Lake Season

It's that time of year to head back to the lake! We spent Saturday and part of Sunday at the Glaser's lake house and had a hoot of a good time.

Luke's saying, "Go faster, Dad!". And he did which made me a little scared with the kids sitting up front with nothing between them and the lake but that little handle Luke's holding onto. I'm such a chicken.

Who needs a shirt when you've got muscles like these? I must say that if I weren't the one in control of the pictures, I wouldn't appreciate anyone posting pictures of me without written permission. I think I'm still in shock from a year ago when my well meaning niece posted pictures of me on FaceBook in my bathing suit (cellulite and all) and I almost had a heart attack. No really I screamed and threatened her within an inch of her life to ensure that those pictures were removed, STAT. She righted the wrong, I forgave her, but it's going to take a long time for me to forget that.

Luke was brave this weekend. Wouldn't it be funny if I could Photoshop a cape on him? He looks like he switched into "superhero" mode. I think he's going to have a lot of fun this summer if he can sleep in past 6 AM. More on that later.

Stella Bella Love Bug never ceases to amaze me. She took to the lake like a fish to water. She's a little fish like Brooke. She loved the lake from the moment her tootsies hit the water. She even at one point wanted me to let go of her. As if!

My almost 12 year old nephew, Joe, built this fire in the fire pit. Thanks to Uncle Steve's purchase, we could enjoy s'mores for the first time ever.

I can't believe that we went so long without these tasty treats. It almost seems like a crime. Brooke thought we ran out of chocolate so when I came out with two more chocolate bars she yells, "Praise God!". My thoughts exactly. I love that kid! :)

You probably can't tell except maybe for the look on her face, that Stella's teasing me. I told this little darling to sit down on the chair and do you think she did? Nope. She was very entertaining in her disobedience though.

I love this picture...messy hair and all. Mark just looks likes he's having a good time. So good in fact you might think our kids were in bed. Except they weren't.

Brooke's favorite cousins. Sorry everyone else, it's true. I think if she could choose to live with us or Mark's sister, it would be a close call. I'll get the bags packed. :)

This lovely lady is Grandma Kathy. She's usually behind the scenes doing everything except relaxing, but we caught this blessed moment on camera. Actually Brooke did because she's the one that took this picture. I love it when she takes pictures. A little thrill runs through me to see my daughter holding a camera in her hands. Maybe some day she'll be a real professional and be the picture taker of the family so I can stop experiencing everything through the lens of my camera.

Sister Sue even likes grandpa's boat too. Next to her bathing suit, I think the life jacket is her new favorite accessory.

So much fun and it's only the beginning of summer! That makes me downright giddy.

After I was finished feeling giddy, I felt tired, like Luke was yesterday by noon. That punk woke up at 6 AM and was a hot mess before lunch. I laid him down without eating because he was out of his mind. I had to wake him up after sleeping for 3 hours so we could go to my parents' house for my dad's birthday. More on that tomorrow.

The Monkey Off My Back

Brooke was a little slow to catch on, but we are officially finished with kindergarten as of last week. This picture above is our attempt at a model solar system, our last project for the year. It's so not pretty, but she doesn't care and that's all that matters. That and the fact we're done. Amen.

Our nod to the start of summer began last week when we invited our neighbors over for Brooke's "Clubber Member Party". If you didn't catch that it was a party for club members only. Who's in the club you ask? Anyone that Brooke likes, but since it was short notice, our neighbors were the only members invited. Your membership cards should be arriving in the mail any day now. :)

This was a funny request of Brooke's... bobbing for apples. She was very specific in that she wanted cupcakes and to play games. We dodged the bullet with the sack races because we sidetracked them with the kiddie pools and the sprinkler. Even with the smallest apples we could find, none of those fools could even come close to getting their mouths around a single apple. They didn't care so I didn't care.

Little kids need little fun to make them happy.

Brooke and Stella being "twins" in their matching bathing suits.

I think Stella didn't want to get her hands dirty.

So she sacrificed her face instead.

Mark was so brave when he rescued the toad that was still living in our window well from before we went to Houston. I would have had him get it out earlier, but I honestly thought it was gone. How's that camouflage working for you now toad?


I'm just so glad to be unattached to lesson plans and math problems. We can spend our summer reading good books and having fun. Let the good times begin!

Photos Make Me Happy

This probably won't mean much to most of you, but I am thrilled to be a new user of The Pioneer Woman's Photoshop Actions. They are a set of photo effects that I downloaded for FREE and I can't wait to use them.

Last night when I was too tired to do anything else I got on the Internet and watched a really informative video on how to install them. This opens up a whole new set of possibilities with my photos and did I mention they are free? This first one was my original.

This one faded the color a bit. I think it's kind of interesting in a sophisticated kind of way. These kinds of things make my heart beat with joy. I know. I'm a loser.

