First day of school

Off they went, with smiles on their faces for the first day of 2nd and 4th grade!

Cam was sad to see them go, of course.

And home they came, safe and sound, right to our driveway. Can't ask for better service than that!

Happy first day of school 2010!

bummed

The end of summer is always such a downer for me. I love my kids company and would love to have them around all the time. I miss them when they are at school and really wish I had it in me to home school them this year. I was soooo close to doing it, but decided it just wouldn't be fair to them right now. They are such bright kids and deserve to have the full attention of a teacher. I am the first to admit that I don't have that full attention to give right now.
So, off to school they go tomorrow. I'll secretly wipe the tears from my eyes and smile and cheer them on, because I know that this is the path that's best for us right now.

I sure hope those teachers recognize the precious little packages we're entrusting to them. I hope they see their strengths and give them the love and support they deserve. I hope my kids have a great year at school!

Gotta love the Texas Bluebonnets!

Having grown up in Texas, John and I are both big fans of the great spring wildflowers here. This year has been one of the best we've seen with blossoming blue bonnets, and we just couldn't resist getting our kids out for some flower picture fun. We all had a great time!

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!

Grounded

Last week, my kids were melting down and got in a big argument with eachother. As a consequence, they were sent to their rooms. When they continued to be mad and cry, etc... I went so far as to "ground them." They had to stay in their rooms the entire afternoon and evening.

The poor children didn't even get to come out of their rooms for dinner.

Aren't I a mean Mommy?

Of course I fed them. I brought it to them in their rooms. Hmmm, punishment for them, or more work for me?

Regardless, I had to follow through with the punishment. So, they ate in their rooms, did homework in their rooms, laid on their beds, messed around, etc.

As seen in the pictures below, they were really sad about the whole thing . . .



Brooke set up a cute little "tea party" for her dinner and it was so much fun that Cameron wanted to join her. What a punishment, to get to break the regular rules of not eating upstairs and have a party with her stuffed bunny and little brother. :-)

Austin had it pretty rough too. He got to eat as he lay around in bed, in his underwear, reading a book and having time to himself. Isn't it supposed to make you unhappy when you get grounded?? They were so mad to be confined to their rooms and then they realized that is was not so bad.

In the end, I think my mission was accomplished though. There were no more arguments in our house that evening. The down time did them some good . . . I hope.

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.

Summer fun at Grandma's House!

Brooke was in constant pose mode at Grandma's house this summer. Everywhere we looked it was beautiful and "perfect for a picture." So, she smiled and posed and smiled and posed. I'm so glad she did, because it's fun to remember what a gorgeous day it was and what a precious daughter I have!

Cameron had a ball this summer exploring the great outdoors at Grandma's house this summer. He got to climb, throw rocks, pick grass, feed the goat, pet the dog . . . and the cats. He had a ball just being free to play and run outside in the gorgeous Colorado summer weather.

Can't beat that view from Grandma's front porch and back yard huh?

Face Painting fun...

I am soooooo far behind with my blogging! The updates will follow, slowly but surely, I hope. But for today, here are some cute pictures of the kids all painted up by our talented friend Michelle. The kids had a good time, and were very sad when they had to come home and shower away all their lovely paint!

You can check out more of what Michelle does at: www.onthespotbodyart.com

Out with a Bang!

We had our last swim meet of the season this past weekend. It was a quad meet, which meant that we were one of 4 teams competing against one another, compared to our usual 2. There were lots of swimmers in each age group, since there were so many teams. Both kids did well and we were so proud of Brooke for completing her first season. She loved it and really had a fabulous time. Her strokes improved a lot and she gained a lot of confidence in the water. Her favorite is backstroke and she won her heat 3 meets in a row with her backstoke. She has loved every bit of being onswim team and I know she'll continue to improve and love it more each season.

It was Austin's 4th season on the summer swim team and he enjoys it more each year. He really blossomed this season and at this last meet he was at the top of his game. We were so very happy for his success. So, in a nut shell, there were about 50 7 &8 year old boys at this meet and Austin got first place in 3 of his 5 events!! He got a 2^nd and a 3^rd in his other two, which are fabulous as well. He had an awesome meet and we were so proud of him. He loves to swim and it's so fun to see him develop his skill while having a great time. He really ended the season with a bang! Now he's just trying to talk us into signing him up for the year round team. J

He swam 5 races and below are the results:

Event 2 Boys 8 Year Olds 100 Yard IM (individual medley =one length of the pool doing each stroke-backstroke, butterfly, breaststroke and freestyle)

