Frio Trip

A trip to the Frio! I wasn’t so sure this trip was going to get to happen, but man, I’m really glad it did. I got a lot of fun pictures, and the kids are actually still there having a blast. Josh and I had to come home to work. Boo… But it did give me a chance to work through these photos without having the kids jumping all over me the whole time. :) It goes much faster that way!

Wallace and josh worked for about 30 minutes to catch this little guy. He was SO excited!

I don’t typically pose photos…but maybe I’ll start trying to do more of it. This was pretty darn cute!

I gave Tanner a 5-minute lesson on manual mode with back button auto-focus, and he captured several very good photos, including this one of Anna. :)

Josh has a couple of new furry sisters….one of them is a bit crazy….. lol

Yesterday the boys told me they got Wallace to jump off a 10-foot cliff. In all honesty, I think it was closer to 15 or 20 feet. So, I really wanted to take some photos of it today before we left.

The older boys do some pretty fantastic tricks!

Meredith got into it as well!!

She was so proud of herself when she surfaced! She did it a few times, and then decided it made her hands hurt… I guess she was hitting the water with her palms open and just kept slapping it hard or something.

BUT…the cutest thing was when the group of them decided to jump together.

Wallace came up from this and said it was the “Grand finale!” He had so much fun!

Lol…and then along came Anna and Ava 5 minutes later. Haha! Not to be outdone.

I know they’ll enjoy the rest of their week at the Frio, and then it’s off to the beach!

So, the end of the summer is shaping up okay for the kids. :)

Anna's Birthday!

We went all out for Anna’s 10th birthday! I’m just kidding…we made a cheesecake. lol

She and Wallace were in a 2-week pre-camp quarantine, so we were doing a whole bunch of nothing….pretty much like we’ve been doing all spring and summer so far…

The little’s were super excited to get to put the candles on it.

I think her favorite gift this year was getting her cast off! Yay for swimming again! She literally jumped in as soon as she got home from the appointment.

Winter Happened! And Spring... lol

I’ve had a long hiatus from posting an update. I’ve actually had a long hiatus from editing my photos. Lightroom somehow got deleted off my machine last November, and it took me about 6 months to talk myself into paying Adobe monthly for something I used to own outright…I’m still a little salty about it. “/ At least I have access to Photoshop as well now, but I have no clue how to use it. Maybe I’ll take a class someday.

Well, anyway, rather than split this up into a bunch of small posts, I’ll just get caught with one super long one here. :)

A lot’s happened since November.

Meredith was in her school kindergarten holiday musical. She was a bear.

She was a bit jelly that she didn’t get to be the gingerbread man or Mrs. Claus, but she got over it pretty quickly. She’s my third child to do this same musical, and she’s the only one who actually rehearsed the music in front of me at home. :)

Josh and I literally left the Gingerbread Man Play and went home to load up the Suburban to leave for the ski trip. This year we drove to Utah and planned a few stops along the way for the kids.

I think this first stop might have actually been for Josh. It was a jail/courthouse that Billy the Kid had escaped from. Here’s a bullet hole that they think Billy the Kid actually shot in the wall while escaping.

And we stopped at the Smokey the Bear memorial as well. Wallace had really gotten into Smokey right before the trip, so this stop was exciting for him. :)

And we finally made it to Utah. I think we took the drive getting there a little too slow… Josh started getting super frustrated by the 3rd day and pretty much just sped through all of the beautiful countryside of Utah without talking or stopping. lol. Lesson learned. We need to make the cross country trips in just two days from now on..which I think is possible since we basically live in the middle of the country.

We celebrated Christmas in Utah as well. This was a Christmas of slime…So much slime.

And legos. It’s pretty much always a lego Christmas with this kid though.

We decorated Christmas cookies!

And Josh helped to judge the cookie contest again. He randomly chose the OU cookie…

We had the whole group over for the Aggie game, and they got to witness Josh watching an Aggie game firsthand. lol. They might never come back.

It snowed a LOT while we were in Utah. So the landscape was a lot whiter on the way home. Moab was even covered in snow, and all of the beautiful desert monuments were as well. It was really neat to see.

The only place Anna wanted to stop was Four Corners, so we ran by there on the way home. It’s not just a little place to stop on the side of the road anymore…you have to pay to get in now, and there are hours of operation, so it was challenging to time it. She really wanted this particular photo, even though it was a little muddy that day. haha.

Then once we were back in school we got Anna’s FFA chickens! Those chickens pretty much ran our lives from January 10th until we showed them 7 weeks later in late February. In hindsight, we were so lucky to get to show them at all. My niece’s county fair was cancelled, and she didn’t get to show hers this year. :(

They were pretty much the cutest thing we’d ever seen for about 3 days.

