Our summer in Review

This summer was a great one, but boy, we were busy! Looking back, we had a lot of fun, a lot of memories, but I am honestly glad that it has come to an end. The amount of traveling really took its toll on me this summer, so I am glad that for the next couple of months, we will be staying put.

I usually enjoy my summers now that I have kiddos. I love taking them to parks, spray parks, the zoo, the beach, and Schlitterbahn, but for some reason this summer we didn't do too much of anything because I just down right didn't feel like it. This pregnancy has been a little more challenging, so the inability to get up and go at the snap of a finger, having to hold Christian quite a bit still, and the heat, just made me miserable. Needless to say, I have been looking forward to Fall since we arrived back from our trip to Colorado. Hopefully, the cooler weather(whenever that gets here) will motivate me to take the boys to the park, zoo, basically anything that is outdoors, these next couple of months.


We started the summer off with a family trip to Colorado. We had a blast and we look forward to the opportunity to go again. We were able to join my sisters in law, Courtney and Lindsay and their families. We all stayed in a cabin, in the middle of the woods and enjoyed every minute of it. It was especially fun for Joseph to have all his cousins at the same place as we were. The weather was perfect when we were there. The first night and our second day, it wasn't cool, it was cold! I had to wear a hoodie and the kids had to wear jackets. It was perfect!

Highlights from Colorado: Seeing all the kids play together; playing and BEATING Jeff at ping pong ( I haven't done that since college); intending to scare Jeff, but scaring Lindsay instead; hanging out with the adults and playing games; Holiday World(I think that's what it was called, I can never remember); being out in the woods and admiring God's wonderful creations; eating pizza; seeing a hotel named "That'll Do Motel" and a restaurant called "Ain't Notin' fancy Restaurant" (two places that will never have my services).

After Colorado, the two boys and I made some trips to Dallas. One to welcome my nephew Cooper Layne and the other to see some family from Indiana. Both trips were a lot of fun, but very tiring since Jeff wasn't able to join us. One trip that we went up there for, my mom and I took the boys to a water park. It was a lot of fun and both boys had a blast. Joseph is at such a fun age for that stuff now. He can tell you what he wants to do and then he talks about it for weeks afterwards.

Highlights from our Dallas trips: Going to Splash Kingdom; Joseph "going" off my parents diving board; Christian and his stealthiness, making his way to the very top step of my parents stairs(about 30-40 hardwood floor steps, straight down= heart stopper); meeting baby Cooper; getting to see some extended family that we haven't seen in a while; Joseph falling in love with my sisters dog, Max, and ever since that trip, has wanted a dog....really, really bad!; The electricity going out both times we were there. Now what are the odds in that? Luckily, both times it was in the middle of the night, so we didn't get too hot.

To finish up our summer, we were able to finally make it down to Galveston and go to the beach for the day. I had been wanting to do this all summer, but, like I said before, our summer has been pretty busy. Joseph loves the water, so I knew he would have a good time, and Christian we haven't taken to the beach since he was 9 months, so I was curious to see what he would do. Joseph, as expected, loved it, but Christian took a while to warm up. It could have been because he had a virus accompanied with an ear infection and double eye infection a few days before. I don't think the salty water and sand in the eyes was very pleasing to him. After sitting in my lap for a while and some tasty snacks, he perked up and started playing.

This summer, my little C-bear hit the 18 month mark. I remember Joseph so well at this age and enjoying him so much. Not that the first 17 months didn't mean anything, but it all seems like a blur to me. For some reason, for both my boys, at 18 months their personalities really started coming out, they both started to turn into boys, and it seems like they both started really talking at this age. So much fun to watch them grow, change, and learn.

Christian:

Loves to smile

Loves to suck his thumb

Loves to touch my face and play with my hair

Loves cars and any kind of dump truck, excavator, fire truck, etc.

Loves to 'cook'

Picks on Joseph....a lot!

Hugs on Joseph...a lot! (this is usually his apology after smacking, biting or pinching Joe)

Loves riding toys

Loves to climb

Can say about 10-12 words (only Jeff and I can really understand them); my favorite being 'Mo.Mo' (for more), and 'eeessh' (for please)

Joseph, is now 3 1/2, and still makes me laugh. I was able to post about him a while back, so I won't bore you with all the intimate details of what it's like having a 3 year old, just some of his new things.

Joseph:

Loves Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs ( We watch it so much, he can quote most of the movie and if you see Christian, ask him what baby Brent says..he too will quote the movie) and Cars.
Loves animals....still

Loves his Cars cars....still

Wants a dog

Loves Word World

Loves candy and his newest trick, he can chew gum WITHOUT swallowing it!

Such a good big brother. Has his run-ins with C, but most of all, pretty sweet to him. He is also super sweet to his unborn brother. He will kiss my belly and talk to him.

Loves tools

Loves helping Jeff or myself with anything and everything.

Really does say the darnedest things:

*Driving around in our new van (yes, I officially became a minivan mama this summer) for the first time, Joe said, "This is really neat."

*We have a book titled 'My Grandma is wonderful." He saw it one day and started singing, "My Grandma is great, my grandma is great." I then asked, "who is your grandma?"(Meaning for him to say Mimi or Marnie). To which he responded, "Yo Mama." (I am pretty sure he meant to say 'your', but it came out as 'yo'.)

*Jeff went to our room one night after work to get changed. He turns to both boys after getting dressed and says, "lets go". Joseph then says, "But..."

Jeff, "No buts,"

Joe, (looking at his bottom) "yes, we have butts."

One of my favorite words he says right now: smarshmallows (marshmallows)

We are looking forward to this fall and everything that we have in store: Mimi and Papaw visiting, some college friends coming to visit, County Fair, Fall Festivals, Houston Air Show, pumpkin patch, and of course, Halloween....(Joseph doesn't really care to be anything, he just talks about the candy. Easy enough, huh?)

Until next post.....