{Fourth of July -- 2014!}

Our annual trip to the bay over July 4th did not disappoint this year! Going away with the boys is pretty exhausting, but it is so much fun. Here is our trip in a nutshell...

 

We did some fishing...

(unfortunately we didn't catch anything)

 

 

 

Played in the pool...

 

 Went to the beach...(note the rainbow behind them!)

 

 

Ate some yummy treats...

 

 

Made dirt cups for the first time...

Experienced sparklers...
(Ben burnt his finger)

 

 

Watched fireworks...

Got injured...
(a dresser met Ben's face when they were jumping off the beds)

 Took some pictures of the kiddos in matching shirts...

(First picture shows how they felt about it)

 

 And pretty much felt like this at the end of each day... 

I came home worn out, but happy the boys had a great time. They just love the bay house! The mosquitos got bad half way through the trip, so that was a bit of a bummer. We plan to go back in late July, so here is to recovering before then!

{SUMMER!}

Summer is in full swing! We are all finally better (I got sick after my last post!) and making the most of summer these days. It feels so good to be out doing fun things with the boys again. Here is the good time we have been having...

 

1. Playing with cousin Molly! They literally are obsessed with her.

2. We have had lots of birthday parties lately which has been a blast. A few of our friends all went to dinner after one recently. These kiddos found nearby dirt and played their hearts out! Look at all those dirty hands and legs...

3. We got some major rain for a week or two. It made it hard to get out and do things with the boys, so we made the best of it by putting on our rain boots and finding puddles to jump in. 

4. Last week we went to WonderWild with some of our friends and then ate lunch at the Black Walnut. These boys insisted on getting on the red pepper.  They can literally find fun anywhere.

5. That same day we also went to visit the Soto exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts.  It was so cool! Unfortunately not much else was kid-friendly so after about 20 minutes of getting the evil-eye from the security there because the kids were running around like crazy, we headed out. 

6. Luke and Ben are such good friends. They still fight a bunch, but they are truly each other's playmate and buddy. It fills my heart so much with joy I can hardly stand it most days. The other day I looked back and they were holding hands in the car.  Of course, I snapped a picture!

 

7.  I had been hearing all about the We {heart} Houston sign and I finally took the boys!  It was extremely overrated and slightly dangerous. It is right off the freeway so cars are flying by us just feet away. So it was hot, scary and not much to do. But it does make a great picture!  So we stayed all of two minutes with the promise of snow cones!

8.  And so we had snow cones!!  The pictures show how much fun this was...

9.  Every year I get Fourth of July shirts from Old Navy and take some pictures. The boys found the shirts early, so guess we they have been sporting all week?!?!

10. Luke won some of these teeth in a vending machine this week and he has been 'scaring' us quite a bit. Ha!

11. It is freaking hot here. Their sweaty heads just show you how much. This was at 9:30 am after about 20 minutes after a park. Needless to say, we cannot skip baths at night. They are a MUST!

12. Several evenings a week, we get out the baby pool and sprinkler till daddy gets home from work.  It gets us through that last hour or so. Luke is starting to get a bit devious because he likes to trick Ben into doing things and squirting him, etc.  It is a bit hard not to show them that I am laughing :).

 

 

We are headed to the bay house for the Fourth so I know I will be back with lots of pictures!  Hallelujah for the sickness to be gone from our house and for summer to be full of fun instead of germs!

(Sickness, VBS, James Taylor and Father's Day 2014}

We finally are back!  After 12 days of someone being sick in our house, it is wonderful that all the boys are healthy again.  It started with Chat getting strep and flu two Sundays ago. He was sick for about five days, meanwhile Luke got sick with a crummy virus and had a fever for eight days, then Ben got sick (we even made a trip to Texas Children's last Sunday for breathing treatments).  It was a loooooong two weeks, but as of last Friday, no one had fever and everyone seemed to be in good spirits.

This was Ben when we were waiting at Texas Children's. Poor guy was a trooper!  Luckily we only had issues with his breathing on Sunday and the rest of the week he just felt crummy and had some fever. 

