Record Snow in Texas!!

So everyone who knows me knows how much I LOVE snow. It is so beautiful. My biggest complaint about Texas (well, other than the fact that it is hotter than heck from May-October) is that we rarely see any snow, well I guess you can say this was the best Texas weather I have ever experienced. I am really proud of the local schools for staying open, very un-Texas like!! Usually if anyone in a 10 minle radius has seen a flake, all of the schools shut down. The snow was unbelievable!! The kids were super excited, it was also Valentine Party Day. It was a bit disappointing that it didn't really stick around. It all melted so fast. But, we enjoyed it while it lasted.

Top: Thursday morning, about 9:00, before the boys went to school.

Bottom: Ethan and Allie at their party.

Top: Cami was SO excited to be a part of E's party.
Bottom: E took a picture of Momy and "The Wamster"

Ethan and Chase ready to play in the snow. This was around 5:00 Thursday afternoon. The snow was starting to cover the driveways and really accumulate on the grassy areas.

Top: View from Blake's bedroom window Friday morning....over a foot of snow!!
Bottom: Front of the house Friday morning, it had already started melting:(

It's hard to tell in this pic, but we had 12.5 inches.

Chase was so excited to go play. He ran out the front door and got stuck, turned around and fell down. Poor little guy couldn't stay vertical!!

Tony hooked up the 4wheeler and make a redneck sled out of an old table, some scrap wood, a chain and a Rubbermaid lid. It was awesome, Blake had a blast riding on it. I will try to post some of those pics soon!!

Summer has begun!!

So, obviously this is a catch up post. These are pictures from last June. We probably only went out on the boat 3 or 4 times, if that. It just gets too hot and the lake water is just nasty when it is 100+ degrees out. The boys had a blast and Cami didn't seem to mind at all!!

Top: Cami ready for her first boat ride

Bottom: Chasey LOVING being on the lake

Top: Cami all ready to go!! We did this with Chase too. Tony and I have to keep our feet on the bouncy seat frame to keep it from going bonkers. Because the boat is small, the waves can sometimes be a little rough so the bouncy keeps them from being jarred around too much.

Bottom: Cruising the lake

And here is Chase, not loving the fact that it is time to go home. Classic.

Aloha!

Well, 6 months ago we took a little trip....and I am just now posting the pictures. This, of course, is only the tip of the iceberg. We had the Papa-razzi with us so there are 100s of pictures!! Blogger is slow, so here are 10. I can't believe it has alreay been 6 months. We had a great time, even if everything didn't go as planned.....thank goodness everything didn't go as planned!!

Chase, Ethan and Blake with their ukeleles

Camster jumping in her doorway jumper (she LOVED this thing, and it was a life saver)

Wait..what's that on the floor...and on her feet...and down her leg??? She pulled that stunt twice while we were there. Nice.

Napping on the lanai with Daddy.

Cami's first taste of ice cream, Lapperts Whitle Chocolate Macadamia Nut....yummo!

Chasey is ready to go to Mahalapeu!!

Chase and Papa at the beach.

and when it's nap time, it's nap time, no matter where you are!!

Cami napping under the trees at Mahalapeu

Blake at Poipu Beach

Who forgot the Dr Pepper?? Guess I am just going to settle for this Coca-Cola (aka Tota Towa) that Aunt Amy has here for me, she won't mind if I take a little sip

gulp, gulp

All of the boys are ready to go back, especially Ethan. They had the best time. We were there for 2 weeks and it was so relaxing. Yes, it was relaxing, even with 4 kids. More Hawaii pics to come......

The face!!

Now you see where Cami gets it??

Happy Birthday Cami!!

I have totally and completely neglected this poor blog for almost 5 months and am catching some grief, so here you go!! I am going to attempt to get caught up, so we'll start with the most recent. And yes, I do realize that I have missed Blake and Chase's birthdays as well....I'm getting to that!!

