Labor Day Weekend

Katy found a great lake house on the internet early in the summer for us to rent over Labor Day weekend.  I checked the prior year football calendar  (current schedule wasn't released yet...) to make sure that we wouldn't have any games.  It looked like everything picked up after Labor Day, which makes great sense, right?  Well, wrong!!  SCFL had their first game on Labor Day weekend, in Navasota, no less!!  So, Matt and decided that I would go up on Friday am with Cade and Cannon and then he and Carson would meet up on Saturday, after the game.  I hated to miss his first game, but that was just nuts!!  Cade was in heaven for getting to go without his big brother...that meant that he had first dibs on a bed and got the top bunk!!  He and Ridge also got some great bonding time in and played really well together.  Here are some great pics that I took of my handsome Cade on the first evening out on the fabulous deck.

Most of Saturday was spent playing around on the deck and waiting for our other people to arrive.  Thorsen, being the fearless new mom that she is, came up with Nate, who was 3 weeks old (along with Scott, of course).  He was so good and slept most of the time.  Katy and I just laughed as neither one of us would have been brave enough to do that with a newborn, much less with 5 other boys under the age of 6 there too!  Anyway - Cade having fun on the deck.

Cade having fun in the water with Uncle Scott.  Scott is such a trooper with my boys and they love him!

Carson enjoyed being the ball retriever and getting things that fell over.

Nate doing what he does best!

Another beautiful sunset!!

The boys made s'mores that night and had a blast!!  Ridge was so excited to teach my boys all about it!!

More fun for the boys and a workout for the Dads!

On Sunday, we rented a boat and spent the day out on the lake,  We all had a great time!!  At first, it looked like Cannon wasn't going to have any part of it.  He freaked when we went to get on the dock and step onto the boat.  It was a little rough out there and I think that it scared him.  Once we got the boat moving though, we was fine!  He chatted up his Daddy and snuggled right up.  Sweet baby!!

He spent part of the ride cuddled up next to Aunt Jen.

 These two had a ball!!

Captain Sawyer!

Katy and her sweet boys!

Me and my Bean!

 We stopped at a little beach and played for a while and had lunch.

 The Hancock family!!

Me and Cannon

They were all pretty tired on the way back to the house!

Cade powered through.

Sleepy baby!

Sawyer giving his mommy a kiss.

Tere and Sawyer

  Yes, we took the waterslide.  Matt decided to give it a try!

Jen and Nate napping in the hammock....ahh, sweet baby!

And, the Buccee's Shirts!  I stopped and picked these up for all of the boys on the way in.  They were beat and not into pictures!  Still super Cute though!!

Daddy and his boys.

All of us.

Love these big brothers!!

Me and my babies!

 All in all, a PERFECT weekend with awesome friends!!  We can't wait to do it all again!!

 

First Day of School 2010

WOW. And so it begins...another school year!!  My three boys were so ready for school to start this year and all so excited about new beginnings.  That first morning is always fun!

This handsome boy is going to 1st grade!

He's growing up a little too fast for my taste!

And his super cool backpack that he had to pick out.

This big guy is going to private kindergarten this year.  With his birthday falling in August, he just wasn't ready to start public school kindergarten just yet.  After seeing what all was involved last year with Carson, there is no way that I was going to push him into going this year.  Primrose has a great kinder program with a small class and a teacher that I am 100% happy with.  He's just thrilled because they don't have to take naps in there!!  It's the little things, you know?  Oh, if you could have seen his face light up when he learned that!

Little man is off to preschool!  Big news for him...there is a potty in his class this year and he is offically wearing underwear to school!  Can YOU believe it?  I have three potty trained little boys!!  I didn't think that this day was ever going to come.

Since his big brothers carry backpacks, this little man does to!

A shot of me with the boys on their big day.

And one with Daddy too!

Then we all headed off to take Carson to school first.  We had gone to meet the teacher the week before, but it is just chaotic that first day.  I wasn't comfortable sending him off on the bus to find his classroom all by himself.  Since everyone else feels the same way, it is chaos up at the school.  We made it in though!  And thank GOD, he isn't too old to still pose for a couple of pictures for mom!!

We are off to a great start!  I have to admit, I am not enjoying 1st grade homework.  They really have stuff to do everyday and it has to be turned in.  So, as soon as Carson gets off of the bus, we have a snack, do homework, fix a quick dinner and then it is off to football practice (or baseball for Cade).  By they time he gets home, it is after 8, so he showers and off to bed.  Then, we get up the next morning and do it all over again!!  Busy, busy, busy!!

Cade's 5th Birthday

I can't believe that my little bean is 5!!  This boy literally keeps us laughing around here.  He has a heart of gold, hilarious sense of humor and the attention span of a flea!  Sweet Cade!!

