Daddy and Cason's Day

Cason has been so interested in astronauts and outer space all summer long. He even prayed one night, "Dear God, Please let me be an astronaut and go to Astronaut school and learn all the right buttons to push on the space ship. In Jesus name, Amen." Is that sweet or what? So he's continued to talk about these things all summer so James decided we should take him to the Kennedy Space Center in Houston. Carter and I stayed here because there was no one to watch Carter and he wouldn't have made the day in Houston. They wanted to make sure they were there when it opened so they planned to leave home at 6:30am. The night before the big day James told Cason what they were doing the next day and he was so excited...so he was no problem to go to bed and the next morning even though it was early and still dark James went to wake up Cason and he popped right out of bed and said "Let's go to NASA, Daddy!." So they headed off with a bag of snacks and games and movies for the car. They spent ALL day and drove in to the drive about 10pm that night. Cason was even able to capture James on the camera and did a great job.

Devil's Den

Skipping rocks

Look at those eyes
Cason
Welcome to Arkansas
Every other summer James' mom's family has a big reunion out of state at a state park. The last time James went was the summer we got engaged, 1997. Since then we either had jobs that would not allow us to take off or we had a new baby or it was just way too far for us to go with the boys. This year it was in Arkansas. We thought that was very doable and were very excited about going. It would not be too long of a trip, about 7 hours total. And we knew we could stop on the way and spend the night and take enough stuff in the car to keep the boys busy. We left on Sunday night July 5th and traveled to McKinney to spend the night at James' aunt. This knocked 2 1/2 hours off our trip for Monday. Monday we got up and headed out made stops along the way to eat and such but all in all it was a great day of travel and the boys did awesome. We stayed in a cabin with James parents, as well as his sisters. It was a great little 3 bedroom cabin with 2 bathrooms. It was located in Devil's Den State Park and I highly recommend a visit. It was beautiful. The weather was perfect. There are numerous hiking trails, beautiful scenery, and they have a pool which worked great for the boys. It was really fun to see the boys in this atmosphere. They've never really been anywhere like that. They got to go "hiking" and learn(try) to skip rocks. Everyone had a fabulous time. I can't say enough good things about the week. We were there for 3 nights before we headed back home. I have almost 400 pictures. So obviously you'll only see a few.

July 4th

We are so blessed to have a great group of friends from church and honestly we can't get enough of each other. So of course we don't let any reason for a gathering slip by. That includes July 4th. This year one of those friends has added a pool so we were all able to go over there and hang out all day eating, swimming, eating, visiting, and just enjoying each others families. Afterwards we went home and rested so that we could go back to town to watch some fireworks. As usual Cason thought they were much too loud and was ready for them to be over. Both boys crashed on the way home. We had such a great day! (I would load more pictures but Blogger is being slow today)

More tommorrow....

I'm sure you are on the edge of your chairs because our family is so exciting:) I still need to post our July 4th celebration, our trip to Devil's Den State Park in Arkansas, and Cason's trip to Kennedy Space Center in Houston. Then I will be all caught up and ready for the 1st day of preschool this year. We are pretty much done with anything until then. Hope you all have a great evening.

A little bit of Carter

Cason did some things this summer that Carter did not so I need to give Carter a little attention. During swim lessons Carter got his hair cut. It was very needed. He had never been anywhere to do that. The only other haircut he had was at our house when Aunt B did it. So I took him to this cute little place made for kids. They even have seat belts in their chairs. They allow them to snack while they are getting their hair cut and then they give them a prize at the end. He did okay but the pictures are really funny.
The other picture is one night when Daddy and Carter were home alone. James decided to go to the bedroom to finish a book he was reading and left Carter in the living room...Carter came in to the room to see James with a sad face and an empty kleenex box. When James came into the living room that is what he found. Really too cute to get onto him.

Swim Lessons

Cason with his friends and Mrs. Kayla
Going off the side.
Cason trying his best.

We put Cason in swim lessons this summer. There is a great lady at our church that has done swim lessons for years and she was awesome! I'm so glad we didn't go through the city. I'm afraid that anyone else would have given up on Cason. He really liked the idea of swim lessons and loved being in the pool but he DID NOT like going under, etc. Just like his mamma! So the first day was awesome and after that every morning was a big fit. We had swim lessons for eight days. I went the first day but since us 3 moms and enrolled our kids together we took turns taking the kids which turned out to be great because he did better without me there but still was afraid. James tried in the middle of lessons to take him and get him a toy for "doing so good" with the stipulation that if he threw a fit the next morning "mommy has to put it up in our closet". So the next morning came, Cason threw a fit about going, I reminded him of the toy deal, and his response: "Just go ahead and put it in the closet mommy, because I'm not going." But in the end, we won, he finished lessons, and the next week on vacation he was going down the slide and jumping off the side like a champ. THANKS MRS. KAYLA!!!

Did you say we're at a baseball game

The scoreboard from the pool.
Daddy and the boys at the pool.

