Budding Artists

The Easter Bunny thought it would be a good idea to bring the kids notepads and highlighters this year. (Conveniently, the note pads and highlighters come 4 in pack, so I'm thinking that's one smart Easter Bunny!) Ryan and especially Elizabeth love to color and draw, so it should have been a good idea. And they did have fun, especially when I turned my back for a few minutes. I really have no idea if they colored on their own faces or each other's face, but either way, this was the result of their artistic creativity and they were so very proud. Notice that Elizabeth has pink highlighter on her arms as well. This is certainly not the first time they've done something like this, but it was the first time I thought to snap a picture of them. Really, who can resist them looking like this?! But anyway, when I tried to clean them up, I discovered that yellow highlighter is much easier to remove than pink highlighter. Who knew? The yellow washed right off of Ryan's face with very minimal effort, but the pink stained Elizabeth's face. It faded tremendously, but only after much scrubbing, and didn't come off completely for 2 days. Yes, I sent her to Mother's Day Out with faded pink stripes on her face. So there's your parenting lesson for the day: yellow highlighters are better than pink!

Mexican Getaway!!!

In mid-April, we thankfully had the opportunity to fly to Huatulco, Mexico to attend a good friend's wedding. They told us that the kids were invited, but we politely refused. Seriously, who can pass up a vacation weekend at an all-inclusive resort in Mexico without your 4 children along???!!

We flew in Friday afternoon and quickly learned that everything, including the airport and hotel reception area, was open-air. It was kind of nice for a change! Of course, it was mid-April and not August, so we didn't suffocate like you'd think. Our hotel room was really nice and the resort was perfect. We got to catch up with friends we hadn't seen in awhile and had fun meeting new friends! It was so relaxing and refreshing to just lay on the beach and not have any responsibilities at all. We thoroughly enjoyed being lazy!

The wedding was beautiful and the everyone had lots of fun at the reception. I didn't really want to put someone else's wedding pictures on here, so you're just stuck with a picture of Kyle and me. Sorry! But congratulations Michael & Claudia Barfoot! We wish you all the happiness in the world, even though we're jealous of your 2 week honeymoon in New Zealand! :)

Easter 2010

Happy Easter! The Easter bunny left our baskets on the stairs this year. He wanted to be different from Santa Claus, who brings everything to the middle of the living room. And we told the kids to put on their boots before we went outside since it was really wet out there. Well, we meant rainboots, but Colin grabbed the first pair he found - cowboy boots.

Easter baskets

Easter lunch, with our cousins of course!

Elizabeth was the only one who would stop for the camera

Baseball Season!

Baseball season has begun! (Okay, actually it began over a month ago, but the pictures are from opening day.) Both Andy & Colin are playing this year, so we're a little busy right now. Each boy has multiple practices and at least one game each week. It's a fun sport and they love it, but I'd be lying if I said I'm not looking forward to not being busy every evening.

To celebrate opening day, we had a parade! Here are Micah and Elizabeth waiting for the parade to start.


Andy's float


Colin's float


Colin in baseball ready position at his first game

Elizabeth, future baseball all-star

Our family is (was) growing!

A little out of order, but.....

Colin is (was) the proud new owner of Catty the Caterpillar! (Admit it, you thought I was going to make a big announcement or something, didn't you?!) While we were camping in early April, we found this little caterpillar and Colin BEGGED to keep him. We couldn't resist, mainly because we know caterpillars have very finite life spans. So we brought him home in a water bottle, but later gave him the proper home of a tupperware container. Every day, Colin very carefully took Catty out to the back porch to "play" with him, gather fresh grass and leaves for him, and put a little fresh water in his home. Despite our best efforts, Catty did not get big and fat like the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Rather, Catty got smaller, developed black spots all over, could barely move, and began to smell really bad. I'm no veterinarian, but I was pretty sure Catty was half-dead. So after 3 whole days of being pet owners, we released Catty into the wild (a.k.a. the backyard) so he could fulfill his destiny of becoming a beautiful butterfly (or so he could die in peace, which is what we suspect he was well on his way to doing).

