Catching Up

I have gotten behind on blogging so I'm going to try to catch up!  I realized when going through my pictures that they're going to be very Jackson heavy now that Cooper is in school.  When he gets home from school we don't do a lot that is "photo worthy."  Just playing a bit, homework, dinner, and bedtime routine!

 

Lately we've been doing some playdates.. I don't have my camera out much when we go places, but I was able to get some photos of the kids playing at home.

 

Cutie pie Jackson-we just had his 3 year appointment and surprise surprise..he's in the 100% for height and weight! 

 

 We've been seeing a lot of Holly lately because her sister is in kinder just like Cooper, so my friend Heather and I (her mom) trade off watching the little kids so we can volunteer up at school.  It's been so fun!

 A sneak-peek to the boys' new room! They are sharing a room and it's been going really well.  I got them these reading lamps and they both hopped in bed and started reading.  Then I read on the tag attached to their cord that it contains lead and to wash hands if we touch the cord, so off they came!  I even took the time to spray-paint the darn things!  Oh well, next time I'll read the tag. :)

 While babysitting Holly I realized she could write a few of the letters of her name!! (and she's not even three!) so while Cooper was doing homework I had Jackson trace his dot-to-dot name.   I was so impressed at how well he did.  He really enjoys coloring whereas Cooper does NOT.

 Playdate with Henry.  They both got in bed and then asked me to leave the room and shut the door.  They kept pretending to sleep and then getting up and racing around the room.  Crazy boys.

Buddies! 

 I bribed Henry and J to take a few pictures for me for m and ms.  It worked!

 We love moon sand around here.

Cooper has been playing tball and it took him some practice, but now is doing really well.  He loves it and has a great time so that's all I care about!

 

 Jackson and Cooper were invited to a birthday party at the firestation but we were babysitting E and B at the same time so I only took Jackson.  Who's that kid ruining the group shot by crying??  His mom should really do something about that!  :)  (he was having a shy time the first 20 minutes of the party)

 

The pinata really opened him up.

 By the time the firestation tour came he was all smiles and loving every minute of it.

 Whew, no tears this time!  (look at the baby-birthday boy's brother-he's a dalmation!! Isn't that adorable??)

 E and B spent the night.  Notice what Cooper's doing? 

 Another playdate with Holly, I just thought this picture was so cute!

 The many faces of Jackson...

 We had a dance party and Holly taught Jackson some moves.

 This is Jackson's idea of dancing...running!

Color Me Rad

A few weekends ago I did a 5K called Color Me Rad.  It was SO fun!  I did it pretty much with the same people I ran the with in the Mud Run.

 

You're supposed to wear a white shirt and they provide sunglasses.  Our kids and husbands came to cheer us on (and watch us get colorfied!!)  Victoria, Janet, Laura, and I all went to the run together.

 Here we are starting off!  A 5K is only 3.2 two miles, but I haven't been running too much so I wasn't too excited about the run part.  It was ok though. :)

 Ryan had the camera but unfortunately left it in the stroller when they came to see us along the race so he didn't get any action shots.   I was going to try to edit these but I've been so busy in the evenings I just finally decided to post them, so they're a little far back-sorry!  Here we are after the race!

 So the fun part of the race is people buy these bags of color and then throw them at each other as they run.  We also ran through about 4 color stations where they have people either throwing colored powder on you or spraying you with paint sprayers.  The photos are turned because I brought a disposable camera with me instead of my nice one and they don't automatically turn...go figure!  There's Janet in the background-you can see how messy we got.  After the race we gave the kids some of the powder and let them go crazy with it.  As you can see Cooper loved it!

 Me and Ry.  He's so clean isn't he?  Luckily I had a  hat on so I tried to block my face from getting it, but in real life I had green powder all over my face making me just look sick. 

 Here are the four very messy and happy kids.

 And four very messy and happy adults! 

 A fun way to spend a few hours on a Saturday, that's for sure! :) 

You Need to See This

http://www.nogreaterjoymom.com/2012/09/for-sake-of-saving-one.html

This blog is written by an amazing woman who has a few biological children and a few adoptive children.  She has adopted multiple children with disabilities and is currently in the process of adopting two more.  This post specifically will probably make you cry, just a warning.  She advocates for orphans who have special needs in other countries where they are treated just horrifically.  She's trying to spread the word and get as many people as possible to see these children and to find them homes.  Check out her blog, and pray for these kiddos!

First Day of School Cont.

I have been so bad at taking pictures now that Cooper is in school! I need to get back into the swing of things! 

I realized I never blogged about our evening after Cooper's kinder.  We met Eliz, Ben, Laura, and my mom at Mellow Mushroom for dinner.  Oops, a fuzzy pic but shows the three big kids.  We got to sit in the bus and they loved that!

 

 Those two miss each other while they're in school!

 Poor Jacks fell asleep on the way over so he wasn't too happy, but give him some lemonade and he perks right up! :)

 This is what it's like trying to take a picture of four hyper kids!

Doesn't quite work, but at least they had fun!

First Day of Kindergarten!!

Cooper has almost 2 weeks of kindergarten under his belt and so far it's going well! He's gotten a smiley face sticker every day and comes home happy, so that's exactly what I hoped for! :) 

 

The week before school started I knew I wanted to do a little photo shoot with him and this vintage chalkboard my mom has-it used to be my Grandparents or even maybe my Great-Grandparents?  I thought it was so cute and perfect for a photo shoot.  We went up to school a week before it started on a Sunday evening to be sure no one else would be there to witness the craziness of me and photo props.  I'm pretty sure I'll only be able to get away with this in kindergarten :).

The night before kindergarten we hung his outfit up so he'd be ready to go in the morning!

 All ready to go!!

 We left at the very early time of 7:30 am to get there in time for school starting!  We live close enough to walk to school every day, I love it.   Except it's not too fun in this 105 degree heat along with the worry of West Nile.  It'll be nice in the fall though :).

 Had to get a photo with baby brother.  Jackson definitely misses Cooper while he's gone!

Our friend right down the street from us Zach is also in kindergarten so every morning and afternoon we walk to pick up the kids together.  It's fun to have someone to do that with!

 Cooper with his kindergarten teacher, Mrs. R.

 And with a wave, I left him.  He did GREAT! No tears, nothing.  I got teary-eyed but I didn't actually cry!  I was much sadder the night before.  Can't believe we have a kindergartener!

Great Wolf Lodge and The Rainforest Cafe

We did a "stay-cation" this year right before school started.  We had meant to go to Sea World or Galveston but that just never happened.  So instead we went to The Great Wolf Lodge for a night! 

First we stopped at the Rainforest Cafe.  The boys were in awe!

 

Ryan and Cooper

Jackson and me.

I was trying to get some of the scenery behind him...didn't really work but he looks cute! :)

Checking out the beautiful fish...

and the scary alligator!

I tried to get them to pose by the frog...didn't quite work!

We had to get the volcano for dessert.  Pretty impressive! 

We checked out the hotel room before we went and swam at the waterpark at Great Wolf Lodge. 
The boys' room was so much fun!

Jackson was a big boy and slept in the  bottom bunk with Cooper on the top!

Here's the room within a room.  The master bed was to the left of this little kid room.  It was so cute!

I didn't take any pictures at the waterpark but trust me, it was TONS of fun and the boys loved every minute of it.  We had to pry them away!  I realized I'm not a huge water park fan!?!  Who knew?  But the boys had fun so I had fun too. :)

I thought this was so cute, the boys with ALL the stuff.

Oh, this was from the Rainforest Cafe.  They had a balloon animal artist and wow, it was impressive.  Here's Cooper's tiger.

Jackson got an elephant.

We went home to recover and two days later, Cooper started school!