9 Days and 90 Years

We are back from Texas! Did you miss us? This was our longest trip visiting there- 9 days. I was flew there by myself with just the kids for about 4 days and then Phil joined us later when he was off work.

I didn't have room for the camera in my suitcase, so the pictures start once he's there, day 5.
We, along with one of Phil's sisters, Rachel, took all five of our kids to the beach on Friday. It was really crowded and very hard for me to keep an eye on my three little ones. No way I could have done that without a second pair of hands....and I could have used a third!

I call this the Bay Watch picture. Left to right- Chase (with Puddle Jumpers on), Bryson, JuJu and Phil. Chase grew up so much on this trip, first learning to swim underwater the length of the pool and then also just being so independent and playing with all of his cousins all day. I didn't see him until it was time for me to put him to bed! He LOVED playing with his cousins!

Daddy and JuJu. She knows that Daddy's job is to keep her safe, so she was stuck to him like glue in the water.

This one was a mess at the beach! He was so hard to keep an eye on, which gave me several heart attacks. He also ate SO much sand and there was no stopping him. Not very surprising, he had some GI issues about two days later and ran a low grade temp for three days. Hmm....

Anyway, he's just a mess, but I love him!

We also did lots of swimming in the pool! I mean lots!!

Chase swam for so long one day that I had to make him get out to eat after about 4 hours. He was so hot and tired that night, I thought he would be sick, but thankfully never was.

The little boy cousins, there were four of them, also played lots of ball when they weren't swimming.

And then we did some 90th birthday celebrating! Phil's grandmother, Mema, turned 90 while we were there. Lots of Phil's family was able to make it down to Houston to celebrate. Mema is the sweetest lady and she and PopPop, who is also 90, still live together and totally independently.

Aren't they sweet?! Happy Birthday Mema!

More of Texas to come.

A Happy 4th!

We had a great Fourth of July this year and we hope you all did too! We got in a lot of family time since I didn't have to work this Saturday. We searched for a couple of yard sales, but there wasn't much this weekend. We buy a couple of little things.



Saturday afternoon we went swimming at our neighbor's new pool. And by new, I mean they don't even have the retaining wall up yet or the inspection done, but hey, it's hot, so we swam. The water was awesome and their pool is beautiful! I didn't have my camera though.



The older two kids great in the water and were both jumping off the diving board! Chase even was jumping in without any floaties and then swimming to the side. This is a huge improvement!

On Sunday we drove less than 2 hours to Pickwick Lake with a another co-worker of Phil's who just bought a very nice, new boat. The weather was great and the boat had a canopy which provided some much needed shade.

The kids loved swimming in the lake and were jumping off the end of the boat. When we first got in the water Chase asked if a dolphin was going come up and bite us. Then he asked if there were any submarines under us. :) So precious! I love him!

Phil was brave and tried water skiing. I had just stepped on a nail the night before so I had a good excuse to not attempt it, lol. He got up on the first try! I was impressed! It's been years since he's water skied.

We left Parker at home with a sitter, my cousin Molly, while we were at the lake. He would have been miserable, hot and tired. I know that he enjoyed some good one-on-one time with Molly anyway.

Then on Monday, the 4th, we grilled out with Mimi and Pops. Whew! That was a busy weekend.

Sailing, Sailing....

Yard Sale-ing that is. Our family has actually been home on Saturday mornings for the last two weekends. That is something that never happens. For one, Phil or I usually work every Saturday, but my boss didn't put me on the schedule this month, so I'm off until August! Yay! It has been so nice to know that I can do family things now on Saturdays. And Phil has also been off work.
Our first Saturday we loaded everyone up and drove around and looked for yard sales. We hit the jack pot just in our neighborhood! For $14 we got these Fisher-Price toys, a pair of Crocs for JuJu, an Eye Spy book, a Bob the Builder book and a Bob the Builder Sticker Book.
We couldn't find any girl toys or books or anything (other than the crocs), so Chase got the lighthouse and rescue boat above....
...and JuJu got the pirate ship. These are really great toys. The look kinda like the Fisher-Price version of Playmobile toys, which we also have. They are in great shape, have all the pieces and the instruction booklets. They were $5 each. Can't beat that.

We got all of that at the first yard sale we came to.

And at the next yard sale we got this table and chairs for $40! It seats six but only has four chairs, so for now we are using two of our old ones. This table is exactly what I was looking for! I really wanted a pedestal table so that the table legs would be out of the way. Check. I also wanted it to have leaves. It has two. Check. I wanted it to be oval. Check. Made of wood. Check. Affordable. Check. And not perfect. Check.

