Somebody had a birthday!

And it was our little man, Ryland. He's three now! Seriously, where has the time gone?!!!

Chris' mom has started the tradition of sending the kids birthday balloon bouquets. They are always a huge hit! Here's Ryland with his special balloons on the big day. (The big red ball in the background is a new bouncy ball he received at his party. All new favorites go on the couch, no matter how big they are!)
Ryland informed me that he wanted a dinosaur party (kind of like a certain older brother had a few months ago) so were happy to oblige, reuse the saved decorations, and make sure guests knew that he wanted dinosaurs for presents. Uncle Zeb made sure to bring the biggest one. Ryland's giving us a good roar in this picture.

Here's the happy guy with his stash of presents. Ryland's been a little moody the last few months, but not on his birthday! We all wish every day was his birthday!

Check out the amazing cake my mother made for the party! It was a huge hit with the boys! Ryland especially loved that he got to keep the dinosaurs from it.

The party boys. I never did get a good one of all of them. I have to admit, this was a fault on my part. I took pics of the cake festivities and present opening, but didn't get any of the kids playing! And there was a lot of playing since we sprung for a BOUNCE HOUSE this year! How did I not get pictures of the bounce house?!!! Oh, silly distracted Mommy.

All in all the party was great and we are all happy to see Ryland leave his two's :) Seriously, he is such a neat kid. I get to see the best of him since he's a momma's boy and still loves to cuddle with me. He has an amazing imagination, and will play pretend with his toys all day long; with Cade usually, but also by himself if Cade's not home. He loves books, even if they don't have pictures. He'll adopt the most random books (his favorites are giant adult Bibles) and carry them around everywhere. Just last week he came home from the library with a volume that contains the entire chronicles of Narnia--all because there's a lion on the front of it. He has also begun making amazing craft projects at church and at school. He apparently doesn't talk much while there, but he likes the crafts. He's got a mind of his own, and I'm excited to see him really growing up.

Happy birthday to my sweetie!

Firsts and Seconds

It's been both fun and busy around here with all the new activities a four year old can do! We decided to try a few organized since sports, since Chris likes sports just a little bit.

A moment Chris has been looking forward to for over five years. Yes, Cade is only four--Chris started fantasizing about his baseball player from the beginning of the pregnancy!

We also started Mommy's favorite, soccer! And guess who ended up being his coach? Good thing he's still young enough to think it's cool to have Mommy as his coach!

And here's Cade's (ahem) second day of school. Yes, I was too much of a loser to get the camera out for day one. He was especially excited about his new Diego backpack. It has wheels, so he rolls it along to and from the car and thinks it's really cool.


Sometimes it's hard to believe how grown up my little firstborn is becoming! He's one of the silliest kids I've ever met, but also one of the sweetest. He often tells his family members that we are special, he loves to hold doors open and help people, and he's pretty good about using his manners. He's a fun little guy!

What I Did Last Summer

Growing up, did you ever have to write one of those "What I Did Last Summer Reports" for school?

I didn't. I was homeschooled :)

So, I guess this is my chance! Thanks by the way, Natasha, for the picture locating tip. I knew there had to be a better way!

First big news of the summer.............drumroll, please..........we moved!!! That's probably not a big surprise to my blog readers; most of you probably knew months ago. But now you get to see some pictures and hear the story. Or read the story. Whatever.

We knew when we moved into our little house (just before Cade was born) that we'd eventually want to move somewhere bigger. Fast forward four years, add three children, and we were feeling a little cramped. We decided to "test the market" and put our home up for sale, and were actually surprised to sell it in only five weeks! After putting a contract on a house not too far away (OK, 30 minutes away,) we began the fun process of packing.

Ryland wanted to make sure I didn't forget to pack him! Better not forget the baby either! He asked me to put her in there with him!

Here are the boys helping Daddy fix a few things after the inspection.

Once moved out, we had about two weeks to kill before we could move into the new house, so we went on vacation. We visited Chris' parents and went to the coast for the kids first chances to fish and to go to the beach! These first pictures are technically before we went on vacation, but they're representative of summer fun, so here you go.

We love swimming at Miss Angela's house!
It was Maylee's first time to swim!
I love this picture...
And this one...
Cade was really brave that day. He would later get a little more scared of the water.

We also had a lot of fun swimming and fishing at the coast with Chris' parents and aunt and uncle.

1st time at the beach!

We all caught plenty of fish, but Mama got the biggest one of the trip. Check out this mammoth!

The kids all caught their first fish...even Maylee!

After returning from the trip, we prepared to close on the house (this is where the pictures end; we're having some transfer issues.) But, surprise! The incompetent appraiser couldn't get our paperwork right and we ended up with another week to kill. Praise God for generous friends who took us in for an entire week! Cade was not a bit upset. After all, how many 4 year olds get to live with their best friend for a week?

Moving in went well, and we are so happy with our new house! I'm having a little too much fun decorating (the credit card statement will prove that) and Chris is enjoying a shorter drive to and from work. I wondered if the kids would have any adjustment difficulties, but after a few days in the new house we drove to our old one to pick up some mail that hadn't gotten forwarded, and Ryland started crying when we approached the old house. "I want to go to the new house!!!" No difficulties there! Could have something to do with the large playroom...

