Our July

Just in case you haven't noticed I have been majorly Blog slacking!  It isn't a lack of things we were doing, I just felt like I had a million other things to do.  I'm catching up now though and the summer is slowing down for most of August until school starts again in September.  Speaking of school it is crazy to me how many friends in Arizona have kids already starting school!  Back in Virginia we didn't start until after Labor day.  I guess because there, like here, it feels like summer 3/4 of the year they might as well start early and get it over with faster.  Anyway, on with what has been going on this July!

We started the month with a visit from my parents.  We enjoyed watching the fireworks with them and exploring a neighboring town. 









I have been wanting to visit Corsicana for a little while so walking around the old downtown seemed like a great thing to do with our visitors.  It just made me wish we had a bigger car so we didn't have to take 2 to get there.  We found this cute little park in the downtown so we let the kids run around.  They didn't really want to stop to have their pictures taken!





We were sad to see Grandma and Grandpa leave, but we have been keeping busy in their absence.  Jason did swim lessons a town away for 2 weeks

 

 

He really enjoyed it and learned a lot.  He is very excited to learn to swim without a life vest on!  We have been doing other fun summer time activities like eating ice cream and Jason has been on a major puzzle kick lately.  One of the kids favorite activities is to wrestle with Daddy on the bed!

 

 

 

 

 

One bit of excitement around our house is that we just got a new big camper.  We used to have a pop up camper, but decided that because it looks like we are going to be in Texas for a while we would like to have something with air conditioning.  Especially since in a bit we will have to worry about school schedules and the best time to go camping will really be during the summer.

 

 

We just took our first weekend trip in the camper and loved it.  We went to Pedernales Falls and the kids loved playing in the water.  The next day we met up with our other set of grandparents and Aunt Michelle at Schlitterbahn.  Jason was so big he rode almost every ride and loved them all.  It just made me realize how quickly he is growing up.  I can't believe next year at this time we will be getting ready for Kindergarten!  I digress, with all this water fun I didn't get many photos, but the next day we climbed up Enchanted Rock.  This time I took lots of pictures!  Jason and Daddy even got to go explore the cave at the top.  Jason was so exhausted and wanted to go in the cave again you can see him crying as we were about to head back down the hill. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We ended our camping trip with some s'mores at the campfire.  As you can see the kids hated them and didn't want anything to do with that chocolaty goodness.

 

 

I can't believe the year is more than half over.  We hope you have been having a wonderful summer and special birthday wishes to Grandpa Salomon, Grandpa Comer and Aunt Karen!

 

 

 



Speedy June

June has just flown by and I realize I haven't updated at all.  So we started early June with a trip to the blackberry patch.  This was the same place we visited to pick strawberries earlier in the year.  The kids had a great time picking and we had filled up a basket before we knew it.  The plan was to make this blackberry cobbler and it was super easy.  I knew we needed 2 cups of blackberries for the cobbler and we picked twice that.  I thought the kids would enjoy having this as a fruity treat, but they each had about a bite and said they were done.  Jeff and I really loved it though.




The kids are so excited that it is finally warm enough to swim!


Shortly after that we went to see our community's parade before the start of the fair and rodeo.  We had fun watching the parade and later in the week we visited the fair and rodeo.  Jason was getting over a cold, but had a great time riding the rollercoasters.  Both kids had fun watching the "cows try to get away" at the rodeo.

Yes, my crazy boy decided to wear pants when it was rather warm!

but he was still having a blast!

Elizabeth wasn't so sure.

The sirens got a little loud.

We celebrated Father's day with Jeff and quickly headed down to San Antonio to visit the grandparents and attend the Vacation Bible School they had at their church.  Jason had a blast at their Kingdom Rock and Elizabeth got some special Mommy and Grandma time.  Silly Mommy didn't remember to take out the camera until after the grandparents left to visit other family.


Elizabeth still had a great time playing with their toys when they were gone


Hopefully I will do better with updates and pictures in the next month!

Sharing

**I accidentally deleted this post from 5/17/13, but was able to retrieve and repost it**


IMG_8584, a photo by RachSal on Flickr.


So a few weeks ago we moved Elizabeth and all her stuff into Jason's room.  It is a huge bedroom and thankfully even with all of their toys everything fits in there!  It used to be Jason's train themed room, but we are going with a more gender neutral star theme with some trains thrown in.


 

My biggest concern with all this was how would the kids do sleeping together and honestly they have taken it pretty well.  They do sometimes keep each other up later than we would like, but most of the time they are respectful and quiet when the other one is sleeping.  It was a huge change for Elizabeth because this was also her transition to a big girl bed.  When I put them to bed each night after stories and prayer and as I'm turning off the lights I normally tell them, "go to sleep, no chitter chatter."   Lately Elizabeth has been reminding me as she is going to sleep saying to me "no chitter chatter" in her sweet little girl way.  It doesn't mean she actually follows through, but she tries to be good.  They do seem to both like having a buddy near by at night and I think it has helped Elizabeth not be such a light sleeper.


So what's happening with Elizabeth's old room you might ask:  We are actually turning it into a craft room for me and guest room when needed.  Originally I think Jeff was planning on me doing scrapbooking in there and I probably will, but I recently got the urge to get out my Mother in law's old Singer and try sewing again.  I have tried a couple of times and never go very far before I got frustrated and gave up.  For some reason most things worked this time (there was still a little operator error) and my first project was this simple skirt.  Then I couldn't find the right containers to put Jason's quiet boxes and the light dawned that I could make bags, and I did!  I am using every project as a learning experience.  I am really keeping it very simple for right now and maybe one day I'll be able to do the more complicated things.

my very simple skirt


Jason with the plate he made me for Mother's day


The whole family on Mother's day

We have a lot of fun things planned for this summer and I will, as always, try to keep the blog updated with them!

Start of Summer

I'm sorry it has been a while since I have written.  It isn't that we haven't been doing anything to write about, I just haven't felt that inspired.  We have been keeping busy though, first Jason had his last day of preschool.  They had a graduation for the older kids in the class going off to Kindergarten and it even made me tear up a bit with how much quickly he is growing up.  Here was his first day of school and here he is after the last one:





For Memorial day weekend we headed way down to South Padre Island to play on the beach and we surprised the kids by going to Schlitterbahn water park there.  The kids had a blast, but we didn't get many photos.  I blame the lack of photos for part of the reason I don't feel as compelled to write the stories behind the photos. While we were at the beach we also went on a pirate ship and Jeff and I took a sandcastle building class.

 

Since we have returned I have been making a real effort to be engaged as a mom.  I admit that I had been phoning it in a bit the last month of so, but I have vowed for the kids to have a fun summer.  To accomplish that I made a schedule for our days and a pinterest inspired summer bucket list. 

 

We have been playing hide and seek

reading

sitting in boxes

hauling dirt

building rocket ships

flying rocket ships

and reading to little sister.

 

At the end of May Jeff and I celebrated our 8 year wedding anniversary.  I was so surprised when I found this gift waiting for me!  He got me a beautiful Coach purse!  I don't think I matched him with just a new grill, but I also cleaned his truck. We are looking forward to many more anniversaries to come.

 



 

We are looking forward to fun and visits this summer so keep checking back!