Fall in Texas....What Fall?

I guess Fall comes around here in Texas in September when people put their pumpkins and scarecrows out, but BOY is it hot down here! Fall is my favorite season and it blows by in a second! So, even though it's upwards of 85 degrees here, we're celebrating fall. And for those of you that know me, the decorations are out!!

Brady's Elmo party

Sunday after the party...Granna and Papaw going back to TN. We sure were glad we had great family and friends to celebrate Brady with! We all had a great time!

Trying out the baseball machine outside. It cheers for you and the arm lifts up and puts a ball on the black stick. It's amazing!

Josh and Uncle Gary putting together the birthday presents. He got a pop-a-shot basketball game from Uncle Gary and Aunt Marisa, and a loud ESPN baseball machine from Granna and Papaw. He loves both! This boy never slows down until his head hits the pillow. He must be extra active because everyone comments on it, especially his poor teachers!

Granna and Papaw

Grammy and Pops

Our Mommu and Aunt Marisa. Mommu and Grandad still drive from Lubbock for the kids' parties. They are Josh's grandparents and we love them so much!

All his friends and Grace had to help open the presents. He wasn't that interested!

Loved his cake and ice cream. Those icing colors do wonder to a kid's poop! Yikes! The poor thing needs to eat 2 lbs. of cake! He only weighed 26 lbs. at his appt. The dr. wasn't worried.

Loved his cake!

We grilled out burgers for everybody and had sides, along with the cake and ice cream. We still just have mainly family and a few of our adult friends from years back.

This is Pops and our precious nephew, Caleb. They dressed identical for the party, by accident.

Brady and his buddy, Jackson. His mom and I are friends since college days at Texas Tech!

The finished product

Brady had his party a few Saturdays ago. He was saying all morning, "Elmo pawty" and was really interested in his cake. He seemed super excited for a 2 yr.old.

God help us....our 4 yr old is acting 20!!

We have had a rough week with Grace. It's as if we woke up one day and she had aged 16 yrs. She all of a sudden is getting way too big for her britches!! I don't know if she is learning "too much" from her darling friends in Pre-K, or her mind is just swirling with information. Whichever it is, her backside is learning it's lesson over and over, as well as many talks with Mommy and praying to God to help her obey, and occasional use of "Sassy Spray." If you don't know what that is, it's vinegar and water in a spray bottle. When she uses inappropriate language, we have to wash out those nasty words from her mouth. Now, don't you all go call CPS on me. We are trying to prevent a Britney Spears reaction down the road at 16.

On Tuesday before school, I was doing Grace's hair in her bathroom. All of a sudden she asks me, "Mommy, why do I have light skin and not dark skin?" I tell her that mommy has light skin and daddy has light skin, so when God made her in my tummy she had to have light skin too. And she says, "Well, I want to have dark skin." Bless her little heart!

Then that night, she proceeded to keep using the word "butt", which got her sassy spray. She can use that word soon enough.

Then yesterday she pronounced at dinner that she wanted to get married. We told her she had to wait about 20 more years for that, and she said "no, she was ready now." We told her she would have to move out of our house and not ever live with mommy and daddy anymore. She would have to live with her husband. And she says, "Yes, that's fine. I'm going to marry Court(a boy in her class.) We tell her she will have to live in another house, cook all the meals, and she is still fine with it. We try to act sad like this is really hurting our feelings, but it doesn't phase her. She's still today all about getting married. Sheesh...is she really only 4??

Please tell us this is just a short phase, and not the new personality of our precious firstborn!

Brady Turns 2

Brady has not done well in recent visits to the picture place, so we just took him out to a field one night and took some pics for his 2 yr photos. I thought they turned out okay.