This one boosts the color. It's so lovely.

This little gem is the vintage action. I'm not sure I care for this one on this picture, but it could be really fun in other photos. There are so many more choices if I had all day to play with them I just might. I don't have all day, so I've gotta go so I can stop neglecting my children. :)

A Trial Run

We hiked down to the creek by our house yesterday. I thought it would be a cool thing to do now that the weather has been hot, but I also used it as a bit of an experiment. On Friday our Nature Club is scheduled to explore this very creek and I wanted to see if I could manage carrying Stella on my back the whole time. Needless to say, she's heavy and my shoulders were sore. We're on to Plan B since Mark won't be home to carry Stella for me.

The creek is such an adventure. To the kids' credit, they are very brave and are agreeable to whatever we ask (like climbing over this log).

Stella was happy in the carrier for most of the time, but we did let her out of her baby jail for a little while.

This is a crazy thing. It appears to us (self proclaimed novices of nature) to be a beaver dam. Last year when we came down here the left side of the dam was not built up. I kept looking at it in disbelief, it just doesn't seem possible that an animal could have built that all by itself. I'm a nerd so I've decided that I am going to get a book on beavers at the library next time we go because I want to know exactly how this big pile of sticks got there.

The water was cool but so refreshing on a day the temperature reached 90 degrees.

To his credit, Mark did take some pictures of me on our little adventure even though there aren't any posted here. I realized as I was selecting the pictures to post that I'm really a lot more vain than I thought. I looked terrible with no make-up, pasty white legs, and my spare tire was in full effect. Sad, but true. I thought my self esteem was good, but apparently I need to work on that.

Check out the legs on that girl! I wish she got that from me, but no. She'll be taller than me probably by the time she's 11. I say 11 because that is the age of her cousin and he's taller than me already.

Free at last! Stella would likely live in her bathing suit if we let her. This girl loves to play in the water and the creek was no different. She feel once or twice and then she wasn't so happy. That earned her a set of dry clothes and another sentence in the carrier.

A lovely little family. I think I'll keep them. After the fun we had hiking to the creek, I was trying to convince Mark into camping this summer. I think I've almost got him but the only problem (or one of many depending on how pessimistic you are) could be Luke's bedtime ritual. Do tents come with locks? Actually, Luke has been doing much better going to bed this week so I'm really thankful for that.

Oh, beautiful day!

Love all the sugar and spice and everything nice about them...even the piss and vinegar too. Piss and vinegar? Who my kids? You MUST have the wrong family. They don't look like they'd have a mean bone in their bodies. What you can't see is the vengeance in their hearts to make their mother's life miserable. True story. Scouts honor.

Oh, the only drawback of this beautiful little hike is this hill and maybe the snakes. This hill is long and just steep enough to make walking it not treacherous, but sweaty. Very, very sweaty. The car's at the top, so we press on and try to avoid the horse poop on the trail. We all agreed that going by horseback would be much more enjoyable, but the problem is we don't have a horse. Maybe if the camping thing goes well, I'll petition for one of those. :) Thankfully, Mark was carrying Stella on his back. I got her on the way down because I am smart like that and that is also precisely why we won't be joining the Nature Club on Friday. The brawn of our family will be on a three day trip.

Speaking of the handsome devil himself. You should see his biceps. He's been doing a lot of "curls for his girls". So manly and strong, just the way I like 'em.

A Trip Down Memory Lane

The last few nights Luke's been going to bed like he used to without a fight. I am hoping the night I called Mark at midnight to figure out how to turn the lock around on Luke's bedroom door was the turning point for him. I normally would have exiled him to the basement, but Thursday night it was occupied my his older sister who was mad at me for "not closing my closet door". I am not joking when I say that my kids have some serious issues. If were going to kill my kids, it would likely be after 9PM. Everyone lived, but it seems that night was a reminder to them that I mean business (or God's just having mercy on us). I hope that I will have the energy when Stella takes a page out of her older siblings' book. Or maybe I should start praying that God will spare me this opportunity.

At any rate what I really wanted to say is that I have this picture of Luke in a frame hanging in our hallway and the last couple days it has been catching my eye. I looked at it closely yesterday and saw the sweetness of Luke when he was Stella's age. Sometimes those sweet times seemed blurred by fatigue and frustration.

Today I wanted to share some of Luke's current sweetness which comes by way of our mealtime prayer. He and Brooke of course argue over who gets to "pray only" and I need to designate days, but I haven't gotten that far (or apparently frustrated) yet. So here goes Luke's prayer. I wish you could witness this in person because you then could appreciate the whispering and mumbling like Mark and I do.

Dear Heavenly Fadder,

Fank you for this delicious meal (or lovely meal depending on the day)

This is where he looks around the kitchen and then ultimately out the window.

Fank you for watering our strawberries in our garden and (which may or may not have happened recently which only adds to the charm)...enter mumbling and whispering.

