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.

Hoppy Easter!

We had a great Easter weekend. Saturday morning we started early with an Easter party at our church. We ate pancakes, colored, played, and hunted eggs. We got home to get stuff together for lunch, then headed down the road to Darren's grandpa's house. The kids played with some of their cousins and then ate yummy steaks that Darren, Glenn, and Greg grilled. After lunch, the daddies hid eggs, and the kiddos had a large time hunting eggs again. Dean and Daddy went home to take a nap, while KatieLynn and I went to surprise Catherine (my friend who happens to be 8 1/2 months pregnant with her 2nd baby; her oldest, Hadley, just turned 3). KatieLynn hunted eggs for the 3rd time that day with Hadley and her cousins. Sunday morning we attended church, and then went to Brenham for Easter lunch and one more Easter egg hunt. It stormed pretty hard that morning, but the sun was shining by lunchtime, and we hunted eggs outside with no problem.
I don't know how I could talk about Easter without mentioning Jesus. It is unthinkable what Jesus went through those days before Easter, and I can't begin to imagine what his mother felt. All I know is how grateful I am that Jesus loved us all so much.

The kids pretend to read the hymnals while we visit after church.KatieLynn and Dean work on their coloring sheets at church Saturday morning.I don't have a picture of Dean with the Easter bunny, because he had absolutely no interest in getting very close. After KatieLynn sat with the bunny, he gave her a little cup and pencil, and Dean was interested in that... we tried to bribe him to pose with the bunny, but the best the Easter bunny got this year was a wave from Dean. The wave did get Dean the cup and pencil. :) KatieLynn was happy to sit with the bunny; she's not scared of muchDean would check out the eggs before he put them in his basket, and it didn't take long for him to drop his basket, and play on the playground equipment.KatieLynn filled her basket to the brim (Darren bought this longaberger basket on her first Easter, but we may need to get a bigger basket for next year).Cousins: Emma, Claire, KatieLynn, & Dean

Our Girl turns 4!!

This year, KatieLynn wanted an 'orange' birthday party. One of her favorite shows to watch is Strawberry Shortcake, and she really likes the girl named Orange Blossom, plus her favorite fruit to eat is oranges; she eats one nearly every night... anyway an orange-themed birthday party was what she picked so we did the best we could. On Saturday, we had close family and a couple of KatieLynn's favorite friends over to celebrate. The kids ate and played, then sang Happy Birthday, and ate and played some more. It was a fun party!

KatieLynn passes out some of her oranges to Claire, Emma, Dean, and Hadley.Monday, March 30, was the actual birthday, and KatieLynn chose to have lunch at Chuck E Cheese. The kids had a large time playing, climbing in the tunnels, and eating pizza, and I think even Darren had fun.While Dean will eat practically any dessert, KatieLynn is a little more pickey. She does love icing, but not a cake fan, and ice cream is one of her favorites. On her real birthday she asked for brownies and ice cream for dessert, so that's what we fixed.This past weekend, we went with Darren to haul hay to the cows. The kids loved playing on the trailer while Daddy loaded it up.While Daddy & Dean fed the hay to the cows, KatieLynn picked flowers and stacked up rocks. Special things

• KatieLynn is great about finding the silver lining in all things; even when she's in trouble, she can smile and say "but tomorrow I'll get to... :)"
• Before she goes to bed, she wants to snuggle with me between her bedtime story and kiss good-night.
• She remembers Everything!
• She's good about taking turns (though sometimes she very much prefers to have the 1st turn, she then gives away the next turn very quickly)
• She always includes Dean and wants to make sure he has what she does.
• She gives great hugs and kisses.
• KatieLynn is very confident, but also knows her limits, whether it's physical or social, and she stops when it's too much.
• She's a great eater! Queso and chips is her favorite (she is after all my daughter!), but also loves pizza and red meat. She likes practically every fruit, and is good about eating raw vegtables like tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, and celery. Milk and water are her main beverages, but lemonade is her special drink.
• Playing outside is her alltime favorite: swinging, riding her pedal tractor and trike, jumping on trampoline, digging in the dirtpile, helping me in the flower beds, exploring the yard, hayfields, ricefields, riding tractors with Daddy
• Inside is fun too: Diecast Thomas and friends trains, dollhouse, taking care of babydolls, toy tractors & hay, painting, playdoh, reading books, play cooking and real cooking
• Favorite to watch on TV: Strawberry Shortcake, Thomas the Train, Sesame Street

I truly can't believe the little baby I brought home from the hospital 4 short years ago has grown into the sweet, young girl she is now. As soon as she was born, I loved her more than I could have ever imagined, but now we love her even more! God has blessed us so much! I pray that we will be Godly parents and good examples for both our kids.

Houston Rodeo Days

We had a great time at the rodeo this year! We wound up going 3 times; twice with the kids, and once without. The kids said they loved the horses and the fireworks the best. The kids loved the rodeo. Ever since, we've had lots of 'rodeos' in our garage, including calf roping, steer dogging, barrel racing, calf scramble, and mutton busting (kids riding sheep). We attended the Toby Keith concert, but we didn't stay very long because it was just too loud. I know I sound really old when I say that, but truly, it hurt our ears. Darren and I went back by ourselves to see Brooks-n-Dunn. The rodeo was very exciting, as it was the finals, and although the concert was loud, it was nothing like before... the music was great, and we stayed to the end.Waiting in line for the pony rideDean loved the pony rides; he talked about it for days before and days afterward!KatieLynn, too loved the pony rides!We rode the park-n-ride, and there was a girl on the bus who had the same shirt as KatieLynn; they were both quite excited!! For the next two days, KatieLynn kept asking me when she could play with her new friend from the bus. I said I didn't know where the girl lived, and she came up with "Maybe we'll see her again next year at the rodeo."Playing at Zube Park with the Gracie & ChipperThe girls are up high! Today is KatieLynn's 4th birthday; hopefully I'll post more soon! :)