Mollie and Claire’s 5th Birthday

Today, we went over to Mollie and Claire’s house for their birthday party.  All the girls were in dance together last year.  We had a great time catching up and visiting.

The girls…Maddie, Claire, Chloe, Mollie and Emmy

They had a dress-up tea party for the girls.  Everything was decorated so cute!

Emmy enjoying some tea

The birthday girls

 

One of the girls had gotten them a “salon” tent so, their older sister painted all the girl’s nails

 

All the girls enjoying their lunch

The Mesquite Rodeo

 Our friend, Paul, gave us some suite tickets to the Mesquite Rodeo a few weeks ago.  We decided to take Tate, Emmy and Papa with us.  Nana volunteered to keep Lyla for the evening.  We had a great time!

Brad, Me, Lyla, Papa, Tate and Emmy before we left for the rodeo.

 

This was one excited cowboy!  He could not believe the view!

They loved all the music!

Emmy looking down at the cows

He had a great time.  In fact, we asked him if he was hungry or thirsty and he would not answer us because he was so busy watching the rodeo.

Our view from the suite

 

Me and my handsome cowboy!

Going to the Lodge…

Since we all have birthdays from July-September, this year Mamaw (my grandmother), decided to treat us all to a night at the Great Wolf Lodge in Grapevine instead of buying gifts.  I had seen pics and heard of other people who had gone a loved it.  We went last weekend and lets just say, it did not disappoint!  I think Brad and I had as much fun as the kids.  :)

This was the kids area of the hotel room.  A “Wolf Den”!  It was so cute and the kids were so excited to sleep in there.  It even had a mounted TV for them to watch while they laid in bed!

Every night at 8pm they have a story time down in the lobby where a man dressed like a park ranger comes out and reads a story to the kids.  They all go down to the lobby in their pajamas to listen to the story.

Here they are with their stuffed animals Mimi and Papaw got for them.

 

Uncle B with Brody and Tate.  They were all tired and ready for bed!

They have an indoor and outdoor water park for the kids.  We mostly stayed indoors because there was a huge area just for little kids (no one taller than 48” could play in there unless they were accompanied by a kid), so that was nice the little ones were not being run over.  They had all sorts of splash areas, small water slides and water guns.  After forcing Emmy down the first slide, we could not get her to stop going back to get in line.  They even went down the intermediate slides meant for the next age of kiddos.  Tate wanted to ride the big rapid ride, but the man said he was not tall enough yet.  He told Brad he needed to eat more fruits and veggies so he can ride it next time.  :)  I tried to get some pics, but there is water EVERYWHERE in there, so I got a few of the kids playing.

Uncle B and Brody

 

This was over by the wave pool.  The kids loved splashing and playing here.  Emmy even said it was like the ocean, without the messy sand!  :)

Waiting for the next big wave!

We got to spend some great quality time with the kids!

Emmy posing for the camera

Going out to sea…

 

Lyla even enjoyed herself…thank you to Mimi and Papaw for taking care of her most of the weekend!  She got to have a camp out in Mimi and Papaw’s room and Mimi would take her up for naps.

This is what the ride home looked like.  Lyla was so tired by about 1 Mimi and Papaw took her home, so Brad and I could stay for a few more hours with Tate and Emmy…this was about 5pm…OUT!  Thank you to Mamaw for the fun weekend!

First Day

 Today was the kids first day of “pre-K”…they were very excited to go and see their friends.  I think they had a great day…they are both wiped out on the couch! 

 

Here are some comparison pics from the past 3 years…

 2007 (Two year old class)

2008 (Three year old class)

2009 (Four year old class “Pre-K”)

Makes me sad, yet proud, of how much they are growing.  I love that they are at our church for preschool, a familiar place with familiar faces.  God has truly blessed us with our church and friends.  :)  Here’s to another great year!

 

Sea World Trip…Kind of…Not Really!!!

I thought last week would be a perfect week to take the kiddos down to Sea World one last time for the summer before we hit the busy fall (soccer, Wednesday night church, school, etc.).  Well, that sounded like a great plan until I found out the night before we left Sea World was CLOSED all week!  I thought…How am I going to break this to the kids????…Well, Tate just said, “Mom, he must have gone to school for the week.” and Emmy said, “No, Tate he is just on vacation.”  Whew!  That was easy!  We still left the next morning to pick Banty up in Clifton and drive to Aunt Laci and Uncle Todd’s house in San Antonio.  We spent Monday at the zoo and Tuesday at their neighborhood pool.  We had a great time.  Thank you for having us!

 Boots and Banty just returned from a trip to Spain and brought the girls back these cute Spanish dresses.

All ready to see the zoo.  It was not crowded at all!  At times we looked around and couldn’t see anyone else around us.  :)

This one makes me laugh…clearly the girls were depending on Tate to defend them from the evil butterflies!  :)

Banty wrestling Lyla to get her swimsuit on.

She loved the little play area at the pool.  She would just crawl right off to the deep end…she has no fear of the water yet.

Acting silly for the camera

All the kids wrestling Uncle Todd…out of all the cute clothes these kids have, 90 percent of the time they are in their undies!

  

We had a great time and hope to be able to see Shamu when he returns from his vacation!  :) HA HA!