Shutting down for summer

Our spring soccer season is finally over.  And so is just about everything else for this school year.  Just a couple of more weeks of school left!  I think I'm looking forward to it almost as much as the kids are.  Looking back on it, this school year has been exhausting!  It's been a good year and all, but just a tiring one.  We never really got a break from sports all year, and I've got to be honest...I'm so tired of prepping lunches and backpacks and clothes and soccer gear, etc...  Ready to just be lazy for a couple of months and actually make dinner during the week again!  :)

I wasn't able to make it to their soccer games today, but I did get a few pics last weekend.  Meredith, believe it or not, actually started playing soccer this season.  But not much.  She was in frequent need of a sub because she'd just walk over to the sidelines and sit down when she'd decided she'd had enough (bear in mind they play in 4-minute intervals...).  So, once we got used to that, and I guess just let her play on her own terms, she was much happier, and even managed to score a goal this season!  

Photographic evidence of her playing this season!

I'm pretty sure the addition of the gear cart was her favorite thing about soccer this season.  :)

Candy and and iphone...she's in heaven.

Lol.

Haha.  Anna joined her.

So...here's to lazy days by the pool.  I need some of those!  

Wallace's Birthday

Wallace has turned 6!  He has become pretty obsessed with trains in the past few years.  So for his birthday, I bought him a lot more rail and some specialty pieces for his wooden railroad set, and quite a few more train cars.  And we took him to The Texas Transportation Museum so he could check out some real life-sized trains!  

Rachael and her kids came along for the day, and you know who had the most fun at the museum??  We all did!  This place was great!  

The first thing they did was run through (literally) a couple of passenger cars.  

And they all rang the bell on an old locomotive.

I had my long lens on all day, so I couldn't get the whole thing in one shot.  

They also have a train "garden" where they keep quite a few model trains speeding around.  It was super relaxing to just sit there and watch the trains while the kids ran around the garden keeping up with them.

They were especially enamored by the big bridge they would go over.

Wallace really liked the circus train!  It was pretty cute.  :)

They had actual train rides!  Wallace especially loved this part, but then again, we all loved this part.  :)

He spent a good part of the visit climbing over and under some of the trains just trying to piece together how it all works.

He's watched literally hundreds of videos about trains, and he kept correcting our terminology if we misidentified something about one of the trains.  "No!  It's called a locomotive."

There were more model trains in an indoor area!  And....my camera flash broke right before this trip, so I didn't bother trying to take too many indoor photos figuring they'd be all out of focus with the super low aperture. But, my camera surprised me and didn't back-focus for once!  

I was really pleased with how interactive the museum was for the kids.  Plenty of stuff for them to touch and climb all over. 

We stayed long enough that we got to ride the train a second time, and then we headed home for hot dogs, cake, and ice cream!

My Mom ordered the most adorable train candle holders for his cake....but they got lost in the mail.  :(   Good thing I hadn't told Wallace about them! 

After the kids braved the cold pool water, we sang Happy Birthday!  I'm pretty sure this is his make-a-wish pose.  Lol.

I don't know why he was wearing shades, but I think they look cute on him!

I don't think we've ever quite hit the nail on the head with one of the kids' birthdays quite like we managed to with Wallace's this year.  :)  It was a big success!  He's already trying to figure out how he can finagle more trains and another trip to the museum out of us for Christmas.  

The Fair!!

I packed up the kids and went to my hometown fair last weekend!  Well...I guess the East county fair would be considered hometown, but the Conroe show was always a big one for us too.  And it has always had a fantastic carnival, so there's that.  I remembered to take my camera this year!  And I'm so glad I did too, I got some adorable photos of the kids!

Like this one!  My personal fav!  More of these later though...

First thing's first, we come to watch my nieces show their chickens!  But for some reason the turkey show always comes before the chickens.  I never showed turkeys, but when I watch the turkey show, I kind of wish I had.  

When you first walk in the show barn, the turkeys are all in cages right beside the fence.  I'm sure one of these days at least one of my kids is going to get pecked by a turkey, but so far they haven't, and they absolutely love to talk to them before their show starts.

They flip them over to show them, and and they all flap their wings at first, and it's just this big production!  My kids go nuts for that first turkey flip!  Haha!  I was telling some people at work about the fair and how the poultry is judged upsidedown, and they were all staring at me like I was crazy.  lol

The poultry show is about 2 hours long or so, and after the excitement of the turkeys, the chicken show is downright boring...unless you know people in the arena!  This is my niece (in the middle) and her lot of birds.  She made the sale, which is no easy feat at the Conroe show!

When the show was over we all goofed off and waited for the results of the homemaking.

Anna likes giving piggy back rides.  :)

My sister is a little smitten with her new granddaughter.  