Ahhh, I guess that I should start with the birthday party that wasn't!  Angie and I had planned months ago to do a joint roller skating party with Cade and Arden.  Cade told me from the beginning that he didn't want to to go skating.  I should have listened to him!  However, he had never been skating, so I figured that if he went, he would change his mind.  So, I took off one afternoon to take Cade and Carson skating.  Disaster.  Neither one of them will be olympic speed skaters, and I can say that with 100% certainty!  Cade couldn't stay up right, Carson was crying....awful.  About an hour into this, Cade says, "Can you just call of my friends and tell them to come bowling instead?".  Broke my heart!  So, I got on the phone that afternoon and cancelled the skating party and booked the bowling party.

Luckily, Main Event had an opening the weekend before and we were able to go ahead and book that.  The boys had a blast bowling.  Here is the birthday boy!

And Cannon bowling with Poppy.

Dylan had a blast!!

After an hour or so of that, we moved on to the party room for pizza and cake.

A picture of the Star Wars Cake...guess who picked this one out all by himself?

All of his friends came and celebrated with him!  He had a blast!

After the pizza and cake, it was game time!  All of the kids got a game card to use on the 2 billion games they have there.  I think that might have been the biggest hit of the party!  Cade obviously enjoyed himself...he is a video game junky!!

Cannon was a handful, as usual.

Carson got to invite a friend, and guess who he picked?  His BFF, Jack!  They have so much fun together and are really good boys!

Cade, being Cade.

Ahh, and skee ball!  My personal fave!

Cade had asked weeks before if Ryan could come spend the night after his party.  Luckily, when we moved party weekends, that worked out!  He was so thrilled to have his pal come over for the night.  A couple of pics of them jumping off of the playhouse, what else?

Here he is on his real birthday!!  His birthday fell during the week, so I let him play hooky from school.  Unfortunately, I had to go into work for a bit that day.  He was thrilled to come along with me and had a blast at my office.  He actually behaved himself pretty much too!!  We left there around 11, picked up Carson, grabbed lunch and headed to see Toy Story 3 at the theater.  For dinner, he wanted to cook pizza for us.  He is so into cooking lately!  If I am in the kitchen, he's right there with me, asking for a job.

He also requested that we make brownies for his birthday.  So, we made brownies!

Remember that little issue we have about not being able to blow out our own candles in this family?  Notice Cade blocking Cannon's mouth. (Yes, Cannon is naked.  He was working on potty training and insisted on being totally naked at home....whatever works, right?).

Success!

And, the big gift!  A new, big boy bike!!  He had pretty much out grown his other one and needed one a size up.  He's becoming a pro on it!  If the weather would get cooler, we could get those training wheels off!!  He needs a little more practice still though.

Happy Birthday, big 5 Year old!!  We love you to pieces!!

Grammy's Birthday

Mom's birthday was on July 12th.  It fell during the week and just a couple of days before Jill, Ryan and Koen had to leave.  Since we all had to work that day, Matt just picked up dinner at Buca de Beppo on his way home and we took the easy route!  Great food and wine......no clean up!!  The boys all dined shirts off..more on that in a second.

Jill had these matching shirts made for all of the boys.  I had camo ones made for them last summer, so we tried to duplicate it again this summer.  The pictures went about as well this time as they did last time.  A year later, no improvement on the cooperation!  This is the best picture of the four of them.

This one, well..Cade's face is priceless!  He's loving this.

They are kind of facing the camera here:

Fight!  Always a physical altercation with this crew...

Almost good of the big boys

Have I mentioned how awesome Cannon's eyes are?

Jill even tried to jump in and help...it didn't work!

We decided to give up and have cake instead!!  Grammy and the boys!

Remember what I said about blowing out your own candles...it isn't going to happen!

Happy Birthday, Grammy!!  So glad that we were all in one place to celebrate with you!!

Family Pictures - July 2010

Since we only see Jill, Ryan and Koen once a year, at best, I thought that it would be great for us to have some pictures taken of all of us.  So, we braved the heat and had a photographer come out to Mom's house to take some pictures of the family.  Any of you with young kids know that taking group pictures is anything but fun!!  We were all sweating and miserable by the end.  However, we got some great pictures that I will cherish forever!!  Enjoy!  Just click on the picture and it should take you to the slide show link.

Family Pictures - July 2010

July 4th

We really had a low key July 4th this year. It fell on a Sunday, so the big Woodlands parade was on the Saturday before.  We decided to skip it this time around....it was hot!  They boys were into for about 20 minutes last year, and well, we were just lazy this time!  Plus, Jill and Ryan were here and we were trying to hang out with them as much as possible.  On the 4th, we had everyone over to our house and just grilled and hung out.  Carson and I found some blue and red hair gel the week before and it was a big hit!  Check out my crazy man with his faux hawk.

All three boys with fancy hair!  It didn't do much in Cade's surfer hair.

We then all headed up to watch the fireworks show at Augusta Pines.  That is the true honey hole for fireworks!!  There is no traffic, you pull right up into the parking lot, they have seats for you, and we even took in our own drinks.  How fantastic is that??  The Woodlands really puts on a great July 4th deal, but it requires much planning and much traffic to get in and out of there for the big show.  Our boys don't know the difference at this point, so Augusta Pines is the place to be for now!!

Here are the kids enjoying the show.

Jill and Carson.

All in all, a really tame 4th, but I sure enjoyed it!!