All Kinds of Stuff!!

Well, summer is winding down and that means that school starts soon - YAY!!!

VBS was a few weeks ago. Here is Avery at the closing service. I think it's a beautiful picture of her :)

And there is my handsome blonde boy!



Wade and Keith went on the boat a few weeks ago. When they got back, Austin reached for Keith - too cute!

Later that evening, we met Darlene and Eddie, Adam, D'Ana and Mia for dinner at Jax Grille in Houston. Here is Mia and her daddy :)

Avery and a surprised looking Austin! Avery has a tendency to be what we call "aggressively loving".

And here's Andy!

Darlene and Eddie with their granddaughters.

Darlene and Eddie with Mia and Andy!

Adam, D'Ana and soon to be, Abby!

And finally, me and Wade!

This is quite close-up, but a cute shot of Avery nonetheless!

Jax Grille has live Zydeco music which Austin loved :) Watch this video I took with my camera of him dancing!

This past Sunday we celebrated Grandpa's 94th birthday!!!!!!! We all went up to Brenham to see him. I made the cake and mom insisted that we put 94 candles on it! She looks a bit frightened of the cake, no?

It just looks like a fire sitting in front of Grandpa!

He got most of them out in one breath - amazing!

The mother daughter dinner is tomorrow night, so I should have some pics to post then!

Busy Week!

Wade has over 7 weeks of vacation that he hasn't used, so he decided to take a week off! We have just done some fun things around here, but it has been a very busy week!

On Monday, Avery and Andrew had Apple Camp (at the Apple store in The Woodlands Mall) from 9am-12pm. We all went and Austin played for the first time at the play area at the mall. Boy, that place has really gotten dingy and yucky! But, I wiped him down really good when he was done :)

It almost looks like he posed for this picture :) Sweet little muffin!

Oooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!



He kept saying "ooooohhhhhh" a lot! I guess despite how yucky I thought it was, he was fascinated :)



Later that evening, we took the kids to Chuck E Cheese. Here is Austin with his daddy.

And Andrew!

And Avery!

Austin waiting for his pizza!

Austin on a little firetruck ride :) He rode that at least 5 times - he loved it!

And Austin riding with Chuck E Cheese :)

Andy playing a game!

Wade on some sort of ride with Austin.

The kids with their stick on gross noses from Chuck E Cheese! We were at Best Buy and everyone who saw them laughed!

Tuesday we took all 3 kids boating at Lake Conroe. This was Austin's first boat ride. He didn't cry, but he didn't really like all the wind in his face. BUT, when we got out to swim, he LOVED that! We went boating again on Wednesday with the Edmonds, but Austin stayed with mom.

Today we went to Brenham. We took the kiddos to Blue Bell. We've been there quite a few times, but the kids love it and we enjoy it too!

The older two with the Blue Bell cow :)

After Blue Bell, we went to see Grandpa. We visited for a few hours and then took him to his favorite buffet in Brenham :) It was so sweet that Austin reached for Grandpa as soon as he saw him! Sorry this pic didn't turn out to well, but the other one I took was even worse and a few people had their eyes closed!!

That's it for now! It's been a busy week with Wade home :)

Cows, Camp & Cooking

Friday, July 10th was Cow Appreciation Day at Chick-Fil-A! If you dressed like a cow, you got a free meal. So, we all donned some spots and cow masks and our entire meal for all 5 of us was FREE!! It was totally worth it :)

Here is the little heifer, aka Avery!

Austin would not let me hold up his mask, but he LOVED the Chick-Fil-A cow!!

Here's Wade!! Yep, even he participated :)




And Andrew! He spilled chocolate milk on himself before I got this picture! And darn it, there are no pictures of me!! That's what happens when you control the camera :)

The kids went to music camp at the Apple store yesterday. 3 hours and we found out when we got there that parents had to stay in the store the WHOLE time - YIKES!! Fortunately, Austin was awesome, ate snacks and even slept during this time. We were also allowed to use any of the computers to surf the net, so that helped.

Avery at Apple Camp!

And Andrew!

Avery again....

Last night Avery helped make dinner. She pulled out one of my recipe books from when I was a kid and chose spaghetti pizza. I did the prep work that she couldn't do and then she put it all together!

Hard at work! The result was quite yummy and definitely something we will make again :)

VANS Book Signing!

About 2 weeks ago we went to Memorial City Mall for the VANS book signing. VANS has a book out and a few skateboarding legends were there to meet fans and sign autographs. We got there super early to just walk around and then so Wade could get in line early. Good thing we did, because it ended up being hundreds of people there!! We were second in line to enter the store.

Wade and the kids at the front of the line. The guy in the blue shirt is one of the executives of VANS, Steve Van Doran - his father was the man who started the company. Next to him (the grungy looking guy) is Tony Alva - a skateboarding legend - he is one of the first professional skateboarders.

Wade meeting with Steve Van Doran.


Here is Andy talking with legendary skateboarder, Steve Caballero. Wade grew up watching him skate and this is the guy Wade was excited to meet. He is a very nice Christian man and was super nice to the kids!

Avery waiting to have Steve Caballero sign her poster.

Wade and Steve Caballero!

Andy and his new VANS hat! They gave out ALL kinds of free stuff - hats, glasses, stickers, posters and more. The kids loved that :) Right before we were about to leave, one of the femal employees walked over to me and said that they had something to give us for having waited so long in line. She gave me a gift card for a custom pair of VANS shoes!! You go online and get to pick out the fabrics, etc. Wade was nice enough to let me have the shoes, so in 5-7 weeks they should be here - yay!! These shoes normally cost over $60, so I was really excited about it! They said that Austin's cuteness had something to do with why they gave us the gift certificate - can't say I blame them, LOL!!

Avery - fast asleep after being on the rode home for only a few minutes!

Austin too :) We had a lot of fun that day! Wade got to meet someone he admired, the kids behaved and Memorial City Mall is a really nice place :)

Trip to the Downtown Aquarium!

Saturday was a lot of fun! We went with the Brown's and Mosley's to the downtown aquarium! The kids all had a blast together and all things considered, the weather wasn't too bad - not as humid as normal :)

We were all on the train getting ready to go - here are the boys all squished together! From the left - Micah, Andrew, Dolan and Parker. They are all adorable, but little Micah's smile melts me!!

And here are the girls! From the left - Isabel, Grace, Avery & Katie :) Grace and Avery are in the same class and Andrew and Katie are in the same class. Isabel will be in Kindergarten next year :)

Up high on the ferris wheel!! Austin has actually been on this once before, but he was in my tummy the last time :) Katie is sitting next to me.

This is called the Lighthouse Drop. From the left - Grace, Avery, Katie and the biggest kid of them all, Wade:)



The boys were on the other side! From the left - Parker, Micah, Andrew & Dolan.




Austin's first ride on a carousel!! He did really well and only cried once :)

Avery as a deep sea diver......

Andrew as a deep sea diver!

This is one of the 4 white tigers they have at the aquarium. I learned that white tigers are born to regular orange tigers, they are not a separate breed. In the wild though, if an orange tiger has a white baby tiger, it will be abandoned - so sad!! These are beautiful and HUGE! We got to see feeding time while we were there.

One more of the tigers! They were so massive that Avery could ride one and it would look like she was on a horse :) They said that if the biggest of their white tigers stood up, it would be around 14 feet tall - HUGE!!