Sweet Memories

I was happy to hear via phone calls and facebook updates that most everyone had a wonderful Memorial Day! It is such a nice holiday because it seems to almost always involve food, sun, and family - 3 of the best things in life! I am so grateful for everyone who serves, has served, or loves someone who has served to protect our country. I am truly speechless when it comes to expressing how I feel about our soldiers and public service workers (firefighters, police officers, etc.). Thank you to everyone who has sacrificed for our nation!

We are trying to save for our trip home so we didn't really have anything planned for the holiday yesterday, but it still turned out to be a great day. Nate and I spent time working in the yard (still trying to get these crazy Texas weeds under control) for most of the morning. Then Nate decided it would be fun to go to the swimming pool at the Y which is very kid-friendly and of course I agreed! However, we realized Audrey doesn't have swim diapers or a swimsuit. Well, she doesn't have much of anything right now for clothing because we know we have so many generous family members awaiting our arrival next week who will replenish her wardrobe! We decided to see if Walmart had anything ridiculously cheap for her and were pleasantly surprised. Some of you may know one of my life-long dreams is to have an adorable, chunky baby girl so I can buy her a baby bikini (I know, I dream big). We found an adorable, festive little suit for only $5! We went to eat lunch and then swimming and I could not get over Audrey the rest of the day. There is seriously nothing cuter!

Now, if you are wondering why I loved a day that seems so simple, that is the beauty of a family. There is nothing more satisfying than a productive day with your family that also involves some playtime. With how busy Nate has been at work lately, a fun day that ends with everyone going to sleep exhasted and happy was just what we all needed.

Lastly, Taven had his little preschool graduation last week. He learned a lot this last year and I love seeing the little man he is becoming. I couldn't be more proud of my son and all that he is!

 To put the cherry on top of our sweet lives right now, we will be flying home 1 week from tomorrow! I could not be more excited to see all my friends and family and am looking forward to a great summer! Especially one that will not be a steady 150 degrees....(might be a slight exaggeration)...

See you all soon!!!

School's out!

I have been having so much fun with my cute kids since the semester ended. During the school year, I feel like my brain is always preoccupied and I can't seem to get myself to do the simple activities with my kids that make the happiest memories. Since school ended our house has seen a lot of pajamas, snacks, forts, indoor basketball, and books. I have had so much fun playing with Taven and being lazy snuggling with Audrey. I'm sure the laziness will wear off soon, but for now I am in heaven!

It's been raining off and on the last week and all Taven has wanted to do is jump on the tramp in the rain. Here are some pics of the happy little guy fulfilling his life dreams. You should have learned by now if you read my blog or know my son most of these pics are sans pants. Sorry. :)

I also finally snapped some pictures of adorable little Audrey, which I have been wanting to do for about two months now. You wouldn't think it would be hard to find time to take a few pictures, right? Well she is eight months old now and I couldn't postpone any longer. Love this little girl!

As you can seen, my life is all about my kids right now and I couldn't be any happier! It also probably helps that I have a great friend visiting for the weekend and then I can start counting down the weeks before we head to Utah. Life is good!

First and foremost, I have to apologize for all the semi-fuzzy photos. I am NOT a photographer and do not consider myself camera proficient. I also have a mischievious 3 year old who I have placed on the suspect list of messing with my auto focus. :) That being said, the memories are what matters and my two little ones are making my memories more and more precious everyday! Last weekend a local grocery store was having a huge sale on live crawfish and our awesome neighbor invited us over for a Louisiana crawfish boil. I tried crawfish once before and hated it, but I knew Taven would think it was cool and it would be nice spending some time outside with the family and a good friend. Taven was a little nervous at first and would barely even touch the live crawfish.

After he got a little more brave he did nothing but stir them up to get them moving. He thought that was pretty awesome.

I did not think Taven would be willing to eat something that was moving twenty minutes ago, especially something that had to be cracked open and pulled out. He ended up really liking it! The potatoes, corn and sausage were too spicy for him so he ended up just eating bread with his crawfish meat. I'll admit that I even enjoyed it too, even though my previous crawfish experience was less than noteworthy. Not something I would crave regularly, but yummy every once in a while!

