Celebration...

We had a celebration the first night of school! After a delicious dinner of steaks on the grill, compliments of Dad, we enjoyed fresh fruit with chocolate dip.

The kids liked the dinner, but LOVED the dessert. It was tasty, but it was almost as enjoyable to watch how much fun the kids had eating it!

Cameron was in Heaven and made a sweet little mess!

It was a great night together commemorating a great first day of school for Austin and Brooke!

Pueblo park fun

The kids and I enjoyed our visit to the Pueblo park this summer with Grandma Kathy, Uncle Rob and Annabelle. The rides are always a fun treat and the weather was nice for some running and playing. We got in some soccer playing, frisbee throwing, running races and regular old playing at the park together.

Brooke started off the rides with a fast moving, spinning ride. She and Annabelle loved it so much that they decided to go again. That turned out to be not such a great idea and she spent the rest of the evening feeling a little under the weather... :-(
Austin and Cam had lots of fun riding rides and particularly liked the little roller coaster that they went in 3 times in a row.

Always a pleasure to have the company of Rob & Annabelle!

Cameron was in heaven with so many little rides that were geared toward kids just his size!

Cam loves his Ubcle "Wob." Hey, what's not to love??

Rob entertained us with his acrobatics on the grass in the park.

The kids had a great time hanging out with Grandma! Thanks for a fun outing Grandma.

We love you!

4th of July Camping

We actually slept in a "cabin" but this camping trip was one of our best ever... it consisted of a little . . .

fire cooking, four wheeler riding, marshmallow roasting, dirt digging, fish catching, rock climbing, lake swimming, dog walking, fire chatting, animal watching, firework watching, out house using, stick collecting, moth swatting, bear looking, fresh air breathing, tree carving, stump sitting, picnicing, delicious food eating and lots of great family bonding time.

Turkey Tracks. . . thanks for your hospitality.

We hope to come back soon.

Nativity

We had a fabulous visit with family this past weekend. We attended a gorgeous display of over 1000 nativity scenes from around the world.

There were so many beautiful ones, it's hard to name favorites.

This live one made up of our kids and some of their cousins will be one we won't soon forget though. It was fun for all and very cute!

Fabulous Family Night

Every now and then, we have one of those days, or moments, or evenings that is just perfect and that we remember forever. This month we had one of those evenings with our family. After a relaxing family evening by the fire, and great lesson together, we all headed outside to the backyard. We played a make-shift game of "baseball/T-ball" with everybody. It was SO much fun!
The kids enjoyed a fabulous treat of candy apples and we played and played and played together.

Everyone had a great time. They've been asking to duplicate the night, ever since we had it.

The teams were boys against girls, although Cameron decided to join both teams and helped us out by hitting the ball, then going after it and getting it himself. It was hilarious and so fun to watch.

Thanks to Dad for the candy apples and the coaching.

Thanks to the kids for being so awesome.

We love spending time with them. We love playing with them. We love teaching them.

This evening was special though, we had such a great time together.

It's one of those memories that we'll cherish forever.

We have our share of family nights that are challenging. We keep trying though and nights like this one, are the ones that help us realize how precious the time with our family should be. So we tuck this memory away and we keep trying to make all of our family nights so special.

ooops...

so, as it turns out, the lake is really low right now.

we knew that, actually. it's pretty abvious to anyone who lives around here.



we were being pretty careful when we took our boat out on the lake for the first time this summer.



we weren't carful enough though. those tree stumps just came up out of nowhere. (it didn't help that we were heading home in the dark.)



it was scary when we slammed into them, but we were able to get home safely and no one was hurt. that's what counts.



the boat is out of commission for now, but we're hoping to get it repaired as quick as possible so we can get out on the lake again soon.



next time we'll just be sure to get home before dark and avoid the trees that grow up out of the water!

Organic Corn

You'd think I'd have lots of free time in the summer to do lots of blogging, but that
just hasn't been the case. I have certainly been enjoying my kids though. The first week of summer was full of great times like lake play, cousin visits, swimming, boating, playdates gardening and all around family fun.

The kids were especially excited today when they harvested their first ear of corn from their garden. :-) They have been carefully tending their garden for months. They water it, pick weeds, watch for squirrel thieves, and enjoy the reward for their efforts.

The corn hasn't been ready until today and they were soooooo stoked to be able to pick, shuck and eat the first ear. It was very cute to see how excited they all were after tending it for so long. Somehow, the corn was ever so much more delicious coming from their own garden.

Those farmer genes are in the blood and I'm very glad. :-)

Cousin fun

We had a great visit with our family in San Antonio last weekend. The kids were thrilled to hang out with their cousins. They had a great time playing with everyone and were excited about the great big sleep over we had with them.


We enjoyed celebrating our nieces birthday and catching up with family. I stayed up well into the night enjoying a visit with my sister in laws and was quite tired the next day. Lucky for me, I got a little nap in at John's parents house before we drove back.
We enjoyed the weekend and it was a nice visit for everyone.

Fishing

It's in the blood in this family.

Fishing has long been a favorite Daddy & Austin activity.

It is now also a favorite Daddy & Brookie activity.

She was very excited to catch this one, completely on her own.
They threw it back, of course, but not before snapping a shot for bragging rights.

She's quite the little fisher-girl. :-)

Music to my ears

I love music. I always have. But something that I love even more is seeing my kids love music. Austin loves music & really likes to play around on the piano playing things by ear. So, at the end of his lessons, his teacher, (whom we adore) has a little "jam session" with him. They play whatever they want and improvise as they go. (He likes it a lot, since that's his favorite kind of playing.) This week, he's stuck on this old familiar song that everyone loves to play. It's fun to see him enjoy it so much and any music that my kids make is music to my ears. :-)

By the way, the video is really short, because I just grabbed my cell phone and got a few seconds of it...

A few of my favorite things...

OK, I admit it, I've been in a really bad mood the past few days. But I'm done with that. Not that I need a reason to be happy, but here are a few of my favorite things that make me really happy . . .

No, we aren't really potty training, just interested in the potty. But seriously, how cute is he?? He makes me smile and laugh out loud, every single day.

This past Sunday I sent my kids up to get dressed in the clothes that I had laid out for them to wear to church. This is how they came down...

Not exactly what I had in mind, but how could I not smile?

Her smiles are contagious, yes, but eating watermelon at a picnic at the park on a warm evening in Texas... doesn't get much better than that.

This little man is obsessed with popcorn. He would eat it all day long if he could. To listen to him giggle and watch his eyes light up as it pops out of the popper, it's quite delightful.


My family, chillin' together, our favorite place to be on a Friday night. I sure love these guys!

Good friends who laugh with me, cry with me, and love me inspite of my flaws. . . I have many and I am very thankful for them.

There are so many things I have to smile about. So, I guess I should be smiling more often... that's my goal this week, to smile. Because there are lots of reasons to do it.