Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Summer of Fun Continues!


 We have had an exhausting, crazy, exciting summer that still isn't over yet!  We've been in the pool, I'm guessing an average of 6 days / week, and some of those days we are in it twice!  These kids are getting so tan, and I even lather them up with sunscreen.  Annie has starting swimming on her own, swimming the length of the pool, coming up for air on her own, it is amazing the progress she has made in these last couple of weeks.  I even twice this week sat outside and let them swim without even getting in!  We are enjoying our summer and living up every minute of it.  These pictures from Jacob's soccer camp last week were just awesome...I love action shots and the way his face is captured is just perfect!  I had let the kids each pick two camps besides VBS, Jacob picked soccer last week and basketball this week.  Annie had dance last week with her buddy Emerson and dance with Gwyn this week.  Gwyn had a gymnastics camp and then dance camp.

Annie was so excited about doing her dance camp with her friend.  She loved going everyday, and even got moved up to be with the four year olds for the performance.  Be prepared for the progression of the train wreck below, known as Annie's first dance performance fail:
 Pretty excited and acting kind of shy when she sees us in the crowd:
Her turn for her performance:

Carried off and sitting on the side looking absolutely miserable the rest of the performance:
 Me trying to get her to smile and hold her flower that a friend of mine picked up for her (who knew you were supposed to bring the little girls flowers for their 10 minute performance at the end of a dance camp??):
 Finally a smile (only after I told her I'd give her gum):
We got to babysit Kipp again this weekend.  Gwyn was pretty excited about feeding him and holding him.  He loves coming to our house because we give him lots of carrots and cucumbers:


Annie and Gwyn hanging out with Papa watching some videos:
 When my mom was here, she made frozen chocolate covered bananas with the kids.  Brian asked her if the kids were being punished (he hates bananas, ha!).  I don't think any of the kids ate the bananas, but they did eat all the chocolate off and left a mushy banana mess, nice!  We used to make these with my mom when I was little and we loved them, my kids don't know what they are missing!
   Jason and Brian took Jacob to a Cardinals game when they were in town playing the Astros.  It was a great game for Jacob to watch, high scoring, several home runs...one happy boy!


 Yes, they do make Legos for adults, an architecture series that Brian did point out the instruction booklet says 16 and older...he was pretty excited and stayed up late to finish it!
 Family movie night, Ernest Goes to Camp...brought back some memories of watching this with my family and then over and over again with D.Dee...eggsaroneous and What do ya mean Vern??
 I just love this little goose, poor thing had an ear infection this week, so she's been hanging with Mommy and watching some Peppa Pig to cheer her up!
 Gwyn is signed up for gymnastics starting in a month, and was trying on her new gymnastics suit:
 Jacob playing golf with John and Brian while we were in Florida...I forgot to put this in last week:)

Jacob's first time golfing:

 Jacob was super excited about his basketball camp this week...he has been wanting to wear his Rockets jersey every day to camp, we've only made it three so far since I insisted on washing it!
A very long awaited birthday present for Jacob, a new basketball goal.  I think if a hurricane blows our house down, this thing will still be anchored in the ground:
Practicing with his new goal:



Wild and wacky hair day at basketball camp...this boy was pretty excited about his hair!
Funny things the kids said this week:

Gwyn (when I bought capers at the grocery store):  Why are you buying tadpoles?
Annie:  I have two grandbabies, Elijah and Hannah (after my mom told her she had 3 grandbabies).
Gwyn:  Why isn't the food free at Freebirds?
Me to Annie:  Can you keep a secret?
Annie:  No (at least she's honest!)
Jacob after being told that a a friend's dog is a fraidy cat:  Wait, this dog is afraid of cats??
Jacob after my Dad and I told him that a transformer blew and that is why our power went out:  Wait, a real transformer??

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Florida, Legoland and Gwyn can ride without training wheels!!

Can you believe this sweet girl can ride a bike without training wheels??  It was really amazing how quickly she took to it...we ended up taking her to our local bike store who has a guy there who claims he can teach any kid in an hour.  It only took her about 20 minutes!  This all happened the day before we left for Florida, but when we got back, she was back on the bike like she had been practicing all week.  She's ready for a long bike ride, she says:)

Here is a video of her first ride:

 Annie of course wanted in on this action, I'm sure she won't be far behind:

Video of Annie riding:


We had a great visit to Florida to see John and Claudia and while we were there we took the kids to Legoland.  Legoland was great, our kids were the perfect age, Jacob and Gwyn could ride everything and there were only a couple of things that Annie couldn't ride.  We started off the trip celebrating Daddy's 36th birthday with none other than awesome donuts!
 Daddy and his donuts with improvised tea lights, ha!

Legoland was AWESOME!

















I think we have this same picture of Brian's grandpa with a lego guy like this from our trip in 2002.

A few videos of Legoland:


Jacob and Gwyn rode this ride, not exciting for them, but Annie loved it!
One of my all time favorite videos!

I'm convinced they filmed Jaws here:

They loved the rides!

One tired little girl on the drive back to John and Claudia's...so sweet!
Lego madness!
Love these two sweet sisters:
Secret frog hunt after the girls went to bed...this boy was in heaven!
Two baby lizards, who later got a pretty nice home along with lettuce and grapes after Claudia researched what food lizards would eat:
My little butterfly fairy:
I thought this picture was too cute of Gwyn with her giraffee on the plane ride home.  It was such a great visit,  I enjoyed my dinner out with Claudia, and John and Brian were able to go golfing with Jacob and out to dinner by themselves as well.  We ended our last night with swimming at their pool and an awesome grilled dinner out at their house.
Before we left for Florida, I had taken the girls to a Little Red Riding Hood play at a nearby church.  The girls loved it, we had front row seats.  You could get pictures afterwards with the cast...Gwyn did not want her picture with the wolf, ha!
Rapunzel was in this story as well, so Annie wanted her picture taken with her:

One happy boy who now has a Carlos Beltran Fathead on his wall from G and Grandpa...you should see his room now...he may be a little brainwashed, ha!
Such a funny picture, Annie discovered she could still fit into some build a bear clothes from Jacob's starwars bear, ha!
And the rainbow loom craziness continues at our house:
Sweet little Annie supporting her sister as she learns to ride her bike:
One excited and happy girl!

Funny things the kids said this week:
Gwyn:  I need some respect!
Gwyn:  How old were you when you met Jason?
Me:  I was 22 months.
Brian:  No, you were 0, Jason was 22 months, ha!