Cowboy Day

The 4-year old classes at preschool have quite a few special dress up days, and today was the first. It's Cowboy Day! I'm not sure what all they will be doing, but hopefully I will hear all about it this afternoon. Lola and I had a great time finding her an outfit yesterday. She didn't want to wear the bandana around her neck, so we cut it in half and tied them in her pigtails. She was really excited to see how everyone in her class was dressed.

Hooray for Cowboy Day!

What HAVE they done to the living room????!!!!!

Let me attempt to explain this mess. Last week, the kids and I had a stomach bug. It started with Deacon, then Lola, and then they so lovingly passed it to their mother.
I don't DO the stomach bug. I almost always have it in my power to avoid throwing up. This is my third pregnancy in 5 years, and it had been about 8 years since I had thrown up. Until this week. It was miserable. Luckily, we have great family members who took care of my kids for an entire day while I was laid up in my bed, achy and delirious. I didn't leave the confines of our bedroom for over 24 hours.
SO, to explain the picture, we had washed all of our linens and when they came out of the dryer, Lola built a ginormous fort out of them. What a mess. Dean and I finally got a lot of the house cleaned yesterday. Hallelujah!
Now that we are better, here are some recent pics.

Sick little Deacon man.

Can you tell he likes to say "cheese" for the camera?
She wanted me to take one of her, too.

We love our wagon!

Sharing her tricycle-how sweet is that? I think Santa will be bringing a big-girl bike!
"Cheese" again. Attempting to eat cereal and milk....out of a Dora sandwich holder.

We are so glad to be well again.

First Day of Preschool - 2009!

Lola has been at Sugar n Spice Preschool since she was one. She was exactly Deacon's age three years ago when she started there. At the time we had no daycare at all-our family helped out and we worked around eachother's work schedules. It was such a relief for her to be able to go somewhere and learn while being in a Christian environment where she was so well taken care of.

First Day as a Dynamite Dinosaur!

Sending Deacon at this age is a whole different "ball game." (For me.) He has never been left anywhere except for with family. He is a big time "mama's boy" because I have been with him at home almost every day of his little life. But, I need to work. And having a few hours twice a week where I can sleep allows me to work the nights before. And, the child is social. I am confident that he will make friends, just like Lola did. I just really didn't want to leave him. But we both survived.

First day as a Tiny Turtle!
Strapped in-ready to go. Hurry up, mother.

Lola's teacher is very experienced with this age group. The curriculum for the 4 year olds is a "kindergarten readiness" program. I am excited to see what she learns!

Deacon's teacher is very sweet. I hung around outside the door until he quit screaming-which explains the quality of this picture. He is the 2nd kid from your right. The teacher was blowing bubbles and he seemed to like that.

My kids are getting so big! And to think, I get to do this one more time. We are blessed by God.

Vacation, Part Two

The last full day in Galveston we had a very full day. We visited Moody Gardens. It is a huge resort area next to Schlitterbahn with several areas for kids to play and learn. We went to the Aquarium, Rainforest, and Discovery Pyramids.

In the Rainforest Pyramid, there was a huge exhibit on chocolate!

Penguins at the aquarium. They seem very friendly.

A teachable moment.

Deacon went absoultely wild at the aquarium. We had to get the wagon and strap him in!

Dean and Lola in the Rainforest.

We ate lunch at the Rainforest Cafe that day. No pictures of that-batteries had died. The kids loved it.

That evening we headed to the beach one last time to take pictures, eat dinner, and swim.

The wild man being still for 2 seconds. He likes to say "cheese!"

I love this.

What is it about photographing 2 children at one time?

Hilarious.

Favorite picture of all time!

Look how they both have their right foot raised.....it's just perfection.

I'm pretty sure her innerds were sqaushed after this!

The humidity does amazing things for her hair!

What a pretty girl!

She didn't have the same fear of the water that she had at swimming lessons!

Little pasty boy got to take his shirt off to swim, since we were there so late!

He looks so big here!

We ate sandwiches on the beach-Deacon tore his to pieces, threw it in the sand, THEN proceeded to eat it. Gross. He didn't mind.

