The Best Game Yet

Today was little league day at the Ball park. We had about eight kids from our t-ball team show up so that we could walk around in a parade on the field, track. Cool right, well not today, they decided to cancel the parade because not enough tickets were sold, and we had waited for about an hour at least before they finally came to let us know. Once they did I started asking for things, like a suite for the night, tokens for the kids park, free food, anything to compensate for this mishap in communications. Well it turns out we did get some free stuff, about 60 Rangers hats, so all the kids got one and pretty much so did Mom and Dad. Plus the best part for us, Bear and Dade got to walk out with Mike Hegeman, a former Rangers pitcher, to throw out the first pitch of the game. That's right we got to go out and wait on the field and then the boys walked out to the mound, while Mike tossed out the first pitch. We, the parents, knew it was too cool, and one day so will Bear and Dade.

Plus as we were leaving Nolan Ryan was almost close enough for me to touch. Instead of being a freak I took a picture.

My New Ride

I have officially embraced the cliche of Soccer Mom. I now am the proud owner of a minivan. I can almost not hardly write the words, but you know what I absolutely love it. Such a smooth ride, so wonderful to drive. And the kids just love it. They have been waiting since we bought it to go for a long ride so that they could watch a show while in the car. Since I'm pretty mean and do not let them ride around town and watch a show.

One of my favorite features, besides the pushing a button to open the doors, is the little mirror that folds out of the ceiling so I can see the kids from the passenger seat. Too cool. Did I mention how much more room we have now in the car. The kids are not sitting on top of each other, it is so nice. Plus there is all this room to carry all that kid crap you have when you travel. No more worries about not being able to fit it all in. I guess this means we will have to take a few more road trips. Now to find the time.

Tackle

The kids love to play tackle with Ben. That is pretty much the first question out of Bear's mouth when Ben gets home. "Can we play tackle, Dad?" The other day Ben was sitting on the floor and Cooper gets himself ready and runs right into Dad. It took Ben about one or two tackles to figure out what he was doing. He would back up to the window and run towards Ben and "tackle" him. It is too cute, so I ran to get the video camera to share with all my peeps. I hope you enjoy our little baby boy being such a big kid. (please remember I am not a vidographer but a photographer.)


While I was in Sulphur Springs we were standing in the kitchen and Cooper backs up against the cabinet and runs towards me. Walks back and then counts, and does it all over again, so I squat down to make it easier for him to tackle. He is just so smart and too cute.

Cucumber Crazy

The cucumbers are taking over the world. Ok maybe not the world but at least my backyard. We have two plants, which I thought was too much but nobody (read Ben) listens to me. And so they are taking over, this is what I pulled today and I'm sure that we will have more in the next couple of days. If you live close by and want some I have plenty.

Watch Out

Barrett is already working his little manipulative magic. Susie told me this story of Barrett today of his antics at Vacation Bible School. About twenty minutes before going out to play on the playground, Bear starts to work his magic with the young helpers in his class. He begins to start talking about the yellow swing, and how he is the only one who should be able to swing on it and that it would be a really good idea to have them push him. He keeps talking about the swing before crafts talking up what he wants to do and convincing them that he should be in. And you know what they completely bought into it and Bear was the only one who got to swing on the yellow swing with his little helpers pushing him. He had them eating out of his little hand. Just to hear Susie tell me the story just made be think about how he is so cleaver. That kid is going be wildly rich and powerful one day.

Running around

Cooper did really good today running around town with me. We had to go to Wal-Mart to look for a lovey because I left his behind but did not find one. So I only picked up a new windshield shade for my car. Very important with leather seats, but more on that later.

Then we went to have the tires rotated, balanced, and aligned. So fun right, not really, but he did great and thought that all noise in the garage was pretty cool. He was enthralled with the whole process of removing the tires and lug nuts. Plus he was the hit of the show in the waiting room. All the men were entertained by his antics.

Then we went to the DMV office. Which some of you might know what a hassle I had in Arlington, getting my new Texas DL. Well the lady did not have me check my mailing address and so she sent it to an address I have not lived at in at least eight (8) years. Yea, never going to get that one. So I just went out the one here in Sulphur Springs and got it fixed, right away. There was no line, and I got a new picture. This time it is going to the right address and we should be able to get it soon. At least I did not have to bring 37 pieces of identification. Cooper did really well there as well, he did get into my gum which is kind of funny.

4 All Ready

I just cannot believe it that Bear is four. It seems like just yesterday that he arrived in the world, started walking and talking. Then just plain exploring everything and getting into a world of trouble. But we love him just the same.

His party was a great success. He had a few friends over and family. It was just the right size for his birthday. We were not sure of the weather so we changed venues sort of at the last minute. Which was probablly pretty good but I think we will still have to make it out to the little play pool anyway.

We put up the water bounce house, and the little bounce house and the kids went to town. They had so much fun playing around it was great. I could not believe how fast they were going do the slide. I think the greased it up with something special to make it go down so fast. Even the little babies had fun sliding do the little slide and sometimes the big slide as well.

The adults had a time of watching the littles play around and attempted to stay cool, but they all seemed to make it. Bear wanted to have red balloons as his cake, they turned out a little orange since white and red really make pink but hey we won't tell if you won't tell. Over all I think he had so much fun.

Happy 4th Birthday Barrett.

Ride On

I plan to do a great big up date or maybe lots of little updates but for right now I just want to put up a little piece about Bear. He is so sweet and INDEPENDENT. He was gone from us for almost two weeks, all by himself, no big sister or little brother. I only got a chance to speak with him once, other wise he was just not ready to talk to Mommy. I did get updates every so often, and they were always wonderful, and full of little boy antics. After all he did end up in Wisconsin with two of his little cousins who are also boys. He had a fantastic time.

Now before he left he was trying somewhat to ride his bike without training wheels, he would do pretty well, but did not have the right motivation. Well once he arrived in Wisconsin, his cousin Mason was riding the bike without the training wheels and this apparently was enough motivation for Bear to try to do this as well. So he worked really hard while in Wisconsin and figured it all out. Once home he immediately asked for his training wheels to be taken off. And then he stated that there was not enough room to ride his bike, but some how he is making the situation work. Aunt Jodi lives on something like 80 acres and they have a nice big hill to ride down and about three acres for the kids to play on. Go figure how the city would not provide this for him. But here are some images of him in his bike riding glory sans training wheels.


barrett (he typed his name, so proud of himself)

4th of July

Ok I know it's a little late but I wanted to make sure you knew I was doing something fun with my kids, in case you were not there to witness the fun. Isabelle and Cooper had lots of fun watching the parade, swimming and fireworks. Bear was in Wisconsin and all reports say that he had a blast and even tried to go home with another family. What love right? Although this did span two days since some people were Saturday celebrators only.

I had every intention of looking at my photos and making them look pretty but instead you get them SOOC, which how would you know otherwise. I think that next year we might try to do a little parade in our neighborhood, so long as we are here in Texas or Arlington at the time.

Then for the Fireworks, we went out to Randolf Air Force Base and watched them there, with thousands of other people. It was still pretty good, the fireworks that is.