Week in review (picture version)

We started the week with these cute backpacks....until Kate insisted on one just like WesleyAnd now we have (thanks to some very quick ordering by Mom and quick delivery by the postal service) have matching back packs!Kate coloring in one of the many coloring books my grandma brought her...and Mom has done her share of coloring as well (some times its just nice to sit down, relax and do something you haven't done since 3rd grade) Kate is getting tired of me snapping pictures....
Wesley is attempting to color as well..although he is more along the lines of scribbling

Monkey see..monkey do....he thought it was funny to see Kate cover her face so here you go...

And here we are at the end of the weekend...Wesley took a 3 hour nap today and was ready to lay down before 8pm tonight..as long as he has his blue blanket and his thumb!Jake got groomed on Friday and I'm sure it was very traumatic for my little poodle..so here is a picture of Jake on Sunday night as he's ready to call it a night (at 6pm!)

Our week in review.....

Wow...what a busy week...I don't think I personally realized how busy it was until my eyes started getting really heavy tonight and I realized I HAVE to get on and blog before a new week starts and life goes on and I forget to document some of the cutest moments ever.
Let's review....

MONDAY = first day of school (school for Kate = Kindergarten, school for Wesley = preschool)
seems pretty simple, huh? well....for the past week I've had to try to explain constantly to my 2 year old why summer camp is over and Ms. Donna is no longer his teacher and why he's a big boy and why summer camp is over for Kate and why Kate is in kindergarten and where did Miss Suzie go and where did the playground go and why they painted the sidewalk red.....for those of you who have heard me talk about my Wesley...he talks VERY good for a 2 year old..sometimes it can be a little exhausting!

TUESDAY = Mommy in The Woodlands = Dad did pick up duty. I hung around the office until 4ish to catch up with some of my favorite people who I miss dearly and then I had to run some essential errands when in The Woodlands. First errand = exchange Vanessa's watch at Fossil in the mall = if I'm in the mall might as well get Kate some M&M cookies from the Cookie Company. Second errand = picking up Cane's chicken strips for Miss Kate with plenty of extra bread. For the record I don't know how I made it back to Victoria (3 hour drive in rush hour traffic) without having to stop to go potty b/c I drank an entire Cane's lemonade and Cane's iced tea...guess I was just in a hurry to get home before bedtime to kiss my sweeties good night!

WEDNESDAY = Normal day at school and Justin and I sent in round 2 of our house plans. We are hoping to have the final version back in a week so we can put the 'FINAL' stamp of approval and get this show on the road...we are ready to start building and get OUT of this rent house! I have never missed yard work so bad in my life! I guess I never realized how much of our time and energy we invested in our house in Conroe...we miss that!

THURSDAY = Grandma's birthday. Normal day at school. Grandma called at night to thank the kids for their cute birthday card and for the next 30 minutes I had to share the phone with Wesley who insisted on singing happy birthday to grandma over and over and over again. Not to mention that he's been rehearsing ever since my birthday was over in July. He and Kate love asking who's birthday is next? Once I tell them who's birthday is next it's all over.....we have to rehearse the Happy Birthday song daily...I'm getting exhausted just thinking about Happy Birthday to Kate every night until October 8th!


FRIDAY = Normal day at school and Grandma made a stop at the house after school while she was in town for a funeral. She and my Aunt Delores stopped by to visit the kids and grandma came armed with her usual treats....bubble bath, coloring books, markers (washable thank God!) and crayons. Not to mention money for the kids piggy bank..which always sparks Kate's comments about how she's saving for college (yes...we have this drilled into her mind so she knows the piggy is off limits for now). Wesley is just happy getting coins to put in his piggy bank until he realizes he's put them all in and goes around asking everyone for more money. Luckily, my grandma has tons of patience and she thinks its just too cute and keeps handing out more (I know this will come back to haunt me as they get older but for now I just pick my battles..if she wants to spoil..go ahead..it makes them feel super special!)

Happy Birthday Grandma

All I can say is that I hope Kate and I get her genes!

She looks and feels amazing for a spry new 78!

Grandma had a party at the Senglemenn's dance hall in Schulenburg, TX on Sunday afternoon with some family and friends. I took the kids and we got to listen to some authentic Polka music courtesy of the Shiner Hobo Band.

It was very cool for the kids to experience something that is so dear to my grandma's heart. She LOVES to dance. And just for the record, besides me and the kids, my grandma was the youngest person there!

