Homework, Already?

We went to Gannon's school for Meet 'n Greet last week.  We were able to meet his teacher, see his classroom, drop off his supplies, etc, etc...Oh, and fill out TONS of paperwork!

In the folder that was sent home with him was his first homework assignment.  His school mascot is a Bobcat, and their colors are (are you ready for this??) PURPLE and GOLD!! 

His assignment was to decorate a bobcat paw and send it back to school.  For some reason, he was given two paws, so Austyn was able to join in on the fun!

You know we couldn't leave out the baby girl!

GEAUX Bobcats!!

Let's just hope he continues to be excited about homework! :)

Mini Vacay in Houston

Bryan travels from time to time for work, but it is usually during the school year.  This time, he went during the summer, so the kids and I decided to tag along!  We had so much fun! 

I want to apologize in advance for the awful photos...they are all from our phones.

We kicked off the week by dining at one of our favorite Houston restaurants, Guadalajara!

Here is Gannon with his first attempt at a word search...He would have done better had the words been in English, ha!

While Bryan was cooped up in his meetings all day, we swam at the hotel pool!  Here is G-Man all ready to go!

Here, Gannon is holding Mia's float.  She had a blast!  I regret not having any pictures of her in the water, but obviously, since I was alone, that wasn't possible.

 After getting up early to bring Bryan to work, then spending the morning in the pool, everyone was pooped!  Poor, Gannon... He is going to have a hard time getting into "school mode!"

When Bryan goes on his trips, one of his favorite things to do is visit Guitar Center.  It's like 

Disney to him!  He was so excited to be able to finally share the experience with Gannon.  Gannon was in guitar heaven!  He was amazed at all the instruments, and wanted to play everything.  Don't worry, we didn't leave the girls out of the fun!

Then, we headed to the Galleria, where we found the Hello Kitty store!  Austyn was just beside herself.  She didn't even know where to start.  It was the cutest thing!

At the Galleria, there was a kiddie play land called Little Galleria.  It was made up of tiny versions of some of the stores in the Galleria like Macy's, Nordstrom's, Neiman Marcus, etc.  Gannon immediately saw the New York skyline and jumped to the rooftop.  He was Spiderman.  Several of the boys his age joined him in his super hero quest to fight the villains.  Austyn, of course, was the group leader.  She made sure everyone was assigned to a bad guy, ha!

I wanted to take the kids for ice cream, and since there was a Chick-Fil-A across the street from our hotel, I thought we'd go there.  After all, the ice cream is great, and there is an indoor play land!  BUT, with all the hoopla going on with them, the crowd was ridiculous!  So we headed to McDonald's.  Apparently, I wasn't the only one who wanted to bypass the CFA crowd by heading to McD's.  They were packed, too.  So, plan c.  We found a gas station and picked up Crunch Bars!  Austyn loved hers ;)

 Later, while getting ready Austyn chose to wear this dress.  I informed her that it was Mia's dress, but she insisted on wearing it anyway.  I let her put it on, and to her surprise, it was way too short!

"Oh, this must be Mia's dress," she concluded.

 I do, however, find it absolutely hilarious that Austyn could totally wear that as a shirt if she had some leggings!  Haha, chere, Mia!

Speaking of Mia, we didn't forget her!  She's here, too, she just isn't able to join in on all the big kid fun, yet.  She is getting big way too fast, though!  She has started rolling to sleep on her side and her tummy lately.  She even managed to roll all the way over from her back to her tummy!  Go, Mia!

She did it!

Sisters :)

Finally, Bryan was done with his meetings and it was time for family fun!  We took the kids to The Children's Museum of Houston.  They had a blast!  We were there for six hours, and they still weren't ready to leave!  They got to do all sorts of fun, scientific things!

Here they are driving a police car in Kidtropolis.  In Kidtropolis, the kids run the city.  They each have their own debit card, and there are ATMs throughout the city.  They earn money by "working" at the different places, like the police station!  As they leave a section, they receive a paycheck, which they can deposit into their accounts.

Here they are working at the veterinary clinic. 

My little scientists :) 

 I swear, this girl can find pigs anywhere we go!!

After lunch, we found the face-painting station.  Austyn chose to be a cat, while Gannon wanted to be Spiderman.  There was no red, so Bryan made him Super-Gannon.  Then, he drew the "S" on his other cheek.

I never knew how much I would miss our cloth diapers!  It is so nice to be back home and in cloth!  Mia had three "blow-outs" while we were in sposies.  I can honestly say that has never happened in cloth!

 While vacations are fun, it is always so nice to return home!  Until next time... :)

Father's Day Weekend

 

This weekend we celebrated Bryan for being the greatest husband and Daddy we could ever imagine.  And just what does the perfect guy want to do for his special weekend?  He wants to surprise his kids with a trip to LegoLand and the Sea Life Aquarium!  That is just one of the things that makes him so great.

Here is a photo of Mia just as we arrived in Dallas.  She had no idea what was going on, but I guess she could just feel the excitement.

LegoLand was amazing!  We are definitely going to have to go back.  The kids loved it!  I wish I could have taken more photos, but it was pretty crowded.  Here is Austyn playing in the entrance.  There were piles of Legos set up for the kids to play with while they waited to get into the Lego Factory.  In the Lego Factory, the kids have to generate energy by jumping up and down.  This powers up the factory to make Lego bricks.  They got to see the process, and when it was finished, they each got their own special brick.

