Snow in Katy???

Can you believe it? We couldn't either!! I let the kids stay home from school to play in the snow. How often do you get a snow day in Katy? Kyler has never been in the snow either so I couldn't let him sit at a desk and miss all that fun! (I am so glad I did let them stay home because they would've missed it if they had stayed in school!) And boy did they have fun!!! They played in it for quite a while. They were all frozen when they came in, not one of them complained though. They just sat next to the fire to warm up. They were chattering non-stop. It was sooo fun to see them so excited and hear them talk to one another about it! After some lunch and a movie they went back out for round 2! :) I know, there isn't much of it...especially to some of you who live in the white stuff all the time! It was fun for us though...and just enough! :) It was a fabulous day!When it just started snowing, Ty was making snowballs from what he could find on the fence!

He was too excited to go get a snowball of his own to wait for his gloves. He wanted them shortly after this!! :)Brrrr.....Ty is a stinker...he totally freaked me out letting me think he was really sticking his tongue on that pole! No double dog dares at this house. When I told him not to do that, all the kids started giggling and said "Mom!" Ty then showed me that he was touching his tongue to his finger, it just looked real! They love a good fake out on mom!Austin claimed that this was a driving hazard so he cleared the snow from the stop sign.What snow day would be complete without some snow angels?

Halloween 2009

I give up...I guess Kailee and Tyson's birthdays will get blogged about later and this will be out of order. I have Halloween pics ready to go so I better share them before next Halloween beats me to it! The kids were all very creative this year! They wanted to come up with their own costumes and not buy them from the store!! Hallelujah! I love that! Lots of imagination is great for the pocket book! Well except for Kyler...he insisted on being a star wars character of some kind. After about a hundred suggestions of other fun things he could be he still wouldn't budge so I went about bought him a Luke Skywalker costume, complete with a light saber! He was soooo happy!
Kailee went as a gift bag! We took 2 sheets of poster board and covered it with some cute wrapping paper. We added lots of tissue paper (we stamped a little design on the tissue) We added some ribbon, a tag and some curly ribbon to her hair and she was set! She looked sooo great! She got alot of compliments on her outfit! She is so creative, she is never one to disappoint with her costumes!
Can you figure out what Austin is? He went as a "Quarterback". He wanted to be a "Longhorns Quarterback". He took his Longhorn t-shirt and we printed out an image of a quarter and taped it to his back! He wore a Longhorn hat to complete the look! Awesome!!
Last but certainly not least was Tyson. He came up with the idea totally on his own! He was the cutest ever!!! He decided to be an I-Spy game. He started about a week before Halloween collecting things from around the house that he could use. We just started gluing until nothing more would fit. He did both sides of his shirt. He wore a baseball cap with a list of things to find! He loved standing and letting people find the stuff on him! He got lots of great feedback in his idea and he LOVED it!
What was I you ask? Well I was the lady who got her kids all ready and out the door in costume on time....twice! with her husband out of town! I looked good doing it too!! ;)This was the sign Kyler made to put on the door after ran out of candy! This was all his doing! He said he was tired of telling them "We're out!"Austin with his friends Josh as a Zombie, and Tyler the microphone.
Kailee with her friends McKenzie and Hannah the pirate.

Oh Man!

