Summer Fun and Frogs

Well, it has been hot this week, so we've been either outside playing with water or inside cooling off.

I went to the Woodlands for a little "girl" time with some of my fellow mom friends here in Houston, I came back with blue toes (those were my friend Julie's idea!) which were a little crazy but the kids liked them. Also, I came home to the house a total pit, worse than it has ever been, and the kids gave Brian a hard time, but I think that was good for him!

Here is a picture of the kids at Discovery Green park in downtown Houston. Jacob was so sweet walking Gwyn up to the water.

She's cute even when she's mad...

Brian was mowing the yard and found a toad for Jacob, he didn't put it down for 30 minutes and hopefully it didn't have any lasting damage! He was pretty proud.


Gwyn loves to honk horns, she always wants trucks to honk their horns when they are driving too, but Jacob got a little horn for his bike for his birthday and she loves it:

While I was taking a picture of Gwyn honking his horn, I turn around to find this:

The potty training is officially finished, no accidents in quite sometime, so YEAH for Jacob!!!! Oh he learned this week in Sunday school that Friends Share and Friends take turns, he doesn't always practice it, but he loves to say it, I guess you have to start somewhere!

Jacob's Birthday Party and Katt Family Visit

We had Jacob's 3rd Birthday party at a local skating rink where they have a preschool skate, basically you have to be less than 7 and you can bring your bike, trike, or push toy...well, we thought you could bring your bike, so we brought Jacob's brand new bike but they said it was too big and he couldn't ride it :( It turned out okay, he had fun, he was more excited about the infamous Wall-E cake that he had been saying he wanted for almost a year now, and Brian did come through!

Here is the Wall-E cake:

It was a hit:

Here are some pictures from the birthday party:









Rick, Sue, and Stacy came down from Oklahoma and Brian's Grandpa came down from St. Louis. It was Brian's birthday on Saturday, and his Grandpa's birthday on Sunday, so we celebrated them together with some of Sue's fried chicken and an Italian Cream Cake, which is Brian's favorite. I told Brian I must really love him since I bought that cake and it was covered in coconut (which I hate!), so I didn't even get a piece!

It rained while everyone was here and Jacob and Gwyn got to try out their new Small Paul rain coats!

Everyone (except me and Gwyn) went to the Astros vs Cardinals game on Monday night, here they are all dressed in their Cardinals gear.



Another highlight of the trip is that we saw the Cardinals coach Tony Larussa at the Galleria on Monday morning. Rick acted like he knew him and said "Hey Tony" and he took a picture with Jacob and Rick. Brian was at work and a little jealous!

Jacob is 3!

We have a 3 year old! Jacob turned 3 on Saturday and he got a new bike from Daddy, Mommy, and Gwyn. He was super excited about it, and immediately wanted to ride it outside. It is so hot here in Houston, so we let him ride it outside for awhile, but then brought it inside where he made himself a route around the house. This picture is of Jacob in the house riding his bike in his big boy Batman underwear (which he picked out himself at Target).

Also big news....JACOB IS POTTY TRAINED! He did awesome, either he is a potty training genius or I'm a potty training master, ha! We had a miserable day 1 with 8 accidents, but then only 3 accidents since then (it has been a week now), and all of those were as he woke up from either a nap or from sleeping all night. We are so proud of him and so happy to only have to buy diapers for one kid, at least for another 3 months until our new baby girl arrives...no names yet, but even if we did, we have to keep it a secret!

Here is a picture I snapped when we were outside playing, Brian told him he could pee in the grass in the backyard and he seems to think it is perfectly fine to drop your pants whereever you are and pee on the grass. After this (it was Saturday night), Brian had to have a talk with him about asking us before he does it and not to pee on the church grass on Sunday during Sunday school when they take them outside to play.

Other news is that Jacob is starting to say some hilarious things, he learned at church on Sunday that friends stick together, and pretty much repeated it at random times about 40 times the rest of the day.

Gwyn is growing up so fast, she added another new word, bike, which she wanted to ride so bad, but Jacob kept telling her she was too little. Poor little Gwyn, she just kept saying, "bike! bike! bike!" She just loves Jacob and follows him around doing whatever he does.

A week or so ago Jacob went to the dentist for the first time. We had talked to him about it before and he was really excited about going and LOVED it! The dentist said he was the best 2 year old she had ever had. He pretty much just laid their the entire time, he loved closing his mouth so the "magic straw" could suck out the water in his mouth and got his teeth polished too. Pretty much everyday since then he's been asking to go to the dentist.

Fourth of July trip to Florida!

We had a great trip to Tampa, Florida to visit John and Claudia over the 4th of July weekend. The kids had so much fun and LOVED being there. We pretty much swam in their pool three times / day, Jacob got to catch lots of frogs and lizards (he actually caught them himself, but he didn't want to leave them in their habitat, he wanted to hold them), ate lots of popscicles, shot off some fireworks, and we took a trip to Clearwater Beach.



Claudia decided it would be fun for the kids to put half a bottle of Dawn dishwashing soap in the hot tub. The entire hot tub and pool was covered with bubbles since the hot tub overflows into the pool, and Gwyn added a new word...BUBBLE!

Here are some pictures of Jacob's frogs and lizards, John, Claudia and Brian helped him catch them, but I wanted no part of it. I told Jacob I didn't like to touch frogs or lizards and he got real serious and told me they were good frogs (I still couldn't do it!).

Here are some pictures from our fireworks show...John and Brian were safety patrol:

Here are some pictures from Clearwater Beach: