Happy 4th Birthday Matt!

Matt is 4! I can't believe it! We had a great party on Saturday night at IT'Z with all of Matt's friends. It was so much fun! We ate lots of pizza and spiderman cupcakes and rode rides and played games. Matt hit the jackpot and won tons of tickets which we thought was pretty cool! Here are some pics from the big party. At the end of the night Matt thanked me and said, "Mom, that was the best party ever!". How cool is that?

I love this picture! This is Graham and Caden riding on the train. They are having a blast!

And check out these 3...Evan, Caden and Matt. They are a bunch of hooligans! Makes me laugh!

After a long night Matt was still ready to go home and open his gifts. The kids were so wound up! They climbed all over Grandpa and Matt was so sweet to let his little sister help him!

Mom loved this book that Caden and his family gave to Matt! Matt went crazy opening all his nice gifts. Thank you everyone for making this evening so special!
Of course we had to celebrate on the real birthday at school too! Miss Melissa and Miss Misty were so wonderful to have the room decorated. Matt led a birthday parade in the class and then we had soccerball cupcakes! The black frosting on the kids was hilarious!

There are some other great pics of all the kids in the slideshow! Thank you parents for spending your Saturday night with us! Happy Birthday Matt! We love you more than you'll ever know!

Ashdin's B-day!

This weekend was Ashdin's b-day party! It's amazing how many birthdays are in August. Matt's is just around the corner and we've been anticipating that since Marlie's party ended! To be perfectly honest....before kids I thought these birthday parties were ridiculous and completely out of hand. But the joy I have in having my little one's friends all together and doing something fun for them is just awesome. And we are SO blessed that our kid's friends have amazing parents. It really is fun for everyone!

Here's Ashdin and his Momma! Ashdin loved that tire swing. I told his Mom instead of renting this gymnastics place we could have hung a tire swing in their backyard and he would have been just as happy!

And this is Marlie and her friend Emma. These two are so funny. They hug each other and are so cute together. Emma isn't afraid of anything and Marlie is afraid of EVERYTHING! So we'll hang out with Emma more and hopefully Marlie will come around!

Happy Birthday Ashdin!

First Day of School!

Goodness...where did the summer go? Today was Matt's first day of school! You don't even know how excited I was that he was headed back to St. Mary Magdalene Catholic School. I love that place. Matt was excited too and a little nervous. When I told him his teacher was Miss Melissa he kept thinking that Caden's Mom was going to be his teacher! We are really bummed that Matt and Caden aren't in the same class this year. But Matt is excited that Evan is still in his class. Evan is a super sweet kid. We just love him. Luckily all 3 boys will be playing on the same soccer team pretty soon. Here's my baby on his first day...

Funny as tall as I think Matt is, I promise there is a kid in his class that is already 6'1! Surely he'll turn 5 soon?? Both of his parents are tall, but man...I bet he's a head taller than Matt! And here's M&M...always together. Marlie came with us too to drop her big brother off on his first day. He was so proud to have her there with him.
And Miss Marlie walked into that classroom like she was at home. She started to do what the teacher told them...sat on the mat and got a book. She was having a blast! When I told her we had to go she said "no I stay here". So I had to grab her and she wasn't happy. Everyone asked when Marlie was coming to school there and we'll be there next year for sure! Hopefully she prances into class next year like she did today. I doubt it...I'm sure there will be lots of crying. Very different than my Matt who goes anywhere without looking back!

What a Weekend!

We had a great weekend last weekend! Saturday was a busy day. We headed downtown in the morning to the Aquarium for Caden's b-day party. It was awesome! Kids and parents had a blast. Unfortunately our camera died so I only have a few pics. But we rode the train, the ferris wheel and the carousel. Marlie looked nervous on all the rides and about half way through each one started screaming..."ALL DONE"! Matt played a basketball game and got it in the first try so he was excited to win a stuffed animal. We saw sharks, stingrays and tons of other fish plus 2 white tigers! Here's a pic of the boys and Miss Melissa, Caden's Mom, on the train. So cute!!

We came home and all crashed and then Mom and Dad met Uncle Jay and Miss Lynette at the George Strait concert!! Uncle Jay got us tickets for our birthdays. We were up front and center baby!! It was awesome!! Our neighbors, the LaBorde's, ended up sitting with us too and we had SO much fun!

Water Babies

Wow, what a busy week! The kids did Water Babies this week. It's a one-on-one 30 min class for a week that is sort of a swim survival class for little ones. Miss Glendy, our teacher, guaranteed that by the end of the week you can throw your child in the water and they will come up, turn on their back and swim to the side of the pool! It's pretty intense and just as I thought of backing out of doing it, a little girl, almost 3 drowned in our neighborhood pool. It broke my heart and I cried for days. So I decided what might be hard for the kids and for Doug and I would be worth knowing that our babies can survive if they fell into a pool.

After day 1 I thought there was no way my kids would make it. Matt was so scared that he did okay on the first day. Marlie cried the entire time and hardly kicked or moved her arms. Day 2 was worse for Matt. He cried the entire 30 minutes which seemed like an eternity. Marlie cried too but only half the time and made a great deal of progress. It was pretty stressful. Miss Glendy doesn't care if they are scared or don't want to do it. She MAKES them jump in and keep practicing until they get it.

Fast forward to day 4 and Matt is super excited..diving to the bottom of the pool to get rings and Marlie, although still crying, is swimming on her own! Dad got to get in with them on day 5 and learn the technique. Matt was jumping off the side of the pool and Marlie was thrown into the pool and sure enough she came up on her back and started swimming! It was truly amazing! A stressful week but we are so glad we did it.