Avery & Julia

It was too hot to attempt a real "photo shoot," but I am anxious to play with my camera so we made a trip out to the Arboretum today to play. It didn't turn out beautifully, but it wasn't a total disaster either. If it had just been a few degrees cooler or if it had stayed overcast for longer, I might have had better luck. Oh well... gives me an all new appreciation for those who do this professionally! :) (Avery Elizabeth, 2 1/2 years; Julia Kate, 15 months)

Cool under fire

It's been pretty hot lately. Okay, not just pretty hot... Seriously hot. Ridiculously "global-warming-stinks-and-you-could-scramble-an-egg-on-my-forehead" hot. The last thing we want to do is play outside, so we've had to get creative inside.

(Setting the scene: It's 3pm. The girls have napped AND snacked. They're bored... and beginning to fight over their toys. There's grabbing and probably pushing-- Things are getting ugly! It's time to do some kind of organized indoor activity, but I have no plan for something to do and I'm not feeling particularly creative, so it's time to wing-it!)

"Okay, girls! Let's MAKE something! You want to??"
---Big, cheesy, open-mouthed Mom smile---

Avery nods and says, "Mmm-hmm!"

"What should we make, Avery? ...Let's make something for Daddy. What do you want to make?"

Avery thinks for a mili-second and then says, "How about.... SNOWMAN!"
---Sure! It's July... everyone does a snowman craft in July, right??---

So, that's what we did! :) We ate ice cubes and marshmallows and made snowmen out of construction paper. I cut out the shapes and helped Avery by putting the face on hers, but she did the rest herself. She loves crafts. Julia... does NOT love crafts. She successfully watched me build the basic snowman shape on her paper and then she wadded it up and bit the head. :/ Not a fan of the arts, that one. (You think I'm kidding? Check out the picture of Julia's snowman-- there's a chunk out of the head. In her defense... she was just having a rough afternoon. She became our sweet spirited child again before bedtime.)

But even with Julia's snowman assault and all, it was a good way to kill the afternoon and stay cool in the process. Both snowmen proudly hung on the fridge to greet Collin when he came home... Julia's looks a little battered, and Avery's a little surrealistic... but hey, we didn't break a sweat and that's what it's all about!

Weekend fun in South Texas

I have a lot of "favorite places" in Texas, but this weekend I added one to the list and it's definitely in the top 5! Who would imagine it would be Marble Falls?? Well, more specifically... Horseshoe Bay.

Some good friends of ours, John & Jennifer, invited us to tag along with them on a mini-vacation at the Horseshoe Bay Marriott resort. When we found out that we could go using Collin's Marriott points he's accumulated through work travel instead of footing the bill for lodging, there was NO doubt about it! We were in. The weekend was rounded out with good food from local dives (including an amazing BBQ joint in Glen Rose on the drive down) and hours of relaxing by the pool while the boys played 18 holes. The only complaint we had was that it all went too quickly. We could have stayed an extra day or two without running out of things to do. Guess we'll just have to go back! :)

Special thanks to Mom & Dad for keeping the girls this weekend, and to Nana for watching them Saturday night while Mom & Dad went to a wedding! The girls had just as much fun as we did, it seemed! And a big thanks to the Misemers for inviting us along. We will now be saving every last penny to make that the destination for our next family vacation. (Super family-friendly place!) We'll find a way to make it back... hopefully sooner rather than later!

Happy Birthday, Andrea!

Monday was a historical day for two reasons: First, it was the Birthday of my good friend, Andrea. :) And secondly, it was the best meal I've ever eaten in my life. (No offense to anyone who has ever fed me... I've eaten LOTS of incredible meals but this one took the cake!)

NOBU. Amazing. Maybe you need to like sushi to appreciate how absolutely wonderful it is, or maybe you have to go with someone like Andrea who just tells you what to order because she knows the menu so well... and it probably helps to share the company of some good friends. But whatever it was, it all came together to be the best 2 hours of eating I've ever experienced. Whenever we win the Lotto, we'll go back for seconds! :)

Happy 25th Birthday, friend!! You don't look a day over 24... ;) Love you.

Hooray for the Red, White & Blue!

WOW! What a fun 4th we had from dawn 'til dusk!

We started out with a big family breakfast (Thanks for the new egg casserole recipe, Misemer! It was a huge hit!) Then we loaded the girls in their fully-decorated stroller and walked a block-and-a-half to the neighborhood parade and carnival. The parade route ended at White Rock North community center, which you've seen on my blog before... it's the park with the splash stuff that the girls love. They had the entire park loaded with games and things for the kids to do, and all kinds of festive things to celebrate the 4th.

I LOVE our community. The longer I live here, the more I fall head-over-heels in love with where we live. Such a blessing to be plugged-in to a neighborhood that offers so much for kids and cares about investing in memories like Collin and I do. The girls had a BLAST and it was the perfect start to the day.

After the parade and carnival, we headed home for lunch and some much-needed air conditioning! The girls napped and Mom & Dad babysat while Collin & I went to the Mitchells' house for our Sunday School 4th of July pool party. (FUN!) After the party we headed home for dinner and then kept the kids up late to watch the fireworks from the easement at the west side of our neighborhood. It was a delightful 4th! We really enjoyed it.

How much fun can we PACK into one weekend?

The fun started for me on Wednesday when my sweet Mom came to town to help me organize my life.

We tackled the horrific job of switching out the girls' closets to only consist of the right size clothes for the current season. Sounds simple enough, right? WRONG! This overall process involves multiple trips to, and from, and back to the attic... (Collin's job, but still part of the process) Handling heavy tubs of folded clothes... Sorting through piles upon piles of baby girl ensembles and evaluating them to see if they meet a list of certain criteria.

• Are they Spring/Summer?
• Size- Which girl does the size best fit? ...Avery is a 2T-3T, and Julia is an 18 mos - 24 mos. Some judgement calls come into play here because they're very close to one-another in size.
• Are there stains? ...At this point if it's something worth fighting for, it would be thrown into a tub of color-safe bleach. If it's not worth the trouble in laundry, we'd throw it into the pile to be donated.

THEN-- (and this is a pretty BIG "then") after sorting through a never-ending GALAXY of handed down clothes (which, by the way, has been the most incredible blessing of my life as a Mom... so I'm not in ANY way trying to belittle that and will NEVER turn down a box of good-ol' previously-owned clothes) we finally hung each little top/dress/skirt on individual mini-sized hangers and carefully hung them in each girl's closet. In sections. By category. And by color. :) (Ok... so maybe I'm a little "Type A" when it comes down to it.) WHEW! What a relief to have that done and organized! (Thank you, Mom!!)

Before we had time to tackle many other projects, it was time for the next phase of fun to begin. On Friday we were joined by my Dad (Boppa) and by Jen, Andrew & Drew, and we all hit the pool for the better half of the afternoon. FUN. FUN. FUN. We're members of the Kaycee Pool this year and we love it. We've only been able to go a handful of times so far this Summer and I haven't posted any pictures yet from the pool, but I couldn't resist posting a few pictures we made that day... (I wasn't brave enough to take our new camera near the water, so these are old school.)








The kids seem to be natural water-dogs like all of us are. Avery asks almost every day if we can "go to the swimmin' pool." If I had an extra set of hands, I'd be there with the girls everyday. We only wish we could have kept the Bossens here overnight! But we sure had fun waving them off after dessert with the girls in their PJ's holding their flags...



The next day was the 4th of July, and it deserves it's own post... that'll be next!