Shoe fettish

Yes.... Avery has one. The other night this is what we walked in on.....

She had taken all the shoes out of her and Austin's closet.

Digging in the trenches....

What a great Saturday - spring like weather and NO birthday parties! Even better, Popo came and picked up the kids this morning to take them to the park for a little while. Now they are all sound asleep and fell asleep without us even having to "negotiate" with them. Did they play that hard at the park? Well, not exactly, though I'm sure it had something to do with it. In addition to the park, they spent about 2 hours playing in a trench... I know, only in the country. Wes has been doing some dirt work with the tractor around the tank and it involved having to dig out a water line on the lower half of our property. Today he was restoring that waterline but not without the help of his right hand men and woman. They loved walking in the trench with the small amount of water that had seeped in. Even more, they loved getting MUDDY, DIRTY, FILTHY.

As you see, by the time I got my camera the kids had stripped down to just the neccesities. I have more very entertaining pics of them due to the fact that by the time all said and done, they were completely naked and dirty from head to toe. Not sure who all looks at the blog, so I will save the naked pics for just my humor (and blackmail.)

A quiet Sunday night

It's Sunday evening and there is a rare sense of peace in our house. Our princess chose not to take a nap today and a 7pm episode of Dora put her down for the count. When she is MIA, things seem to be a bit more relaxed in the house. Got to love her, but Avery knows how to stir things up. Austin has learned to just go the other way. When she tries to instigate something, he goes into the other room and plays by himself. Caleb is still learing and when the two of them are together, someone winds up in time out. She and I seem to not see eye-to-eye about a variety of things these last few days including her constant request for candy. She's having a hard time understanding that she doesn't get everything she asks for, but we're working on it.
We had a good weekend - Friday night Mexican food w/ all the grandparents, a beautiful Saturday of playing outside, a fun bday party at the park - with the carousel, Sunday morning church, and Sunday afternoon at Toppe's house.
Another note to mention would be my Saturday moring trip to HEB with Avery & Caleb. I almost made it out the door with only Avery, but Caleb insisted on coming along and I just couldn't say no. Austin was content knowing that if he stayed behind he'd get to do some tractor work with his daddy, so I loaded up my high maintenance children and hoped for the best. It started off great, Caleb sitting in the front, Avery walking by me and helping get items off the shelf when she could reach - it was almost too easy. Well, that was until Caleb decided he needed to be down on the ground helping take items off the shelf. This resulted in 2 boxes of Ritz - regular and wheat, 10 packages of Ramen noodles (one of Avery's favorites), generic & "Raisin Girl" raisins, and 2 huge tubs of butter. Of course this was in addition to the little "extras" that weren't on my list, but Avery thought we needed - drinkable yogurt & cheesy chex mix. By the final aisle, I was able to secretly take most of the extras out of the basket, but I obviously missed a few because as I was unloading the basket I discovered 2 cans of Vienna sauages (never bought those in my life) and corn tortillas. As I told the checker that I didn't want these items, she looked at Avery & Caleb and smiled. I think I will leave my grocery store trips to my week day lunch breaks.

Snow!!!

Never would I have guessed that the day after blogging about playing in the dirt barefoot on a warm Sunday afternoon, I would be blogging and posting pics of the kids playing in a couple inches of snow. What a treat for our Texas blood! Wes picked up the kids early and when they got home they headed straight out to the snow. Hands and feet got cold a bit too quick so everyone came in to warm up. About an hour later, we were all back out in the blanket of white. Wes assisted with the construction of a snow many while I clicked away with the camera. You never know when or if we'll see snow like that again!

Dirt....

Just a Sunday afternoon in the country.....

New addition to our fleet...

In addition to a John Deere Gator and Pink Barbie Jeep, we now have a Kawaski four-wheeler in our garage. By the look on Caleb's face in this first picture, you'd think he was really excited about it, but truth is he wouldn't even get on it until 2 days after we gave it to him. I'm sure it will get plenty of use in the future, if not by Caleb, by his brother and sister.

Happy Birthday, Caleb!

Two years ago today, our family went from four to five. Caleb Wesley entered the world and forever changed our lives for the better. He keeps us on our toes, but mostly keeps us laughing. He is our comic relief and enjoys making others laugh. His smile is contagious and those baby blues can make any heart melt. Happy Birthday, Caleb!!!! We love you.

At the age of 2, CALEB:

thinks he is 3 like his brother & sister; sleeps sound all night long in his bed; is not a fan of being barefoot and prefers to wear "rocs" - Crocs... even sleeps in them sometimes; is often times opinionated about what he wears to school (not quite as bad as his sister); prefers for his daddy to put him to bed with their nightly routine of a cookie, milk & Brown Bear, Brown Bear; has shown signs of potty training, but we will tackle that challenge this year; is a Tumbling Turtle at St. Paul's and really enjoy going there; loves holding mommy or daddy's cell phone and punching buttons - yes, random phone calls have been made; eats pretty much anything; has an infectious laugh; loves riding on the tractor with his daddy; has the Toy Story doll "Woody" and everytime he says his names, we laugh out loud; doesn't really have a favorite toy, but bounces around from one thing to the next; has already spent his share of time in timeout; has brought so much joy to our lives.... with many more to come.