Water Slide!

The other day, after small group, instead of going to our usual hang out (Mazzio's), we went over to the Lanthripe's house for a cook-out. It was a great idea because they have an AWESOME water slide that the kids loved and the adults could talk without worrying about what the kids were doing. Everyone had a great time. The kids went down that slide for about two hours straight. They were pretty tired that night! Enjoy the pics...I also put a little video at the bottom.

My Little Cleaning Queen

Ava has been quite helpful lately. She has been on quite a bed making kick...think she is trying to tell me something? Just Kidding...I ALWAYS make the kids beds and have never suggested that they try to make their own (primarily because I'm somewhat of a control freak and like them to be just right). It has occurred to me that, perhaps, I should encourage them to do this themselves (after all, Chance will be in 3RD GRADE!) However, I haven't even talked to them about it yet, but Ava has beaten me to the punch. The other day (when I had been slow about getting around to making the beds), Ava ran into the living room and told me that she had a surprise. I came into her room to find that she had not only made her bed...

but mine as well!
I thought that was so sweet...I also thought that she did a pretty amazing job considering that she has never made a bed in her little life. What a big helper. Now, every time I make my bed, she wants to come in and help me with the pillows (she says that's HER job). She has also been really helpful about cleaning up all her toys. Here is another pic of her cleaning off her dresser. I guess we'll keep her around, huh? haha

Happy Birthday Times Two!

It was Uncle Chris AND Aunt Keli's birthday last week, so to celebrate, they invited the family to Red Robbin. We love that place and haven't been there in FOREVER. I took this pic of Ava and Haleigh...I thought it was cute. They have been loving each other lately. Ava is just dying to have some friends that can hang out with her, so it's good when they get together. Ironically, I don't have any pics of the birthday couple...but rest assured, they were there and having lots of fun on their birthday! :) I also threw in this one of me and Brian... :)

Fun Friday

Last Friday, we all went out to get frozen yogurt and then decided to stop by and play at the park on the way home. (What's funny is I think that Brian and the kids played at a different park before I came home, but you know my family...they can never have too much time at the park!) It was very pleasant by the time we got to the park, the sun was almost completely behind the houses...not too hot or chilly. I loved it! Ava has really been going through a posing phase lately...I don't know if you've noticed! ;)

I like this one I took of her playing on the monkey bars...she's getting really good at those!

Even Chance has been smiling for me lately! In-action monkey bars shot.
Brian and Ava were both very brown on Friday. lol
Ava took this one for us. :)
My little monkey...She hung there for awhile.

Another monkey.

Chance and Ava swung back and forth on this thing FOREVER. They did it so many times, it made MY arms sore. I was afraid that they were going to have blisters on their hands, but I think they're okay. I took a couple little videos of them doing this...(below). Take those videos times a MILLION... They loved it!

Puffy Puppy

The other day, I was minding my own business, getting ready to go to zumba...all of a sudden, Chance says, "Um...Mom? What's wrong with Alice's nose?!?" I look down to see Alice staring at me with these sad, puffy eyes and a nose that is at least five times it's normal size. She had just gotten some vaccinations a couple hours before that and clearly, there was a problem! Of course, her vet was already closed for the day (Just my luck!), so we had to make a trip to the emergency vet. I would like to point out that in the entire 10+ years that we had Rusty, we had to make no such trip. Just one of the many reasons that Alice is turning into a somewhat high-maintenance puppy! I loaded the kids and Alice in the van (and missed zumba!) and took her to the vet. She had to stay a couple hours for observation and they gave her some injections to calm the swelling down. (Just a side note...did you know that dogs take people benadryl?? Crazy!) The next time Alice gets her rabies shot, we will have to give her benadryl before she goes and hope that none of this happens again! I wish the pictures would do this justice. You really can't tell how big her nose was or how pathetic she looked. I felt kind of bad taking pictures of her at the vet...I figured that they were thinking I was heartless for taking pictures of my poor, sick dog. (But this just had to be documented!) *It should also be noted that Ava got quite a kick out of this whole thing. She kept calling Alice fat cheeks and wanted to know if she could stay that was forever because she thought she was cute.
After our vet ordeal, the kids and I played outside for awhile. I figured all of us could us some decompression time. :) Glad to report that all is well again...at least until the nest round of shots!