Can you see Catty? He's at the bottom right.

Colin was very proud of himself for taking care of Catty

**Though Colin tried so hard to be careful, I'm pretty sure "playtime" was terrifying for poor Catty. He had 4 children (that's EIGHT hands and feet) hovering over him, trying their best not to squash him, and shoving grass and leaves at him so he would eat or move. I could be wrong, but I think it may have contributed to his untimely death.

Spring Break

Spring Break started out fantastic here! Well it did for me, at least, because I was skiing in Colorado. Ha! But the kids enjoyed spending the weekend with Kyle! After that, we tried to do at least one fun & different thing each day. Sometimes we succeeded and sometimes we didn't, but we tried.

On Monday, we took a picnic lunch to the San Jacinto Monument with our cousins. After playing outside for awhile, we rode to the top of the monument and learned Texas history along the way. Who says spring break can't be educational?!


On Tuesday, we just had a few cousins over to play because it was raining & cold outside. And there must have been something good on TV because I got this picture of the kids.



Wednesday we had the bright idea of taking all the kids to see an IMAX show. That was not so fun. Apparently, every other spring break-er in the city had the same idea and it took us an hour and a half to make a 30 minute trip. We missed our show, saw a different one, it was no good, and it still took us another hour and a half to get home. But hey, at least we got out of the house! Wednesday was also St. Patrick's Day so we celebrated with everyone having green hair for the day. And there was actually a tad bit of green in Andy's shirt so I couldn't convince him to wear something greener.



Thursday we took a little day trip down to Brazos Bend State Park and played outside all day, hiked around a lake, and even saw a few alligators from just a few feet away! Sorry, I forgot my camera when we were near the alligators, but I was too busy holding as many children as possible to take pictures. I was afraid an alligator may think they looked like a tasty snack!

Andy during the kickball game

Colin riding his bike

Elizabeth's first Capri Sun

Ryan's first Capri Sun



I don't remember the rest of the week, but we did go to my niece's birthday party at Chuck-E-Cheese at some point.

The birthday girl, Claire, with Chuck-E-Cheese

Breckenridge!

In early March, I was fortunate enough to spend a weekend in Breckenridge, CO with some very fun and dear college friends! We only got to stay for a weekend, but we had a great time. We flew in on Friday and spent the day shopping and eating as much as possible. On Saturday, we gave our best attempts at skiing and enjoyed much-needed massages that night. There were many, many falls off the ski lift and many bruises by the end of the day, but no broken bones. Jill was such a patient teacher with us, though I'm sure she was giggling at us as well. Sarah proved to be the fastest and most daring skier. Erika totally perfected her "snow plow" move. And I was the best at getting off the ski lift with no grace whatsoever! But because we spent all our effort skiing and trying to stay upright, we (sadly) did not take many pictures all weekend.

Sarah

Erika

Jill

It was our 2nd annual trip and we're looking forward to many, many more!

Happy 2nd birthday Elizabeth & Ryan!

Next up in January, we celebrated Elizabeth's and Ryan's 2nd birthday! We had a small family party and they were very happy with everything. They both loved the singing, cake, and present opening, but their favorite gift, by far, was the package of M&M's they each received.

Happy New Year!

Hello! And welcome back to my very rarely updated blog! I will attempt to get caught up, but I'm making no promises. But I do find it amusing that I'm wishing you a happy new year at the end of April. :)

We spent New Year's with most of our cousins, wearing the matching Buc-ee's shirts everyone got for Christmas.

On the couch: Ryan, Kaytlin, Melaina, Elizabeth, & Kathryn
In front of couch: Morgan, Andy, Jackson, Claire, Micah, & Ben
Very front: Colin & Shane