The next day I noticed that Audrey had a bottom tooth that had cut through and I didn't even know she was teething. Unfortunately I went off bragging to others about how Audrey doesn't even have teething symptoms and what a champ she is. Needless to say, I turned my good fortune around on myself and she made up for it the next day. Her insane amount of drool left her gagging and puking for about 30 hours or so. I have never done more laundry at one time in all my life. Four days later her second tooth has still not cut through, but she has learned to deal by just chewing on her tongue.

We have spent the last few days in pajamas, doing laundry, and otherwise sitting on our butts. She is still so sweet and happy despite her painful teething! I finally got her to keep some food down and chew on some celery so that is helping. Hopefully it will cut through soon so we can get back to being presentable! Then she only has how many other teeth to go? Sigh....

FYI tent forts are one of the best ways for your toddler to still think your cool when your stuck at your house for days on end. :) How do you entertain your little ones when you're stuck at home?

We're back!

So, like most parents of young children my kids are often doing things so cute or funny I think the whole world needs to know about it. However, Nate and I are usually the only ones that end up enjoying it because I don't want to be the guy smashing his wallet of kid photos in everyone's face (Family Guy reference). My family members were giving me a hard time about not posting since we live so far away and hardly get to see each other so I decided I needed to get back to it. It doesn't hurt either that Taven is usually getting into blog-worthy mischief for me to write about.

We have been getting a lot of much needed rain this year after the intense summer drought. I LOVE rainy days and I could sit and listen to it all day if I didn't have any responsibilities (like those kids I mentioned). After I put Audrey down for her nap I came downstairs to find the back door open and Taven nowhere in sight. I wouldn't normally care, but it was STORMING like crazy outside. I looked out in back to find Taven sitting in his mudhole he created earlier this year beneath the dryer vent. This is "Oh no, I'm caught" face:

I asked him what the crap he was doing to which he answered with this face:

By this point it was only drizzling (you can't really see it in the pictures) and he was already soaked so I let it continue for a while. I had to get serious and ask, "No really, what are you doing?" He finally explained that he was worried the mud was too cold so he was warming it up (the dryer was running so he was warming the mud in the dryer vent air). This is him checking to see if the mud was warm enough: 

Nope still too cold, need to warm it some more.

After he felt satisfied with making the mud warm enough I told him he needed to come in for a bath since he was a mess. He told me, "I can't mom, now my feet are too cold. Just a second."

After warming his feet in the dryer vent for a while he finally agreed to come inside. He was so matter-of-fact about it all like the questions I asked were absolutely ridiculous. Funny kid.

On another note my little girl completely adores her big brother. Love these two.

P.S. - If anyone else has a little boy that is capable of keeping pants on, please let me know how you convinced him it was a good idea :)

Nate the Fireman

Yesterday Nate got a call asking him if he would like to play firefighter for the day. Confused? I was too. There is a fire that has been burning through the city of Bastrop all week that was threatening to burn into one of the largest scout camps in the area. He was asked to come volunteer as ground crew and hold the line as the bulldozer, helicopter, and other professionals did their thing. He raked and shoveled miles and miles of the line all day. He said when the helicopters dropped their hundreds of gallons of water from overhead anywhere near him, he had to cover his face and hold his breath while the blast of smoke nearly knocked him off his feet. He told me it's probably what it feels like to watch a nuclear blast....I told him that might be a bit of an exaggeration...

So it was a pretty crazy/cool day for someone who never plans on fighting fire or doing anything close to that in their life. By the way, I'm sure I smelled him before he even came in the door. If you thought you have had smelly clothes from campfires, you don't even KNOW! :)

We had the chance a few Saturdays ago to finally go to Barton Springs in Austin that is supposed to be so amazing because it is a natural springs that is usually around 68 degrees. While it was very pretty and we had fun, it was pretty much what every lake, river, pool, etc. feels like at home so it wasn't anything too exciting. Also, I have a thing with lakes and rivers and the creepy things that you feel all around your feet. Other than the rocks in this spring, it was absolutely covered across the bottom in ridiculously huge green growth of who knows what. For all I know mythical creatures could live down there and might eat my feet off....right? RIGHT?

After swimming we went over to an outdoor production of "Annie" which was really cool, but we had to leave at intermission because Taven was going crazy! The later it got the more slap-happy he was and he insisted on singing along (loudly) and fake laughing extremely loud just for the attention. We had a long drive home so we figured we would let the rest of the people there enjoy the last half of the show. All in all though, a great day to spend a Saturday.