Kate's 1st Day at School

Classic puppy dog eyes =)

Kate and Chloe(Chloe was not thrilled her dad was trying to take pictures)

Kate and her table-mates being observed by Ms. Cox

So how did today go? Well..........drum roll please......

She did GREAT!

My big girl is officially in school. And she did great! I picked her up and she was on the computer with some of the other 'big girls'. I asked her if she had a good time and she said Yes! Melt my heart! I asked what she did on her first day and she gave me a very brief list of what they did (remember, Kate is not my talker, so getting details from her can be like getting blood from a turnip- almost impossible!)

She did mention playing basketball in the gymnasium, eating her pickles that I packed for lunch and coloring an Iguana and Pencil. I guess that old cliche - its the small things that count - is definitely true!

I am so proud of you Miss Kate. You are my beautiful spirit and you will go on to many wonderful things (I just know it!) But in the meantime, I'm going to cherish these moments b/c they will pass by so quickly!

After school treat - Marble Slab ice cream (she did eat it all!)Wesley and Mommy enjoying a treat too

Miss Kate is ready for Kindergarten!

Kate has been at home all week as we celebrated her transition from Preschool to Real School. Summer camp was over so that her teachers could get back to their classrooms this past week and get prepared for school to start on Monday(the 24th!)

Kate and I spent the week together having a blast! And in the middle of the fun (see blog entry below from Splashway) we had to stop and take care of some Kindergarten logistics:

1. School supply shopping (after visiting 4 stores we FINALLY got everything on her school supply list!!).

2. Her monogrammed back pack came in the mail finally. She picked out the cutest brown and pink ribbon backpack and matching lunch box on the Internet a few weeks ago and we had it monogrammed with her name. I also bought a backpack for Wesley since he will be starting PreK next year and will need a backpack at that point..plus, he is at the age now where if his sister has something he needs one too or the entire world stops moving!!! So to avoid the world stopping, he got a cute backpack. However, once HIS backpack got here, Kate suddenly realized that SHE want the same backpack as HIM. So, her cute brown and pink backpack will be used to tote things to grandma's and MiMi and PaPa's and in the next week or so we will be getting a new coordinating backpack (it won't coordinate with her lunch box anymore but it WILL coordinate with the LITTLE MAN!) No one ever said girls are easy!?!?!

3. We found this ritzy little boutique in Victoria that monograms the cutest things (note: I didn't find the shop until AFTER I had already ordered items mentioned in #2 above and paid for shipping- nice, huh?) This little boutique also has the cutest nap mat covers and matching pillows. Kate hasn't taken a nap since she was 2 so I didn't want to invest a lot of money into something she really won't get much use out of b/c this is the last year she has to have 'quiet time' in school. So secretly I was hoping she'd pick something gender neutral..and she did. She picked Wall-E. Which of course Wesley loves too. So next year this will be passed down to the little man since he is quite the napper (I think Wesley will nap into adulthood - he's going to be just like that coworker we have all have had where you can't find them for a portion of the day and you just know they are taking a nap-yep, that will be Wesley!)

4. On Thursday Night we attended Vision Night at Faith Academy. Vision Night allows parents and students at FA to visit the child's classroom and meet the teacher. Kate got to meet Ms. Cox, her teacher. Ms. Cox is a Faith Academy alumni, graduated from college in 3 years, super enthusiastic, bubbly, cute and exactly what Kate needs as she begins this journey. Kate is going to love her. We also got to meet Kate's classmates and the boys will definitely outnumber the girls (same as in Wesley's class where there are 7 boys and 1 girl!).

At Vision Night, parents also sign a school covenant where we as parents promise to partner with the school and church through prayers, service and communication so that we can build an amazing Christ-centered learning environment. I am very proud that Justin and I can provide this opportunity for our children. It's been a priority of ours since our world's changed forever on Oct. 8, 2004!

I am excited to begin this journey! Justin and I can't believe this time is already here!

Completely Incredible Day!

Nestled about 15 minutes east of my hometown of Hallettsville there is this little diamond in the rough water park that not everyone knows about (which makes it even better!). Today was a perfect day to go b/c it was sunny but overcast and breezy so not too hot but hot enough to make the cool water enjoyable. Vanessa headed to our house early this morning and we packed up the kids and headed to the water park. We played around for about 3 hours in the wave pool, lazy river and pirates cove. Kate took a bit of a dunk when she came off of one of the swirly slides and was kind of scared of the deeper water after that so she and Vanessa hung out in the wave pool for most of the day- just like they did a few weeks ago at the beach!