I felt like the boys were okay even though they had fever. We watched a lot of movies and tried to lay low, but they sometimes still played and goofed off.  This particular night, they picked their pajamas (Ben picked Santa pjs and Luke picked Micky Mouse pjs that were about two sizes too small) and then decided to raid my closet and try on shoes. At this point, I let them do whatever made them happy and kept me sane for those two weeks we were stuck inside.

The boys and I had VBS at our church and even though they missed a bunch of days due to their illness, they both got to be there on the last day.  I volunteered all week providing snacks to the 550 children that attended and it was super fun!  Except that most of the days, the boys were home with our babysitter because they were too sick to go.  But the last day was great and they got to enjoy the big celebration after it was all over...

 

At the carnival afterwards, Ben saw the teens spray painting kid's hair. He immediately insisted on green (of course Ben would want this)! Luke wanted red and unfortunately it didn't show up in his almost-black hair. The teens doing it practically sprayed his scalp from like an inch away, so days later we are still trying to get the red off his scalp. I am hoping lucky number five shampoo will do the trick tomorrow!

 

 

 

After those crazy two weeks, Chat and I really needed a night out. Luckily we had lined up a babysitter weeks ago because we headed to the James Taylor concert on Saturday. We love James Taylor so much. For some reason, I always listened to him during both of my pregnancies and we went to his last concert in Houston when I was pregnant with Ben. I just have a real connection to him and his music and the concert was amazing. For a man in his mid-60s he put on an amazing show!

Father's Day was seemed to sneak up on us...maybe due to the illness plaguing our house. But it was still a nice day. We all got up and went to church this morning.  This was the only picture I got of Chat and the boys.  It was walking into church hand in hand.  It is cute, but so sad I didn't get their faces! 

We then went to my parent's house for lunch. It was a zoo with all the cousins, but still fun. Here is good ole Grandad with his two grandsons.

 

The rest of the day we hung out at home and played in the sprinkler. These pictures are actually really nice looking, but let me tell you, there was a lot of laughing, but a whole lot of screaming and fighting between the boys. They were both getting upset because they wanted to be the 'leader' of the two going through the sprinkler. Well...pretty much in between the fits of giggles, there were screams and tears.  Yay!

 

 

 

(Luke has really gotten into climbing trees all of a sudden!)

 

 

(This was more like it!)

 

 

 

We still had a nice day even though the fighting was there. The boys and I took Chat to his favorite restaurant Lost Tios and then we headed home for the night.  Now the boys are in bed.  Luke is asleep and Ben is still talking in his crib trying to convince me to come back in and talk with him. Pretty much our typical scene every night!

{Me at 33}

Today I turn 33.  This birthday has been a bit different than most. Usually my whole family spends it down at our bay house and everyone is in summer mode. It has always been a blast! But this year, we are at home and Chat is super sick. We got home from DC for my cousin's wedding on Sunday and Chat started to fight something. Today, while I was at bible study at church and then a meeting for Vacation Bible School, he came home from work with 101 fever. He went to the doctor and he was diagnosed with strep and flu. And he couldn't drive home he was so weak. So I went and picked him and went to the pharmacy and got him soup, etc. I dealt with driving the boys to their activities and two rather large poop explosions. So it was a rather normal to hard mom day as is and throw it being my birthday on top of it....well, not super glamorous.

 

But after I fed the boys dinner, we went on our daily walk. While I was walking and talking with the two cutest boys and I realized this is what my birthday is about at 33. Counting my blessings and happy I have the two of them to walk with even through all the sacrifice. So although it wasn't quite the birthday I expected, this day truly signifies my life at age 33 -- wife and mother. The most challenging roles I ever had, but the most rewarding. So I am going to go get my husband his medicine and sprite and read my boys their books and tuck them in tonight and be happy that this is me at 33.

 

I am sure once everyone is back to normal we will go out in celebrate, but in the meantime, I have a cupcake waiting for me when everyone goes to sleep for the night. And I am super excited!