Tomorrow, Sept. 23, Brady will be two years old. In some ways the time has flown by and in other ways it has been very slow. Each child is such a gift to us, because Josh and I feel like we don't deserve them and weren't sure we could have them. Brady has been more challenging than Grace, however I'm hoping that means he will be a strong man with opinions, convictions, and always stand his ground. I always tell Josh that God made him extra cute with that blonde hair and huge blue eyes so that I wouldn't strangle him! He's a mess! But we love him so much and he brings such joy and liveliness to our family. Brady we love you, buddy!

Labor Day weekend

Grace was glad her friend Riley came over. They have a lot of fun together, mostly playing dress up. She has two friends named Riley, so she calls them brown hair Riley and yellow hair Riley. Cute!

The kids played on the slip n slide and went zooming down our slide into the pool. They thought it was great fun!

The Snyder and Waddell families came over. Here are all the mommies filling up water balloons.

We had some friends over for a cookout on Labor Day. We finally tried out our ice cream machine that we got for Christmas. It made some yummy ice cream! Josh was busy manning that and the grill!

The kids on Labor Day

Fall Has Begun!

I am pretty sure I haven't blogged about this, but I have griped on facebook. Months ago, Josh told me how great it would be for me to work at the kids' preschool. I would be there with them, their tuition would be greatly discounted, we could save on gas, and I would make a little "fun" money. At the time that sounded great! Well, being with 19 2-3 yr olds all day is making me insane!! I thought I would be able to use my early childhood education degree and actually teach, but what I am really doing is teaching a bunch of kids turning 3 how to sit on the potty! We'll see how long I can take it. So this is Brady and I with my CLC t-shirt on.

The actual first day of school was here way too fast. I don't know if I was living in a dream world or what, but the day before school I realized Grace's backpack was broken and Brady had no backpack or lunchbox at all! And neither of their tennis shoes fit! What an awesome mom I am! So we headed to Target and got new backpacks for all! I think it's silly that they have to wear tennis shoes EVERY day! It's still 90 degrees here, and they've been wearing sandals and crocs all summer. Not any more. I am partial to cute girl shoes, as is Grace, so it's hard to wear tennis shoes every day!

Brady started school this year! I am feeling really sad about this because he is going 2 days a week and Grace only went one day a week at that age. But he seems to really enjoy it! How they get 2 yr olds to nap on a mat is beyond me! This was "meet the teacher day." So far I like both their teachers. I know Grace's dress is a little old-fashioned. It was mine. When I started first grade, my dad let me pick out a dress with him that I could wear on the first day. Did you get that? I wore that dress in first grade, and Grace is only 4!!!! I don't know if they made clothes smaller back then, or I have a monster child. Anyway, she really liked the apples on the bottom of it.

Here is Grace going to her first dance class of the fall. She has moved up to the Rhythm and Rhyme Class II, but she still goes on Wednesday mornings. She seems to really enjoy it and tries to show the other girls how to dance. What else would you expect?

Sima Phi Lambda, Sisters for the Lord

This was at the end of the weekend, and there weren't as many girls left. Maybe I ran them all away! Anyway, it was a relaxing time and a nice change from being a mommy all the time.

Now I am almost caught up to this ACTUAL week! Yeah!

These are my very closest friends from college. Some were roommates, others I had classes with, but all were in the sorority. 11 of us stayed in a hotel one night, and other nights some stayed at my house. We shopped and stayed up late and talked for hours on end! Don't the rest of you want to come? :)

This is me and Julie. We were roommates our sophomore year. It was great to reconnect with her and visit in person. She has 2 adorable boys!

Believe it or not, this group of girls has been friends for 12 years!! You read that right! These are some of my dearest friends from college, who all met joining Sigma Phi Lambda, a Christian sorority at Texas Tech. Some of us are older than others and pledged at different times, but we all share the bond of college days and fun times! We had a reunion at my house 2 years ago, and it was much smaller. Well word got around and this thing ballooned! It was great to see people and catch up! This picture was at an Italian restaurant in Grapevine where the majority of us met for dinner. It was great! And like Meaghan mentioned in her blog, there are 5 pregnant women in the pic and who knows how many kids amongst us.