It's Summertime!

I really love spring so I am a little bummed that it is pretty much gone, but I am excited about summer fun- swimming, the beach, playing in the river! So we busted out the backyard pool and slip-n-slide for the first time this year...

Reminds me of the Schlitterbahn commercials... Come Plaaaay...

Except my kids are actually enjoying themselves. It's amazing how much fun they have in such a tiny pool.

Helotes Rodeo and Cornyval

Some pics from our evening at the Helotes Rodeo and Cornyval a few weeks back...

Started the evening off with some pony rides. The kids LOVE this part. For some reason, I didn't get a good pic of TJ- seems I say that a lot lately.

The Roberson family came out to join us in the fun! I thought this was a great pic of Grant and Travis.
Does it get any cuter than that? They were loving it- horses, cows, cowboys, tractors- I mean what's not to love? It was so fun having our best buds with us- Alli and TJ just adore their Grant and Jakers!

After watching a few events at the rodeo and letting the kids chase after some calves in the calf scramble and get nowhere near them, we headed to the carnival for some rides and games (I love this part). I'm sorry, but I just don't think you ever get too old to enjoy riding rides and playing games for prizes.

Those are the popping a balloon with a dart prizes in their hands. That little black and white puppy has not left TJ's side since that night. He's never really been very attached to a stuffed animal before now, but he is serious about this one. He gets a little panicky when he wants it and doesn't know where it is - and so do I :-)

More rides! So much fun now that they are both big enough to ride alone. Notice Alli holding on to TJ's swing keeping him close.

I love that they always want to sit right next to each other!

Fish Funeral

Had a fish funeral this last week. Tears were shed. Lots of questions were asked about why animals have to die. And now we have this grave in the backyard. Alli said "The decorations are love. He needs more decorations." She's so sweet. That's a drawing of Conrad on the bottom. TJ added all the other little marks.

Our Easter

Back in April...

This year we dyed and glittered our eggs. So fun. They didn't last until Easter morning though. They didn't even last until the end of that day. The kids played egg hunt with them all day and they were almost all cracked by evening. I think I found one intact about a week later.

Easter morning egg hunt. The kids were really into it this year.

Posing by our neighbor's bluebonnets. I was so excited about the wildflowers this year.

At church. We weren't able to get a very successful family pic this year. Oh well.

I did however get some pretty cute pics of Alli and Jack. She sure does miss him since he went off to kindergarten. We just don't get to see him often enough anymore.

And then we headed out to Stockdale to spend the day with my Nana and she took us to the city cemetery to see the fields of wildflowers. They were breath-taking. The indian paintbrushes were so thick and beautiful!

Alli loves to pose, but I couldn't get TJ to look up at all. He kept covering his eyes- he's not a fan of the sun shining in his eyes at all.


At the cemetery, Alli especially had lots of questions and wanted to read all the different head stones. I was very impressed with how mature she was about it all and how careful she was to follow the rules I gave her about how to respect the grave sites when walking around. A really great learning experience and deep conversation starter that I would not have thought to expose them to, so I was glad for the unexpected opportunity.

Garage Birds

We have had birds trying to build a nest in our garage for a few years now, but they would always try to build right on top of our shoes or would get shut out at night and would never be able to finish the job. Well, they found a way in and out even when the doors are closed and were finally successful...

That's mama bird sitting on her eggs in the nest that is resting in our car wash supply bucket. Oh well- guess we won't be able to wash the cars for a while (which is not a big deal since we are in 2 rentals right now, but that's another story).
And those are the tiny baby birds the day they hatched. I was so excited when I walked out there expecting to see the eggs or the mama bird and I saw those little beaks instead. Hi babies!!
Is that not the cutest ugly thing you have ever seen? They grow up so fast.

Turns out there are 6 of these little guys. We were pretty certain there were 5 until today when I could clearly see 6. I guess one has been hiding under the others. Mom and dad have been very busy flying back and forth taking care of them.

I just love checking on them everyday. The other day I found one outside the nest, so Dwaine carefully put him back in using a paper towel so mama wouldn't smell human on him. Not sure how he wandered out but it's a good thing all those car wash mits were there to catch him. We used to talk about how stupid those birds were for trying to build in our garage, but maybe they aren't so stupid after all.