Hannah’s 5th Birthday Party

When I booked Hannah’s party this year I was thinking that Henry would be about 2 weeks old, so I didn’t want to have it at our house. With that in mind, we booked it at a local ballet studio complete with a prima ballerina! Because baby boy was early I probably could have pulled off something a little simpler, but Hannah had a great time and it was such an easy party (if there is such a thing).

Getting ready.

Set-up.

Doing a little warm-up with the ballerina.

Story time. She read Angelina Ballerina and Sleeping Beauty. (She looks a little scary in this picture). They all sat quietly and listened.

Playing freeze dance to “Let it Go.”

And take a bow.

Nathan watched from the sidelines.

After the studio time we went back to have cake, make a craft and open presents.

Nursing break in the massage chair. I think this is for the professional ballerina’s in the studio, but a few of us took advantage of it.

Sweet birthday girl on the way home. She NEVER naps anymore, so I know she was worn out. Birthdays are hard work!!

Afterwards, all of our family that was in town came back to our house for dinner. Scott grilled steaks and we had fun just hanging out. This is the only picture we have, but there was good food, kids on the swing set, a game of Bocce ball going on, and good weather.

Henry with GG.

Thanks to all of those who came to help us celebrate our sweet girl and we missed the ones who couldn’t make it!

Easter

Easter is a little bit of a blur for me since Henry was only 3 weeks old. But I know we had fun because I have the pictures to prove it!

Dying eggs on Saturday.

Scott got up Sunday morning and hid the eggs and the kids had fun finding them.

After our Resurrection Rolls for breakfast, we played with our new toys from our Easter baskets: bubbles, water guns, and butterfly nets. They had fun squirting Daddy.

Father/son standoff.

Then Scott and the kids got ready for church. Nathan was throwing a pretty big tantrum at this point and wouldn’t take a picture.

He felt much better when they got home from church.

.

I stayed with home with our sweet little Henry.

Fort Worth Nature Center

I took the kids to the Fort Worth Nature Center one Saturday so Jennifer could get some rest.  In all the time we’ve lived here, this was our first visit.  It is a pretty neat place and one of the largest city owned nature preserves in the country at over 3000 acres.  We packed a lunch and headed out to enjoy some good weather, wildflowers, and hiking.

Here we are on the first hike.  We were just getting warmed up.  Nathan was doing this strange pose for the pictures

Hannah was very prepared.  She wore her hiking clothes, sun hat, and pouch for collecting.  She also carried her magnifying glass and water bottle.  She wouldn’t let me carry any of this stuff the whole time.

For our next hike, we went out on the boardwalk over the marsh.

Sweet brother and sister.

Hannah spotted this caterpillar and named him Slimy.  She picked him up on a stick and we took him for a ride to the other side of the park to our final hike. She eventually found him a new home in the woods and let him go.

They liked climbing this tree, until they saw some ants crawling on it and both of them started screaming.

After we ate our picnic lunch, we tried one more hike out to Greer Island.  About half way through that hike, they were both worn out and started getting whiny.  About three-quarters of the way through, they were both beyond worn out and started crying and pitching fits.  We finally made it back to the car and headed home.  Nothing like pushing the envelope a little to far with preschoolers.

Overall, we had a great visit and I’m sure we will be going back to explore the rest of the trails.  Next time we might take the canoe and do some paddling.

Camping Spring 2014

We bought the Suburban on a Friday morning.  That afternoon, I loaded the kids up and headed out to go camping.  We had reservations at Dinosaur Valley for Saturday, but there was a strong forecast for severe weather so we moved our trip up a day.  Since it was the week of spring break, all the parks were booked solid.  The only place I could find was Meridian State Park which had 1 site left and was about 25 miles past Glen Rose.

When we got there, we set up camp first.  The site itself was nice, but it was within a few hundred feet of the FM road that ran parallel to the park boundary. Even though the road was not very heavily traveled, we heard more than our fair share of road noise.

We did some exploring.  First we took a hike in a dry creek up to the lake. Then we went on a little bike ride on a paved trail which worked out perfectly.

We ate some hotdogs cooked over charcoal (thank you burn ban)

The kids played tag with some big kids at the next site over.  Pretty soon we were in the tent.

This was Nathan’s first time to actually sleep the entire night in the tent which was a big step for us!

The next morning, we had breakfast, broke camp, and then headed back towards Glen Rose. We have been to Glen Rose several times to visit Dino Valley, but have never driven all the way through town.  On the way to Meridian, we noticed “Big Rocks Park” and decided to stop on the way back.  It was a pretty neat city park along the river with big rocks for climbing.  We had fun scrambling around and since it was early Saturday morning, we had the entire park to ourselves.

After this we picked up some donuts and went to Dino Valley.  By this point the rain had started, so we just ate our donuts under the pavilion and looked over the river.  We said hi to the dino statues then headed back home.

We had a good trip and are looking forward to taking Henry when he is big enough.

Spring Break Sleepover

I’m blessed to have three great friends who I feel like help me be a better mom and wife. And the best thing is all of our kids are around the same age and love hanging out! Between the four of us we have 11 kids! Actually, on this trip there were only 10 (little Henry hadn’t made his debut yet).

So you can understand my hesitation when one of them invited us to have a sleepover at their lake house during Spring Break…that’s a lot of kids in one house for an overnight trip. I was the last one to commit to going but I’m so glad I did. It was crazy, but the kids had a blast and it was actually easier because they were so busy playing and I actually got some great time with my friends.

Here they are lining up for their turn at the piñata.

All the big kids at the big table.

Ok. Here’s a funny story. This is what one of the bathrooms looked like.

So you can imagine Nathan’s reaction when he walked in. He had to go potty really bad (he always waits until the last second). He ran to the bathroom, looked around and said, “Where’s the Aggie bathroom?” He then ran outside and went potty off the back porch. That’s what he did the rest of the weekend. It was great.