While Vanessa was keeping Kate company, Wesley and I went round and round on the Lazy River sitting on our tube. He was so peaceful just sitting there chilling with me. I couldn't give him enough kisses...he is so sweet! Finally, we convinced Kate to try the tube on the Lazy River and Kate and I floated along for a while. Thanks, NaeNae for spending the day with us! We love you!

Kate and Wesley ready to go to Splashway!Kate practicing her swimming while Wesley and NaeNae watchAnother little girl realized she had the same swimsuit as Kate

Wesley practicing his swim strokes (maybe a future Michael Phelps?!?!)The Splashway mascot doing the Hokey Pokey with the kids

Wesley and Mommy on the tube riding along the lazy river

Kate and Wesley playing at the 'beach'...there was real sand a few feet away from the water..which made it feel like the beach when it came to cleaning everything off as well =)

Have you noticed - no pictures??!?!

Yes...no pictures lately for this somewhat neurotic camera crazy mom! Well I can say that I have been super busy but I am never too busy to snap pictures of my sweeties. I have had the worst year of camera-luck and just laid to rest camera #3 for the year 2009. Hence no pictures.
However I got a new one today (nothing fancy as I didn't want to invest too much until this year is over and my string of bad luck passes - hoping its bad luck and not user ignorance).
So camera is charging now and since the kids and cousin Vanessa and I are heading to Splashway water park (Sheridan, TX) tomorrow, I should have plenty of cute pics to post tomorrow! MORE TO COME!

Wesley has the best big sister ever...

I always tell Wesley how lucky he is to have a big sister like Kate. I tell him that not all big sisters are as sweet and loving as she is. I do this for two reasons -

1. because its the truth! if Kate were a girlie girl she probably wouldn't find him so much fun but she does. She loves getting dirty, she loves wrestling with him, she loves every bit of it!

2. because its the truth! and in an attempt to make sure that Kate never felt shafted once her little brother came along we have always made it a priority to let her know how lucky Wesley was to have her (a ploy to build her confidence but also made sure there weren't any gaps since they were different genders and may not have as much in common as they grew older).

Here are a few pictures that express how wonderful of a big sister she is....and just for the record...we do stress to Kate how lucky she is to have a little brother like Wesley who thinks the world of her (and lately we've stressed to Kate that Wesley is not always going to be smaller than her so she really needs to watch out when she bosses him around...b/c he will be bigger than her someday...and he has a really good memory!)

Kate reading a story to Wesley (it really provides me some relief b/c he wants to read a million books each night)Kate feeding Wesley some rice crispies cerealKate finishing spaghetti and Wesley keeping her company....and the story behind the PJ's...Wesley really wanted Kate's tinkerbell nightgown but she wore it so (in an attempt) to make him happy I let him pick out some other PJ's of Kate's.....the minute he saw George the monkey he was in love...he did not care that they were pink PJ's...and they fit him quite nicely....now we will proceed to destroy this photo or Dad is going to have a heart attack.

It's Raining It's Pouring............

If you read back through my blog postings to a time in April (when we still called Conroe home) I had a post called Rain Rain Go Away. The kids were miserable stuck in side for what seemed like eternity while we got drenched! We even made comments how we couldn't wait to move b/c it 'always rained in Conroe'...blah blah blah...How crazy were we?!?!
Victoria has been in severe drought since we moved here. We probably wouldn't care as much if it weren't for the fact that we bought our dream lot with these huge oak trees that we paid a premium for....and Kate is counting on having a tree house and tree swing. We can't disappoint our sweetheart!
Justin and I used to drive out to the property a few times a week just to kill time and also look at the progress of a few homes being built out there. We literally haven't gone in over a week b/c we were sad thinking the trees may die. There are cracks out there that literally could swallow our dogs!
So tonight as a huge storm has given us much needed relief I want to send a shout out to the Big Man upstairs for answering our prayers! Kate has been praying for rain a lot. Tonight when it started to rain she said 'Why is it raining mommy? I didn't pray for rain today?' I thought it was very cute!

