1st Field Trip

KatieLynn had her first field trip last Thursday. Her class (and lots of moms and siblings, including Dean & I) went to EJ's Pizzeria and Baskin Robbins. The kids got to tour the kitchen, make and eat their own personal pizza, and then have a scoop of ice cream at Baskin Robbins. They all had lots of fun! KatieLynn adds more cheese to her pizza. That's my girl! ~I always say the more cheese the better!

EJ's has a little play area the kids all enjoyed!

1st Day of Pre-School

Tuesday was KatieLynn's first day of pre-school! We do lots of activities and playdates with friends that are close to KatieLynn & Dean's ages, and she does gymnastics for an hour, once a week, but this is different in that I leave her (9a-2p) without peaking in her classroom! I was excited for her, and a little sad that she's already this big, but she was/is beyond excited! It's only 2 days a week (Tues/Thurs). This morning, I asked her if she wanted me to park and walk her into her classroom, or drop her off in the car line -she of course insisted on being dropped off! :( What an independent thing she is!KatieLynn & I before we leave on her first morning. I had a 7am work meeting, so Daddy got the kids dressed and took them for donuts and then watched 'The Orange Car' (Dukes of Hazzard).KatieLynn & Dean jumped right into the play stations when we arrived. KatieLynn could barely stop playing to say good-bye, and I think Dean would have happily stayed as well. The kids eat suckers for dessert on the way home from Bebe & Papa's house.

Swim Lessons & Harvesting

We started swim lessons last week, and finished up today. KatieLynn has been having a ball; it's been like a big playtime for her! I offered Dean the chance to take lessons too, but I was secretly hoping he'd say no, as the only class offered to 2 year olds is Mommy-and-me... and he is so far above that! He did say no, but I think he regretted it, and will be ready for swim lessons next year. I will say he was a trooper though, playing with his trucks, tractors, and combine, while watching KatieLynn in the water. The good news is that after swim lessons, the kids got to play on the playground for about 15 minutes until the pool opened, then they swam together for a while every day. Fun Slide!
KatieLynn dives in for her favorite game of swim lessons: treasure hunt! The teachers throw out diving toys, and then the kids race to go get them underwater.
Look at our little mermaid! Swim lessons has taught KatieLynn how to open her eyes underwater. The teachers have taught some strokes, but in my opinion they didn't practice them enough. Plus the entire pool is shallow, so there wasn't much motivation to swim, when standing up was so simple. Hopefully we can practice on our own, and the strokes will be remembered. :)Our sweet boy loves pedaling!

and so does KatieLynn!

They take turns driving the combine, the tractor with grain cart (trailer), and the loader tractor. They also play 'harvest'. The combine driver says they're full, then the tractor driver pulls the wagon up, and the combine auger comes up and dumps the corn into the cart. Too cute!

Dean hauls corn, his boots, and Hadley!

Corn Harvest

The boys ride up front, while KatieLynn and I ride in Daddy's sleeper. KatieLynn loves to help Daddy by pushing his buttons to release the truck and trailer air brakes.
The tractor and buggy unload corn into the trailer.
Dean & KatieLynn play in some spilt corn.

Got to dump the corn out of her boots!

July 4th

Dean & KatieLynn loved the water slides at the Waller Freedom Fest!

We started celebrating Saturday morning in Waller at their Freedom Fest party. The kids enjoyed the free water slides, bounce houses, and bubble machine, and last but not least snowcones!

That evening, my parents and Darren's family came over to celebrate Courtney's birthday and our nation's independence. Greg set up their big waterslide for the kids. We ate hamburgers that Darren and Greg grilled, ate watermelon, and birthday cake with ice cream. Then Courtney and I took the kids with my parents, to see Waller's fireworks display. It was great fun!

We're enjoying our Summer

Here's some of our grape tomatoes and sweet corn from our garden; it all tastes delicious! KatieLynn loves tomatoes; she eats them by the dozen!KatieLynn started taking gymnastics about a month ago. She had been hearing about different classes like ballet, soccer, karate, gymnastics, etc. and been chomping at the bit since about 3 1/2years old to take something, but we had her wait until she was 4. On her birthday, she picked gymnastics and she loves it! Here she is with a friend right before class starts. I didn't get very good shots of her during the class, but maybe I will next time.Dean is a real trooper at gymnastics. He likes to take his trains to play with, and has also made friends (KatieLynnn's friend has two little brothers; and their mom is sweet too! :)).KatieLynn is hopping over circles on a balance beam, without falling off!Dean shares his things very well!We went to a Millican Reunion in Robert Lee this past weekend. It was nice to see lots of family that we haven't seen in a while; my kids enjoyed playing with some of their 3rd cousins.

Nothing New

I have no real news, but felt like I needed to post something. We spend most of our days outside; Dean's favorite thing is digging in the dirt -he sits there for hours! KatieLynn rotates around, but pedaling her trike, bike, and tractor, and swinging are her favorites.

Dean didn't have his shovel close by, so instead he used his hand to do the digging!KatieLynn loves being a trapeze artist! So sweet, she blows me a kiss!Dean is picking up rocks from the gravel driveway, and putting them in his loader. He then will drive around a little, and next, dump the rocks out, and start all over!

