10 Things to Smile About in May

Summer is officially here for us!! School was out last Friday and we had wedding festivities all weekend, so we took the kids out to the Hyatt Regency Lost Pines for a few days to kick off summer with a bang.  And that we did.  I'll be telling y'all all about it next week on R We There Yet Mom?.

But today? Today is the day my kids HATE.  It's "Summer Clean-OUT Day!!"  Clean out those closets, shelves, under your bed, etc. and let's purge!!! YAY!!!!!!  

No, their not buying it either. 

Needless to say, I'm going to post this real quick and get this party started!

Here is my Top 10 Things that Made Me Smile in the month of May.  There were a lot, so it was really hard to narrow it down.

 1. Finishing Bubba's first year of "school".  He attended a sweet little pre-school two days a week and LOVED it. He woke up each morning asking, "I go school today??".  He loved his class, his teachers, and even stayed on his mat quietly during his nap time.  He loved it so much (and so did this momma) that we decided to put him in 3 days a week next year!  Here we are at his Mother's Day Tea.

 2. Of course, this fantastic trip!!!  Filled with friends, food, drink, and laughter, I will be grinning from ear-to-ear each time I think of this trip.  Can't wait til next year! #tulsa7

 3. Both kiddos won the opportunity to ride their bikes to school with their Vice Principal, Mr. Baker, in the Spring Carnival Silent Auction  It's memories like this that they will remember from Elementary School!

 4.  The family took a trip to a fun little German town, Walburg, and had a great evening at the Walburg  Biergarten, where we ate fun food and danced all night - we had great "date night" with the kiddos and this picture shows how much fun we were having! You can read about Walburg here.

 5.  Matt ended his soccer coaching career this Spring.  After 16 seasons coaching Miss Sis, he is reading to be a parent sitting on the sidelines.  His U11G team gave him this Liverpool jersey as a thank you!  I have  feeling his coaching isn't quite over, as he has been kicking the ball around the backyard with little Bubba.

 6. Brody transformed into George Washington the last week of school for the Living Museum project. He did an awesome job and told everyone, "Want to know how I got on the $1 bill???"

 7.  We had a spectacular 3rd Birthday Party for my little man.

 8.  The very next day, Brody became a Webelo Scout.  In 2 years, he will become a Boy Scout!!

 9.  And we spent Bubba's actual birthday at the Quarry Splash Pad - love this place - and I love this picture!!!

 10.  Lastly - 2 photos for this one - Both kids had an EXCELLENT school year - both getting all A's all year and perfect attendance (yes, I think I can brag about this!).  Definitely makes this momma SMILE.

Sissy had a graduation, which I will tell you all about very soon....

I feel like I have so much to catch up on the blog here, so I will be attempting to keep it up this summer - it gets hard maintaining 2 blogs and trying to promote the other one, but this one captures all that happens in my family, so it is just as important as the other.

Thanks for sticking with me and all the support y'all give!  Have an excellent day.

And thanks to EmmyMom (who I had the pleasure of meeting in California) for hosting this fun topic each month!  I love to look back on all that I have to smile about!

We Are Young

Early this month, I took a little trip to Huntington Beach, California to visit a few friends.  And we had an incredible weekend......

It took a while to get this movie made, but it was well, worth the wait. Take a moment to see all the fun we did have.

I'll be back to tell you more about it.  We have kidnapped the kids and taken them to a surprise getaway (Lost Pines!!).  So I'm breaking the rules by being online at all.

Enjoy our fun movie!!!

A Very Hungry Caterpillar Birthday

I have been shamefully lazy with my 3rd child and his birthday (well, not his first birthday...but definitely his 2nd...) so I really wanted to do something fun this year.

Time was ticking by and I had no time to order custom invites, so I grabbed these cute caterpillars at the Target and hand wrote the invites (ohhh- the horrors, I know!!).  

Feeling kinda loser-like delivering them to Bubba's class the same day a perfectly custom princess birthday invite was sent home, I was whining about it with my friends.  And JennyKate, Miss Etsy-Extraordinare, suggested a Very Hungry Caterpillar theme!!!  Done!!

 I mean, look at the adorable cake.....

 So the baker kinda got it wrong.  The Very Hungry Caterpillar did not eat through a banana, but who am I to correct her??

 Thank you easy for the adorable labels......

 These were my favorite part!

 Perfect for a 10 am party - the fruit was yummy!

 And these cute treat bags......

 Bubba was very hesitant to get in the bounce house, but we did what every parent would do - we forced him screaming into it - and he loved it, just like we knew he would! (Don't judge us!)

 We also made fingerprint bookmarks!!

 And Sis read a story to all of Bubba's guests.  Any guesses as to which story we read???

 Have you seen a cuter smile?????

 Because we certainly did not give every child enough sugar, we made cotton candy.  Kinda a learning curve, but I got it and it was YUMMY!!!!

It was by far one of the best parties I have ever thrown - it just came together so well.  The weather was perfect, the guests all had a fun time.  It was awesome.

Happy Birthday little man!  Here's to year number 3!