(I don't know what was going on with Chance's hair in this pic, but it was cracking me up!)

Flip Flop Fiasco

I took the kids to the library the other day (we do a lot of that in the summer). As we were getting out of the car, I looked down at Chance's feet and realized that he had on two different flip-flops. One was black...the other navy. Not only were they different colors, but also different sizes. He's so funny. He was completely oblivious about the whole thing. Even when I so kindly pointed it out to him, it still took him awhile to figure out what I was talking about. (What is even funnier is that he's done it once since then!) Chance was a trooper, though, he just rocked his different flip-flops the entire time we were at the library and never said a word about it. I must say, it gave me countless laughs every time I looked down at his feet! Just thought I would share my happy little story with you and give you a laugh as well. (When we were leaving the library, Ava found some pine cones and wanted me to take a picture of those...I think she was feeling left out. Ha!)

Galveston Videos

Here are a couple of the videos I took on our vacation. One is of the stingrays, and the other was our dolphin watching adventure. I tried to put it on the bottom of my vacation post, but I was having technical difficulties...big surprise! In case you missed it, my Galveston post was supposed to be right before this one, but for some reason it posted at the bottom of all my other new posts, so it kind of got lost in the shuffle. Just letting you know that it's there...somewhere...

Another Year Older...

We celebrated Brian's birthday a little early this year since we were going to be on vacation on his actual birthday. This year, we got him some new swim trunks, a book, a gift certificate to Vintage Stock, and a one hour massage. We also got him a pie from Rusty's Frozen Custard. Bryan and Amanda came over to help us eat it. :) It was lots of fun... kinda a weird birthday situation this year, though. We're not used to being out of town on his birthday. We had a really fun day in Galveston on his real birthday...and we didn't even have to drive as much of the day as we thought we would since we got a head start the night before. :) Thinking ahead! Happy Birthday, Babe! I'm glad have another year with you.

Parachute Play

Brian and I (mostly Brian) did Preschool Church a couple Sundays ago and he had the idea to bring his Dad's old parachute for the kids to play with. It started out with needing it for a game to illustrate the story, but the next thing you know, it turned into all out parachute fun. The kids LOVED it. I must say, it probably didn't come a moment too soon. The natives were getting restless. Brian and I always say that our speciality is NOT preschool -- give us youth any day of the week and twice on Sunday! :) Thanks to the parachute, we made it! Our preschool duty is filled for another three or four months. Yay!

One of the Many Reason's I Love Him...

Chance and Ava wanted to play kickball so badly the other day and they begged Brian to go out and play with them. Usually that wouldn't be a big deal at all, but Brian just got a new video game, and he had just sat down to play it. For those of you who are video gamers out there, it was Red Dead Redemption and Brian is absolutely CRAZY about this game. I have not seen him play video games like this in a long time -- maybe EVER. If I know him, I'm sure he had been counting down the seconds until he got off work so he could come home and play. That's why it was such a big deal when he immediately (okay, so maybe there was a SLIGHT pause) turned off his game so he could go play outside with the kids. He is such a good dad...one that rarely takes much time for himself. I know the kids really enjoyed playing with him that day (even if Chance does have a slight meltdown if he feels like he's being "beaten" in kickball -- did I say that he got the sportsmanship award?!? lol) It was a fun evening. I'm very appreciative that I have a husband that is always willing to go the extra mile for his family...even if his video game is calling his name. (I've tried to go the extra mile and be extra patient as he plays his game at night after the kids go to bed!) :)