I've mentioned before that we live close to a AAA baseball team. For whatever reason, they have a swimming pool. It's kind of funny to me because you can't even see the ball game from the pool. You CAN see the scoreboard. Anyway, James dad works for a flooring company and one of the suppliers had rented the pool for the ballgame which included dinner. It was such a fun time. Our whole family was able to go with James' parents and have dinner nearby a playscape :) and then swim in the pool.

Our Turn to Have Fun!

Us on our anniversary after eating for 2 1/2 hours!
Our friends, the Brunelles.
Dinner at Simply Fondue.
The Cattle Drive.

We had been wanting to go somewhere with friends and what better excuse than our 11th anniversary. We decided to stay somewhat close. We went with our good friends the Brunelles to Fort Worth for the weekend. We left our kids at grandparents houses and headed out early Friday morning in time to be at Six Flags when it opened. Our friend, J.P., had never been so it was fun to get to do that. By 4:30 we were extremely hot and had done everything so we headed downtown to our hotel to clean up. We checked into our hotel, rested, and got ready to go to dinner. Downtown has a free trolley that goes all over downtown...it's so cute. It's called Molly the Trolley and comes every 15 minutes. And we were thankful for the Trolley since it started raining. We found an awesome Mexican food restaurant downtown and had a great meal, then walked across the street to Coldstone Creamery(as if we needed to eat anything else). We did some walking around while we ate our ice cream and then headed back to the hotel. Saturday morning we leisurely got up and walked downtown again to the best Barnes and Nobles I've ever been in and stayed there for a couple hours before heading to the Stockyards to find some lunch and entertainment. Are you noticing a trend yet? We walked a lot & ate a lot! And all the eating was really really good. In fact, my mouth is watering thinking about it. So we found some lunch at a Steak Place in the stockyards...best burgers ever(besides James' of course). Then we walked around some shops, museums, Billy Bobs, and then we thought we probably needed another eating place for a snack while we waited for the Cattle Run down the streets. The snack was good and the cattle run was interesting. Kind of weird to stand on the side of the street while Longhorn walk in front of you. Afterwards, we were again very warm from walking all day and being outside so we caught the trolley back to downtown to our hotel so we could clean up and you guessed it.....go EAT! What a great schedule we had. No children, no schedule, and lots of good eating! So we got back to the hotel and made reservations for one of the downtown restaurants, SIMPLY FONDUE! I can't say enough good things about this place. What a great experience. A 2 1/2 hour dining experience. The food was perfect. Every bite was good. I look forward to going again. So afterward we walked around downtown which was full of brides and grooms on horse drawn carriages, twinkle lights along the businesses, and bachelorette parties. We got back to the hotel and played cards for a little while before calling it a night. On Sunday we came home all refreshed to our precious little boys.

Our Little Friends

The little kids playing w/out the big kids.
The big kids swimming to the edge.
Silly faces outside of the library.
Cason and Carter at a great park in town.
Carter and a friend in the treehouse at the park.

We spend a lot of time with 2 couples who have kids almost the exact same age as ours. They are so fun to watch together. They all get along so well and have so much fun together. They've pretty much grown up together. It is such a blessing to have great friends like this. We are able to swap kids and go on errands, etc. We've also been known to split up the big kids from the little kids and take them somewhere fun. Here are some pictures of them together this summer.
Last summer us 3 moms went crazy so this summer we made ourselves a schedule and had one or two "fun" things planned every week to keep the kids busy and wet since it was just too hot to be in our own backyards. Our city library has a great summer program for little ones so we spent time at the library, free splash parks, each others houses, movies, indoor playground at Burger King and anything else we could think of. It was a blast! I could make a whole book of all our summer pictures...I might just do that!

Always behind..

Here I am again catching up on 3 months of fun. We've had such a great summer. It has been lots of fun to have James home more. The kids have had lots of fun playing with Daddy and we've tried to do lots of good summer stuff to give them lots of memories and of course to make scrapbook pages:) I'm going to post all of it as time allows...starting now. Enjoy.

Lady Hornet Softball

We've been having some fun going to softball games. Emily, James' sister, is the pitcher for her high school softball team. They are now headed to state this weekend. James has gotten to go more than I have because of our schedule but all four of us went this past weekend to watch them win the games they needed to win to make it to the State Tournament. The boys had fun too. Carter got so excited. He really likes to clap. So everytime there was clapping or screaming he was doing his part to help. Cason has gotten really good at screaming "Go Aunt Emily".
We're excited for you and we're proud of you, and we love you! GO AUNT EMILY!