OMG! How adorable!!!

Cuteness overload!!!!

Then they just turned into these ugly teenagers within about 2 weeks. “/

Anna ended up doing great at the fair! She got 3rd place with her cockerels and was 5th place in the sale. She worked so hard with those birds, and I was so proud of her. It was a nice family project too. Although I had my camera with me at the fair, I was such a bundle of nerves the whole time I literally never pulled it out to take a photo. The fair we show at holds their chicken show in the middle of the day on a Wednesday, so since there aren’t a lot of extra school aged kids wandering the fair grounds because they’re all in school, they allow parents to help their kids show, so I wasn’t a spectator… It was nice because Josh and I could help coach Anna on when to hold the birds up, and how high to hold them, but the one draw back was I didn’t get any fancy pants photos of the show. Also, when I was in high school and showing my chicks, it was customary for just two people to show the three birds…one person would just hold up 2 birds (one in each hand). I guess with the way we feed them now a days Anna’s birds must just have gotten much bigger than they used to when I was a kid…it seems like it would have been impossible to hold up one of these chickens with just one hand. You literally now need one person per bird. Times have changed!

Anyway, the weekend after the fair Jen and Matt brought their family to come help us slaughter the birds (Jen did a great FB post about that weekend since I didn’t get any photos that day either), and then the weekend after that was Spring Break. Josh took the kids up to Washington DC that week for a trip with his family, and apparently it was great and not packed at all…and then the shut down happened the week after that…. “/ So, there really hasn’t been much to photograph other than birthdays and stuff. So, that’s what I’ve got.

Meredith turned 6!

We hung onto a few chickens…because Josh has a big heart and just couldn’t bear to break the kids’ spirit I guess. They’ve actually started laying eggs! I honestly wasn’t even sure these meat birds were capable of doing that. I’m not sure how much longer they’re going to make it, they weren’t really cut out to live this long, and it’s getting very hot, but we are pampering the crap out of them and enjoying the time we have with them. They’ve been a nice distraction during this crazy time.

The kids took over my camera occasionally for “art” class, and sometimes they got some really great photos! I think Anna took this one.

Wallace got this one!

Somehow she managed to take a selfie…. That’s nearly impossible to do with the fancy camera…especially with her short little arms.

We decided to stay home for Easter.

The kids chose the most random things for Easter baskets. lol

He was a little bummed he was the only one who didn’t find a money egg…but one of the money eggs was missing, and he found it like 2 weeks later on his birthday! So, delayed gratification!

We had a little camp out in the yard before the weather got hot. It was Josh’s idea. He even made a fire and roasted hot dogs and smores. The kids loved it!

Wallace turned 8! All I had were pink candles, so we tried to make these skewers work for candles, but they wouldn’t really light with the breeze outside. So, he just pretended to blow them out. lol. The birthday cake train is still getting used! He was bummed we couldn’t go to the train museum this year. :(

Meredith has taken a special liking to the birds.

Perhaps the biggest news is all the stuff that’s happened with Anna… She was supposed to get braces the week the shutdown started, and then they had to cancel the appointment. She was so upset she just bawled that day. But, we were so excited when the orthodontist was able to reopen and called us to set up her appointment. She’s only got braces on to top front 6 teeth to straighten out her lateral incisor on one side and pull her front two middle teeth together to close that gap. It’s supposed to just take 6 months…

Well, the very next day homegirl tripped while racing Wallace and Meredith and fell in a ditch and broke her arm… sigh

She broke both of her forearm bones, and because one of them is healing at an imperfect angle, the doctor was hesitant to remove the hospital cast to replace it with a wet cast, so she’s been unable to swim. Which is why we just sit her in the pool while everyone else gets to swim. I’m really proud of her that she’s not gotten too bummed out about all of this. She gets it off on Wednesday, and she’s literally counting down the days! We all are.

I also was finally able to get her into the ophthalmologist (another appointment we’d long awaited that was cancelled due to the shutdown…) to see what we can do about all of her squinting. He was very careful to keep her from squinting the entire time he was working with her, so fingers crossed we’ve managed to get a good Rx. It was kind of a funny appointment. She had to wear a mask, and the mask kept fogging up the phoropter like it does our glasses and sunglasses, so he kept pulling it away from her face and patiently fanning it to get the condensation to go away. I guess he’s been dealing with it now for a month or so. It just took forever.

Well…that’s pretty much it. We’re all caught up now. And now that I can edit photos again, hopefully I won’t get so far behind.

Fall Update!

I went to take some photos of a friend recently, and when I was clearing off my SD card I noticed I hadn’t even gone through the first day of school photos I took of the kids… “/ So, it’s time for a catch up!

