Monday's

 Mondays are my favorite day of the week! Jason and I don't work on Mondays so for the most part we spend the day together as a family!  This day we tried a new hamburger place and went to look at the trains.

 Karis likes to be able to see what's going on and she especially likes it when she can see her brother! She was so happy sitting at the table like this while we ate! Cody makes her smile faster than any of us!



Pictures off my phone...

Happy Boy who doesn't want to give up his carseat. :) He still meets the requirements but it really is time for the booster seat.  

 Smiley

 Just relaxing

 Clean baby...silly face!

 Breakfast date at Chic-fil-a before meet the teacher for his Pre-K class.

 Cody was armed with water balloons waiting for Jason to get home. This is his new discovery and so much fun to do!

 Karis loves to hold anything she can grasp and get to her mouth.

 Walking to the donut store...Cody's request one morning.

 He was excited about his new minion jammies until I asked for a picture.

 Waiting at the doctor for his 4 year check up. He knew shots were coming and was very brave!

 Cody has a new love for dinosaurs and play doh makes the perfect food to feed them.

 He was sad that he doesn't get to use his napmat at school this year so he likes to lay on it at home.

 Sweet sleeping baby girl

Little Sister

Sweet Karis smiles will make our day!!  The best thing is how she lights up when she sees her brother and how sweet he is to her!

She found her feet and loves to hold them.

 She also found her thumb...it's super cute but still wondering how attached she will be.

 She loves to grab and hold little toys and tries her best to get them in her mouth.

 We say she smiles with her eyes and she totally does! They are deep blue and will hopefully stay that way!

Boy Family BBQ

 We love our friends and their boys!! Poor Karis is the only girl...but she got plenty of snuggles from the boy moms! Cody loves these church friends and getting to spend time with them is a highlight!  This night they played at the park and went swimming! Such a fun night...thank you to the Hayes for hosting!

 And I love the momma's! Some of these ladies I have been friends with for awhile and others I am just getting to know! What a blessing! The dad's were there too but didn't think they needed a "boy dad" picture!

YMCA of the Rockies and Estes Park

 In August Cody, Karis and I traveled with Jason to Estes Park, Colorado.  He was leading the high school summer camp and since I was on maternity leave it was an easy decision for us to all join in the fun! Especially because it meant getting away from the Texas heat and into the mountains! There was so much for Cody to do but by far his favorite place to be was the park and he almost always made a friend!

He love this spinning bowl. In fact, when it was time to head back to Texas he requested we go to the park to do this one more time.

 Our students are so sweet to our kids and let Cody play right along with them! He loves the attention they give him and we love the influence they are in his life (and someday, Karis'). Here, they were playing hacky sack and would let him start the ball every time.

After lunch one day the students were standing around talking and made plans to meet up and play baseball.  Cody was with them and came over to where I was and said "mom, I have a baseball game to play in a few minutes". So off we went to join the game.  They let him bat and he actually hit the ball and ran the bases. I was amazed at how well he paid attention and actually "played" the game. He watches everything the students do and when we got home we were shopping and he wanted to buy a bat and ball "just like they have" so we can play in our backyard.

 He would stand next to someone on a base or in the field and help them play their position.

 He helped daddy a lot too!

Karis was a trooper hanging out with us!

 There is a miniature golf course at the camp and we had fun playing one evening! Because Jason was there for work I had a lot of time where it was just me and the kids. We had fun just spending the days outside and finding different fun things to do.

 We took this bus and Jason's truck. Cody got to spend a lot of time riding on the bus while we followed in the truck.  He basically only got in our truck to sleep and was very disappointment when his time on the bus was over.

 We love a good road trip...especially if it takes us to the mountains! We are so blessed to have kids that travel well...they don't really have a choice; we like the adventures. :)

He wanted to hold her...

...and was so proud of himself!  I'm guessing by her expression she didn't feel too secure and it only took seconds for him to declare that she was "too heavy!" But I love how super sweet he is to her and his desire to want to "hold her standing up"! She loves when he pays attention to her!

Great Wolf Lodge

 We took Cody to Great Wolf Lodge for our stay-cation in August.  To say he was excited is an understatement!  He had no idea what Great Wolf Lodge was before we got there.  We had tried to explain it and show him pictures on the website but it didn't do it justice. He loves to stay in hotels and was looking forward to that the most.  When we walked in and this is what he saw as we were checking in he flipped out!! We went to our room to change and he was bouncing off the beds and couldn't get to the waterpark fast enough! He even got to ride in a inner tube with one of us and go down the big water slides! He is already asking when we can go back!

He saw the other kids wearing these wolf ears and wanted some for himself!

At night they have a story time in front of this set and he had fun going to that! 



 

We had one exhausted boy!

And once again, Karis spent the night with my mom so the 3 of us could do "big boy" adventures! We can't wait till she is old enough to join in the fun!

How we stayed cool this summer....

Well, as much as I love my job and the flexibility I have being able to work so much from home....I really enjoyed my 13 weeks of maternity leave and having a care-free summer with my kids! Obviously, since Karis is a baby we spent the summer doing fun things for Cody. Thankfully, Karis has been easy enough to go with the flow and we had a great summer together as a family! We visited my sister and nephew in Austin once, my grandparents in Seymour twice, Jason's parents came for a week and Cody, Karis and I tagged along with Jason for a week in Colorado with the high school students but other than that we stayed home and spent most of our summer doing some kind of water activity daily!

Our favorite place to go is the Athletic Center outside pool.  We went the day is opened in June and the day it closed in September...and many, many days in between! We would either trade off who went with Cody, go the last part of the day and keep Karis in the shade, get a babysitter or my mom to come keep Karis and the 3 of us would go!

Cody's favorite times to go were when we would see friends there...planned or unplanned!

Josh and David are two of his favorite friends!

We have a neighborhood pool just up the street from us and many mornings we would go play in the pool during Karis' morning nap. She has been so good to sleep in her stroller on our outings! Cody loves to ride his bike to the pool and pack the stroller full of his pool toys.

And of course, if we had friends meet us it was way more fun than just with mommy! We spent most of our summer hanging out with the Ball's and loved every minute of our time together!

And Kylie loves baby Karis!

Some of my favorite mornings were spent with just the two of us (and Karis sleeping in the shade) at the neighborhood pool. We would go early enough and no one would be there. And it would make his day when I would let him spray me with the water toy.

Cody has never been afraid of water but didn't really know how to swim. So, he did 3 weeks of swimming lessons.  He practiced all summer and we are so proud at how well he can swim!  Josh took lessons with Cody so that made it extra fun!

There is a sweet lady in our church that teaches swimming lessons in her backyard. He knew the other kids from church and it was a great class.  I enjoyed talking to the moms during the lessons.

And of course...if we didn't go anywhere the backyard could provide water fun too! As he would say..."mom, it's ok if my jammies get wet"! A fun way to start the day!

We had many play dates at the splash park!

Playing at Parker's house in Austin!

And sweet Karis! She spent her summer in the shade sleeping since she can't wear sunscreen yet!  However, she loves bath time! She doesn't look happy in this picture but she is just super relaxed!

What a fun, fun, fun summer we had!! Pre-K starts for Cody in 2 days and he is ready to be back at school! I am thankful for the time I had at home and for the flexibility in Jason's job over the summer and all the family time we got as well as spending lots of time with friends!