2nd Annual Addi Adventure & 1st Annual Cooper Camp

Kevin's parents, aka KK and G-Pa, have made it a point to spend some extra special time with both the kids. Since KK is a teacher and off in the summer, it makes since that they do it at that time. This year, Addison went for four days and those days were packed with fun stuff! Kevin and Addison met KK and G-Pa in Waco and she went onto Dallas with them. The first afternoon, they got pedicures/manicures, went fishing, built a huge tent in the living room, and had a movie night watching "Up". They had a special snack at movie night - popcorn, pretzels, and M&M's in a bowl...you can bet which one Addi was going after the most!

On Monday, they went to Six Flags! This year, Addi really wasn't interested in the "kiddie" rides and she was tall enough to do some of the other things. KK said there were a few times that she was glad that she was busy taking pictures so she didn't have to notice how high up they were - but Miss Addi was so brave and didn't seem to mind at all!

Addison also did some swimming while she was there. G-Pa must have taught her a thing or two about fishing too - I think she caught 2 small fish and 1 good size fish! Pretty impressive!
They also went to see Toy Story 3 at the movie theatre. I heard from a few people that it is kind of sad and even scary in some parts, but she really liked it. She actually HAD to have the Toy Story 3 cereal that she saw at the grocery store the other day!

Addison brought Samantha (her American Girl doll) to Dallas. She got to bring Samantha to the American Girl Doll salon to get her hair done. Apparently, they are very particular about how it is suppose to be and how you should take care of it at home (which I knew nothing about)!

From most of these pictures, you would have thought that she was there for one day considering she is wearing her Hello Kitty t-shirt in almost every picture! I promise I sent at least 4-5 outfits with her! Since she wanted to wear it EVERY DAY, KK and G-Pa took the time to wash it every night for her! Only something that a grandparent would do!!! :) I thought that was too cute!


Cooperman participated in his 1st Annual Cooper Camp from Thursday until Saturday in Dallas. He played a lot of baseball, which he is really into these days.

He even got to go to Six Flags with KK and G-Pa. This picture of him below makes me smile - he is strutting his stuff down the street like he owns the place!


They went to play at the park for a while - this boy loves to be outside! He took a dip in the pool a few times with KK. That's the best way to beat the heat after a long day in the sun!


Cooper also got to play at Chuck E. Cheese. Here he is trying to play Guitar Hero - this is another great picture that completely represents something else he is into now - guitars! Our little dude loves to jam!

We are blessed to have very fun, caring grandparents for our kids who love to be involved and make them feel special. Not only did the kids have a great time while they visited KK and G-Pa in Dallas, but we had some time to be with the other child at home for one-on-one time too. Thanks again KK and G-Pa for making the 2nd Annual Addi Adventure and 1st Annual Cooper Camp a big hit! We love you!

Take me out to the ballgame!

Even while the Astros haven't had their best season, it's always fun to go to a game. The kids could care less if they win or loose, so why not go for some summer fun?

My parents and some of their friends have season tickets to the games and since not everyone could go this time, they invited us along.

Nana and her two youngest grandbabies!

Cooper had a hard time sitting down and watching the game for long, but he did much better than I expected considering it started at 6pm. Surprisingly, we were able to stay for the entire game which ended at 8:30! He was occupied for a while when he got to have popcorn to snack on!

We played the St. Louis Cardinals (rivals for us since most of our extended family lives in St. Louis) and we won!

Addi and Grandad cheering on the Astros!

On this particular day, we also went to Katelynn's Astros birthday party at the stadium in the afternoon too! We were able to see some of the behind the scenes things at the stadium which was interesting for all of us. Too bad I didn't get any pictures from the party!

Swimming and July 4th in New Braunfels

I will have to apologize up front because all of these pictures aren't the greatest quality - I have been taking lots of pictures with my IPhone instead of my good camera. You can completely tell a difference, but my IPhone is so easy to take with me, that I tend to snap pictures more lately with it.

While Rob and Jennifer were in Vegas celebrating his BIG 4-0, we had some time to spend with my nieces and nephew and most of it was spent at the pool at Nana and Grandad's house. I broke out some of my old cheerleading skills to try to "coach" my dad and Kevin to do some stunts with the kids. Here is Kendra trying to keep her balance - you can tell my dad and Kevin did not take my advice because they are holding her all wrong, but hey, it got the job done!