So Proud of My Girl

Last week, I had lunch with Sissy's teacher and then I attended a Q&A with her new Middle School principal.  Right after that, I had a planning meeting for her 5th grade graduation.  

And I walked away overwhelmed.

Where did my little girl go?  She is maturing right before my eyes and it all happened THIS YEAR!

 She was excited to get glasses, but not so excited to have to wear sports lenses to play soccer. Though I have never heard her complain about them.......

 She came up with a pretty awesome Science Fair project and did most of the work all on her own....and got a first place ribbon.

 You know she haas had high goals of selling cookies in the past, but with soccer being pretty demanding this year, and her being in Student Council this year, we opted for a lower goal.  She sold at booths in the bitter cold and still surpassed her goal by 100 boxes!

 She even had a "secret shopper" come to one of her booths and because she answered all the questions correctly (what is your goal?  how many to get to that goal?, etc.), she earned an extra 2 cases!  She really impressed me that day with her politeness and confidence talking to an adult.

 She still loves art and she still wants to be a professional artist one day.  Her first work of art was displayed at the local donut shop this winter! Hey, you have to start some where!

 On top of everything else, she was a library aide at school and had her own shelf!

 She earned the All A Honor Roll for the first semester......

 But still knows how to act like a goofball......

 Remember how she earned enough $$$ to buy her iPad?  She liked the sense of earning money, so she and her friend created the "Walking Adventure Crew" and has 2 regular customers she walks & keeps dogs for!

 She and her dad attended their last Girl Scout Father/Daughter Dance this year too.  He is such a proud Dad!

 And......she won a spot on the Battle of the Bluebonnets - She had to read all the Texas Bluebonnet Books and their team competed against other schools in a Quiz Game - it was so exciting!!

 Lastly, her soccer skills keep improving.  I just love to watch her play  She is trying out for a new club in a few weeks and they already invited her to play in a tournament in Houston in June! Woo-Hoo!!

 My girl is also a terrific big sister- she naturally takes care of her little brother and wants to play with him (most of the time).  She is a natural caregiver and loves him to pieces. Now if only I can say the same about her love for her other brother......

So this has totally turned into a love fest (or brag fest- however you want to look at it) for Sis.  She is just an incredible young woman.  I look at her lately and just beam pride - she is an awesome kid.  I love her personality.  I love her confidence.  I love her humor.  She is so fun to be around.  

I am sad for how quickly her young years have flown by - I feel like it was yesterday when I took her home form the hospital and took a nap on the floor by her crib because I didn't want to leave her side.  Now we are having philosophical conversations about water conservation - how did that happen??

Simply said, she is precious to me.  I am going to love on her this summer before I send her off into the big bad world of Middle School!!

Yikes!!!

Ten Things to Smile About: April

I am sitting in the airport on my way to see Viv, Shawn, Jenny-Kate, Jen, Christy, & Connie in California, so I already have a BIG reason to smile....

But I love my monthly recap. So, for your viewing/reading (??) pleasure, here are my Top 10 Things to Smile about in April:

1. Of course, Number One - meeting Kyle Chandler at Sissy's soccer Game on April 1.  What? You didn't hear the story yet??  Here ya go.....

2. Sis turned 11 on April 5 and want to take a guess at what her favorite birthday present was?  A Liverpool jersey with her fav player's name on the back (can't remember his name b/c he has horrible buck teeth and that is all I can recall about him...). Anyways, this surpassed the purple bike that mom picked out...... grrrrrr.....

3. We had a fun slumber party to celebrate the big 11!  And all these girls were giddy (and blue) to be swimming the first week of April!

4. We took in a really cool art exhibit at the AMOA-Arthouse Art on the Green - 9 holes of putt-putt golf.  Each hole was a masterpiece! So cool!

5. My gorgeous family on Easter.  Yes, we like green......

6. Little Bubba LOVED hunting eggs....we did it over, and over , and over for weeks....

7. Every Wednesday has been date day with my little man, as we have only a few weeks until school is out and the big kids are home.  We have been exploring new parks and taking fun classes - it has been so fun!

8. Sis had her last soccer game and we took some fun pictures of the girls before the game.  Some of these girls have been playing together for the last 4 years and we are breaking apart this year (I guess moving into middle school doesn't help!).  Look at these adorable smiley faces!!!

9. Bubba was ready to move into a "big-boy" bed, but this momma was NOT smiling at the mess he has created each day at nap time.  This was Day One - he emptied every drawer in his dresser.  This week, he proceeded to fill his sink up with water and stop it with his blanket - what a mess! Yes, I have a monitor on in his room.  No, I don't hear him - he is silent.....

10.  The month ended with a quick visit with Uncle Brad - we took him to Brody's soccer game and dinner at Chuy's - it was great to catchup with Matt's brother as we don't get to see him or his family nearly enough.

I hope you had lots of things to smile about this month!  Take a few minutes to reflect on it - I'm guess you had way more than 10!!

Linking up with EmmyMom's Top Ten Things to Smile about Monthly meme - did I tell you I get to meet her tomorrow too???