Finally, shortly after moving in, Chris got a new job at EPRI on the sales team. This is a huge blessing for us. Chris has long desired to do something different and felt there was nowhere to go in his position. Now he has new things to do and learn, more opportunities, and a pay increase to help with the little mortgage increase we took on. God was very good to us!

And those have been the major events of our summer! We have a busy fall planned, and HOPEFULLY we can figure out our camera issues to post some more pictures. I'll also post more of the professional pictures we had done in my next post. The post is overlong as it is! Thanks for caring enough to read it all!

I could be lying

I would love to write a nice long post updating about our move, our vacation, and what the kids are currently up to. I would like to include lots of pictures and make it a really good post. My problem is, I've never figured out how to find my pictures through Blogger's browse function without going through, naming them, and resaving them from the Kodak file to Documents.

Any advice?

Otherwise, I could be lying about updating soon.

Maybe Soon?

Yeah, yeah.

Three months without an update. What could I possibly have to say about the last three months anyway?

OK. I promise to write something soon...like tomorrow or the next day.

At least I got a few new pictures up! More to come...

Little Gangsters

I hope this isn't a vision of the future, because my boys are temporary tattoo addicts! Of course, it doesn't help that the Easter bunny found a package of 1000 animal tattoos at Target for only $2.99. A cheap and sugar-free way to fill some of those eggs!

And now we have tattoos for the next 4 1/2 years.

Cade's "wooly mammoth." He spent a week baring his chest to anyone who took notice of him.

And Ryland spent a week asking people if they wanted to see his monkey. Oh my.

Most of the tattoos are cute, but this snake is a little thuggish for my taste!

The boys were excited that we were going to go swimming the next day and insisted on wearing their goggles everywhere. It really added to the unique look, especially when Ryland decided to pair it with my new necklace.

Almost every day they ask for new tattoos to replace any that have washed off. These two have been covered for a few weeks now! Let's hope they're getting it out of their system.

A Day in My Life

Here's a sampling of actual comments from my kids today:

"I want a lava lamp--with jellyfish in it!"

"I peed on the couch."

"But Nolan's lava lamp has jellyfish in it."

"Does God have a remote control to start the rain?"

"Peas make you fat and slow."


and...



wait for it...


"Ryland broke his lava lamp!!!"

It's all a matter of perspective

Recently we took the kids to the children's area of the Dallas Museum of Nature and Science. It's a reallly fun place, with lots of themed rooms and little activities. One room is farm themed, and has lifesize stuffed animals around the walkways. I said, "Look, a goat!" to Ryland, and his reply was, "That's not a goat, that's a WILDEBEAST!!!"

Hmm...you think maybe we've seen too many movies featuring African animals? Especially since he next called the collie a lion?

*****

Cade and Chris were having a conversation about Easter the other night. Chris was explaining a few things that we celebrate about Jesus, and had said that Jesus went to be with his father in Heaven.

Cade: "Where is Heaven?"


Chris: "Well, it's a long way away."


Cade: "I know where Heaven is then."


Chris: Really? Where is it?"


Cade: "It's in Austin."




Crazy boys!!!

Little Sweetheart

We spent the weekend in Austin with Chris' family, and his mother got some wonderful pictures of Maylee while we were there. I've got to share the sweetness!

She loves playing this bouncer that I rigged with a carseat toy.

" What keeps flashing at me?"

Cade loves making his sister laugh...and he's the only one who can do it!

" My mom sure thinks something is funny!"

"I think it's pretty funny, too!"

Zoo Trip!

We took our first zoo trip as a family of five last Saturday. Maylee was a champ, hanging out in the sling and even taking a little nap in there. The boys knew exactly what they wanted to see and do, so we made sure to hit their favorites: the elephants, giraffes, and carousel.

The carousel has an elephant and a stegasaurus right next to each other. Perfect!

So many of my posts just have the boys since I'm usually the photographer, and Maylee's often sleeping. In this post I'll be sure to prove our existence!

Little snoozer

She's awake and smiling on camera! That might be a first!

Here are the boys, ready for action!

I've just discovered that on my new laptop there's an easier way to locate my photos to upload. This just might increase the frequency with which I get pictures on here! Notice I say might. Don't want to get anyone's hopes to high!

Sorry if this post seems a little scattered. It's just a reflection of me lately!

A Few Funnies-Edited to Add One

[Edit:I knew I was forgetting something! The last comment was added 3/17)]

OK, I really need to write something substantial, but it's late. Where does the time go?!!! I just can't stand that fact that I still have my Christmas post up, so I'll document a few funny things the boys have said recently. There might be more if I wrote things down, but oh well.

Sandy: "How old will you be next Saturday, Cade?"
Cade: "Four, and then I'll be five, and then I'll be a DULT!!!"

Mommy: "Ryland, that's a no-no."
Ryland: "It's a yes-yes for me, Mommy!"

Mommy: "How do you spell your name, Cade?"
Cade: " C-A-D-E-F-G..."

Cade: (Out of the blue) "Mommy, I don't want to go back in your tummy. It's dark in there."

I've got to try to remember to write their little sayings down more often. Kids are hilarious!