Family Fun

We had a fun vacation with my sister and her girls last weekend. With 5 kids and 2 adults packed into a suburban, I knew it would be an adventure. We did not have any major problems if you don't count the tired, teething 8 month old that was bored with his car seat. Our first stop was the Blue Bell Creameries in Brenham. The kids enjoyed seeing how their favorite ice cream is made, but they really enjoyed the free sample at the end. (Even Kyle got a free sample!)








We left Brenham and headed down to the Clear Lake Area. After finding a hotel (**wink** at Laura), our gang all headed down to the Kemah Boardwalk. Kemah is a small town by Clear Lake that has built this old fashioned boardwalk on the port. There are carnival type rides, restaurants and gift shops. We enjoyed a delicious meal at Landry's and watched the boats come and go. Laura and I talked the kids out of riding the rides in exchange for dipping dots and swimming at the hotel. (I know we had already had ice cream that day, but we were on vacation, you know!)




The next day we made our way to the Space Center Houston. My kids were not really looking forward to the Space Center until we walked in. There was so many activities for the kids, they did not know where to start. I think we tried everything and they enjoyed the ropes course and trapeze the best. Jacob and Riley had a blast and did not want to leave. (Our kids had on matching shirts that read, "I get cranky without my Blue Bell." Many people at the Space center commented on the shirts.)










Ten minutes down the road, this is what our car looked like.



We then headed for Lake Jackson and the family reunion. What a fun weekend.
Thanks Laura for the pictures!

On the move...

We had a wonderful little vacation with my sister and her girls in Houston. I will post more on that later. (Laura - that means you need to send me some pics!)

But the big news around here is Kyle is now a crawler! He still moves at a slow speed, but I am sure he will get faster with practice. Also, after many tears, and a lot of drool, Kyle's first tooth finally broke through! This first tooth was not much fun and I do not look forward to the others! Our little guy is growing up fast!

Fun with the NM Girls

We have our cousins in from New Mexico this week and the boys are having a blast! On Friday, we went to the indoor waterpark in Canyon. The kids all had a great time and Jacob told me Friday night that it was the best day ever. Saturday we went to a new business in town called Tickled Paint and each cousin got to paint their own ice cream bowl. Kyle slept through the excitement, but I made a bowl for him. His bowl has his hand prints on the outside (like he has his arms around the bowl holding it) and it says "Mine!!" on the inside. The girls made a cheerleader bowl and soccer bowl. Jacob made a sports bowl and Riley made a bowl with a train wrapped around the outside. This was a lot of fun and the kids were very creative! The bowls will be fired and then they can take them home. We will have the girls this week and then we will all leave together for our family reunion on Wednesday. What a fun time!

Friends, Food and Fireworks

We had a great 4th! Some friends came in from Dallas and it was wonderful getting to see and visit with them. They have a 6 year old boy, a 4 year old girl and a new baby. This was the first time we got to meet little Abbie and she is a cutie! The kids swam and played on Thursday. On Friday, we went to the parade in town and the kids had a blast filling their sacks full of candy. The street fair after the parade had a rock climbing wall. Jacob made it to the top easily several times and Riley made it almost to the top. Last night, we grilled and watched fire works. The most fun last night was watching the kids play with light necklaces. (The kind you bend in half and then they glow for several hours.) While waiting for the fireworks to begin, Jacob, Riley and our little visitors played in the dark with the necklaces. They played frisbee and twirled them around looking at the colors. After fireworks, we topped off the day with homemade ice cream. Big surprise. Kyle loved the ice cream! We had a great 4th and hated to see our friends leave this morning.

Kyle was trying to figure out how to get her pacifier.



Jacob on water patrol.


Soaking up some sun!


Riley with crazy hair!


Good friends having some fun.


The Three Amigos


Waiting for the candy... I mean parade.


Jacob on the wall.


Riley on his way up.


Kyle could not take all the excitement!


It is so hard to get three boys to look and smile at a camera at the same time!

Lots of Milestones!

Kyle finally slept through the night last night!! I put him down at 9 and he slept to 6:30. Way to go, big boy! Also, our little guy wants to crawl very badly; he is getting up on all fours and trying to move before he usually drops to his belly and does the army crawl. Kyle usually will move for the remote, daddy's phone or the game cube controller. Kyle's other new move is going from lying on his back or belly to sitting. It is funny to go and get him out of bed and he is sitting up watching you walk in.

Check back later for 4th of July pictures!

Kyle Pictures

I am lucky to have a good friend that is a talented photographer. Faith came over last week and took a few pictures of Kyle. You can check out a few of them on
Faith's blog. Thanks Faith for doing a fantastic job.

In case you did not notice, Faith also took the picture in the header of my blog.