day of summer around here. School starts back up next week! We have had a fun summer but I am looking forward to being back into the routine of the school year. We spent the morning at the pool to celebrate our last day of summer. Love these little summer cuties! :)

Swimmer Boy

Adam has grown so much this summer. He's like a big kid now. He finished up his swim season with an Olympic themed swim meet. He didn't win any medals but he had fun swimming this summer! He also got to spend a lot of time with Sammy this summer. That was nice for him. He has been kind of sad because his best friend from next door moved and his best friend from school is changing schools this year. He is looking forward to starting school (Second grade!!) and making new friends and seeing his other school friends too. He's a sweetheart!

Five Years Old

Our ballerina princess turned five this week! That one gets me every time...FIVE years old! Just such a huge milestone with starting Kindergarten, being done being a baby, a toddler, a preschooler...waaahh. The mommy doesn't like this one. But...I am happy for her to start this new adventure as a big girl. And it won't be quite so bad sending her off to kindergarten since I am the kindergarten teacher at her school. We are both super excited about spending this year together at school and homeschool! :)

To celebrate her special day we had funfetti pancakes for breakfast! My mom and Sammy came over for a visit and a tea party lunch. That evening we met Jake at the Magic Time Machine for dinner. That is our favorite place to take a five year old.  Sarah said the best part of her birthday was getting Snow White's autograph. :) When we got home she opened her gifts. She got a beautiful Belle dress and her new ballerina bedding. When I tucked her in that night her bedtime prayer was "Dear God, thank you that I get to have a ballerina bed." Love that sweet girl! I still can't believe she has been in our lives for five years!

Chase Face

Oh our sweet little buddy just gets cuter by the day. :) He is talking more and more. He is putting phrases together. He has started saying "pants ON, shirt ON" when he gets dressed. He loves to watch Elmo. That is his favorite thing to do in the evenings when Jake gets home. Now as soon as Jake walks through the door Chase tells him "Daddy, Elmo, couch." He loves his guy time with his daddy. :) He also likes Batman (Matman) and sings the little song "na na na na Matman." He thinks every super hero is Matman. He says "huggy" when he wants to be held and this morning when I was in the kitchen he hugged my legs and said "love you!" Awww! He just melts my heart! It's going to be hard going back to school and leaving him. He is having major separation anxiety right now. He's a pretty sweet little guy!

Playing trains with Sarah

Lunch at the pool with his Matman cup. :)

Sweet pouty face

Cheese face, taking a picture of himself on play phone. :)

July

We had a fun, busy, hot month of July! We have been busy doing projects around the house. Hopefully I'll have some "after" pictures soon. The kids and I went to Baton Rouge for a few days and left Jake home to paint and move furniture. :) I am trying to get the house put back together and organize everything these last few weeks of summer! The kids have been having fun playing in the sprinklers, watching the Olympics and one night Jake set our tent up inside for a living room camp out!

I just noticed Sarah is in her pj's in almost all of these pictures. She's so funny. She changes clothes a million times a day and half of those times she puts on pj's in the middle of the day. Love that girl!

July 4th

Here are some pictures from our fun fourth. We played with sparklers, went to a parade in our neighborhood, made red, white and blue punch, and went to watch fireworks in Hurst with lots of family.

Busy Month of June

Well it appears that I took the month of June off from blogging. Opps! Sorry about that. But, don't worry. You are about to be bombarded with pictures! :) I am having more fun playing on picasa making collages than I am on the new blogger set up. So here you go! Our month in pictures! :)

We spent some time just hanging out around the house doing the usual things we do...laundry, cooking, playing games, dressing up, reading, watching movies. 

We also went some fun places this month. I took the kids to a new indoor trampoline park. So fun! The kids went to VBS at the church where they go to school. My mom & I took the kids to see the play Beauty and The Beast. We had our neighborhood July 4th Parade. We attempted a family fun bowling outing which turned out not to be a great activity for a toddler. :)

And we spent a ton of time at the pool! Sarah took swim lessons, Adam joined swim team. And Chase...well Chase doesn't exactly love being in the water. After a few minutes of playing he announces that he's "done." And he means it. He's getting pretty good at this toddler thing. He did have fun playing in the sand. 

So there was our month! Pretty fun times!

Rainy Wednesday and No Technology Tuesday

I am just loving this rainy morning at home. I am always thankful to be a stay at home mom but it's especially nice knowing that we don't have to get out when the weather is bad. We can stay home in our pj's just play inside and watch the rain.

Well yesterday Jake & I declared it No Technology Tuesday. The kids have become obsessed with Netflix. Sarah knows how to use the remote and work it. Even baby Chase will bring the "mote" to me and say "Elmo." He can unlock my phone and has called Grandma. (In fact he's the one that taught me how to turn the ipod on while the phone is locked.) Anyway, we needed to take a break.

It went great until about 10 am when I realized that staring at the wall while I folded laundry was really boring. And I wanted to listen to Pandora while I cleaned and my dinner recipe was saved on pinterest. (Maybe I'm the one with the problem!) So I changed the name to Less Technology Tuesday and we went on with our day. :) We played dress up and had a tea party, we did some chores, we built with Legos and read books and played outside. It turned out to be a nice little day even with slightly less technology! :)

Memorial Day

We did the usual BBQ, swimming and nap taking that we 

usually associate with Memorial Day weekend. 

But this year we also did something special. 

We went to the American Legion's display of the Field of Honor.

On the way I shared with the kids about my Papaw.

 How he instilled in me a love of our country, a pride for our military, an awe for our flag.