First of all let me just say that I can NOT believe that a year has passed since we got the biggest shock of our lives. I will always remember Tony saying, "It looks like another b...IT"S A GIRL!!!" There are days that I still can't believe it. I was absolutely convinced that I was having another boy. After the initial shock wore off, we did start dressing her in pink and putting big bows on her bald head. Her brothers, especially the younger two, insist on her wearing a bow all the time, it's really kind of funny. For the longest time she kept them on, but now she will fling them off...anything to make the brothers laugh. She absolutely adores her big brothers. Blake is very good about watching out for her. She loves to be with them, up in the gameroom, on the trampoline, wherever they are she wants to be a part of it and they wouldn't have it any other way. Ethan and Chase were so excited when she started standing. I remember them playing in the gameroom and Chase said, "OH NO!! OH NO!!" Ethan tells him, "I'll go get mom." Here he comes down the stairs, "Mom, Mom, we are going to need some help up here, Cami is standing up all by herself!! She mastered climbing up the stairs when she was 9 months old and is now a pro at coming back down. She loves her Daddy and calls for him all day long, all the while Chase and Ethan are telling me that she wants ther Daddy as if I don't hear her. She is a very busy little girl for sure. Blake and Ethan were walking at a year, Chase at 14 months, but not baby sister. She took her first steps at 10 months and was walking by 11 months. Although we did not have a huge first birthday bash, we did celebrate with family. It was perfect. We went to eat dinner at Olive Garden, had some desert and opened some presents. Here a few pics from her special day.....

Top: Love this face!! And yes, you have seen this face before....Chase was always making squishy faces.

Bottom: I know the quality is bad and my finger is in the way, but just as they were bringing her cake out, she reached up and flung her bow off her head.

Peek a Boo with Daddy

Cams and Aunt Amy waiting on a table...not sure why Aim looks like a lobster??

Alright, that's all I have time for. I will get another post up soon.

Gabriel's birthday

OK, I have a TON of blogging to catch up on. So we will start with the most recent and work backward. Blake's best friend, Gabriel, turned 7 on Tuesday. That means my baby will be 7 in 6 short weeks. I can't believe these two boys are that old. It seems like just last week they were crawling around in diapers!! When we lived next door to each other, we would always have birthday breakfast for the kids on their birthdays. Now that the boys are older, we have to do birthday dinner. It is such a fun tradition we started when the boys were turning one. Lucky for us Double Daves lets kids eat free on Tuesday nights. So....off Michelle and I went with our 8 kids in tow!! And yes, we got some strange looks. One guy asked Michelle if we were babysitting. When she told him that they were all ours, he told her "Well good luck with all that."

Blake and the Birthday Boy, so happy to see each other!!

Lexi and Ethan having desert at their OWN table.
Kyle and Chase

Michelle and Gracie (she did NOT want to stop eating cake and take a picture)

The Gang

Kyle (13) holding Cami (7 mo)

Ethan (4) Lexi (5) Gabe (7) Blake (6) Gracie (2) Chase (2)

Boys will be boys!!

I must be doing something wrong because EVERY time I upload pics, they get all out of order...UGH!!! So, we will start with little sister. Cami is now 5 months old. Hard to believe isn't it? She can roll over back to belly in the blink of an eye (belly to back takes more effort, but she can do it.) She is still a mommy's girl and does not like it if mommy leaves for any length of time. She loves her brothers and thingks they are funny, especially when they are talking to her. Her latest trick is blowing bubbles, she really cracks herself up. It is so funny to watch.

Looking more like Daddy each and every day!!

Today we (the kids and I) went to Hawaiian Falls. This has become a weekly adventure of ours and is usually an uneventful one...this was NOT the case today however. For those who have been to Hawaiian Falls...Ethan was sliding down the little red slides in Keike Cove. He slipped and fell, hitting his chin. I thought he slipped while trying to get off though he later confessed that he was trying to climb up the slide. Mr. Greg saw him and asked if it hurt. Well, you know Ethan dosen't want anyone looking at him, so he froze and then ran over to me. I thought he had just bumped it but when I looked closer I saw blood, not a lot it just looked like he had scraped it. He showed Mr. Greg his injury and he thought I should take him to the First Aid center, so I looked at it again. OMG!! It was splitting open right before my eyes, I have never seen blood that dark before. So, off we went to the first aid station. Apparently this was the worst injury they have seen all week because little E drew quite a crowd. They got him all cleaned up and got the bleeding slowed down. The EMT that was there had me sign some paper work and as I was doing so I started to feel a little faint. (Anyone see where this is going??) I sat down for a minute and then decided to go splash some cold water on my face. As soon as I got in the bathroom everything went black and down I went. I never lost consciousness, just blacked out. I could hear people scrambling and I could hear Ethan just jabbering away about the big pineapple on the wall and how much he loved pineapple and strawberries and bananas and..... The same EMT that had just patched E up came and carried me back to the first aid station. They were asking Ethan what my name was and if anyone else was there with us. All they got was that my name was mommy and that we had some pineapple and strawberries and blueberries in our big big cooler and that Blakey was too little to ride the blue and green slides but he goes on them anyway because he is not scared because he is 6 and I am 4 and Chasey is 2 and Cami is not even one.... So glad my little man kept them entertained while I was "away." I finally got my land legs back and we finished the day with little excitement. We got home and our neighbor changed the bandage for us. E was such a trooper, he never cried....even with everyone looking at him. In fact, he almost seemed to enjoy all of the attention.

