July and August

We had another jam packed month. In fact it’s all kind of a blur it was so busy. We are 10 days out from Reese starting 1st grade and 2 weeks away from Brynn starting Mother’s Day Out. In other words on Sept 2nd, if you need me I will be at home sitting on my behind doing NOTHING, enjoying the 5 hours of silence. No one call and bother me.

In July we started the bathroom remodel from hell. Ok, so it wasn’t that bad, other than the fact that the shower doors took over a month to come in and be installed. Last night Ryan and I were able to once again able to shower (independently of course)  in our own bathroom. It was awesome. And our new showerhead is amazing. Reese and Brynn’s showerhead requires a 15 min rinse to get the shampoo out of your hair so I was thrilled last night to be back in my shower.

  The old bathroom was this amazing dusty rose color. The tub, shower and vanity top. We also had one giant mirror (which from the pic below, you can see covered up that gorgeous flowered wallpaper) and brass old nasty fixtures.

Miracle Method came and refinished our tub and shower stall. Tub is now white and our shower looks like granite (but it’s not). That was the easiest part of the work, and we kicked ourselves when it was done, on how it took so long for us to do this.

We then had granite put in for the countertops and new sinks. Our fixtures (which was another nightmare) are oil rubbed bronze. Such an amazing improvement.

 

The girls spent a week in July with Oma and Opa, Ryan’s parents, and had a blast. Brynn decided to run a fever a few of the days but she a trooper and pulled through. They played with ALL the cousins and had a great time in Geronimo. I heard they even saw a cow meeting!

When we went to pick the girls up Ryan was able to stop in and visit with his Uncle and Grandfather (Opie) to check on the sorghum they were each growing this year. The really awesome part of this story is that the seed they planted was seed Ryan created through cross pollination and testing. Ryan developed this seed (and two others) and they were chosen by Monsanto to be released to the public. It is really very cool to think Ryan’s seed was seed his family (among others) planted this growing season. To top it all off Ryan’s uncle called him a week later and told him that he got an unbelievable yield from the crop. Ryan was thrilled his seed produced so well for his family. Way to go Ryan!

Both seeds listed on the signs were seed Ryan released from Bishop

Brynn has a habit of sneaking in people’s beds at night undetected. She took some pictures on Ryan’s phone on this particular night before climbing in bed. As you can see she was up around midnight. She also took a great selfie.

Reese was asked to be in a photo shoot for a local magazine…she is the cover girl with our friend Kaede in the back to school issue. She is happy to sign autographs and assumes anyone she speaks to would like their own personal copy.

A visit to Daddy’s work

Playing school…it must have been fall weather, hence the need for a fleece

Passed out after a long night of swimming and playing at or friend’s house

 

Sporty Spice

The first week of August we headed to Kingwood for one BIG party. Nana turned 90 on 8/8/2014. All kinds of people came into town, and attending her luncheon as well. She was overcome with emotion when we surprised her by telling her all the people who were coming for the big festivities! It was so much fun and I am so glad we got to spend time with our awesome extended family!

Brynn and Baby Dear

Nana and her card playing BFF’s

Leslie’s balloon display

Nana sitting next to her friend Richard who she has known since birth…he is 90 as well.

Silly girls

Nana and her sons

Nana with Glenn’s family. Robyn, Kari, Glenn, Pete and James. Jon wasn’t able to come because of work obligations.

Nana with her nieces and nephew and their spouses. Darlene, Tom, Kurt, Bill and Sugar.

The grandkids and their significant others. Me, Ryan, Robyn, Pete, James, Leslie, Christie and Charlton

Nana with Dorothy and Richard. Nana’s mother and Dorothy’s mother were best friends. Dorothy is a bit younger than Nana, and was a flower girl in Nana’s wedding (along with Sugar who is pictured above)

Nana with the “Ryan’s”…Ryan Bading and Stacey Ryan.

Nana and her little loves

Grand and Great-grand kids…(Minus Jon)

Brynn and her love Kobe.

Reese’s taking pictures at Nana’s party on my phone

Brynn got her new bigger girl bed. She has been in a toddler bed for a while but we brought the twin home from Kingwood. So trickle down economics means that she got Reese’s bedding (for the time being) and I got Reese some new girlie bedding. She LOVES her new room.

Our bathroom still needs to be textured and painted (which will happen in two weeks) but for now we hung the mirrors so we could use our bathroom.

Our new (finally) frameless shower doors.

More summer fun to have over the next 10 days. Check back after school starts for another update.

Sweet Summertime

Once again my blogging falls behind as I am busy with the kids. My goal this summer was to limit TV time for them both and I have been pretty successful. We spend A LOT of time at the pool. I mean TONS. To say the lifeguards know us by name would be an understatement. It’s not a bad thing though because my kids are keeping them entertained while they work the lifeguard stand. It’s not every day that a 6.5 and 2.5 year old stand on the side of the pool chanting cheers that they learned from the high school cheerleaders over and over again. Brynn ends every one of her cheers with the word “jump” because that is what Reese tells her to do when the cheer is over…JUMP in the pool! One week there were some kids visiting their grandparents, in the week they were here they kids were doing cheers with Reese, playing for hours in the pool with my kids and having a blast. Their grandmother was happy Reese was around to play with them since they were all the same age.

Brynn took swim lessons and did well. After a week at MeMe’s house she is now swimming without floaties, short distances of course but swimming fearlessly with her head underwater nonetheless. Reese is wearing a strip out of the diving board at the pool with as much as she’s jumped. She also has been working on her laps, and trying to touch the bottom of the deep end (12 ft down, she swears she did it).