By not perfect I mean that it is used and already has some dings, etc. Just a few months ago Julianna painted on our old table and chairs with model airplane paint, so I really didn't want to spend a lot of money on a nice, new table to fret about every little that happened to it. So by not being perfect, it's totally perfect!

You can see our old table in the first picture on this post. Phil's parents made that table when they were first married and I think everyone in the family has used it. It was a great table for us for eight years now. Now we get to pass it on.....or at least get it back to Texas somehow!

Happy Father's Day!

Phil had been working tirelessly on all the broken things in our house for two weeks when Father's Day rolled around. Needless to say, we couldn't buy him enough presents to show him how much we appreciate and love him!




This is the card that Chase made for him.



And this is JuJu's.


The kids got him a pack of three flashlights (since we had just dealt with all of those power outages and fix-it projects in dark places). He immediately lost two to the older two to keep in their rooms, in case the power goes out.




A new grill for the grill?? Not sure what you call those things. He also got a grill cover.




And the Vasque low-top hiking type, waterproof shoes that he has wanted for a while.



Daddy and all kids.



We thought it was funny that Parker was screaming for all the pictures.

Happy Father's Day Phil! We truly love you and you make this house such a home. I love how much you love our kids....and me. :)

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

I had a Groupon to use by the end of June for Redbird tickets and they happened to have a rare day game on a day of the week that Phil also happened to be off, so we booked the tickets!




It was a rare opportunity for us to take just the older two kids out. My wonderful neighbor watched Parker for us. :)




Every time we head downtown for a game we show the kids where Daddy lived when he met Mommy. (The apartment building behind him in this picture. It's right across the street from the stadium.)



She looks so much like my Nanny to me in this picture. It's the mouth, for sure.



And then we show them the hotel where we met- at the rooftop party. We also stayed here on our wedding night. The Peabody Hotel.



I wanted a picture of Chase eating is hot dog and this is the face that he gave me. Funny guy.



I like how JuJu has to wrinkle up her whole face to try and get a bit of the hot dog.




Posing after the game on home plate.



He didn't want to stand on home plate. It was about a million degrees on this day, so we were all pretty hot and tired by this point.


I love this series of pictures. They are standing on the pitchers mound and Phil asked JuJu if she wanted him to show her how to pitch the ball. Of course she said yes. So here he shows her how to put the ball in her glove like this....



...then how to wind up and kick her leg up like this.....




...and then to pitch the ball like this. (He followed WAY through on his pitch!) JuJu had to make some slight modifications to all those moves due to the jean mini skirt.

50th Birthday Fun

My Uncle Tim, my Mom's oldest brother, turned 50 a couple of weeks ago and they had a little party at their house. Luckily for the kids there was a swimming pool so they were entertained.

The sun was blinding Chase as he was trying to look at the camera. Look how laid back he was though. He was so bummed because he couldn't reach the bottom of the pool so he had to wear floaties the whole time.

It was not an easy task to light 50 candles!

Or to blow them out.

All the men, except two teenage cousins. Who knows where they were.

My sweet cousin Molly holding Parker. I am the oldest grandchild and she is the youngest. We are the only girls, separated by 17 years.

This picture is blurry but I had to post it anyway. We put some ice cream on Pops' plate even though he said he didn't want any because we knew who would come asking for Pops to feed him. And sure enough!

Happy Birthday Uncle Tim! It was a fun family day!

Backyard Fun

We got the kids a plastic pool from Wal-Mart and it has provided lots of fun for them! It even has a built in slide! I can only put a couple of inches of water in it when Parker is out there though because he keeps falling down and going under.

One day they just stayed in their bathing suits all day. I even fed them the majority of the time on the deck. This picture was taken at sunset, just before we went in for bed. Phil has been working lots of nights, and lots of nights in a row, so we've missed him around here.
This is what I got when I said smile. They didn't even plan that.

Then I got this.

Then this. I'm sure that I must have said something like, " Act right and like you love each other.". Or something along those lines.
My sweet, sweet five year old.

And my precious baby girl.

Chase was really wanting to squirt his water gun, but inappropriately, so I set up a bucket for him to shoot into. I was cracking up watching him squint his eye.

I'm not even sure how he seeing here. And the tongue is out a bit to help him.

Looks like he's really straining to keep that eye closed. I told him I'd go in and get his pirate eye patch but he didn't want that. I think he really wanted to figure out how to do it.