So here I am playing catch up again:) The following pics pretty much sum up what we've been up to this summer.
In May Braden graduated from his first year of preschool. Me and three other moms did a co-op where we rotated on a weekly basis. It was great and Braden had a wonderful time. I was in charge of graduation at our house, let's just say it was bitter sweet seeing the end of the year:)
Here's Jacob exhibiting a fairly normal Sunday afternoon at our house (or pretty much any afternoon at our house) dressed in jams and whatever costume he wants to wear. Braden was Batman that day and Gavin sported his own Batman costume. Jacob is Super Jacob, but that's not really a costume is it, he's super every day!
We got out and did a lot of fun things mostly because my good friend Shawna organized some super awesome outings. Here is Braden and his best friend Bradley at the Airplane Museum. They had everything from very old wooden planes to the capsule from one of the Discovery shuttles. The tour guide was a very nice old man who had probably flown a lot of these planes, unfortunately he moved a little too fast and breezed past many of the things the kids would have loved to see. In the back however was a whole Jay Jay the Jet Plane playland that the kids got to run around in and in the very back they had the nose of an actual Southwest plane that they could go up in and play around, they had a lot of fun. At one point it was only Braden and Jacob up in the nose of the plane and when Braden came down by himself, I asked him where Jacob was. He told me he was still up there but I couldn't see him so I went to investigate and I found Jacob locked in the bathroom, and we wonder why Jacob beats up on Braden...
June and July were actually really rainy (well for Texas anyways) so I let the boys take advantage of this blessed event and get dirty:) They loved running in the pubbles and were absolutely soaked and filthy by the time they got in but very very happy:)
We also spent a lot of time at the library in June and July. Braden and Jacob both participated in the summer reading club. Braden finished rather quickly, he loved reading Spiderman and Magic Tree House and Berenstein Bears and pretty much anything to do with trains and baseball. Jacob on the other hand would sit still for about 5 minutes and than run off if I was not giving him exclusive reading attention. But he did finally finish and they both got to pick out new books at the library. The boys loved going into the teen room at the library where they could play chess and sit in the super plush chairs and 'jam out' to some tunes:)
On another adventure we met some friends at a park in Plano and than rode the DART train down a couple stops and then back again. Braden insisted on bringing his back pack so he could show KP his scriptures and when we got off to switch trains, he left it on the train. We were just heart broken when we realized what had happened. We headed back to the park and had a picnic lunch and played. As we were finishing up , a lady we had chatted to on the train and my friend Melissa had just happened to tell her what our plans were, came up with Braden's back pack. The Lord was definately watching out for Braden that day!
We've spent a lot of time at the park on any day that wasn't so hot you could fry eggs on the sidewalk:) here we are at the park by Grandma VB's house playing with our friends Wade and Traten. Our favorite park by far is the rocketship park with a 3 story rocket structure with huge slides coming off the top and ride on rockets. When given a choice, that's what the boys pick:)
On another fun outing Shawna set-up we went to the police station and then later to the firestation. The boys loved seeing the police car and the fire trucks and the officers were all super friendly and helpful.
In May Braden graduated from his first year of preschool. Me and three other moms did a co-op where we rotated on a weekly basis. It was great and Braden had a wonderful time. I was in charge of graduation at our house, let's just say it was bitter sweet seeing the end of the year:)
Here's Jacob exhibiting a fairly normal Sunday afternoon at our house (or pretty much any afternoon at our house) dressed in jams and whatever costume he wants to wear. Braden was Batman that day and Gavin sported his own Batman costume. Jacob is Super Jacob, but that's not really a costume is it, he's super every day!
We got out and did a lot of fun things mostly because my good friend Shawna organized some super awesome outings. Here is Braden and his best friend Bradley at the Airplane Museum. They had everything from very old wooden planes to the capsule from one of the Discovery shuttles. The tour guide was a very nice old man who had probably flown a lot of these planes, unfortunately he moved a little too fast and breezed past many of the things the kids would have loved to see. In the back however was a whole Jay Jay the Jet Plane playland that the kids got to run around in and in the very back they had the nose of an actual Southwest plane that they could go up in and play around, they had a lot of fun. At one point it was only Braden and Jacob up in the nose of the plane and when Braden came down by himself, I asked him where Jacob was. He told me he was still up there but I couldn't see him so I went to investigate and I found Jacob locked in the bathroom, and we wonder why Jacob beats up on Braden...