AMEN!

Mark and I always thank him all the while we are trying to stifle a laugh and keep the shaking our heads at bay. I think if he knew we were laughing at him, he would be insulted.

Luke is really a sweetheart (despite all the complaints I've had lately). He is usually the first to tell me that I look pretty and is very generous with his kisses. He's a goof in every sense of the word and is so much more enjoyable when goes to bed willingly and he's sleeping peacefully in his bed. When he turns five, I'm sure it will be considerably easier to appreciate his sweetness on a more regular basis. But for now we take what we can get. :)

Priced to Sell

On any given day I might be trying to sell my children (especially if their behavior has be bad), but today they actually have been very well behaved. That good behavior is in large part due to our bi-annual community garage sale that was today. My mom spent the night and helped me lug my stuff out to the driveway and then manned the sale while the kids and I trolled for treasures. We weren't looking for much, but managed to find a collection of mini cars and play sets for Luke, a collection of Pet Shop stuff for Brooke, and a few other random finds. The kids LOVE to see what they can buy and I love that it's inexpensive.

The kids also enjoyed eating breakfast and lunch outside today. Because I had everything priced to sell, by lunch everything was just about sold. At 1 PM the last little bit was left we gave away. We're talking some clothes and random leftovers. I'd rather give stuff away than throw it away which I'm embarrassed to say I've done in the past out of laziness...the stuff I felt like wasn't worth calling Am Vets to pick up. My mom took a bag of stuff to donate and I think I brought 3 things back in the house. What a successful day! Not to mention I made a few bucks in the process.

Someone asked how much I'd sell Stella for and I told them that if I was making dinner she would be free, but because she wasn't driving me crazy, I'd have to keep her. She's a keeper all right.

Deep in the Heart of Texas: Part 1 of 3

We got back from our trip to Houston yesterday and I'm glad to be home. As much fun as we had, it was equally exhausting. There's more to come on that later. First I'd like to say that the kids were very good on the airplane. What Luke loved most about this trip had everything to do with transportation. Moving sidewalks, airport buses, rental cars, and escalators. Flying "standby" I've decided is no longer a perk with Mark's job. It stinks because there are only a select few flights that actually have empty seats which is why we couldn't get on the flight at 9:20 AM and had to go back and get on a 4:45 PM flight last Saturday.

Because of the late start of our journey, we didn't get to our destination until almost 9 PM which was 10 0'clock our time. They were very good even at that late hour. This cute little picture was the three monkeys in the back of the rental car. Once they got over the touching each other, I think they really enjoyed each others company. With that said, I really appreciate the minivan we own.

This was our destination. Our friends, Mark and Mickey, let us spread our crap all over their lovely home. It truly is lovely. If we lived in TX, I would want to live in a house just like theirs. Especially because they have a lovely pool to go with it.

This is the queen of the residence, Mickey. She teaches at the school I once worked at. You'd never know she's a saint with children by looking at this picture. She teaches 6th grade. Need I say more?

This is their cute little doggie, Berkley. Her name is spelled much coole,r but for the life of me I can't think of it. The Barry's are cutting edge like that. They named their daughter Caitlin way before it was on the list of most popular names.

Stella's favorite thing about our trip was either A) seeing her boyfriend, James or B) the dog's cage. I think I need one of these for our house. I would schedule time for both Luke and Stella in that cage daily depending on who was making me the most crazy.

Speaking of animals, I could have used a cage at bedtime for this punk. Luke was so good and cute all day long, but come bedtime, he was a bear. One thing I love about being at The Barry's is hanging out on their couch way late into the evening hours. They say up late which usually means lots of uninterrupted adult conversation. Not so much this trip. He is one of the reasons I was so glad to get home. You'd never know he acted like the devil with a face so sweet. Looks can be very deceiving people.

One day we drove to our old subdivision to check out our old house on East Misty Dawn Drive. The Woodlands is famous for really long street names. You wouldn't find a Misty Drive. No, it has to be John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt Avenue. This park is on the corner of our old street. Lots of mosquitoes. Lots. But see the trees? They don't call it The Woodlands for nothing.

It's a bird, it's a plane, no it's Super DAD!

Humid equals lots of head sweating for Stella.

Our friends, Janice and James, skipped school to hang out with us. Aren't they sweet? I have a feeling James (a Junior) would have skipped school if Obama was in town and he's not even a fan. :)

This was our old house. You can barely see it since the trees have grown so much and apparently the people that own it now have something against trimming bushes. It was our first house and when we lived there it was so shiny and new. It is fun to be the first ones to live in a house and to have picked out everything so you don't have to live with green Formica counter tops.

Read on for our further adventures. And pardon the obscene amount of pictures. I had a hard time choosing so I narrowed it down to these few hundred. It's a sickness I have. :)