Grandparents Visit Texas

My mom and dad came to Texas to visit everyone here!  We loved having them around for a few days.  The plan today was to take them out to do a little house hunting and then to see the famous Texas Bluebonnets.  But it rained...and rained...and rained...

 After viewing a fabulous house, we went for a long drive and stopped for ice cream out in Brenham.

 I think the ice cream was a big hit! 

Emily and Grandma

 

 

 Bex, Maren and Grandpa digging in!

 Sunday night we headed over to the Long's to visit with everyone.  Brad even made a special appearance!

Sam, Brad and Katie

 Brady was a journalist back in high school and college - here he is reminiscing the awesome stories he wrote!  We had so much fun listening to these excerpts and treated him like the total famous writer that he is!

Brady, Alex and Parker 

 

 Brad, Mom, Dad, Megan and Amy

 Crazy faces!

 Grandma, Grandpa, Bex, Emily, Matt and Katie

Grandma and Grandpa with all their Texas grandkids

Alex, Emily, Mom, Bex, Dad, Katie, Maren, Jake, Matthew and Parker (I love how Parker has to duck to fit in the picture!)

Memories of time spent with grandparents

In the Long's backyard, it is so difficult to stay away from the pool!  I thought this was sweet of Alex to sit and hang out with Bex at the pool.  We loved seeing Grandma and Grandpa for a long weekend!  It was my dad's first time meeting my husband and I think they hit it off pretty good!  We cannot wait for them to visit again!



Father/Son Campout

The boys had an interesting attempt at the Father/son campout this year.  After driving 2 hours out to the campgrounds, arriving around 8:45pm, the entrance was closed.  Sam drove around a bit and could not find a way into the camping area, so he and Matthew decided to call it a night and head back home.  Matthew was instantly asleep the entire truck ride home and when they got here at 10:30pm, he popped awake and wanted to camp in the backyard. 

 I had fun watching the boys put the tent up in our backyard together.

When it was all ready, I was headed inside (no girls allowed) and left them to their male bonding/wrestling match!

These two had a great time and survived the whole night out in the tent while I enjoyed my warm comfortable bed inside!  I love watching them play together and thought it was so cool that rather than coming home with a strikeout, they still camped outdoors!

 

 

Final 5th Grade Choir Performance!

 As we all know, Katie loves to sing!  But having her final choir concert for the year did not bring any tears her way - that meant that she could sleep-in on Monday mornings again!

 She loves being up on stage!

 They sang 8 songs and it only lasted 40 minutes - that's my kind of concert!

Bex was adorable cheering "Go Katie!!!"  She got quite a few appreciative looks from other families around us!  Our family did a great job supporting Katie at her choir performances this year and look forward to many more!



Choral Festival

 Katie was selected as one of the 10 fifth grade students to participate in the District Choral Festival this year!  This meant that she went to school an hour early each Friday morning since January.  This was definitely a musical year for her!  She had 5th grade choir Monday mornings before school and now Choral Festival on Fridays.

 Sam and I found a babysitter for the kids so that we were able to go watch Katie peacefully.  Their performance was at the Berry Center with 300 students total, 30 different schools participated.  Katie was the first person to walk on stage - she is heading to the left here. 

 The kids memorized 7 songs for this performance.

 They had a different conductor for each song that they met this same day.  It was a really neat experience:  I dropped Katie off at 4:30 with dinner in hand.  The kids practiced their songs with the individual directors for a couple of hours, took a break to eat dinner, and the parents came for the final performance at 7:30. 

 Katie in the very front row

 We were sitting up on the side in the stadium seating and could not get very good pictures of Katie so I had to sneak up closer for some good shots!

 I cheered so loud and tried my best to embarrass Katie :)

 She is pretty hot stuff!

 I did appreciate the hand motions that the final song had in it - so that happened to be my favorite conductor to watch!

I loved watching her have a great time up there!  And I know that she secretly appreciated my hoots and hollers for her!

She has the best music teacher, Mrs. Wilmer, and I am so proud of all of Katie's hard work this year in choir!  This was such a privilege to participate in the choral festival! 



Flower Girls

 Having 3 girls, I have come to terms with the massive amounts of flowers that are picked and brought as gifts over the years.  Usually the lovely weeds that they bring home are put into a cup of water and quickly wilt, making their way to the garbage that night.  Occasionally, a truly beautiful flower makes its way into our home and everyone gets excited!

 Here is Rebecca sporting the very beautiful red flower (picked from our front yard - not the neighbor's thankfully)

And now we have Emily trying it on for size!

I love all the flowers and happy faces that come along with them!

I also love having girls that appreciate these beautiful flowers and the excitement that comes when they hand me a bouquet of their hand-picked flowers!  



Chipped Tooth

 On this lovely Saturday afternoon, our family headed out to Sam's workshop so that he could get a few things done and the kids could be his little helpers working on cars.  Well, we decided to have a little too much fun there and everyone took turns rolling on the roller that scoots under cars.  It was Katie's turn and she stood up and took a running start with the roller in her hands, tripped slightly during her landing, and face planted directly into the cement floor.

  Needless to say, her front teeth punctured completely through her upper lip and one tooth actually chipped.  After getting the bleeding under control, and ice to her lip, I started searching the floor for the remainder of her chipped tooth.  After awhile of searching, Katie said that she thought the chipped tooth was embedded in her upper lip.  Sure enough, I left the kids with Sam and put Katie in the van to rush to Tomball Hospital.  I wanted to make sure all the tooth was removed from her lip.  On our way there, Katie's tongue worked a lot of the tooth out of her lip.  We ended up sitting in the waiting room for 3-1/2 hours.  The swelling had gone down tremendously and we quickly got tired of watching TV.  There were only 3 people in front of us when we got there and I thought it would be a quick in and out, just taking a quick look to make sure the chips of tooth were gone before the cuts sealed closed. 

We were finally taken to this back room,off of the ER side for the less emergent cases.  And we waited in that room for 30 minutes without anyone coming to see us.  I found a sterile Q-tip and did a quick inspection of Katie's lip.  I didn't see anymore pieces and so we decided that after a long 4-hour wait, we would stop at the vending machines for a Hostess cupcake and head back to the shop to pick everyone up.  What a waste of time!  I have now had the amazing experience of the Tomball Hospital, which definitely lived up to its terrible reputation!  I kept teasing Katie and telling her that she needs to complain of chest pains - then they would take us right back! 

Katie felt pretty cool with her chipped tooth for a few days, showed it off like a trophy.  On Wednesday morning, we got into the dentist and filled it in.  Her lip has healed very well and now we are waiting for the hospital bill to arrive because we know they will want to be paid for doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!!