Emorie Claire got the hang of the shoulder stand with my dad and Addi did a little partner stunting with Kevin. Cooper and Nana are just hanging out observing in the background!

Addi got to go to Pottery Camp with Emorie Claire and sleep over for 2 nights with her. Then, we had Emorie Claire over to our house for some fun. We took them to the pool in the neighborhood and they enjoyed it for many hours!

This picture of Cooper made me laugh - he looks like a little old man in the picture because of how he is laying with his ankles crossed and his brown "Buddha" belly! :)

We went to New Braunfels with the Evans' this year for the 4th of July. My parents took our 2 kids up on Friday afternoon, which is when Rob, Jen, their kids, and Wanda (Jennifer's mom) went up there. On Sunday, July 4th, Kevin and I drove up and we all BBQ'd, swam, and watched fireworks. Cooper was VERY SCARED of the fireworks! As soon as they started, he scrambled to my lap and had his back to them the entire time! He had his head on my shoulder and would occasionally peak in the direction of the fireworks to get a quick glimpse, but not for long.

I was trying to get a cute picture of the youngest three kids with their flags and patriotic shirts on, but most of them someone had a flag in their face or were making crazy faces like the one below! Coop and EC especially crack me up!

Near the cabins that Rob and Jennifer stay each year, they have this train and we decided to take it for a ride. It was a great little activity for the younger kids - I think Kendra and Trey would have cared less!

The weather was beautiful the entire time we were there. We went to Schlitterbauhn for a half day also - the kids loved it! Cooper was still a bit young, but they had several play areas for young kids there too which was perfect.

Rob and Jennifer met in New Braunfels at the cabins they stay in around 1987! Jennifer's family has been going for many years even before that. After they started dating, married, and having their own kids, they continued this family tradition every year around July 4th. I have been there a few times over the years when I was younger and before kids, but this year was by far the best. I can see why they love taking the kids each year - what a great family tradition! Thanks for letting us be a part of it!

Taste of Addison and Dallas trip

In May, we took a quick trip to Dallas to visit Kevin's parents (aka KK & G-Pa). Katie and Scott also went up the same weekend. The kids always get to fish and feed the ducks right by KK & G-Pa's house.

Here are our little fishermen... We also went to the Taste of Addison (for those that don't know, Addison is the name of a city near Dallas). It is a big outdoor festival with lots of different restaurants that set up booths. There is also a concert that goes on all day and into the night. Addison thought it was pretty neat that she was seeing her name posted on everything - the water tower (below), the police cars, street signs, shirts, banners, etc.

The kids did a lot of this while we were there...


Taking a short break to enjoy the music and hugs from KK & G-Pa...

And a quick hug from mommy too.

As we were leaving, Addison really wanted to do this trampoline thing...you can tell how high she got compared to the girl to the upper right side of the picture! Even though she didn't do any fancy tricks and barely touched the trampoline because of her weight, she had fun trying it out!

Another great visit with amazing family members!

6 kids, 6 adults

We just went on a mini vacation for 4 days to Galveston with the Rentfro and Simmons' families. We had a fantastic time with everyone and had the perfect beach house to stay in - thanks to our friends, the Butler's!

We were a little shocked when we arrived to find the beaches COVERED in seaweed! When the tide was high in the morning, it was not pleasant since the water backed right up to the mounds of seaweed and would take the seaweed in and out. The shallow water was taken over by the seaweed. But, you can tell in the picture below, when the tide was out, there was plenty of shallow water to play in away from the seaweed. And at least the section of beach where we were, they groomed it a few times so it didn't cover as much area of the beach.

Kevin, Joe, and Adam had fun catching fish, crabs, and sting rays with the fishing net. They would bring them into a huge bucket that we had and let the kids look at them up close. I think all the adults found it pretty interesting too. The sting rays were all over the place....sometimes, too close for comfort. We probably saw at least 20 during our 4 days there!




Of course, the kids had fun digging in the sand and building sand castles!

We even made sure we had a few indoor activities to enjoy after being in the sun all day. We made cupcakes and each kid got to decorate their own.

Addi is showing hers off below...

Even little Reid, who wasn't feeling great the whole time, seemed to enjoy his cupcake!