We are doing well. The kids and I have been diligent about our claritin, as our allergies have been bothering us a little. We have been enjoying lots of yummy tomatoes from our garden, and will eat some sweet corn real soon! For whatever reason, my strawberries haven't made very many, but the watermelon, cantelope, cucumbers, and green beans all seem to be doing well; just no fruit on them yet.

Darren has officially started haymaking season, so it seems like most of his time is in the hayfields cutting, tedding, baling, spraying, or fertilizing! But I can't complain; it seems like the weather is cooperating pretty well this year.

Outside Adventures

For some reason, one of our baby calves wasn't nursing his mother, so Darren fixed up a little pen at our house, and brought him home for the kids and I to take care of. KatieLynn & Dean named him Blackjack, and we feed him 2-3 times a day. Right now he is just drinking milk, though we also have water and a little feed out for him. He gets so excited when he sees the bottle, but so far he hasn't shown much interest in the water or feed. Both the kids love little Blackjack, but KatieLynn especially does. As soon as she gets dressed in the morning, she is ready to go get in his pen, and she gives him hugs and kisses all day long, plus always tells him goodbye before we leave anywhere. The other day we started cleaning out the playhouse, first just sweeping it out, but when we got all the toys outside, we decided to wash them, which led to washing all the kids' ride-on toys and my car. Every time water is involved, Dean and KatieLynn always wind up very wet, so they put their swimsuits on before we turned the water hose on. :)KatieLynn washes the dishes from the playhouse.Dean is a great tire washer!

Kids' Bedrooms

My Big Boy!! Dean moved to a big bed back in March at 2 years and 5 months. We went out of town for a few days, and at the hotel we all slept in a big bed. When we came home, he went straight to the big bed, instead of the crib, when it was bedtime. I had wondered when would be the time, as KatieLynn moved from crib to bed a couple of weeks before 2 1/2 years. We left the crib in his room for a week or so, but he never looked back. He's done great! He got out one night late during the first week (I took him to the bathroom and then put him back in bed), but that's the only time. I'm so proud of him, but also sad as this seems like the last baby milestone...One advantage of having the crib out, is there's lots of extra room to play in the floor! I have to include a picture of KatieLynn at naptime. It's hard to tell in this picture, but she is sleeping at the foot of her bed! She is right on the border of not needing(or taking!) a nap everyday. She naps about every 3rd day, and instead just plays quietly in her room during 'naptime'.I recently made KatieLynn new bedding. She had been using the same bedding that I picked out in 7th grade, and I decided to let her have some ownership of her bedroom by letting her pick the colors to decorate her room. She picked pink and blue. We started buying different fabric last fall; my goal was to have everything finished for Christmas, but I came up a little short... It all took much longer and was more complex than I anticipated, but for the most part the end result was what I wanted. I made a small quilt to hang on the wall, valance curtains, and a bedskirt, and then rag-quilted pillow shams and a large quilt for the bed. I love how the rag quilt looks, but if anyone wants to make one, get ready for it to take a while!

Warm Weather and Weddings!

Last week it was so warm that we got out the little pool. My pictures aren't that good, but I can tell you that the kids had a BALL! The water was cold, but there was no wind and lots of bright sunshine when they got in before and after lunch. The only way I could get them in for naptime, was to promise they could get back in when they woke up. However, later in the afternoon, the wind had picked up, and it was much more cloudy... but they were both determined to get back in. KatieLynn woke up from nap before Dean, and headed straight to the pool. She actually stayed in for 30 minutes, and Dean made it about 10, but I made them both hop out when they started to turn blue. :) LOL! Dean loves going down the slide.
My mom sent this little dress home with me last Tuesday; I think it was an Easter dress of mine from my Grandma Lacy. Anyway, it looked like it might fit KatieLynn, though we were both unsure if she would be interested as she generally only wears dresses to church, and even those dresses can't be too 'frooffy'. But as soon as she saw it, she asked me if it was my wedding dress? Then she ran to her room, changed her clothes into the dress and said that she was a bride. Then later she said she was going to the ball and got Prince Dean to dance with her.

Princess KatieLynn

Funny

KatieLynn: Lately we read the bible story of Jonah and the Whale, which we've read before and we watch the Jonah Veggietales movie, but when we read it this last time, KatieLynn had lots of questions and pondering. So a few days later Dean was doing something he wasn't supposed to, and I corrected him, KatieLynn told him that if he disobeyed he might get swallowed by a whale. And has since reminded him several times to not get into trouble unless he wanted to be swallowed by a whale! I was totally cracked up. :)

Dean: We've been talking to the kids about snakes a lot, since they're starting to come awake. And if they see one, to quickly get away and tell us. Then a few days ago, there was a copperhead close to the kids' sandpile that I killed with a shovel. The next day Dean ran up to me, saying 'snake, snake'. I grabbed a shovel and followed him. What I found was a gigantic and very furry caterpillar, but only 4" max. :) Relieved we watched him crawl around for a little while.