It’s just super dark when it’s time to leave for school for our elementary, so the pics are all in the house. I decided to take before and after pics of them from when they woke up compared to when they were ready to walk out the door.

They were sleepy, but excited! Meredith is never this excited to wake up these days. She’s a bear in the mornings just like Josh. I pretty much just creep into her room and quietly give her her breakfast, and then try to slip off to work silently for Josh to handle her when she’s ready to get rolling. She loves kinder, but misses being able to sleep in.

Anna finally lost this one particular tooth that had been hanging on for dear life. I literally yanked on it with all my might and couldn’t get it one night, and it was super loose. She finally managed to pluck it out one evening while she was watching the Simpsons. And Wallace looked so dapper in his collared shirt and glasses. :) I will have 2 magical years with all three of them in the same school…and then it will be a crazy rat race after that.

We had another fun season of soccer. lol

On this particular day she was annoyed because her legs were itchy under her socks…

“It’s SOOO itchy!!!”

On the whole though, Meredith did much better this season. She still likes to unexpectedly run off the field when she decides she’s done though. :)

Wallace had a pretty darn good season too! He didn’t insist on playing goalie the whole entire time, so it was nice getting to see him actually take part in the game more.

And Anna’s games were just about all at noon on the hottest days, but she hung in there and did great.

Then it was Halloween! We did the inflatable thing this year, and the kids had so much fun with it!

The girls were so cute. They did this little pose all on their own. lol

Fall was pretty nice around here. Hot, but nice. And busy. So glad it’s finally cooled off!

Bolivar 2019

We got home from Costa Rica around 1:00am on the 28th, and then turned around and left for Bolivar around 9:00am on the 29th. Lol. I was worried I’d be all vacationed out before we got to Bolivar, but that wasn’t the case at all. We got a lot of rest on the 28th and were all ready to go the next morning.

When we got there, Jen had prepped a little birthday party for me and Jenny. :) I managed to not get a single photo of the adorable beach-themed b-day cake she made with my fancy camera…. but she made it a tropical birthday, and we got quite a few different uses out of the leis.

We spent a lot of time around the table making jewelry and paracord bracelets. :)

We also went crabbing again! Meredith caught the first keeper this year!

And everyone had fun! This year it was Ruthie’s turn to come and hang out with us. :) She was so super helpful, it was awesome. I hope she enjoyed her time with us as much as we enjoyed having her!

Since Jen and her family have returned to Texas, they were back with us as well!

Crabbing day is hot, but it’s also fun and productive. We caught around 11 again, and that seems to be a good amount for Granny’s stuffed crab. I think she sorely missed having Maddison there this year to help with picking them, but Jenny stepped in and assisted. Jen and I had to boil them since Dallas wasn’t there. I’d rather not have to do that ever again. There was a lot of screaming and jumping around the kitchen.

Look at those double piercings! Such a grown up 9 year old! Oh, and poor Anna…every air mattress we put her on deflated overnight until I finally went and just bought her a new one. lol.

It seems similar to fishing where we’ll catch like 3 crabs all at once, and then proceed to sit there and catch nothing for 30 minutes. Glad I brought along my crossword puzzle book! (Ruthie played photographer for a while. Man I’m getting lazy!) Oh, and this photo had me convinced my sensor was dusty, but I think those are just birds flying around!

A bestie pic! :)

He loves to pose with little crabs!

Back to the Big Slide!

I’m happy to report that Jen’s boys LOVED it this time around. They actually outlasted my kids.

We tried like 4 times to get this picture!

Bird feeding on the ferry ride to Galveston. We saw porpoises on every single ferry ride this year!

Beach days. And another crab photo op.

I spent waaaaay too much on a few nice boogie boards. I probably could have gotten away with just buying 1 or 2. Oh well. They were big enough that even I could ride waves in!

I told Jen that she has great photographer form. :) Looks so professional!

Didn’t want his chest buried this year.

And then there was the golf cart parade again! We figured out that it’s just this one weekend! Thank goodness we didn’t miss it! We all would have been so bummed!

Oh my gosh! I LOVE Thomas’ face in this picture!

They ended up with a TON of beads, but at first there were some color preference wars. lol

So many beads!

The rest of the big girls showed up! Jen made them some amazing virgin pina coladas. I think I’m going to have to alter my recipe and just use frozen pineapples rather than ice from now on. They were soooo yummy!

And water balloons!

Haha! They look like a bunch of old ladies with all those beads on!

She worked for a while to get this balloon to pop! lol.

What an awesome, relaxing week. Thank you for putting it together again, Mom. I love you, and I love our Bolivar trip!