Tummy shot

Here is a self portrait of my growing belly. Just in case you did not know, your belly pops out so much sooner on any subsequent children. Who would have thought? We’ll see if I can keep up the self portraits or if I’ll have Ben help me out.

Our past two weeks

I know I have been gone for a while, out to the hinter lands of Texas, down to the coast and back to the hinter lands again. It was an exciting previous two weeks. The kids had so much fun playing with their cousins and spending time away from the apartment. But we have at last returned home. We are slowly getting ready for the close on our house and our eventual move. The sooner the better in Isabelle’s opinion, she is ready to go. Until then we’ll have to think of things to do to keep us busy. I digress; here are a few highlights from our visit. The kids had lots of fun, at Vacation Bible School, Bear had the run of the place and he new it. The cousins all helped Grandpa build a teeter-totter for the back yard. I think Grandpa was most happy to have the task done, since one of the kids always wanted to step or climb on the board while he was trying to screw it all together. And of course lots and lots of swimming. Isabelle has now graduated to being able to swim without her floaty swimsuit. I am so proud of her. She is doing such a great job and does not seem to be afraid of the water at all. She is really staring to grow up.





In between the hinter lands week; we traveled down to SA for the weekend, so the kids could have some grandparent time while Mom and Dad went to a wedding. One of my college friends got married down in Corpus Christi; it was very beautiful and nice to have some adult time. And of course the kids swam and went to the drive thru safari with Oma and Grandpa. They had lots of fun on their visit, but were excited to see their cousins again.

Baseball Birthday

To celebrate Barrett’s second birthday we gathered together a small group and went swimming and to a Rangers baseball game. He had so much fun doing both of those that I think he would love to do it all again. Of course he loves to swim and jump off the diving board, and just plain be wet. Who knew a kid could love the water so much? Besides being very hot, the Rangers game was a lot of fun. They have a kids park where the kids can go and play games be giving away tokens and usually win a prize for participation at he age. His favorite game was the one where you could hit a ball pitched to you and then you won a bat if you hit the ball. Well Bear waited until it was almost the end of the day to go and play and he came back with a bat. He was so proud of himself. Isabelle had lots of fun playing all the games and came home with a whole bunch of prizes, that she can hardly wait to put up in her room. They did watch the game and went to batting practice, but were a little late to see the Rangers bat, but Bear was able to get the General Managers autograph on a ticket. Ben was pretty excited about that one.

The game was pretty fun too! It started out good for the Rangers then went downhill a little bit but they started to make a come back in the 8th inning. It was pretty close, since I think they had to come back from being seven runs down in two innings. They almost made it, but the ump made what looked like a bogus out in the bottom of the ninth for the last out of the game. The Rangers ended up losing 7 to 9 against the Chicago White Sox, but it was entertaining and fun. At least after the sun went down behind the stadium and it cooled off a bit.

Ben was really happy to share his favorite baseball team with his two kids. This was Barrett’s first major league baseball game, and I’m sure he will have many more to come. Especially if Dad has anything to say about it.

Memories

The Memory Post

So here's how this works:

As a comment on my blog, leave a memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you know me a little or a lot, anything you remember! If we're only blogging friends, write about a post that is the most memorable for you.
Next, if you feel so inclined, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. If you leave a memory about me, I'll be sure to write one about you...!
If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. And please do this on your page, too, so we can all share in the fun times together. :)

Barrett is 2!

I can hardly believe that it has been two years already. Where does the time go? He is an amazing little person, with an every growing and changing personality. Who could help but love this kid. He always keeps me on my toes, and is fascinated with the way the world works. You can almost see his brain analyzing the situation to figure out how he can do the same thing. I am so grateful that he and Isabelle get along so well, since they are so close together in age. I think they will always be fast friends who look out for one another.

One of my girlfriends asked what is he doing now that he is two? I decided to make a little list of his many talents.

• Talks and learns new words everyday
• Runs
• Jumps
• Swims with a floaty swimsuit
• Backwashes into your water bottle
• “Shares” your food
• Makes a regular mess
• Says I Love You
• Makes the cutest faces

And the list goes on and on. He is so much fun, we could not have asked for a better kid. We are so happy to have him, even when he makes me want to pull my hair out. Happy Birthday Barrett, your two!


Bear is blowing out the candles on his card, how funny!

Petting Zoo

My kids are so funny! At least to me they are. Today we went to a petting zoo and instead of petting the animals they were climbing on the stumps and railroad ties. No I’m just kidding they did do that but they also pet the animals first. It was a little small but nice and shady. We went around at least twice seeing all the animals and had a pretty good time. The cow tried to eat the fence, which I thought was pretty funny. Maybe she just wanted a little bit of attention, who knows. They even gave out free coloring activity books to all the kids who came; since the petting zoo was free I thought that was pretty cool. No pigs though and they even had two ducks who were sitting on eggs still. I thought that was a little strange but who knows if they took the ducklings away and just to make new ones or if they decided they wanted to have summer ducklings instead of spring. I think the kids had lots of fun and we might go again if they ask to.

4th of July 2008

Happy 4th of July! We hope that everyone had a great time. This is the first year that the kids have had a chance to see a really good fireworks show done for the public. The first year we were in Utah we went to the West Jordan City Fireworks show and were rained out. And before we moved to California we just watched backyard fireworks. Needless to say they were pretty excited and really enjoyed seeing the show. We joined the other half of my family up close to Denton, Texas for a little swimming, food and fun. There are so many kids on that side of the family that our kids had so much fun. Plus add to the fact that they are now fish instead of children, they loved the whole day. My parents had even come up to celebrate with us so that was really nice. I counted up the weekends that we will see them this month and I think it came to three, what a change to see them three times in the same month from maybe three times a year. We are so blessed that we had the opportunity to move back to Texas. The kids have really enjoyed spending more time with their grandparents.




Back to our fun holiday, of course since there was a pool the boys had to have a little water jumping fun, to see who could flip, turn and jump the best. At least they were entertaining to watch. Three of the guys conspired to “soak” the people who were not swimming. Since we are in Texas and it is pretty much always hot was not too bad, I was one of the people watching and not swimming. Overall we had a pretty good day, the obligatory, business party and then the fun family party made for a great time and a wonderful holiday.

Texas

Ah Texas! While I was at the gym today I was watching CNN with no sound, and up comes a story about a man who shot some people who were on his property or at the neighbors at one time or another. The interesting part of this story is that the man does not receive any punishment for his actions. You always hear about the law that states you can protect yourself if anyone ever enters your property to try and cause you harm or something to that effect. Well today it has been put into action, and of course my first thought is oh my. Then as they continue on with the story I see the Texas flag, and that is when I think to my self only in Texas. First of all everyone in Texas has a gun, so they say so why would you want to try to rob a Texan. I know I am helping to perpetuate the reputation of Texas, but oh well. I still do not know the full story, my speakers for my computer took a dive on the move and I have not replaced them yet, and we currently do not have cable TV. So I will rely on you my readers to confirm if I am correct or incorrect on this story. I just thought it was interesting and that not everyone would have caught this story. I will put in two links, one is to a shorter version of the story and the second is a deeper commentary with Anderson Cooper.