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.

4th of July

Oh I am so behind. Between work, the kids and the Tour de France it's been busy! The kids had a parade at school to celebrate the 4th of July. Marlie had just moved up to the next class and wasn't happy at all. We both miss her old teachers tremendously! Matt however walked as a very proud American with his head held high. As he says...the United States of Texas!
Then we were off to SA! It was a long 3.5 hours home. I couldn't count the number of times Matt asked "are we there yet?" or the number of times Marlie said "I wanna get down!". But we had a blast once we got there!! Friday we celebrated Doug's and our niece Sam's birthday. We got to hang out with our good friends the Hatters and Zunkers that we've known for FOREVER and their babies. It was SO fun! Here are Hayden and Marlie getting to know each other.
And Matt and Parks. These two are so handsome. Look out ladies! Matt just listed all his friends that he wants to come to his birthday party this evening and then he said...and don't forget Parks! Doug and I thought that was adorable. Maybe they will be college roommates one day.
Marlie and Hayden convinced Davis to get in their boat. He is adorable too. In a few years these girls will be fighting over him!

Thanks guys we had a great time! Hopefully we can do that again soon!

Prince Matt & Princess Marlie

The day after Marlie's b-day party we went to Avery's Princess party. Avery's Mom Heather did an amazing job decorating and the kids had a blast! They dressed up and I got some cute pics. Marlie is wearing part of the princess outfit Avery got her for her b-day. However, she refused to wear the top! Yes, only 2 and already knows what she wants or should I say doesn't want. Scary. Anyway, so we pulled out her gymnastics leotard and she was very excited to wear her butterfly wings that she got from the Carey girls for her b-day. So a butterfly princess I guess? That works if it stops the dinosaur tears from rolling down her face!

I love their expressions here. Marlie is wondering what he's up to now and you can obviously tell Matt is up to no good.

Well she's laughing thank goodness. I guess he knew he was being watched!

Marlie is Two!

My baby girl is 2! I can't believe it. We celebrated lots over the past week. It started with a little party at Marlie's school on the big day - June 11th. Butterfly cupCAKES were the hit of the party and Marlie loved the attention. I think she gets plenty from her teachers but Mom, Dad and Nene were there too and she took it all in!

Then Saturday we had the real party at Gymboree! It was so nice to have all of Marlie's friends there. Even better is most of her little friends happen to have older brothers and they were all on the Tball team this year. So the boys had fun too! It is so nice to see the kids having so much fun... and I guess the adults had fun too!

Kids just LOVE bubbles don't they? Maybe we should lock all 2 year olds up in a room with a bubble blower until they are 3! That's a good way to avoid the terrible two's that we seem to be in right now!

Here's the whole crew. The teacher said she would get them all to sit for the picture and she did it! But she made this horrible sound with a duck blower and so they all look scared! At least you can see them all! There are more pics of all the kids in the slideshow! Check it out! Thank you God for such a wonderful week!

10 Year Anniversary

This blog is about our tiny humans but we wouldn't have these beautiful people if it weren't for Doug and I right? So I just wanted to thank all of our family and friends who have supported us along the way. We started dating in the Fall of 1993 (our senior year in high school) and last Friday celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary!

You all will probably laugh at this but we did something we haven't done in years......we went and saw a movie!!! The last time we actually were in a movie theater was before Matt was born and he's almost 4! It was awesome...on the way to the movie tavern Doug told me about the Dave Matthew's station he discovered on satellite radio and the song playing now is what happened to be playing! Then we had drinks and ate DURING the movie (so neat) and laughed so hard the entire time.

Doug bought us tickets to see Coldplay in July which I am SO excited about and I bought him a massage so he can enjoy some peace and quiet on Father's Day! We are so lucky to have each other (although we don't always realize that) and to have our beautiful, wild and crazy kids.

Thank you God for making this all happen. Life hasn't always been easy but with support from those around us and a little help from the man upstairs we made it!

Here's a funny pic from when we went to dinner to celebrate on our trip!