birthday, school, sewing and hair

We are getting into the swing of fall even if the weather is still in the 90s.  It seems like Jeff and I are always ringing in our birthday at his parents house and this year we were in some good company.  Jeff's cousin was graduating from basic training in the area so his wife and their precious 3 year old little girl came down to see him.  The kids also had a great time seeing Great Grandma, who came in from Florida.  They will actually be moving closer to us soon so I hope we will get to work out some play dates.  I completely forgot to take my camera out except for when we opened our gifts from each other so I didn't get many family photos.

When we got home the kids were ready to get out some energy and dance!  Good thing we received the gifts from my parents.  Jeff hooked up this nifty gift (can you tell I don't know the name?) to the stereo and was able to play music from his phone where ever he was in the house.  I got a rapid strap for my camera so I could zing my camera right up to my face to quickly capture the moment.  Jeff doesn't understand why it's so great, but I am in love!

 

 

The very next day Jason was off to his first day of preschool for the year.  I can't believe this time next year we will be getting ready to send him to kindergarten and Elizabeth to preschool!  They are growing up so fast!  He was so excited to be going back and thrilled he had the same teacher as last year.  Mrs. Ashley has 4 boys of her own so she knows how to handle a class full of them! 

A little while ago I told Jeff that I thought I might be putting sewing on the backburner because I wasn't feeling the urge to do it right now.  Of course he knows me so well and got me new scissors anyway and he was right.  The first week we were back I finished up 5 projects I had been thinking about for a while.  I finished a pillowcase dress and bandana skirt for Elizabeth, a new water resistant apron for both Elizabeth and I and some Mickey Mouse shorts for Jason.  I will need some more fabric for the next few projects I have in mind so I am taking a little break now to tidy up the craft room and organize, but I'm sure I'll be back at it soon! 

 

The final bit of news is we had one of Elizabeth's last firsts on Saturday!  Elizabeth got her first haircut!  Her hair was starting to look a little ragged at the ends.  Although you can't tell from the photo below the front was a few inches shorter than the back and when you're only 3 feet tall a few inches makes a big difference.  I cut it myself and it isn't even lopsided.  She was so good and sat very still talking to her Daddy.  It seems to not really have phased her in anyway, but I think it makes her look so much more grown up!

Whew!  New ages, new school year, new clothes and a new haircut!  I guess we have been going through a ton of changes in the past couple of weeks and we seem to be adjusting well!  I'll leave you with another adorable photo of our pretty girl.

 

August review

 

Maybe I should do what some other bloggers do and just announce I am going to take a break over the summer.  I never seem to keep up with writing very much during the summer months and it isn't for a lack of doing things.  Many of the weeks we spent at home, but we went camping a couple of weekends and loved spending time together as a family

 

 

 We headed down to Austin for a long weekend and checked out the capital.  The kids had a bit of trouble walking around the capital building because it didn't hold much to entertain them, but we did find a few things they enjoyed.

 

 

 

 

 

That evening Grandma, Grandpa and Aunt Michelle came up from San Antonio and we hiked around McKinney Falls.  After that we visited Zilker Park in downtown Austin to swim in the springfed lake.  We knew it was supposed to be cold, but we were shocked at just how cold it was.  We all got quite a shock as we jumped in and Elizabeth begged for us to get her back out.  After we got in we were told we could not have the kids with the life jackets in that area and needed to move down to the end of the pool which would have been a good area to start since it was much shallower there and the kids could stand when it wasn't too slippery with algae.  It was also much warmer in the shallow area and if we were to go again I think that is where we should set up camp.







While we were at home we have been finding ways to entertain ourselves.  Elizabeth got Daddy to play princesses with her and lately has taken to wearing her Cinderella dress any occasion we let her.  We have kept cool by playing in the pool quite a bit.  Elizabeth has learned how to swim by herself with her life vest on, of course we are always close by to help her and keep a good eye on her.  Jason has recently found he loves jump and be thrown into the water.  Unfortunately life isn't always fun and games, Miss Elizabeth is the average two year old who is prone to tantrums.  The one that I took a photo of below was because she wanted something to eat.  Notice the plate full of food in front of her.











The weekend before Labor Day weekend we took a last minute trip to Galveston.  We enjoyed the beach and the water was so warm, but I was too afraid to bring my big camera and get any good photos.  The next morning we went to the railroad museum and although it wasn't the best one we have been to the kids enjoyed it.  The next day we decided to see the Bishop's Palace.  It looked beautiful from the outside, but we were disappointed that there was very little furniture and not much history on the family that lived in the house to help you connect to them.  Elizabeth was not very happy with the Palace at all, although it had more to do with not being able to walk around by herself and touch every thing.  I believe we provided good birth control for everyone who visited that day.  After we left the Palace we walked around the neighborhood a bit and got to see some of the other lovely houses.











This post has gotten too long already, but I will be sure to talk about our birthday, our trip to San Antonio and Jason's first day of pre-K in the next post.

 

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!