  

 How he loved history and genealogy and how I want to 

share his legacy with them by passing these things along to them.

 Adam asked me if he could teach them to his kids someday. He said he was afraid he might forget so could I remind him again at his wedding, I might want to bring a pen and some paper. I love that boy.

  

Hopefully doing things like we did today will stick with them 

and they won't have to be reminded at their weddings. :)

Happy Memorial Day and thank you to all who have served our country!

First Day of Summer!

We just had the best day today!

It started with a lazy morning at home which was exactly what I needed after the busy day at school yesterday. I was worn out! After a nice long coffee break this morning we had a little Bible time. I am loving this picture of Chase's chubby little baby hand on his toddler Bible. So precious! After playing hide and seek with the kids I got to read (a grown up book!) on the balcony while the kids played nicely together. (I'm telling you, it was the best day! It almost sounds too good to be true) Then Jake called saying they were really slow at work and he was coming home early. We ate lunch and then...wait for it...I took a TWO HOUR NAP!!! Seriously! I'm loving this day. THEN we packed up the sand toys and swim stuff and took the kids to the Little Elm Beach Park to play. And then we went to Downtown Denton and walked around the square. We stopped at my favorite little old fashion ice cream shop, Beth Marie's, walked through some of the shops and then sat outside on the patio and had pizza for dinner. When we got home the kids were worn out and went to bed easily and I'm relaxing with a glass of wine.

 I think our summer is off to a good start!

This picture melts my heart!

Playing in the sand

Beach Park!

Beth Marie's

Old Fashion Candy Store...so fun!

 

Pizza on the patio

 

Last Day Of School

We had a great time celebrating our last day of school. They had a giant water slide that the kids loved! We did some field day games. The favorite was tug of war with a big pile of shaving cream in the middle. We will miss our friends from school but we are very excited to be starting our summer break!

 

 

Last Week of Preschool!

My sweet girl is finished with preschool! Awww!! It went way too fast. I was trying to soak up every minute of her last week. How cute she looked in her Cinderella shirt with her flip flops and pig tails, how snuggly she looked in her jungle animal pj's when she climbed into my bed early one morning because she "needed to sleep on purple sheets," how her sweet little voice sounds when she sings worship songs. I'm so thankful that God chose me to be the mom of this little one! She is so precious!

Mother's Day

The kids had a Mother's Day program at school. It was really sweet. The ballerinas danced. All of the classes sang songs. They all got to give their mom a flower. And they had a slideshow of pictures through the year. I loved it! I have enjoyed teaching there so much! I loved one of the songs Adam's class sang. It was a prayer asking God to bless their moms. My favorite line in the song said "may your future be a holy legacy." Isn't that beautiful? What a precious thing for a child to pray for their mother! I love that!

My Sweet Ballerina

One of my students took this one :)

Lego Party

I had so much fun planning and preparing for Adams' birthday party. He wanted a Lego party and I had seen some really cute ideas. I started searching pinterest (oh, I love pinterest!) and before long had found tons of cute ideas for the perfect Lego party. I made a big Lego Mini-Figure head using bowls from the dollar store! So fun! :) My mom & I made the Marshmallow heads on a stick. And I loved how the cake turned out- looking like a Kit Kat bowl filled with M&M's with what else but mini-figures on the top. (Are you seeing the theme?) He invited a friend from school, several neighbors and all of our local family. We ended up with a house full of very loud excited seven year old boys, lots of Lego presents and an awesome afternoon celebrating our big guy! One of his gifts was a set of water guns which were immediately opened, filled with water and taken outside for a huge water gun fight! He was really happy with his party.

Party food for 7 year old boys...pizza & cheetos!

Kit Kat M&M Lego Figure Chocolate Cake! :)

My Birthday Boy!

This is what happens when you schedule a party at Chase's nap time. 

Presents!

Friends!

Chase Update

Oh, our sweet little Chase makes us laugh every single day. He is so much fun. Just a happy little guy! He is talking more and more which is just the cutest thing ever. He loves ducks! He loves to go for walks in his stroller and just knows we will see ducks while we are out. He likes to play with cars. He has a few favorite books that he always wants us to read. And his favorite food right now is bananas. These are some of the words he can say. I have to record them here so I don't forget! :)

Chase's Words:
daaaaa, mama, rah-rah, Ada
papa, ma-maw (Grandma/Mawmaw)
says quack quack when he sees ducks & says woof woof when he hears or sees a dog
wow, woah, uh-oh
banana, cookieeee, juice
ball (for ball or Easter eggs!)
bath, teeth (when he wants to brush his teeth)
no no, one more (when he wants more snacks!)
scoot! (when someone is in his way)

There are more but those are some of my favorite and ones that he says most often.

Sarah Update

I am totally sad that we are wrapping up Sarah's last year of pre-school. It just went by so fast. The pre-school years are so much fun. She is at a really fun age right now. She likes to play games, ride on her scooter, and draw pictures. She loves to practice writing her letters. Now when we are in the car she asks if we can turn the music off and "just talk." She doesn't like quiet! And she has a lot on her little mind sometimes. She is so precious and I am so thankful for my sweet girl!

Adam Update

It is just crazy to me that we are coming up on Adam's 7th birthday! He is just growing up so quickly. I know everyone feels that way with their kids but wow, I am constantly amazed at how fast the time goes. He is a sweet, smart, happy boy. He's silly and loves to joke around. He's fun to be around, like his daddy. He's doing really well with reading and math and enjoys the other subjects. He really enjoys learning and I hope that he always will. I'm so thankful for this sweet boy!