Name Team Finals Time

Estrada, Austin- Lakeway Lakers- 2:00.41

Event 14 Boys 7-8 100 Yard Freestyle Relay

Team Finals Time

1 Lakeway Lakers- 1:23.19

1. Piercy, TJ 8 2) Sandlin, Gray 7 3) Estrada, Austin 8 4) Linn, Reilly 8
   

26 Boys 8 Year Olds 25 Yard Freestyle

Name Team Finals Time

1 Estrada, Austin Lakeway Lakers - 19.59 10

Event 50 Boys 8 Year Olds 25 Yard Breaststroke

Name Age Team Finals Time

1 Govind, Keshav 8 Waac Rec Swim Team 27.05

2 Lasseter, Luke 8 Waac Rec Swim Team 27.73

3 Estrada, Austin 8 Lakeway Lakers-ST 28.69

Event 72 Boys 7-8 100 Yard Medley Relay (4 boys each swim one of the strokes in a relay – Austin was breaststroke)

Team Relay Seed Time Finals Time Points

1 Lakeway Lakers- 1:39.50

1) Piercy, TJ 8 2) Sandlin, Gray 7 3) Linn, Reilly 8 4) Hansen, Jake 7

2 Lakeway Lakers- 2:01.65

1. Conway-Malott, Kyle 8 2) Estrada, Austin 8 3) Bernick, Ethan 8 4) Burr, Weston 8
   

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. :-)

Climber

Every time I turn around, Cameron is climbing on something. He also finds great joy in pulling all of the toilet paper off the rolls. Yesterday he made his way up onto the dining room table and rolled out the entire roll of paper towels. What a great mixture of two favorite activities!

He gave me a grand smile when I discovered him & asked what he was up to. He looked over his handy-work and reported, "no-no, no-no!"

I guess the first step is admitting that there is a problem, right?

Next will be controlling the urge to make big messes when you know you aren't supposed to. I guess that comes in another 15 years or so...hopefully. ;-)


It was sure cute though, and not really that big a deal since it made him awfully happy!

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. :-)

cooking skills

I had an interesting converstaion with my kids on Sunday. It was late afternoon and everyone had come home from church hungry, of course. They had a little snack and went off to change clothes and entertain themselves in various ways while I figured out dinner.

Cooking is not my strength. I am not real creative with meals and don't have a lot of interest in spending much time in the kitchen. I quickly got some chicken breasts into the oven and prepared some frozen broccoli and minute rice. I threw some bagged salad into the mix and ta-da, dinner. It was about as basic as it gets.

My poor hungry kids sure seemed to think otherwise. The smell of food drew them into kitchen where they excitedly looked into the various pots and pans. I was setting the table when one of them asked,

"Who are we taking dinner to?"

I answered that we weren't taking dinner to anyone, that it was for us to eat.

"Aren't you hungry?" I asked them.

They both responded that indeed they were hungry, but that usually when I make things "like that" it was for someone else. :-0 What?? As opposed to the frozen pizza or macaroni & cheese I usually make for them. So true, and so sad.

The whole family scarfed down the healthiest meal they've had all month. They were so easily impressed, and complimentary that I actually cooked dinner again on Monday. Well, ok, we had the missionaries from church over, so I kind of had to. Thus, proving their point, that I only cook decent food when it's for someone else. Today it's leftovers, we made extra on purpose. I can't cook 3 days in a row! I have laundry to do.

Speaking of food and cute things kids say...

Our favorite cute baby words that Cameron is using this week are:

"cookoo" - meaning cookie, or cracker. It's very cute and he'd like to have them all the time, so he uses it a lot.

"nanna" - meaning banana, of course, also very cute. He says this a lot too, because they are sitting out on the counter and he usually points and talks about them when he's in the kitchen.

Cameron and I have the greatest conversations these days and he's great company. I sure love, love, love my kiddos.

Bubble Mania!!

Just about anyone with a jetted bath tub or hot tub has experienced the joy that comes when you add bubble bath to the water and turn on the jets.

For those who have not, it's a fun thing to do some time. The end result is shown in the below pictures . . .

However, I would not suggest trying this if you are an 8 year old boy that your mom left in her bath tub to finish rinsing, while she helped your sister with a school project, made dinner and got your baby brother ready for bed.

That's not really a good idea... she might get mad.

The other kids will probably think it's awesome.

Actually, Dad probably will too! I bet he'll even pull out the video camera while you play "Pop goes the Austin" out of the bubbles. SO CUTE!

Mom might not like it though, even if you're cute. Because somehow she knows that it will end kind of like this...

Grrr.

My favorites

Just looking through some old pictures tonight, and I came across these fabulous pieces of art work by Austin and Brooke.

The first one was drawn by Brooke. She did it 2 years ago, when she was in pre-school and it is one of my all time favorites. She titled it "Big Grumpy Daddy." :-) I LOVE the way she used to draw the legs coming down from the head and no arms.
Somehow over the past couple years her drawings have gradually evolved and are now totally grown up looking. They're still cute, of course, but this one just takes the cake for me.

This second drawing was done by Austin when he was 6. It is a T-Rex, with a mouth full of jelly. That's specifically what he told us it was. I'm not sure why the T-Rex was eating jelly, but it sure is cute! What else would a brightly colored T-Rex with tiny little arms and pointy legs want to eat? I can't think of anything better than green jelly.

I just love these pictures! They're my favorites!