catching up

Short recap of the last few weeks:

Katie turned 5-She is such a fun, energetic, creative blessing in our family!

Ellie turned 9 months-She is not quite crawling but rolling all over the place and is so much fun!

Gracie is continuing to do really well in school and is busy getting ready for LTC which will take place in less than 2 weeks. She is growing up before our eyes and is doing such a good job of it. She is such a big helper around the house, many times doing things that need to be done without even being asked to.


We stayed close to home for Spring Break but did some fun things around here.


We had some of our best friends from Aiken come visit us and had such a great time together! It's such a blessing to have friends who truly will be "real friends" forever and you can just tell.


When we found out we were moving back to Texas, one of the first things I thought was that we would get to take pictures of the girls in bluebonnets. Today we searched the back country roads for some. We didn't find too many, but we got some cute pictures of the girls in a few bluebonnets and then some in some other pretty wildflowers. We many find some more before they're all gone.Here's a picture of Daddy with his girls.

Houston Rodeo + Family Funday

Thursday night, we went to Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo and had such a good time! The girls had been so excited earlier in the week whenwe got them both real cowgirl boots for the occasion. Chris came home from work early and we took Gracie out of school a bit early so we could get down there sooner. I loved the sample of cowboy beans & cornbread we got from some 'chuck wagon cowboys.' They were sooooo good! I love 'cowboy food!' The livestock show was lots of fun with so many neat animals. There was a huge longhorn that Katie was able to sit on (cows are her FAVORITE animal!), baby animals just a day old, tiny chicks just hatched from eggs, and so much more. The 'Borden cow' was so cute! There was lots of shopping to be done, but we didn't have time to do a lot of that. I really wish we could have spent lots more time in that area.

We ate some dinner then the girls enjoyed some ice cream while Chris & I shared a funnel cake-Yum! We headed into the rodeo and got settled into our seats where we got to watch all the typical rodeo events which was fun and something the girls have never gotten to see except on t.v. The concert afterwards was Clay Walker. We only stayed for 2-3 songs because it was so loud for Ellie and she was getting restless. I'm not really familiar with his songs either, so he wasn't a big draw for me. Plus, I'm getting old and was tired! ha! It was a really fun night, and I look forward to going next year!
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Our sweet Katie Boo will be turning 5 next week. This is so hard to believe! We will be having a small celebration on Tuesday with one of her friends from church-pizza, cake, ice cream, and princess dresses on the sweet 5 year old girls! As much of a tomboy as Katie can be (she's VERY into baseball right now) she has chosen to have a "Disney Princess" birthday, so we have the plates, napkins, tablecloth, & cups ready, and Gracie helped me choose a cake for the party. It will be fun!

Today, we had a 'family funday' to help celebrate her birthday. I love birthdays, so I like stringing the celebrations out as long as we can. We had discussed what to do, and Katie kept talking about roller skating, so I looked into finding a place and found one right down the street. Gracie had a good time skating around & around-not very quickly and with a few falls-but she had fun and got some good exercise. Katie enjoyed it too-getting to wear her very own Spiderman skates-but sometimes her attention span isn't very long, so after a few falls, she was ready to go! She enjoyed it though and enjoyed playing some video games & air hockey while there. Chris fell once, and I could tell when he stood up that he had hurt himself. Poor guy isn't as young as he used to be!

After roller skating, we went to Chick Fil A for lunch and then 'Ooh La La' where the girls got to choose a little cupcake and Chris & I shared a big one. Chris then loaded up the fishing poles and we headed to the lake for the girls to do some fishing. The people next to us were catching some using hot dogs, so I went back home to get some. The fish sure did enjoy eating them off of Gracie's hook, but she never did quite catch one. Again, Katie's attention stayed with the fishing for only so long, so she messed around while Gracie fished, Chris tried to 'coach' her, Ellie napped a little, & I tried to read. Gracie eventually grew tired of fishing as well since she wan't catching anything, so we let the girls play on the playground for awhile, then we headed home.

We are currently watching "Angels in the Outfield." Chris thought Katie would enjoy watching it since she is so into baseball all of a sudden. I also rented the baseball version of "Air Bud." I'm sure she'll like that one too. I put Katie on the waiting list for t-ball, but I'm afraid she won't make it onto a team this season since I know she's not the first one on the list. If not, we'll pay more attention to sign ups next time and get her on a team this Fall. She keeps saying over & over that she wants to play real baseball.