This Week

Alanna's dance recital is at the end of this month. Yesterday was her picture session at the studio. The girls looked so cute- here she is with her best dance friend.


Brady sleeps so well in his car seat. That is a good thing since with 4 other kids we are always running places.


Logan got a haircut. Here he is with his reward. He is so fun but approaching the terrible 3's. We love the 2's and dread the 3's in our house.

every Texan needs a picture in the Bluebonnets!

icy roads=no school
shoot me now HAHA

School Age Kids

I guess this mostly pertains to those of you with school age kids, but how emotionally involved do you get in their social lives? When I dropped off my kids at school this morning I noticed one of my children trying to talk to an older friend. In any other situation the child is friendly and my child considers this child to be a good friend, but this time the child was with other friends that are the same age (older than my child). This child kept walking and talking to the friends and acted like my child was not even there! It took everything I had to not burst into tears or get out of the van and let the child know what I thought about that! Would this bother you or do you feel like that is the way childhood goes and it is not a big deal? Is this just my pregnancy hormones?

First Day of School

Alanna was terrified, Kaleb was indifferent, Ross was a little excited- mom was elated HAHA. Actually, I missed them since Logan was lost without them all day, and the house was pretty quiet. They had a great first week of school (even though Alanna's teacher had to pry her off of my legs so I could go out the door that first day). She loved her first week so all is well with that. Ross has a great teacher, Kaleb's seems a little strict but he is so laid back that he does not seem to care. I think it will be a great school year.

Berry Pickin'

We had the best time picking yummy blueberries Saturday morning!! We went up to a berry farm about 30 minutes north of our house and picked about 2 gallons of them to bring home. Logan ate as much as the rest of us picked, but he had fun so we did not mind. By the time we left it was getting hot, but we had 2 large sackfuls of berries to take home so we did not care!!

Bliss

If we could only play this well together every day. By the way, Geotrax are very cool toys.

Crazy May

May was so crazy that in some ways I am ready for a summer break. The kids got out of school on Friday so we will see how long it lasts before I hear the "I'm bored" phrase. Last week was the Pinewood Derby at Scouts, Ross' car did really well. Kaleb had his final baseball game and a fun end-of-season BBQ where they got trophies (he is very proud of it and will be happy to show it to you if you are ever at our house). And Alanna had her long awaited dance recital which she talked about the whole year. She did awesome and had a blast. Now that it is June life will slow down a little. The main thing we have this month is Scout camp.

Names

My friend has a great post on her blog about how she chose her children's names. Sad, but true, I get all my blog ideas from you all.
Ross Maxwell
Kim and I decided that he would get to choose the boy names and I would choose the girl names, with veto power of course. Little did I know back then that I would get the short end of the stick on that one. Anyway, Kim had a family friend/neighbor named Ross that was a great influence and example for him growing up. This is good since his dad was not around much. Maxwell is after his favorite mission companion and good friend. I would not have chosen these names, but I like them and there are not too many Ross Maxwell's out there. And no, it is not after Ross from Friends- I like the show but not THAT much.
Kaleb Wayne
I wanted Kaden and this is our compromise. Wayne is after my dad and grandfather. There is a funny story about why Kaleb is with a K and not C. Kim grew up by a strange family that named all their kids with C names and had a last name that started with W. I guess one in particular was nicknamed "CW" so now Kim can't stand those initials. Whatever.
Alanna Beth
Finally, I get to choose! I have had a list of girl names I like for YEARS, so many I could not decide. One day while I am pregnant with Alanna Kim is reading and I look over his shoulder and read a paragraph. I see the name Alanna in the book and feel like it is perfect for the baby, there goes my list. Beth is after my mother in law and Kim's grandma.
Logan Brig
I had Julia chosen for this baby (it is my middle name). I thought for sure I would get another girl. By this time Kim and I have no boy names we like. We pretty much grabbed a baby book and started searching after the ultrasound. I actually love this name but I did not think Kim would like it. We did not know how popular it was when we chose it, I think it was in the top 10 for 2006. Oh well, it fits him perfectly. Kim's grandfather passed away not too long ago so we wanted Logan to be named after him. His name was Val Earl- Logan Val- no thanks- Logan Earl- think "LEG" people- no thanks. All his friends and family had given him the nickname Brig for some reason, I liked that better than my other options so we went with that one.
I would love to hear others. . .

Happy Easter!!

