relief is in sight...

here in central texas we have been suffering a brutally hot summer!  the heat is draining.  i dread picking up my kids from school only because of the 5 minutes of work that it takes for me to get them loaded and buckled in the car.  silly, right? 

well i am happy to report that relief is in sight!  99 has never looked so good!  and look at tuesday...  98!

pictures of the girls - too sweet!

last weekend i had the girls pictures taken and this morning the photographer posted some on her facebook page.  i absolutely love them!  of course, you can see kelby's busted chin, but that's ok.  that's life.  and you don't always need to photoshop out all the flaws. 

lovin' the smirk

jeff's birthday

yesterday we celebrated jeff's birthday.  we had dinner over at my parents house and of course cake.  when i picked up the girls from school and told them that we were going to a birthday party for daddy, kevyn immediately said "i like cake!"  for them, its all about the cake!

cake makes my girls happy

patiently waiting

jeff got some help with the candles.  but there was one problem...

...we were one kid short.  so we re-lit the candles and blew them out again.

neely's sweet cake face

pre-k

today kelby started pre-k.  and we also now understand why there wasn't anyone at the waterpark yesterday (please see the previous post).  kelby was very tired this morning.  i mean really really tired.  she did not want to get out of bed.  she did not want to eat breakfast.  she did not want to get dressed.  and she definitely did not want mom to take pictures of her.  that is until she asked if she could take a picture and i said "yes, after you smile for the camera."  i got one ok shot. 

kelby not having it

the one picture of her smiling.  can  you see the tears?

and of course little sister needed a picture too

here is the picture that kelby took.  pretty good, right???

end of summer

today is the first day of school.  and to cap off the end of summer, we headed to a nearby waterpark with my parents and my sister's family.  it is a smaller park, but we love it for our age kids.  and the girls love it too!  they are getting to be quite the swimmers.  we were also pleasantly surprised when we pulled up and the parking lot was almost empty.  maybe it was because it was tax-free weekend here in texas or maybe it was because school starts today.  either way, the girls were really excited that they could pretty much walk right up to any slide they wanted and get right on!

natalie

kelby and kevyn

kelby babysitting neely

too sweet!

nat using perfect form ;)

neely

kelby with a bandaid on her busted chin (i didn't want the sun to get it)

kevyn with a mouth full

neely playing in the water

the picture i probably shouldn't post.  darren and jeff slid neely down a waterslide.  this picture was taken right before she figured out what happened.  it wasn't pretty...



shade by gymboree

so a few days ago i got an email from gymboree titled:

Introducing Shade - Our Women's Brand Designed For You! 25% Off Today + Free Shipping‏

so naturally it sparked my interest.  i buy tons of clothes for my girls from gymboree because of the quality and i can get them pretty cheap by shopping their promotions and strategically using gymbucks.  from what i've seen, their clothing looks pretty cute and affordable! 

check them out here shadeclothing.com

port aransas

this past weekend our family took our annual trip down to port aransas.  the girls had such a good time collecting seashells and making sandcastles (or really just glorified sand piles - haha!).  we also brought along kickboards that the girls use in the pool, but repurposed them into boogie boards.  they worked alright.  our days were spent at the beach or pool and our nights were spent consuming way too much good food with the rest of jeff's family.  we had such a great time and cannot wait until we can go again!

kevyn's hat has seen better days

pretty cool seashell collage that kelby created

daddy & kevyn

kelby thinks she can hear the ocean in that shell ;)

the kickboard/boogie board

not really sure what is happening...  typical kelby :)

my cheerleading prodigy

ok, for those of you who don't know, i grew up loving cheer!  i mean, i LOVED it!  so when kelby was 2 1/2, i enrolled her in a cheer class.  we struggled the first year due to her lack of attention (again she was 2 1/2 - that was more my fault!) but here lately she has really shown an interest.  well last night she accomplished a trick that she has been working on for a while - her back-bend kick over.  kelby is four, so this is a huge feat.  in fact, many older girls cannot do this yet.  she is really excited and i am so proud of her!

please view this on mute as my excitement is kinda embarrassing ;)

WAY TO GO KELBY!!!

late night scare

yesterday evening we had our first ER experience.  like i told the doctor, i have two kids.  one who is almost five and this is our first ER trip.  that isn't so bad, right?  it was bound to happen sooner or later...

well kelby was playing in our shower while i was getting kevyn dressed.  she threw a sponge like thing onto the wall and it stuck.  in an attempt to get it down, she climbed on the marble bench that is in the shower and slipped off.  i'm guessing she hit right on her chin because it split right open.  we had lots of tears.  :(

we first took her to meet jeff's partner up at our clinic who has more wound care experience than jeff.  he suggested we take her somewhere else if i was interested in it looking pretty - which i was.  so we were off to the hospital.

i was very pleased with the outcome.  they were able to use dermabond to glue it back together which should help minimize the scar.  they also worked very hard to line it up just right (i might have overly expressed my concern about wanting it to look pretty!).

this morning, kelby was very proud to walk into daycare and show off her new bracelets and chin.  silly girl!

kelby with her new bracelets

the before picture

the after picture

tennessee

i know it has been forever since i posted, but we have had a very busy (and fun!) summer.  we have made several weekend trips to the lake and at the end of july we bravely took the girls on an 18 hr drive to tennessee.  they did amazing on the trip there!  because we were traveling with my sisters family and my parents, we divided into two groups - the girl car and the boy car.  the girl car had four kids under the age of four, two mommies and one granny.  we had games, puzzles, coloring sheets, sing-a-longs and anything else that we could think of to minimize tears.  surprisingly, we didn't even have to use all the junk supplies i had purchased.  the boy car consisted of two daddies, one poppa, and all the luggage.  it definitely was an adventure and i'm sure the girls will remember the trip for a long time. 

kelby & kevyn walking with baby neely down the streets in chattanooga

kelby & daddy on the swings at dollywood.  so much fun!

at dollywood's splash country

jeff & darren were much braver than the rest of the bunch

this was a mini-golf course that was on the side of a mountain.  you had to ride the trolley up, and then play your way down.  pretty neat!

family shot at the smokey mountain national park

the girls got ranger hats.  they looked so cute!