June and July were actually really rainy (well for Texas anyways) so I let the boys take advantage of this blessed event and get dirty:) They loved running in the pubbles and were absolutely soaked and filthy by the time they got in but very very happy:)
We also spent a lot of time at the library in June and July. Braden and Jacob both participated in the summer reading club. Braden finished rather quickly, he loved reading Spiderman and Magic Tree House and Berenstein Bears and pretty much anything to do with trains and baseball. Jacob on the other hand would sit still for about 5 minutes and than run off if I was not giving him exclusive reading attention. But he did finally finish and they both got to pick out new books at the library. The boys loved going into the teen room at the library where they could play chess and sit in the super plush chairs and 'jam out' to some tunes:)
On another adventure we met some friends at a park in Plano and than rode the DART train down a couple stops and then back again. Braden insisted on bringing his back pack so he could show KP his scriptures and when we got off to switch trains, he left it on the train. We were just heart broken when we realized what had happened. We headed back to the park and had a picnic lunch and played. As we were finishing up , a lady we had chatted to on the train and my friend Melissa had just happened to tell her what our plans were, came up with Braden's back pack. The Lord was definately watching out for Braden that day!
We've spent a lot of time at the park on any day that wasn't so hot you could fry eggs on the sidewalk:) here we are at the park by Grandma VB's house playing with our friends Wade and Traten. Our favorite park by far is the rocketship park with a 3 story rocket structure with huge slides coming off the top and ride on rockets. When given a choice, that's what the boys pick:)
On another fun outing Shawna set-up we went to the police station and then later to the firestation. The boys loved seeing the police car and the fire trucks and the officers were all super friendly and helpful.
Here's Gavin at our last trip to the park. I was letting him crawl around and enjoy the park from the ground, when Braden picked him up(he thinks he's so big to do that) and plopped him onto the bottom of the slide. What does Gavin automatically do? He climbed up the slide! I couldn't believe it, but hey why not, he climbs everything else:)
So that's pretty much what we've been up to this summer. Oh yeah and swimming swimming and more swimming, but with 3 kids, who has time to take pics of kids in the pool, so just imagine with me or a minute. Braden has on his spiderman goggles and is spending 90% of his time underwater and swimming all over the place, Jacob hangs out where the water only gets about 6 inches deep or clinging to whoever has dragged him away from his safety zone and Gavin is kicking and squirming like crazy to get away from you so he can get swimming too, he's definately going to be a little fish like Braden. So that's about it for us, I think we're all ready for school to start, or maybe that's just me:)
Here's Gavin at 81/2 monthes, loving his blanket. He's absolutely enamored with his afghan from Grandma VB(not pictured:) Every night when we take him up for bed, his face lights up as soon as he sees it and then he grabs it and shoves his face into it. I've never seen a kid so happy to go to bed:)
More happy baby
Here's Gavin enjoying our walk in the woods. 
Braden and Jacob love sitting in the rocker Great Grandma Lichtenberg gave us, that used to belong to her dad when he was little, so it came as no surprise when Gavin wanted to jump in and have a ride too:)
10 1/2 monthes, notice the bruises starting to form, he's in to everything!
This is what the face of fear and awe look like...
January also brought rice cereal back into our lives, mushy disgusting nasty rice cereal. But we love it because it also meant that Gavin was FINALLY sleeping through the night and I was finally sane again, so life was good, and Gavin didn't seem to mind, but he also didn't know any better:) This face would later be joined by grunts and screams any time the spoon took more than 5.2 seconds to re-enter his hungry little mouth. He's really intense about his food!
This picture is really 100% for Kristie, look SNOW in TEXAS, really it's true! AND there's enough for Braden to attempt to make a snow angel. It was a REALLY exciting day:)
And finally here's my Gavinator in the bath. I can't believe how well he's sitting up all by himself! He's gotten SO big and he's doing so many things but he'll always be my sweet baby:)
