Splash Rocket Shenanigans

Have you met my three children?

He's still our little Boogie Boo!

Beach season has begun! We enjoyed a beautiful, sunny morning at the beach. And the boy enjoyed the waves!

Staycation Spring Break

Two words to describe our spring break week: AWE-SOME!

Two more: animals & dirt

Two more: gorgeous weather!

We spent the week at home. We (actually, Mike) got a LOT of work done around the yard and house. He did a LOT of planting. And the kids got REALLY dirty. And it was all F-U-N, FUN!

But we also did a lot of day-tripping. We spent great family time together enjoying near perfect weather. If we ask really nicely and say please, you think we could have one more week?

Brazos Bend State Park

Houston Zoo

Bayou Wildlife Park



If you'd like to see more photos from our fabulous week, check them out on Facebook!

Festival of Lights

Wow! What happened to November? I apologize for not keeping up, and I have a million excuses. :-) I'll spare you the details, so let's just jump in to the most recent event.

Yesterday was the Festival of Lights in our little town and we had a family fun day! We like to go every year and as the kids get older and are able to do more things, it's just that much more fun.

Waiting in line for the snow hill.

Aren't they so cute riding together?!


Train ride.

Mommy and her kidlets.

Enjoying the requisite cotton candy and funnel cake.
*Not pictured - the two giant turkey legs. Sorry, didn't want to get the camera greasy. ;-)

After our snack, we went home to get ready to go back and watch the parade. Made a pit stop at Target and the bunny fell asleep in the store.
Of course I took photos!
There was an article in the Sunday paper about the festival. I was mis-quoted and everything! ;-) One of the funniest things about the article was how the reporter described the weather as, cold and blustery. It was about 55 degrees and windy, but the kidlets were warm enough in their hoodies. And the bunny, as we all know, is FOUR not THREE. ;-) Good thing she can't read, yet. She'd be setting that guy straight!

Here is the excerpt from my "interview."

Linda Harvey brought her two children bundled up in jackets. The children took several rides in sleds on the snow hill.

“It’s nice to play in it,” she said. “But it’s nice to not have to live with it.”

Harvey brings her children every year, regarding the festival as a celebratory beginning of the holiday season.

“This is the a kickoff to the season,” she said. “It’s a good family event.”

Harvey said she remembers bringing her daughter, Jordan, 3, to the festival for the first time when Jordan was 3 weeks old.

“It was her first time out” after she was born, Linda Harvey said.

And here's the link to the whole article.

Enjoy!

Anniversary Day

It all started 14 years ago...
Boy, oh boy, how time flies! Today is our 14th wedding anniversary! We celebrated with a fun family trip to the beach and a wonderful dinner out.

Here's our family today:
And this is that "young" couple!

Boy Stuff

Noah is done with his first year of public school! All in all, it was a pretty good year and he enjoyed it. He'll be going to summer school in a couple weeks but I'm thrilled not to have to share him with others for a while. I STILL miss him terribly when he's away at school!

He had some regressions (potty training) but he had many more progressions! We're seeing expressive communication blossom and just in the last month his pinching and self-biting have decreased tremendously! I'm hoping that the decreased pinching is a direct correlation to his increased ability to communicate his needs with words. I'm fairly certain his decreased self-biting has everything to do with his loose tooth! Scroll past the next two photos if you're squeamish at all...

Noah's tooth is super wiggly, but not quite loose enough to pull out. The night we took these photos, he held his mouth open and let me try to pull it.
This was taken right before the nightly teeth brushing so you'll see a little blood on the loose tooth and a little chicken on the neighboring tooth. :-)
For the last month, we've gone to the beach at least once a week. Sometimes twice. The last couple beach trips have had nice weather and calm seas. Unfortunately, the calm waters allow jellyfish to hang out close to shore. Noah got stung pretty badly about a week ago.
But he was such a trooper about it! He barely complained and kept wanting to go back to the water!
The very next day, the rash was SO much better. You can barely tell he got stung at all.
Yesterday, Mike took the boy to the beach (the girls stayed home) and they both got stung on the shins. The rash is much smaller than the one that wrapped around Noah's leg and he hasn't complained about it at all. Mike says the feeling is a mild burning that's slightly annoying, but not overwhelming. I'm hoping that's all that Noah feels, too.

This is one of my favorite beach photos from this year. Noah really enjoys body boarding and has learned to watch for and anticipate good waves.
And I'll leave you with a vid of the boy on a wave!

Don't Drink from the Mouths of Lions

It's been a week since the "incident" so I'm ready to write about it.

Last Tuesday, we took the kids to their dentist. They both cooperated fabulously and have perfectly healthy teeth! Yay kidlets! We celebrated with lunch and the zoo. Okay, so we would have gone to lunch and the zoo if they hadn't behaved so well, but don't tell them that, okay?

