Fall so far...

It's been a busy fall so far, and we're only about 3 weeks into the school year.  Once the kids' activities started up our schedule went haywire.  We have practices 4 nights a week!  I'm not sure why I let this happen again, but everyone seems fairly happy so far...albeit, a little confused with the weeknight schedule, and there have been a few meltdowns concerning who's going to soccer and who's going to swim.  

Cheer started up during the summer, but I didn't really take any photos until the first game.  I'm glad I did too, there's going to be quite a bit of overlap with soccer from here on out, and we might not get to the rest of the games until after they start.  "/ 

I heart cheer pics.  :)

And today was the first round of soccer games.  All three of them are on different teams...which is why our practice schedule is so crazy.  Anyway, once I got to the fields I realized I hadn't put my long lens on the camera.  *sigh*  So, no action shots. 

But I did get a buddy pic!  I'm usually terrible about getting these.

Meredith's was the last game.  So she did a lot of this and snacking on gummies.

And for how much she's claimed to want to play over the past two years, homegirl is just not that into it.  Today she cried more than she played.  She would get up the gusto to go after the ball and then bawl and fall on the ground in a huge fit when another kid would kick it away.  This is the same tactic she uses at home when she doesn't get her way.  So far I've failed at stopping it at home, so I'm not really sure what to do it about it on the soccer field.  "/  It reminded me a little of myself when I was a child with my Mom in the grocery store because it got so bad that random people were trying to talk to her and get the fits to stop.  I will never live down the grocery store stories, and Meredith will never live down this soccer fiasco!

So...here's to cloudy days and many more soccer games!

The BEACH!!!

I have been looking forward to my family's beach trip all summer. Last year we took one at the end of the summer too.  The weather was so nice, and the beach wasn't terribly packed, so when I went to schedule it for this year, I booked it for the same week!  It also happens to be a week of partly rainy/cloudy days, which makes for a pretty nice beach trip for me since I live in an area where it doesn't rain quite as much as I wish it would.

I think the reason I was most looking forward to the trip this year is because I didn't really take any time off all summer.  My kids were travelling all over the country having a ball of a summer, but I didn't really get to do any of it with them.  Which means I haven't had any photos to post...because I haven't taken any.  "/  

Needless to say, I was stoked about this trip!

Jenny pointed out to me that I'd managed to book a house within the limits of the "Zoo" at Crystal Beach.  "/  I was worried this would mean the kids would have no room to play.  The Zoo from my childhood was cars parked right beside each other all down the beach (all playing loud music) and a steady stream of vehicles cruising up and down the beach all day long.  Fortunately...that is no longer the case.  Or at least it just hasn't gotten back to that point since everything was wiped out with Hurricane Ike.  And it seems like people just don't really cruise in their vehicles anymore.  They almost all cruise in golf carts that they decorate, so it's almost like a parade!  And the cruising was only taking place on the weekend, so most of our trip was nice and pleasant.  But to be honest...the Zoo wasn't unpleasant or rowdy at all.  :)

Wallace and Anna could not get enough of the water and playing in the waves.  And also watching me catch hermit crabs (they were both pretty chicken to actually touch them).  Meredith took in a mouth full of salt water with the first wave that hit her on the first day and just wasn't really interested in the water after that. She LOVED going down to the beach to play in the sand though!

She even got Anna and Wallace interested in it.  :)

Checking out the hermit crabs.

Jenny found a boogie board one morning, which saved me a trip to the store!  Wallace loved it!  

He just seems to want everyone to be as excited about the beach as he is.  :)

anna was so into hermit crabs.  She'd take her little bucket everywhere when we were on the beach.

Josh came down for a few days, and the morning after he got there it was like glass.  There were hardly any waves.

I don't think I've ever seen fish in the waves at Crystal Beach!  I took like a hundred photos trying to catch a wave with fish in.  This was the best I could do.  :)

And we tried to save this stranded jelly fish that morning too.  Not sure if it ended up making it or not, but we tried.  

We were so close to Galveston Island that we got to see all of the ship channel traffic, which for us seemed super cool!  We'd get excited about all the cruise ships and barges.  I don't remember seeing all that last year, but we were miles down the peninsula, and it was a lot more rainy.

Jen and her boys came too this year!  There was one day when she took them to Galveston and we stayed behind at the house, and my kids were sooo bored without them!  Lesson learned.  Keep them all together at all times.  :)

Jen brought a slip-n-slide!  None of our kids really understood that you are supposed to get a running start and then slide down the slide.  Anna and Thomas were the closest to getting it right.  For the most part the kids would just run down the slide and then bust their butts.  Ha!

Meredith would prance to the end and then sit down and pose.  

Anna did just about all of her sliding on her knees.  

Meredith didn't really throw any massive fits this year.  She understandibly just gets upset when she thinks someone has taken something that's hers...like a sand castle toy.

We'd go down to the beach for the sunset almost every night.  That's actually moonlight on the water!  It was actually more of a moon rise every night because the sun sets on the other side of the island.

Hommie's hair is soooo long....

Meredith made sure to keep the door to the beach house nice and smeared.  

Granny pointed out that it was national cookie one day while we were there.  :)

Anyway.  It was such a fun trip.  I can't wait to do it next year.  The rest of the family keeps threatening to book a house at a prettier beach, but I don't know.  I'm pretty stuck on this one.  It's where I grew up going to the beach...so it just seems like the logical place to go.  I guess we'll see where we end up next summer.  