When we left the factory, we entered Lego Land.  The land of Legos!  Everything, and I mean everything was made of Legos!  Our first stop was a ride called Kingdom Quest.  The kids and Bryan rode in a cart through the land of "Lego bad guys "  They had to shoot them to earn points.  They loved it!!

In the background, you can see Lego City Play Zone and Fire Academy.  It is a play land with tunnel slides (built of Legos) and a Lego pit with giant Legos for building.  Austyn was a just a little bit too short to enter this play zone, but Gannon had a blast.  He raced in so quickly that he didn't even notice Austyn was not allowed in.  When he did notice, though, he came to play with her in the smaller one.  What a great brother!! 

I couldn't get any photos of him in there because he was so dang fast!  Ha :)



Here is Austyn playing in the smaller Lego pit called Duplo Village.


Mimi, check it out!  Mia even found an elephant!



After they played with the Legos for a while, Gannon and Bryan got in line for another ride, Merlin's Apprentice. 

Austyn and I went to Princess Palace.  Here, there was a karaoke stage and tables full of legos.  The princesses were to build their own microphones and then sing on the stage.  Austyn had lots of fun building, but I could not get her near the stage!  Very unlike her ;)

Here are Gannon and Bryan enjoying Merlin's Apprentice.  The faster the pedaled, the higher they went.  I love the excitement on both their faces!

Here is Miniland.  This is where they have built downtown Dallas completely of Legos!  They even built Rangers Ballpark in Arlington!

Finally, we made it to the gift shop.  The kids are standing in front of the Lego wall.  It looks like a candy shoppe!  At this wall, you can build your own bag of Legos.  There were so many colors!

On to Sea Life Aquarium!!

This is one of my favorite photos of the day!  These are shore fish, so they have to stimulate waves.  Just as soon as he walked up to the fish, a big rush of water came gushing out from this hole.  His reaction was priceless!

Here, they got to hold starfish and sea shells.

I know that seems like a pretty packed day, but the fun and surprises aren't over yet!  That's right, there's more!

See, two of their favorite cousins live just outside of Dallas, in Keller.  Boy, were they surprised and excited to see each other!  They stayed up until 2am.  Yes, 2:00 AM!  They were just too excited to settle down.  I cannot believe that after such a long day (with basically no naps) that they were still functioning with no melt downs!
 

Sunday morning, all the kiddos were awake by 8.  Yes, that's right.  Six hours of sleep.  Boy, this is going to be a long day!  My kids sleep later than that when they go to bed at a normal time!  But, again, they were fine.  I guess they were running on adrenaline.

That morning, we had a Father's Day pancake breakfast.  It was great!  I wish I had pictures, but to be completely honest, it never crossed my mind to take the camera out.  Oops :(

Oh well, on to the game!  This was the reason for our trip.  The kids and I got Bryan tickets to the Rangers for Father's Day.  Earlier in the week, Bryan suggested we try to catch a game this weekend, so I had to blow the surprise.  Otherwise we would have ended up with two sets of tickets!

When we first got there, the heat was just miserable.  I was so worried about Mia, and just knew that we would spend most of the game walking the halls where it was cooler.  Within about twenty minutes of finding our seats, a huge cloud settled right over the stadium, and stayed there for the whole game!  Whew!  It ended up being really great!!

Happy Father's Day, Bryan!  Thank you for all you do for us!  We couldn't ask for better!

Thank you, Daddy for teaching me by your example, and thank you, Bryan, for not only living up to it, but for teaching our kids as well!  I love you both, so, so much!

Spidey and Spider-Girl to the Rescue!!

When I uploaded Gannon's graduation video to YouTube, I stumbled upon an old video of Gannon and Austyn playing superheroes.  The chairs and bar stools from the kitchen were all moved into the living room because I was sweeping and mopping, and they always have so much fun with them.  They are cities, bridges, tunnels, etc.  This time, they were the setting for a very important rescue mission.  As you can hear Austyn say, "We have an emergency to save somebody!!"

Hope you enjoy!

The "Old People" Come to Texas

So, Mom and Dad call us to say they want to come for a visit.  Mom asked if we would mind some "old people" tagging along, ha.  Of course not!  They brought along Nonnie and Mawmaw!  We don't tell the kids when we are expecting company because, being that they are two and four, they aren't the best at waiting.  They were surprised to see Mimi and Pappy at the front door Friday night, and even more surprised to see Mawmaw and Nonnie follow them in.  They weren't really sure what to do...Very funny.  I am pretty disappointed in myself for not taking more pictures, but I got caught up in the company and er, uh, I for.got :/

Take a look at Gannon's new accessory.  This was not even an attempt to show off.  He was playing outside and we peeked out to see this.

"Look Mimi!!  No diaper!!"  Is this green?



Austyn sang "Yummy, yummy, yummy, I got love in my tummy" All. Morning. Long.  Mimi tried to escape, but A sang to her under the door :)

This is how my very animated little princess tells a story.

Sunday, we grilled burgers for lunch.  Mimi and the munchkins decided to eat outside.  It was yuuummmmyyyy!!

These two women, my Nonnie and my Mawmaw, have inspired me more than they will ever know. I am so blessed to have them in my life, and I am also incredibly grateful for the relationship my kids have with their "Greats".