Full Circle

As a young girl my super passion was cheerleading....I started gymnastics at a very young age so by the time I got to junior high, cheerleading was very natural for me. And.....most girls don't stop growing when they are 12 (like I did!) so I was the perfect basket toss thrower upper, girl you wanted to have on your shoulders b/c I only weighed 75lbs!! My petiteness definitely paid off in this area. And of course as much as we as parents say we aren't going to push our kids into activities that we cherished, I think we all have that natural tendency-its comfortable for us. Justin loves football, Wesley already knows how to say HUT HUT and throw the football to him! It's just natural.

When we lived in Conroe I enrolled Kate at Flips gymnastics b/c I had heard such good things about the program and wanted to expose her to as many things as possible to see what she liked and hopefully she'd find a niche. Kate didn't really care for it. I couldn't really tell if she didn't like the skills involved in gymnastics or if there was some other reason she'd break down and didn't want to go. So we stopped going after a year. Looking back on it I think that she was just exhausted. She was attending Primrose at the time and they were super structured and after 8 hrs of super structure, she just didn't want to participate in anything...she basically wanted to veg out. Lesson learned.

So I (internally) wrote off the fact that my Kate would ever even remotely like cheerleading or gymnastics. Then when we were at Port A, Kate and Justin were playing in the water and a girl (about 8) comes running down the beach and does about 6 back handsprings in a row. Kate was just amazed..she loved it. Coincidentally the next week at her summer camp they started practicing cheers with her class. So she came home doing toe touches and saying 'Ready...OK'

She did look quite cute!

I asked her if she liked cheering and she said she LOVED doing toe touches and she showed me her jumping skills for the next few hours.

Yesterday after summer camp I enrolled her and Wesley in Manning Gymnastics here in Victoria. Kate will start an hour class on Tuesday evenings and Wesley's class is a Mommy/Daddy and me class after hers. So our Tuesday evenings will be kind of late but I think they will both enjoy it and Wesley will have a chance to see his big sister practice and also release some of his own energy.

Manning Gymnastics was the place I went to Gymnastics 27 years ago....where I learned so many fantastic stunts....where I broke my arm doing a back handspring and everyone rushed to my side. It was the place where I met Bella Caroli for the first time when he was in the prime of his USA Gymnastics coaching career. Manning Gymnastics is where I met Mary Lou Retton who intrigued me so much! Of course she did. She was an Olympian! How cool is that?!? She was also super small but extremely confident. So in years to come when I would get teased about being so 'short' I really didn't care. Mary Lou Retton had a competitive advantage b/c of her size.

So walking into Manning Gymnastics yesterday was very surreal for me. Seeing Mrs. Manning registering my kids was even more surreal. She has to be like 90 years old!
This was my first time since moving back where I really felt a good sense of why we moved back. That comfort level with the community. Being able to share my childhood with my kids. Getting involved in something that allows us to network with other parents in the community.

Now we just have to wait until Sept 8.....our first class. I obviously am just as excited as Kate! We've come full circle.

In case you may have noticed..

In the past weeks pictures...YES..WESLEY GOT HIS HAIR CUT!! This was more traumatic for me than anyone else in the family. I LOVE WESLEY'S HAIR LONGER. It is the most amazing mix of my hair and Justin's. Its straight like mine so as to NOT have the kinky fro going like his dad, but its got just enough curl at the end to make it super trendy. Even my 77 year old granny LOVED it. She always said she loved his 'Beattles hair'!
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So both Dad and I agreed he needed a trim. The thing Dad and I DIDN'T agree with is how much of a trim?!?! So the lady let Wesley sit on Justin's lap and it worked wonderfully b/c he didn't cry at all even though this is only his second time to get a 'real' haircut. Anyway, somewhere in between me instructing the stylist to only trim the ends about 1/2 an inch and Kate having to go potty, Mommy walked away for 5 minutes and Wesley ended up with much MORE than just a trim!!! He got a full blown hair cut!

Dad loves his hair (go figure since I am determined that while I was in the potty with Kate, dad told the stylist to give him his monies worth!). Kate thinks he looks like a real boy now, I like it b/c I think he looks super cute all the time but I definitely liked it longer. But the real question is does Wesley like it? Actually, he does....he figured out right away that he can make it spiky when its wet. Only time will tell if we keep the new hair do, but I plan on letting it grow back out!

Beach Pics

Kate ready to head to the beach...she had such a good time!Look at my little man's sexy belly.....he's strutting along on the beach

Kate splashing in the water....

Mommy (in between pics) was burying Wesley's feet in the sand...while Kate was determined to find shells...even if she had to out to the Caribbean to find them!