Daddy got him all taped up for bedtime.

Rewind 48 hours: Ethan loves to play in my curtains. He was playing peek-a-boo with Cami even though I had just asked him to leave the curtains alone. So, what happens? That's right, down come the curtains, rod and all, missing Cami by inches. I don't know how he did it, but he managed to break all three of the metal braces that were screwed into the wall. Luckily, we just happened to have a spare!! (I bought one for the dining room at the same time, but haven't gotton any curtains yet)

Little E has had quite a week....and it ain't over yet!!

Spring Is Here (and almost gone!!)

OK, soI am really behind with blogging. I have been a little busy. I can't believe that it has been 6 weeks since the last post, actually....yes I can. This post is full of pictures!! And, as always, blogger has put them in reverse order for your viewing pleasure.

Camryn's parent dedication was on Mother's Day weekend (just like each of her brothers.) I had hoped to do our baby girl's on Father's Day but they won't offer it on Father's Day until next year:( For those of you not familiar with Lake Pointe, parent dedication is a time when we, as parents, dedicate ourselves to the Christian upbringing of our children in the hopes that one day they will come to accept the Lord as their personal Savior. Lake Pointe has added a Parent Dedication Service that is much different from what we did with the boys. With the boys, we went before the congregation at one of the weekend services, had our names announced and a verse read for the baby and that was it. This time, we participated in the new Friday night service as well as the one on Sunday morning. The idea is to make it more intimate and really give the families time to pray together over their child. Instead of only the parents and baby walking across the stage (like usual) the whole family goes on stage....yes, the WHOLE family. Most families only had one kid, some had 2, and a few even had 3.....but only ONE family had 4!! Luckily we made it on and off without incident. Whew!! Family shot after Friday night's service: Nana (my mom), Barbara (Tony's aunt), Grandpa (Tony's dad), me holding Cami, Grandma (Tony's mom) holding Chase, Blake, Tony, and Ethan.

The picture is a little dark, but it is the only one we have! You can see that Chase is trying to get down so he can run and play. Good thing Daddy's has a good hold on him.

Nana and Cami all ready to go.

They recently opened a new park right across the street from our house. The boys LOVE it. There is a "Trail to Nowhere" that they boys like to tak. We are assuming that it will eventually be finished, but right now you go about half a mile and then get dumped out onto a street. Nice. And yes, we learned this the hard way....at dusk with 4 tired kids.

Chase playing in the creek trying to keep up with his brothers. You can'treally tell from this picture, but he is soaking wet because he followed Blake and Ethan. Problem is..his balance is not that great. Little man stepped into ankle deep water, lost his balance and fell on his tush.

Blake exploring. You can see Tony on the bridge with sis.

All the boys playing in the creek. Chasey is trying to decide if he should go after them or not.

Our climber.

Blake was so excited to have somewhere to climb. This kid is a monkey.

Sweet baby girl loves to sleep on her Daddy.

Chasey loves olives! I know he could (and would) eat an entire can if I would let him.

As soon as I pull out the can, he sticks those "pingers" up in the air!

If I haven't noted this already, Chase can't say "f" instead, he says "p." So he doesent have a face and fingers and feet, he has a pace and pingers and peet. His favorite phrases are "Not punny!!" and "No pair!!" We die laughing at him which only makes him angry, to which he screams "NOT PUNNY!!!"'

Anyway.....this is Peyton. Blake has a pen pal, Ethan, who lives in London. Ethan and his family relocated temporarily while his dad is working over there. So, Ethan's mom had this great idea for the boys to exhange animals and then they could write bout the adventures they have had. Blake sent Compass (yes, he has had that name for years) to London and Ethan sent Peyton to Blake.

Peyton swinging at the park.