We have been to the Aquarium, a sea turtle release, spent a week at MeMe and Grampy’s, had fro yo, had playdates with friends, all things that Reese and Brynn listed on her summer to do list. We still have a few more to cross off but we will do them all this summer. She’s been working on her reading, math and writing and is doing well with all those. Crazy to think she’ll be in 1st grade in about a month.

Reese and Brynn went to VBS last week at the school where Reese attended Mother’s Day Out. They both had a fabulous time, and it was so great seeing Brynn get so involved in the singing. Too funny. Brynn will start school there in the fall as well and boy is she ready for it. She’s so excited (and so am I).

Kicking summer off with a park day. Reese often spends most of her time on the picnic table acting out something or playing pretend. She talks to herself a lot.

Brynn plays in the rocks and on the slide

But it’s great when they play together

The first official weekend of summer we were in Geronimo throwing a Retirement Party for Marlu (Ryan’s Mom). It was a great party, everything turned out well and all the planning fell nicely into place.

I didn’t make the cake, so please note it was not my spelling error.

I created an invitation that said “After 41 years Marlu is finally graduating from kindergarten” which is why the cake says “Congratulations Kindergarden Graduate” (I did not think I needed to spell out Kindergarten when I order the cake over the phone, I didn’t and they spelled it wrong).

Marlu with her grandgirls. She will be working part time at the Church daycare and spending her afternoons watching Lucy and Nora.

All the cousins sitting down watching the slideshow Ryan made. It was LONG…he wasn’t ever know for being brief.

Ryan and I workout 6 days a week, so needless to say the girls see that we do what we can to be active. I love when they workout to videos we do at home. Sure they end up acting silly and playing by the end but they make an effort that that is what counts. Here they were doing pretty dang good squat jumps!

snack break at MeMe and Grampy’s pool

In Humble there is a dine in movie theatre. In the summer they show kids movies at 9 am and do all you can eat pancakes for $5. We saw Muppets Take Manhattan (yes the old one). Reese loved it, Brynn promptly napped in my lap after eating her pancakes, and everyone had fun. Even Brynn is you ask her.

Brynn in a bag

Matching dancing movie stars

Ryan always takes the girls to Home Depot the 1st Saturday of the month for the kids workshop. We were in Kingwood so Grampy and I took the girls. They made bug catchers.

We got home and Brynn broke the furniture. Notice the chair in the back is missing with spindle. Way to go B!

What happens when you leave your phone in kid reach

The girls are spending the week with Roger and Marlu and doing all kinds of fun things I am sure. I know they were getting to play with ALL their cousins, which they love. I hear they are being well behaved. I am holding down the fort while our master bathroom gets a facelift. Pics to come upon completion.

We still have a few things to check off the summer to do list, like camping, and making s’mores (which we will do camping) and a few more trips to the beach. If camping is not a very large expression of how much I love my husband and kids I don’t know what is. I do NOT camp. Sure we will be staying in Roger and Marlu’s camper (which they are kindly letting us use) so it’s not like I am roughing it in a tent, but camping is so far out of my comfort zone. I am embracing the adventure and hoping for a good outcome. What’s the worse that can happen, I get attacked by coyotes when I am out for a run?!?

May!

Brynn and I went to the Aquarium per her request. She enjoyed herself and seeing all the fish

Brynn had a marker for .5 milliseconds. Ryan and I were both in the room when this occurred. She’s WILD

We went to the BucDays Rodeo and Brynn didn’t perk up until the barrel racing began. Then she LOVED the rest. Reese had a blast as well. Crazy!

Reese had Challenge Day at school. Ryan was a WatchDog that day and I brought Brynn up as well, so the whole family was there. She had a blast playing with her team and doing all the activities.

Watching her partner in the tug of war. She cracked me up because she and her partner planned for matching outfits and even planned for ponytail braids to match.

Another girls was absent on Challenge Day so Reese and her partner Serenity ended up having a team of 3. All the girls had a great time together and were so good at taking turns.Some of Ms. Moore’s class eating their sno-cones

We had a Cinco de Mayo fest at the Prather’s. For Xmas the boys got two sibling lab puppies. They are so sweet and so well behaved. Bryn was in dog heaven. Ryan’s garden. We have already gotten a bunch of squash and our tomatoes are starting to ripen!

The Kindergarten classes also took a field trip to the Aquarium. I had signed up to chaperone and was planning on taking Brynn. Of course, the Murphy’s Law of all stay at home Mom’s, Brynn got sick the night before the field trip. She’s never sick and of course the ONE day we needed to do something she gets sick. Ryan stayed home with her and I was still able to attend the trip.

Some of the students with Ms. Moore

Brynn had a rough afternoon one day. She hit her forehead on the bookshelf around 3. Then at around 5 she was running outside in Reese’s flip flops and took a tumble into the swing set giving herself a fat lip.

Brynn playing at 9:30 p.m….if she naps she’s up ALL night.

Reese had her Kinder program on Tuesday and she did so well. The music teacher did a fabulous job of writing the songs and getting all the kids to perform well. Reese had a speaking part and she spoke so clearly. It was wonderful. She’s ready for 1st grade, but I think she’ll be sad to leave Kinder.

She’s the third one in from the left on the second row down from the top…Ready for her speaking part

Brynn so happy after watching Reese’s show. Brynn LOVES her big sister so much!

Kickball is ALL done and we couldn’t be happier! Two more short weeks of school, 4 days next week, and 2.5 the week after and she’s done with Kinder. She doesn’t have school tomorrow either, so she’s living the high life.

We are all excited for the pool to open. It’s been so gorgeous here, not as hot as it usually is for this time of year. We have been a the park about 5 thousand times with friends, and I know the girls are counting down the day until we can hit the pool. I am nervous that summer heat is going to hit us full force and HARD since it’s been so nice for this long.

Happy Memorial Day!