Again, FABULOUS behavior from the kidlets! They ate well, sat well, said please and thank you. At the zoo they listened, followed, held hands...model citizens, I tell ya!

And then we stopped for water.
Cute, huh? Looks harmless doesn't it? I though so, too. Until I saw the standing water surrounding the drain. Bacteria-infested, cootieful, stagnant, standing water...

Then the unthinkable happened. The girl put her fingers in the water. I gave her "that look" and sharply told her, "don't touch that water!"

So she looked right at me and stuck her fingers in her mouth. I about came unglued...

And before I could get to her, she DID IT AGAIN!

I did come unglued. "Don't touch that water! Don't put your fingers in your mouth! That is so gross! You are going to make your tummy sick! When Mommy says don't touch the water, you DON'T TOUCH THE WATER! I am not happy with you! I am very angry!"

She cried. I was fuming. I knew that her act of open defiance would cause me grief later...

This is shortly after I read her the riot act.
Daddy was much more sympathetic.
Soooooooooo, fast-forward to 1:45 a.m. I woke for my nightly trip to the potty. Mike woke because he smelled something bad...

Turns out it was Noah. He had a poop accident in his sleep. He hasn't done that in a LONG time. So Mike graciously cleaned up Noah and we all finally settled down.

I had just drifted off to sleep when I heard a little cough immediately followed by that unmistakeable sound of barf hitting the sheets. *insert big sigh here*

I stood by the bed dumfounded. I called it, but wished I hadn't been right. Again, Mike graciously started cleaning up the bed while I hosed off the girl and sat her in a warm tub.

The boys decided to sleep in the other room. The girl barfed one more time before settling down to sleep and I fell back asleep at 4:00 a.m.

Good times. I'm laughing about it now.

Not really.

First Beach Day

We went Quintana today for some fun, sun, and a little surf action. The boy needed a few tries to get his boogie groove back, but he did stay on the body board for a few seconds so I could get a video. We'll be back for many more trips and you'll see many more pictures and vids!

The neatest thing we saw today was a 6+ foot rat snake. It was on the playground and when we stopped to check him out he took off. He was fast! I found him under the boardwalk and stayed about 10 feet away and got one photo...I had my little water camera that has no zoom, so this was the best I could do:The boys wasted no time in hitting the waves!
Boogie Boo in action!

The girls played happily in the sand.
Noah didn't want to leave the water. He really missed the beach and he was probably thinking we wouldn't come back for a while. Mike assured him that we'll be back again soon.

Brothers and Sisters

Aunt Nancy came to see us last weekend. BEST visit EVER if I had to put a descriptor on it. As usual, weekends with family visits go by way too fast.

Mike & Nanc at Pappasito's
Butterfly House at the Science Museum
This vending machine fascinated and gave me the heebie jeebies at the same time.
Here, cleanse your eyes with some brother and sister cuteness!
My favorite photo from the weekend!

March Rewind Continued

The bunny didn't have to wait long for another grandparent to torment...I mean play with. Grandma Joanne flew in a few days after Bud left. It was almost a year since we had seen my mom last so the bunny was soooooo excited to see her grandma! She got all dressed up and everything!Unfortunately, weather caused some flight delays and Joanne's plane was several hours late. The princess couldn't keep her eyes open any longer.
But once Grandma arrived, it was like no time had passed since our last visit. The bunny and her grandma were two peas in a pod! The girl immediately launched into all the planned activities...they played Candyland, put together puzzles, Wii bowled, read books, and watched the bunny's Signing Time vid...and that was just in the first hour! ;-) Okay, not really, but it was a good thing we had to break for dinner so Grandma could catch her breath.

I'm sad that I didn't get any photos with Noah and Grandma. I really don't know how that happened. The boy got in lots of Grandma time, too. I just failed to reach for the camera. :( Noah's vocabulary has increased so much in the last year and Joanne was able to hear him say, "I love you, Grandma." Makes your heart melt, doesn't it!

It was an absolutely wonderful visit and the week just flew by. As we were pulling away from the airport, a teary-eyed bunny frantically said, "Mommy, we got to turn around. We got to get Grandma! I got to play wif her." It was a long drive home...

These are some highlights:

We all got haircuts.
You can see Mike's haircut here, but it's nothing new or different...he doesn't let his hair grow much between cuts. But the thing to note here is he's making Rice Krispie Treats for the first time ever. He was surprised at how easy it was and asked why I didn't make them more often. Duh, because I'd eat the whole pan every time...RKTs are the only thing I can't seem to stop eating once I start...but in my defense the recipe on the box recommends consuming them on the day they're made...I wouldn't want to go against the recipe!
Here's my new 'do!
Just in case you forgot what my hair looked like before.
We danced at the Children's Museum.
And no visit with Joanne is complete without a little dumpling-making!
It cracks me up that she does this standing on a footstool!
Mom & Me self-portrait
And I couldn't let this photo tour end without one of the boy. Look up chillin' in the dictionary and you'll see this!