SIX FLAGS

Gotta have funnel cake
Look at all those empty swings...perfect day to be there
Cason giggled through this ride.
This year we bought season passes to Six Flags. We went with some friends at Christmas and bought our passes then and they will be good through the end of this year. We are really excited about it. Cason had a BLAST at Christmas. We were so proud of him. We were going to be in the area this weekend because my cousin was graduating from high school on Sunday. We figured since we were there we might as well use our passes and go. So Carter stayed with Grammy and Pepaw at my grandparents house and James and I took Cason to Six Flags. We had such a great day. He told us at the end of the day, "I sure did have fun with you guys." and he also said, " It was a great day to go to Six Flags." He didn't know how good. We were a little worried about going on a Saturday. We were shocked by the empty lines...there were some rides we got off and right back on. We couldn't believe it. It was absolutely perfect. He is such a good kid and it's fun to take him for fun days!

Memorial Day

Let's GO!
I realized recently that all the people we run around with go to church with us. WHAT A BLESSING! We have some amazing friends. We are blessed by all of them. We are so thankful to God for placing us here and putting all these people in our lives.
One of the couples had a get together on the Memorial Day holiday. So we spent a day in the beautiful sun, eating yummy food, and swimming. Cason really got brave and just swam like a little fish all over their pool. We had so much fun watching the progress of the day. When we first arrived that morning he just wanted to kick his feet in the water, put on his goggles, take off his goggles, go check on his towel,etc...but within an hour or so he was all over the place and by the end of the day he didn't even need us near him.
Carter spent the day at Grandaddy and Joy's because he had already been at their house by himself a different time and because we just weren't feeling like chasing him ALL DAY. We'll take both boys next time!
Thank you Dowells for being such wonderful hosts!

End of Preschool

Cason "washing" cars on Splash Day
Carter and his buddy Evan

Cason and his class performing
Carter's little class performing

Carter with his flashlight, "This little light of mine"

Preschool came to an end on May 21st. We had a really fun year. It was Cason's third year to be in a class(his fourth year to be up there) and Carter's first year. They both had fun. Carter finally adjusted to seperating from me every morning and that made things much easier. For several weeks it was just him and his buddy, Evan, in their class. Other little ones that age seemed to come and go this year.
We had our end of year program on Tuesday the 19th and our Splash Day on Thursday the 21st for our very last day. We were so excited that Grammy and Pepaw were able to come and watch the program. That was the first time they have been able to do that. Joy also was able to come(Grandaddy had to work). Papa and Minnie and Aunt Laura were cheering on Aunt Emily in the softball playoffs.
Both boys did a great job onstage...they both get a little shy once there are people in the audience but they both were precious. Then on Thursday they had a great time playing outside and getting wet all day.
Here comes summer!

Happy Mother's Day to All of you!

Happy Mothers Day to all of you! I know that you, like me, are blessed by your children. I am so grateful for my beautiful boys. I prayed for many years to have beautiful, healthy children and I am so thankful for them. They are tons of fun! They are also a lot of work. On days when I'm tired and they are extra busy I am reminded of all the things my mother must have done for me and how tired she must have been. She is an amazing mother! I love her dearly and I KNOW she stayed busy taking care of us. I also adore my Mangaw(my grandma). She is very special and loves all her kids, grandkids, and greatgrandkids. I also am thankful for the mothers and grandmothers I gained when I got married. What a blessing to have so many loved ones! I hope all of you have a wonderful weekend. I hope you are pampered a little bit. I also hope that you realize you are blessed and that you are a blessing to those around you!

Happy Mothers Day to me

As a mothers day present Grandaddy and Joy are keeping the kids overnight tonight and a good part of the day tomorrow. I am so excited! I see visions of scrapbooking, napping! maybe going to Sonic and just getting myself a drink without having to get 2 chocolate milks, fries, grilled cheese, and then still sharing my drink. You know how it is. We are blessed to have them near us and that they are so willing to let the kids hang out! Thank you!!!!!!

Did you know.....

that if Spiderman comes to your house and spins his web to try to hang from the towel rack in your bathroom your towel rack WILL fall off the wall. Now, I know this, too. This morning there was a crashing sound from Cason's bathroom and it sounded like something breakable so I'm thinking the toothbrush holder,etc. I went in there to find him screaming and very disappointed. He said he was Superman and he spun his web and he was HANGING from the towel rack and then it fell off the wall. We will be needing a new towel rack and maybe a small patch job.
I couldn't get onto him because he was so disappointed that the whole thing didn't work out. I just explained that Spiderman was WAY TOO STRONG to hang from the towel rack and that we should probably only spin our webs at the park where we can hang....

I love our town

The shirts were NOT planned

Waiting on the parade to start

Silly Boys

I love the area we live in. I think it is just the most perfect place. First of all it's not too far from home. We can be "home" in a little over an hour. (home is Gatesville for those of you who don't know. It also is just nice that it has a very small town feel with a small town square while having everything you need in very short driving distance. Last weekend we were able to go to a parade. Our town has a festival every year and they have a parade on Saturday morning and then there are vendors all over the square all day and all evening. There is also live music and local performers,etc. James had to work but the boys and I went downtown and enjoyed the parade with friends and Granddaddy came too.

Two Cute Pictures

I just posted these because I like them. There's no story to go with them. Just the boys beautiful faces!