Saturday before Easter the kids had fun coloring Easter eggs and decorating them with stickers. We had family in town for Easter- my mother in law, sister in law, and her 2 girls. Megan had a great time coloring eggs with our kids. Sunday after church we had a big dinner with everyone plus my mom and dad came over also. My sister hid the eggs out in the backyard and all of them had a great time hunting them- I think the whole hunt lasted about 2 minutes. I guess we need to have her hide them a little harder next time. Logan picked out his own Easter basket at Hobby Lobby this year, it is so cute. He was impressed with the candy in the basket-the church shirts, not so much. Kim deep fried our turkey and it was awesome. What a fun afternoon. Unfortunately that morning I had to take Kristen's 10 month old Madison to Primacare for an ear infection. Not fun.

Dallas Zoo

We went to the Dallas Zoo over spring break with my parents, Kayla my sister, my sister in law Kristen, and her girls Megan and Madison. The weatherman predicted rain but it turned out to be a super nice day. We had a great time, but it was so crazy with 6 kids that we only saw part of the zoo, but they had a great time anyway and they did not seem to notice how much we missed.

Snow Round 2

We did get another round of snow, but not quite as much as the first time. The boys were right out there in it, Alanna chose to stay indoors this time (must be like her mom). Ross built this snowman, then that night when dad got home from work he showed them how to build a huge snowman. It fell over before I went out and got a picture. It had to have been at least 6 feet tall. Kaleb loves to make snow angels.
I wonder if spring is on the way??

Texas Snow

I have to say, I lived in this area until I was in 6th grade and I have never seen it snow this much. We moved to San Antonio when I was in 6th grade and I never saw a flake until I graduated from high school and moved to Idaho. After that I saw more snow then I ever want to see again! I personally love living in a place where it rarely snows, but I know the kids love to play in it, so I was happy that we woke up to 5-6 inches of it Tuesday morning! It was nice that school was delayed 2 hours because the 3 oldest were out playing in it at 7am! Luckily they had their fill before it was time to get ready for school. By the time they got home from school it had pretty much melted and they were a little disappointed. I don't want to tell the kids and get their hopes up, but the weathermen are forecasting more for tonight. We'll see.

What I woke up to this morning. . .

Dinosaur Valley State Park

The same day that we went to Fossil Rim we also visited Dinosaur Valley State Park. According to the website I read, this is one of the few places in the world where you can see preserved dinosaur tracks. It was cool. I don't know if you can tell from the picture, but right in the middle is a footprint, you can see where the claws pushed down a little further into the rock.


The kids were impressed with the 2 realistic looking statues they had. Here is the oldest 3 in front of the T-Rex.

Pumpkin Patch

My mom and I took Alanna and Logan to a pumpkin patch today. They weren't very cooperative when I tried to take pictures. I got a few okay ones, but not what I had hoped. This is a great patch to go to because it is FREE to get in, and it is down the road from my mom's house.

Fall Festival

The schools here in our small town do a fun fundraiser every October, the kids look forward to it every year. They have most of the things you would expect at a typical festival- food, games, bounce houses, petting zoo, pony rides, dunking booth- and I would rather spend money here since it goes straight to the school! The kids had the best time, Kaleb said it was the best day ever!

Here are the boys on the climbing wall, Ross is on the right and Kaleb is on the left. Ross made it to the top, Kaleb got scared about a third of the way up.


Logan had a great time cruising around in his stroller, and walking around the petting zoo. He did not let the animals get too close to him though.

Alanna loved the petting zoo- she was brave and touched all of the animals. The principal has a ranch with tons of animals so he brought some of them up to the school (he is a member of our church too, and the kids love him).

Weekend Road Trip

This past weekend we drove to see my grandparents, they live about 4 hours away. For some reason they want us to come visit even though within the first hour we were there Logan had broken their blinds and dripped milk on their couch, and Kaleb had spilled root beer across the kitchen table and onto the carpet. Hopefully we are still welcome in their home! Every time we get into the van for a long drive, I thank the inventor of portable DVD players.

Kids Will Be Kids

The other day my disposal stopped working. When Kim got home from work he took it apart to see if it could be fixed. Of course, in our house we are never sure what we might find when we look in anything. Sure enough, the disposal was not working because one of the kids had put rocks down the drain! Wonder which one did that??

End-of-Summer Celebration

Technically summer is in full swing here and will be for a while. But the kids are going back to school on Monday so it feels like the summer is over to them. I decided to take them to a pool that we usually visit once a summer. It has a fun water slide Ross went down a million times, plus fountains everywhere, and it is great for Logan because it has a sloping edge. He thought it was great to walk down into the water until he could not anymore (and I had to make sure to follow right behind him to catch him from going under). What a difference from the beginning of summer when he was content sitting on the side of the pool! I thought the summer would go by slowly, but it really flew by quickly. I am a little sad to see them going back already, especially Kaleb who has never been away from me for so long. I will really miss having him around, and I know Alanna will miss playing with him during the day. But he is ready for school, he will be 6 next week and probably one of the oldest in his class! Here are some pictures of my new water baby.