Everything in the house is breaking....

I'm totally serious.  All sorts of things are just giving out all at once it seems.  First it was the kid's AC.  We paid our annual bill to the repair man who let us know he's pretty sure we won't make it another year on that unit.  "/  Then not much longer after that, the same AC unit was leaking water down into our kitchen!!!  Apparently the AC guy had warned Josh that the overflow pan was heavily rusted and should be replaced...but Josh just likes to throw caution to the wind sometimes.  

Then over the weekend I noticed a leak under the kitchen sink.  A pretty bad one too.  Josh got under there and cursed at it for a while...made some headway, but hit a stopping point when he realized the problem extended into the copper tubing...

While he was still in his fit of frustration I took the kids to the park, and when I returned, he'd moved on to my shower...which has been leaking for some time now.  So, at that point we had 2 fixtures torn apart, and no water to the house...on a Sunday afternoon*sigh*  it seemed like a simple leak under the kitchen sink.  At least the kids thought so anyway.

They were pretty sure they could put their heads together and fix it. 

So, the little's and I hung out at my Mom's most of the afternoon...leaving Josh to wallow in his frustration and make numerous trips to Home Depot.  Plumbing is hard!  

But today when I got home he'd gotten my shower fixed and put a nice new head on there for me!  The plumber fixed the problem under the sink...and I got a new faucet!  Likely because Josh broke the old one in frustration...but who cares!  I'm excited about it regardless!  And the new one has an up and down lever, so it's much less obvious that the hot and cold are totally mixed up.  :)

The whole fiasco just might have been worth the cute pics of the little's.  :)

And I found a random one of Wallace when I was dumping the photos off the camera tonight.  :)

Long time no post...

I don't know what my deal has been.  I haven't really been pulling my camera out lately to get pics of the kids.  "/  But this evening when it finally cooled off around 8:00pm, Meredith and Wallace wanted to play outside and the lighting was nice.  :)

They were having trike races!  :)  But neither of them uses their pedals when they are being all competitive.

I noticed when I was getting the photos off my SD card that I had forgotten about the pics from Anna's birthday!  

James's face in this one totally cracks me up!  

Haha!  My three kids apparently never have any idea whose birthday it actually is. 

She was just in a posing kind of mood this evening.  :)

Catching up!

It's been a busy couple of weeks for me.  A strange break from the usual monotony.  We had Easter in Gilmer, and then the next weekend I left for a cruise with Jen!  So, I'm just now getting to sit down and get through my photos.  

I didn't get too many pics of the Easter egg hunt...but the funniest thing about it was Leah's puppy had gone around and busted into many of the eggs before the hunt started.  Haha!  

He remained on the prowl the entire time the kids were out there.

I also got to take some pictures of baby Nora while we were there!  :)

She's just like Hayden and Cy....super active and mobile!  

And cute.  :)

The Friday after Easter was Anna's field trip to the zoo!  I was so excited because the zoo is fairly close to where I work, so it was nice and easy to get over there and then back to work that day!  Oh, and Anna finally had enough of her hair.  Thank goodness!  I've so missed the bob.

I'm not sure what kind of flamengos these were, but they were all looking up.  Haha!  It was funny.

And then there was the cruise.  I didn't get many photos on the cruise...probably because Jen and I parked it on the old people deck and read for the majority of the trip.  It was so relaxing.  :)  The deck was nice and shady and there was a bar and a restroom right near by.  

We went on a tour when the ship docked in Progresso.  My favorite part of the tour of Merida was these.  I need to find them in SA.

I also found it very comical and somewhat comforting to see all of the American stores when we got farther inland on the tour.  :) 

The day after we got back from the cruise was Wallace's field trip!  I managed to make it to both kids' field trips!  Yay!

His field trip was to Morgan's Wonderland, and this place was amazing!  All sorts of fun rides and activities and playgrounds.

And unlimited train rides!  Wallace was in heaven.  Oh, and Jen and her Mom came along with me.  :)

I pulled a typical Theresa move and let Wallace pick his own lunch of cotton candy, Funyons, and a big lollipop.  

And then yesterday we had a birthday party for Wallace at the house.  I was doing a pretty terrible job of planning it, so thankfully Jen was still in town and helped out a bunch!  And she even made the cake!  :)

You wouldn't believe how stressed out she got over the icing.  :)  It turned out great!

Even though he doesn't look like it, he was excited...just bummed that we wouldn't let him touch it.

Our little group of friends has procreated extensively over the past few years.  Even without Jen's boys there, we had 6 kids at the house (including our three).  Kids really make a kid birthday more fun.  :)

Wallace was so worried Meredith was about to blow out his candles the whole time we were singing the birthday song to him.  

Apparently he should have been more worried about Anna.  "/  Oh!  Anna got glasses!  It's been a busy couple of weeks.

Rachael even brought a pinata!  My friends really pulled this party together for me!  :)

Haha!  I didn't even see this had happened until I was going through the photos..  :)

Kids love pinatas.  

Except for Lauren....  Maybe she's just freaked out by dinosaurs...

Happy birthday buddy.  :)

It's so funny how nothing really happens for months and then all of a sudden all of the exciting stuff happens in a matter of just a couple of weeks.  :)