Awesome Quiet Book!

Brant's sister, Danille, made an AMAZING quiet book for the boys for Christmas. Each year his family does 'Love Presents' where one sibling's family makes something for another sibling's family. This first page is a little boat with a net that comes out with fish in it. 

Here the boys can practice tying a shoelace and buttoning. 

Shape practice!

This is one of the boys' favorite pages. All of the signs can be snapped on and off...

...the little car comes out of the garage and can drive around. 

The gingerbread man was taken from a quiet book that Brant and his siblings had growing up which is so cool. The pocket next to it has some church pictures for the kids to look at. 

Danille put little postcards in the mailbox and there's a notepad and pencil on the next page to write more letters. 

The last pages have a farm and a pocket that holds extra farm animals. 

You can look inside the barn and change the season by taking off the tree leaves. It is so much fun that I find myself playing with it too when we're at the doctor's office or at church. :) I've always wanted a quiet book for the boys so I was so excited when we got this one. It's the cutest one I've seen and the boys love it!

Family Pictures April 2013

Spring always brings lots of wildflowers in Texas. Our favorite are the Bluebonnets that pop up everywhere. Our neighbor (Lauren from luluphotography.com) took a few pictures for us in the Bluebonnets. Spencer was all smiles and we even got a few smiles out of Tyler. Gavin was getting over a three-day stomach bug so he wasn't the happiest little guy, but still cute!

Summer Schedule

This was Spencer's first week of Summer since preschool ended last week. He and I both love a good routine so I thought I'd put one up on the fridge for us to follow. I'm learning, though (now that I've been a mom for almost 6 years...) that nothing ever goes as planned with kids. :) I like to get out of the house as early as we can in the morning just to force us to all be ready so I thought it would be good to go for a walk. Most of our walks ended in tears this week, though. The first morning we walked too far and it was really hot so the kids wanted to be home, another morning Gavin cried because he thought the walk was too short and he didn't want to go home. Then another morning Spencer got in trouble because he walked way too far ahead of us. Basically, it's already been a long morning by the time we're back from our walk around 9 so I don't know if this is the best way to start the day.   

Another thing I try to do every day is 'Mommy School'. This week our theme was bugs so we did a few bug activities and checked out some bug books at the library. For the picture above I hid plastic bugs around the living room and the boys found them and then matched them to the right color. There are so many bugs outside in Texas, though, that I could probably just send them in the backyard to play this game too. :) We also made little bugs out of play dough. For some reason when it comes to doing crafts I always picture the boys smiling and calmly playing at the table for long periods of time. With the play dough there was lots of complaining about the bug not being perfect (my 5 year old is a bit of a perfectionist, not sure where he gets it :) ) and a huge mess made by my 2 year old. Plus, I think it was a total of 5 minutes we spent actually sitting at the table. I have to keep reminding myself that it's worth it. It's helping them learn and grow, right? 

We spent one morning at the library where they had a fire truck, police cars, and even a helicopter in the parking lot. A little boy's dream, especially Spencer who wants to be a police officer with a helicopter when he grows up. 

One thing I failed to put in our daily plan was a 'get out of the house!' time. A walk doesn't count for me, I like to go somewhere with people and not just fire ants. A Panera opened in College Station last year and I am in love with their chocolate chip bagels and their water cups. Brant makes fun of me for that last one, but really, water tastes better in their cups. The boys like their cinnamon crunch bagels so we're all happy there. 

We went to the College Station Zoo (also known as PetSmart) to look at some local wildlife. 

Here's Spencer passed out on the couch, something he did twice this week so at least I'm wearing them out. This is how Gavin typically looks after he wakes up from his nap. It takes him a while to snap out of his grumpiness. 

 We take turns cuddling with the boys each night. I cuddle with Spencer while Brant cuddles with Gavin and then we switch. The boys usually get more riled up since there's a lot of tickling going on, but they fall asleep eventually.

Here's our little Tyler in Brant's outfit from when he was a baby. We have a picture of Brant and all of the boys in this outfit so far. I'll have to put a little collage together someday. 

The only other picture I had on my computer is of Gavin as a baby. I forgot how much of a chunker he was. It's amazing how fast these little guys are growing up!

This Week in Pictures

Tyler is sitting up like a pro so he usually ends up playing on the floor with a bunch of toys around him. I love this phase; he can sit and play, but is still immobile. Pretty soon he'll be crawling around and getting into everything. This makes me nervous because we have lots of legos that don't always get put away. Plus, I'm going to have to sweep the floor more often...

Spencer got to go to a couple of birthday parties at parks this last week. They were for two of his good friends who are both moving. He'll miss them a lot. 

Spencer is a great car washer and Brant usually gets soaked when Spencer's in charge of the hose. 

Tyler's first time sitting up in a shopping cart- he looks like he's hanging on for dear life. He seemed to like it, though, because up until now he's only seen Target from out of his carseat in the back of the cart. 

Just a minute before Spencer said, "No, I'm not tired!" I carried him to bed and he slept another two hours. 

We surprised Brant at work with a Wendy's picnic. He just finished his very last college class EVER. I think I'm as excited as he is. He has his big exams coming up next month, but after that he gets to spend his days researching the exciting world of accounting! The boys loved the view from the third floor window. 

A rare moment of actually playing on the grass in Texas! Aside from the fire ants and other creatures, usually the grass is too hard to sit in. Thanks to lots of rain this year and lots of hard work by Brant, I think our lawn is as green as it possibly could be. 

I am so grateful for these boys of mine. The days are crazy and loud, but I still want time to slow down because I feel like they're growing up way too fast.