It started to thunder a little while we were swimming..........and then lightning! We went to Ben & Jerry's that night-an actual Ben & Jerry's ice cream shop. It was cute!

We got up early Saturday morning to head for Dallas.

This was the view from our window-not too bad!

Both kids loved looking out the window. It held Deacon's attention for a really long time. I guess he had a lot to think about?!

We had a fan-tabulous time on our first real family vacation. The kids were overall very well behaved and seemed to enjoy themselves. Can't wait to do it again.................with THREE kids!

Vacation, Part One

Last week we went to Galveston! We left Tuesday morning, and including all of our stops (which were many) we made it in about 12 hours. LOOOONNNNNGGGG day.

Wednesday morning we went to the beach right after breakfast.

Let the sandcastle building begin!

Deacon ran right into the water. He ran until a wave knocked him over. He then laughed and smiled until he got a face full of saltwater. Then he cried, cried, and cried. Then he repeated this process approximately 8.342 times that day.

She LOVES the beach. She was so well behaved!

More sandcastle........

Poor little buddy! This was right before the meltdown of the century.....he had so much sand, saltwater, and sunscreen in his eyes that they were huge and swollen. I took him back to the room and we took a bath and napped while Lola and Dean stayed to perfect the sandcastle.

We went out to dinner that night.
Lola was quoting one of her TV shows "Charlie and Lola"...........(imagine her saying, in an English accent) "I will never, ever, ever eat fish fingers!" She was so big and brave-she tried shrimp, and liked it!

He was much happier after his nap.

More pictures to come!

Someone got a haircut.........

More pics to come next week. We're headed to the beach!

Recent Happenings

So here's a little info on what we've been doing since I last updated.......I am kind of at a loss for words because we have done a whole lot, and I am used to facebooking all the time. But I promise not to turn into one of "those" people who quits blogging because of facebook.

I don't have pictures of EVERYTHING, but here's a quick run-down.

In mid-July, we went to Dallas for my Aunt Gay's retirement party. I got to make the cake. Yay! It was fun. Cousins from both sides of my mom's family were there. We stayed in Allen with the Myatts. One night my cousin Leslie came over and we went hot-tubbing and had a rousing good time. We also ate coconut cream pie in honor of Mimi's birthday. The next night, the kids and I ate dinner and swam with the Baldridges. Dean went to film MMA fighting and came later. It was a great trip!

The kids also started swimming lessons in July. Lola was in "advanced Aqua Tots" although her fear of the water keeps her from being truly "advanced." Compared to last year, she did awesome. She kicks her feet and paddles her hands with a water noodle tied around her waist. She loved it. Deacon and I were in the "parent & me" class. Oh, how he hates the cold water like his mother. The child went from happy and laughing to scowling and screaming the minute we got in the water. He did do better as lessons went on. He went off the diving board a few times, which was really just me dropping him in to the instructor.
(Pics of swimming to come soon.)

On July 29th, Dean came with me to my ultrasound and we found out we are having another boy! We DO NOT have a name picked out, which is what I am asked on a daily basis. When we do, it'll be a secret like the last two times. Sorry. We just really like to shock people. After the ultrasound, we had a "lunch date" at Thai Pepper - oh how I looooooove spicy food.

The last 2 weeks Dean has had an INSANE work schedule which has, thank the Lord, come to an end. He is back to his normal 8-5 workdays. It was so hard for him to sleep during the day.

We had 2 weddings to attend last weekend, and we have one more this weekend. Next Tuesday, we leave for Galveston! We are taking the kids to the beach. We are thinking it will be super fun. I am currently borrowing my mom's camera (thanks mom) so I now have pictures to post! Here are some pics from the last couple of days. Enjoy!

Mmmmm popsicle. He takes a lot of baths!

He busted his nose and ran head-first into the couch, all within a few days!
More and more freckles every day....
"Mom, take a picture of my monkey face!" Sweet blue eyes.

It was a hot, hot day!

A wagon ride in the shade.

The ice-cream man came by at just the right time!