And then we were off to the carnival!  I'm usually pretty cheap at these things, but this year I splurged on some unlimited ride wrist bands, so worth it!

Anna loves the big ship!

She's apparently getting too old for the kiddie rides, she was a fairly bored sourpuss on them...  

Oddly enough, she's the only one who started to get sick toward the end of the day. haha.

There was a cool fun house with a maze of clear walls that Wallace managed to give himself a bloody nose on.  I didn't get a picture of that, but take my word for it, it was funny.  

I signed them up for these tractor races.

It was adorable!  They pull these weighted trailers.  

Meredith was a bit annoyed when she wasn't able to pull hers very far. That guy there is trying to give her a high five and get her off the tractor, and she's all ignoring him.  

Anna was the only one of mine to make it through the first round!  She was so proud of herself!

My kids pretty much paid for their unlimited wrist bands on this giant slide alone.  They kept skipping the line!  

Because, let's face it, waiting in line blows...

This was about when Anna started feeling crappy.  :(

But she rallied for one last ride on the giant ship....

...and immediately regretted it....

The littles found the carousel.

And this was about the end of it.  We'd been at it for hours.  :)

We finished off the awesome day in the petting zoo.  

Who puts a turtle in a petting zoo????

Meredith was watching me edit these photos and says "can we go to the fair tomorrow?"  Well...no, but definitely next year though!  :)

Easter

Easter in Gilmer this year was a bit of a whirlwind.  We didn't leave town until Saturday, and right as we were about to leave, Meredith managed to run into the granite counter top with her teeth.  "/  We called the emergency dentist line, and they were nice enough to talk us through what to do to get her tooth back into about the right place.  She'd hit the counter so hard that it pushed one of her front middle teeth back a couple of millimeters.  It was super loose and bloody, but Josh got it just about right back where it was supposed to be.  He was pretty convinced it was just going to fall right out of her mouth because it was so loose, but here we are a week later, and it's still in place!

So, needless to say, we got a late start on our drive to Gilmer.  A short 6 hours later, we were there, and jumping on the trampoline at Leah's house.  As if I was going to be able to keep Meredith off of it.  I would flinch every time she took a hard fall...expecting her to look up at me with a gap-toothed smile for the next 4 years or so.  And, I frankly hovered over her for a while, but there's just not much that will hold Meredith back when she's got her mind set on something.  Like jumping her heart out on a trampoline.  :)

Of course, she wasn't the only one.  Gosh...I really think I need to get a new trampoline...My kids go crazy for them!

Easter morning we hung out with Josh's Mom for a little while.  She had some worms in her fridge for Cy to fish with, and Wallace and Meredith had so much fun playing with them.  They get very attached to any little creature they find and want them to be a life-long pet.  

I'm pretty sure this little guy made the 6-hour drive back and is in my fridge at this very moment.  

Then we had Easter lunch and the Easter egg hunt over at Sarah Faye's new place.  It's beautiful.  And there's even a pond!  I'm so jealous!  

Josh hates when I take photos of him, but this was just so adorable!  And he didn't even flip me off, which is how he usually gets me to stop taking his photo.  Lol.

And then they hunted eggs!  There are so many kids, there ends up being eggs just everywhere for them.  You can sort of see them dotted around the yard in the background here.  This was even after the yard had been picked over quite a bit.  :)

Enjoying their loot.  :)

And then the annual coscarone fight!  

So, like I said, it was a whirlwind.  It was totally worth it though.  Easter in Gilmer is always a great time full of family and food and good times.   :)

Our First Track Meet!

Of all days to have a track meet, it had to be the one scorcher in March.  Haha.  This year I signed Meredith and Wallace up for track.  It's a nice short season, just a one month commitment.  And, although Meredith appeared to hate it, Wallace LOVED it!  So, we'll be signing up again for sure.  

Eeeek!  So cute!

I was very excited that Meredith actually ran all of her races.  At every single practice she'd just run off and pick dandelions or play in dirt rather than run. 

This was seriously right before the shotgun start of her second race.  See how everyone else is already in their "set" position...  I was so sure she would just stand there when he fired the gun, but she surprised me and took off!  

Track meets are VERY long.  And we had a few hours between the short sprints and their relay.  So paletas! 

There was a lot of sitting around.

And trying to stay hydrated.

Did I mention how HOT it was today?  

Searching for shade wherever we could find it.

I was most shocked that Meredith actually participated in the relay race.  She and Wallace were both in the same relay.  She never once would practice it with her team this past month.  But today she got up there and did a great job!  And Wallace, who'd been struggling all day with getting a good start with the gun, had a fantastic start as the first leg of the relay!  They did great!  In fact, they got 2nd place, so now guess what?  We get to go to another track meet....  sweet....  lol.  Maybe it won't take 7 hours since it will just be for one event.