I am almost too embarrassed to even post anything! Has it really been over 2 months since my last post? That is so bad! I don't even have any pictures to go with this post...just hoping to redeem myself a bit and play a little catch-up!
Our summer was so busy. We have never had a summer quite like that before! When it was time to send the kids back to school I thought "Wait a minute...where did our lazy summer days go? Where was our break and our relax time?" We were on the go from the day school let out, always shuttling kids to activities, camps, beaches, malls, movies, swimming pools, friends houses....the list goes on! I never seemed to remember my camera though. EVERY TIME when we would finally get somewhere I would think "Oh Man...seriously? I forgot the camera again! I finally gave up when the first thing I packed was the camera, for our trip to South Padre Island. When we showed up I went to get it out and take some super cute pics of the kids on the balcony with the ocean behind them...but wait, there was no battery!! Are you kidding me? I spent that night being mad at myself and then threw in the towel and gave up! Shawn reminded me that vacations are still all sorts of fun without a camera! (What? Does he even know me at all?? I'm sorry I don't understand what you just said!) I wasn't convinced but decided to go along with it anyway! Wouldn't you know it?! Shawn was right! It was fun...we had a blast!! No pictures to show for it but we made great memories anyway!
Summer ended just as busy as it started with Shawn taking a week long trip to Puerto Rico for ""work"" (that gets double air quotes from me!) My mom, dad, sister Carly and niece Cami came for a visit. That was sooo much fun! Then there was a mad dash to Walmart and Target for the school supplies that I put off buying! And of course I waited until Tax Free weekend to do school clothes...so we spent our last summer weekend in the stores with crowds and crowds of people!! Super fun! Actually now that I am typing I am remembering that after our extremely long Friday and the massive amounts of shopping bags that came through the door...the kids were sooo good and sooo helpful in making the day go smoothly that Shawn and I took them out to a nice dinner. (ya like how Shawn just sneaks in there for dinner...he was not around for the shopping, he always makes sure to have a "busy" day at work on back to school shopping days!) It was kind of an end of the summer/have a great school year dinner. The kids got all dressed up in their new clothes and shoes, they all did their hair (believe it or not, I didn't even tell them too! I was thinking it and was going to tell them but they beat me to it!) The excitement got the better of them when I told them where we were taking them! We went to Maggianos! One of the best restaurants ever! On the drive home from dinner we saw one of the coolest lightening storms I have ever seen. It was like a postcard!
Last but certainly not the least was my getaway...Shawn is wonderful and thought it was important for me to have a week to just relax and play before the crazy fall traveling starts for him. I went to Seattle and had the best time! I relaxed alot, played some, chatted with my mom, dad, brothers, and sisters non-stop (even pulled an all-nighter talking with my mom!), visited with friends, doted on my 2 super cute nieces and of course no trip to Seattle is complete without a trip to Monroe for the car races! One of the funnest I have ever been too! :) THANK YOU Shawners! It was just what I needed!
So no pictures to show...you will just have to take my word for it! It was one of the busiest, non-lazy summers ever and we had a super fantastic one!!!

A ton of swimming pictures!

We spent most of the day on the 4th swimming at our friend's house. John and Ticia were out of town and they were super sweet to offer up their pool to us for the weekend...which was soooo much nicer than our community pool! :) Also...their pool and pool area is gorgeous...it made for great pictures! Here are all the fun pics! ENJOY! {the rest of the 4th was spent watching and doing fireworks, good food, fun friends and lots of laughing!}

this was Tyson jumping in like a homie! :)

Austin got in trouble {I don't remember why} but he had to sit out of the pool for a few minutes...I just thought he looked too cute sitting there so I snapped a couple of pictures of him!

turning noodles into pretzels

some random pics

Kyler and Kailee were taking a break from chores to do some dancin'!

At Kailee and Austin's swim meet. It was outside and it was 108 outside! I was sooo hot! We were all trying to keep cool by putting ice on the ground and rubbing our feet over it! We probably used most of the ice in our cooler for trying to keep cool!

Tyson all hot and sweaty! He was so funny...he was shaking his fists at the sky and saying "Curse you global warming!" :)

Austin striking a pose after his first swim!

Swim Meets

Austin after winning 1st place in the breast stroke...we were up top in the stands...
Kailee after her fly! I honestly don't understand how they do it...I barely start doing it at our pool and I give up after a couple strokes...that butterfly is hard!!!

Kailee & Austin had their 3rd swim meet this morning. It was a long one...they had to be there at 7:45am...we came a little later....and didn't get home till 1:25pm. Whew! The Katy Tigers won!!! We have won all 3 meets!! YEAH! Kailee and Austin are doing awesome! They have improved sooo much from last year! It's so fun to see them compete with themselves to beat their previous times on the different strokes. Austin's best time and his favorite is the breast stroke and Kailee likes freestyle. Today they competed in all the events, 50m freestyle, breast, fly, and back, the individual medley, the relay medley and the freestyle relay. Austin got 1st place today in breast and 3, 1st places last meet. Kailee didn't get any 1st places today cuz they had her racing with 15-18 yr olds...but we were EXTREMELY proud of her cuz she kept up with all of them really well!!! She did get 2nd place on her backstroke!! She was happy cuz she can keep up and she has earned at least one of every ribbon so far this year 1st thru 8th place!! They have two meets left and then the season will be over at the first of July. We have had alot of fun and I am glad they have too. Living in Katy, I am all for any indoor sport they want to participate in! Sitting in a chlorine filled, slightly humid natatorium beats outside in the 100 degree heat any day!!! :)after winning in the breast...he didn't even realize he had won until he got the ribbon!waiting for ribbons...he sits exactly like Shawn
look at that awesome dive!!!