2 Months?!

I can't believe it has been two months since I have posted! Too much has happened to write about, so I will just touch on the highlights. We have been LOVING our Schlitterbahn passes. There are so many fun kid areas for Taven and we have been having so much fun there.

My friend/sister Becca came to visit me in June. We share the same birthday and it is tradition for us to do something every year on our birthday. This year we had a 2-week veg fest of Schlitterbahn, Lost, 24, Sequence, Rook, Texas Hold 'Em, River Walk, Swedish Fish, and sleep. If you don't know what any of those are, look em up. We went to San Antonio while she was here to have dinner on the River Walk and see the Alamo, two musts for the tourist. She also had her friend Mike come stay for a weekend and we had an eight hour board/card game tournament which the men took WAY too seriously. :)

The Alamo

River Walk

Nate and I got to go home for about two weeks this year where we visited Utah, Idaho and Wyoming. Taven loved being with grandparents and was spoiled the whole time. He also got to play with the many family dogs and he couldn't have been happier. On our way home from Idaho we stopped at my aunt and uncle's house and they took us out on their new boat. We had so much fun! They have a three seat tube that was catching about eight feet of air (I promise).

Taven and Tobias

Boating Face



Boating Suit (thanks LeAnn and Kody!)

Nate and I also had the chance to go to Moab baby free to visit some good friends of ours who are currently living and working there. We went on a 5-hour float - my first rafting trip - and I got knocked out on the one and only big curl we went through. Even then, it was a blast!

Tired and Sunburned

While we were in Idaho we went to visit Nate's uncles Rush and Klaus, who were kind enough to let us stay at their country home in northern Idaho for the 4th of July. Before Nate's parents came up with Taven, we took advantage of the free time and went on a hike in Grand Teton National Park. We hiked up Devil's Staircase which was nearly impossible for us being out of shape and used to lower elevation. It was absolutely worth it! We had amazing views from start to finish, and the top of Devil's Staircase looked out over the entire hike. I was able to steal some pictures from Klaus, who was our great photographer for the hike.

Steph, Nate, and Klaus

Nate, Steph, and Rush

We have had a great summer which makes it even harder to get back to real life. Actually I don't call what we are doing right now real life - it is just a stepping stone. A really rough and jagged stepping stone that is getting us to our real life and where we want to one day be. :) We loved visiting all our friends and family and thanks to everyone for making our vacation so enjoyable! Just looking ahead now to the next visitors to come our way!

Some firsts...

This last month has included quite a few firsts. Some more exiting than others, but firsts either way. We decided this year we would buy season passes to Schlitterbahn, which I found out is the largest waterpark in America! We didn't get to stay for long the first time, but we loved watching Taven run around the kiddie areas. We have some discount passes for anyone that wants to come visit!

I have always seen the Cici's Pizza commercials on tv and been bugged they weren't within driving distance. I don't even like pizza that much, I just like trying new places. Well, they had one by Schlitterbahn so I got to go! It was exactly the cardboard pizza I thought it would be, so it wasn't dissapointing. I can check that off my list now! I also got to try my first macaroni and cheese pizza there - sick.

We went to the Austin Zoo for the first time this month. It was a lot smaller than I expected, but zoos are always fun. Taven got to see a lot of monkeys, which he loves. They are all rescue animals and the zoo began as a property belonging to people who just started taking in animals that needed a home. It eventually got to be so big the city adopted it as the city zoo. The cages seemed to be closer than other zoos I have been to and Taven was freaking out about all the animals being so close. We tried to go before it got too hot, but failed. This picture of Taven shows just how sweaty and hot it got. Nothing like 90% humidity to brighten a day. :)

The last notable first was our first trip to Smitty's barbecue. It is the last barbecue around that we hadn't tried that is in the national barbecue capital of Texas restaurants. Like others around, there are no utinsels and you are served slabs of meat on butcher paper. Nate got us enough meat to last a week, which led to me later having hot sausage oil squirted in my eye for the first time (another story for another time). I overdid the barbecue trips when we first got down here so I didn't have much at Smitty's, but Nate said it was great and Taven seemed pretty pleased.

It's been a good month and I'm looking forward to the many adventures awaiting us this summer!