The kids all loved riding in the golf cart to and from the beach and around the neighborhood. It was a lifesaver to have this instead of walking back and forth to the beach a million times!

At the beach house, we played downstairs in the yard and under the house (of course that is on stilts). Parker and most of the other kids loved this awesome swing. He was all smiles while he was in this swing!

Since water balloons were such a hit a few weeks ago, what better place to play with them again? I guess this was Cooper's attempt to blow a balloon up for us!

I just love this picture of Tiffany and her babies...Rylee and Parker!

We also brought two bouncy houses to have in the yard. The kids enjoyed those - they thought it was fun when we were tossing the water balloons off the back deck down to the bouncy houses! Can you see Addison's excitement???

Rylee enjoying playing outside...what a sweet little smile! :)

This pretty much sums up the relationship between Cooper and Cole - even with their age difference (2 years), these two have a ball playing together! They are both wild and crazy, but super sweet and adorable at the same time!

The trip was a blast like always...it was hectic and stressful at some points. But what do you expect with 6 kids under 4 1/2, and 6 adults (some of which also act like they are kids!)!

Daddy's Day

How did this little guy...

And this little girl....

Get to be so lucky to have the best daddy in the whole world?

Not really sure what we did to deserve him, but whatever it was, I am sure glad we did it!

I am so, so, so thankful for what an amazing husband and father Kevin is to us.

Happy Father's Day, babe! We love you!

And Happy Father's Day to my dad and dad-in-law! You guys rock too!

Memorial Day weekend & Gymnastics

So those of you that have a blog know how annoying loading pictures is on here...I don't understand why it has to be difficult. Unless I am missing something (which could be the case since I am still a little new to the blog world), I have resorted to looking through my pictures and loading them from what I want to be the last picture to the first picture...and don't dare get them out of order because I have a hard time moving them up and down within a post. I wish you could just copy and paste them where you wanted them to go, but no luck with that! And sometimes it allows me to drag and drop and other times it won't! So, anyone that has any tips to making this blogging experience more "enjoyable", feel free to share with me!!!

Addison has loved our activites this summer - one of which was going to the Butler's beach house with friends on Memorial Day weekend. She and Chloe were loving this swing! We are going back again next week with 2 other families (Simmons' and Rentfro's) and staying for 4 nights - we can't wait!


Cooper has been loving this hat - and I just can't resist his little curls peeking out from under it! His speech has taken off again lately - he is saying many full sentences and it's made him seem so grown up now! He is not such a little boy anymore! :(

You can tell from Addison's shirt, she is in love with Hello Kitty. She also shocked me the other day when we went to my nephew, Trey's 5th grade performance. They sang several songs and some groups of kids danced (Trey and about 6 other boys danced to a Michael Jackson song!). There was also a slide show of the kids pictures with music. Addison amazed me when she was singing along with several songs that I didn't even know! Come to find out, they were Hannah Montana / Miley Cirus songs. They listen to different CD's in the classroom at school and that's how she learned them all! So, now the kids have a playlist on our iPods that include those songs and more! :)

Cooper was so into his boots on this particular night, he just had to wear them to bed! I wish I would have gotten a picture of a few nights later when we wore his sunglasses to bed...it was super cute! He surprised us the other day when he counted to 10 in Spanish! His new teacher tries to incorporate a lot of Spanish words into their activities! He has started to "try" to go potty now, with no luck so far. We bought him his first pair of underwear the other day and when I showed them to him, he yelled out "Chumpies". I laughed so hard - that is what his teacher calls them at school!

Cooper's gymnastics just finished up for this semester - HE LOVED IT! When we would be waiting at the stop light to turn onto the street where the gym was, he would start screaming "Nastics! Nastics!" and kicking his legs with excitement! Did I mention that he LOVES it?

This child is a HAM and he is not shy! As you can see from the picture below, he is accepting his ribbon on the podium and waving to the crowd!

On the other hand, we have Addison on her performance day at gymnastics. They were suppose to come out when their name was called and do a favorite trick on the mat. This is how she was introduced....she would not come out by herself - her teacher had to carry her because she was being so shy!

After a bit, she warmed up and actually did very well during the rest of the class! She loves her gymnastics class!

Addison accepting her medal - a bit different acceptance than her brother. She got up on the podium, they put the medal around her neck, and off she went to sit back down! It's pretty interesting that we have almost 2 extremes!