Beautiful bluebonnets

I have been waiting a long time to take pictures of the kids in the bluebonnets. I am always in awe looking at my friend's pictures of them, they are so gorgeous! On Monday we went to a charity dinner for a group Aaron volunteers for and straight afterwards I rushed everyone to Old Navy to get white shirts. Mike and Kelley were following us and thinking I am a little nuts I am sure, but it was getting dark and we had to hurry. So they follow us as I am looking for the best spot to photograph and I had to call MaLaan a couple of times to remind me and finally at last I saw a patch. I was so excited to get these. Kelley took some wonderful pictures of our family. She is wonderful to help us out and put up with crazy me. Here are my favorites that I took of the kids. We plan on making another trip soon to take more.

Growing up

Check out Cori! She got a new haircut (and highlights) this week and it is so great! You should have seen her when she got out of the salon, we had taken one of her friends also and they were hopping and skipping, and Cori was just swinging her hair back and forth like crazy and flipping it with her hands. She really loves it and it is a good cut for her. She is having no problem taking in all the compliments. Good for her! She looks older which is scary for her parents, but she also looks very nice. Here is a picture from the day she got it cut.

Last Saturday when Ronnie and Deana were visiting, Bryson took a couple of crawls forward for the first time. Such a little show off he was. Then the next day on Easter, he did the same thing for Mike and Kelley. However, throughout the week, he was back to only crawling backward. He turned 7 months old yesterday and for his gift to us, he was a crawling forward fool. He is still not sitting up quite yet. He can get into the position but he is not quite ready to take the one hand off the floor. He keeps one hand down just in case. However, if you sit him up, he can stay up on his own for however long. He is too funny. I swear he is saying "momma". I am not sure if he is trying to or not but he repeats it over and over sometimes. He enjoyed being around the other babies at the party Friday. Suzanne's baby Alexandra liked to grab him and kiss him, it was cute.

I just posted more pictures on our photo page. Look for the link on the top-left of this page if you don't have it.

Oh what a wonderful week!

We have had a busy week. We had a nice visit from our friends Ronnie and Deana. We have not seen them much since they moved away to Rockwall. Deana and I had a great time shopping, our favorite pastime together. Bombay saw us coming! They both enjoyed hanging with the kids.

We had Mike and Kelley over for a wonderful Easter dinner. Kelley brought Pea Picking Cake. I had never heard of such a thing, it was wonderful! It is always nice to have them over for dinner. Bryson started getting fussy at dinnertime so sat in mommy's lap and got his first taste of table food. I fed him bits of my mashed potatoes. He really loved them and felt like he was included in our dinner. Here is one of the pictures of Bryson that I took on Easter.

We attended a retirement party for one of Aaron's coworkers, Jerry on Friday. Congrats to him! It was a lovely gathering and we saw so many people we have been missing and that have been missing us. I have been getting chewed on a bit this week for not being around very much lately. I definitely have to get out more! It was a such a wonderful week catching up with everyone, I have resolved to get back into our social circle more. We really are blessed with wonderful friends.

Snow again

It snowed here for the second time this year on Saturday! How strange to get snow, in Texas, in April. Here's a couple of pictures. It is a huge event to see snow now-a-days! How funny to see it on the nice green trees and grass.

Updates on each of us

Aaron is first.....it's his birthday! He has been such a kid about it. He is so excited to get the mail and see who's sending him wishes. He had the day off so we went out to eat for lunch and timed it where Bryson took his nap through lunch. Aaron also bought himself a gift. He bought a vacuum! We have two vacuums, one for upstairs and one for down but one is acting up. As soon as we got home today he couldn't wait to use it. He usually does the vacuuming anyway. It actually works really well! It is hard to find a really good one that will work for a family with two huskies. Now a couple of years ago I bought him some cordless hedge trimmers which he and Cori still tease me was the worst gift. How is that different than a vacuum? They say it was like buying a woman an iron for her birthday. Aaron is also chugging away at school He retires in 2 years, 8 months, not that he's counting. He jokingly says he will be the stay-at-home dad when he retires. He also wants three more kids! I can only imagine how much work (and joy) being a stay-at-home parent with that full of a household!

News about me. Not much. Life is so much different not having a career. I would never trade this for anything though. It is interesting how your goal changes from managing a budget of millions to teaching a little one peek-a-boo. I really need to go back to school but I seem to have so little free time. Don't get me wrong, I love school. I am kind of nerdy like that. I wish I could make a career out of going to school. However, now that I have to pay for it, I have to figure out what I really need beyond a master's. So school's on the back burner for now. Other things on my list to do: learn Photoshop so that I can actually use what we own, take a photography class, brush up on my Spanish, actually develop some of the pictures that I take, take a nap, take a bath, or just do NOTHING.

Cori is doing great as usual. The school year is just flying by! I cannot wait to spend the summer with her. Last summer was such a treat for it to be just her and I during the days. We have already decided that we are going to spend our free days this summer visiting small towns nearby. We used to do this often as a family in St. Louis but haven't explored as much here. Texas is a huge state to cover, we gotta get moving! We also decided we want to practice some cake decorating too and we are planting some herbs and veggies. We are going to be busy girls and will have to try to fit all this in around our vacations. Cori was recently nominated by her Math teacher for the National Mathematics Award which applies her for a $10,000 scholarship.....go Cori! Track season is over already, it was short and she is playing volleyball. I guess the girls are out of practice and her friends are waiting for the pool to warm up more to come play volleyball here, of course. Tuesday night we went and saw her school put on a play, it was very good! Cori has decided to take Theatre Arts next year and we cannot wait to see her acting skills, she's already such a comedian. We just received her formal invitation to Duke University for the grand recognition ceremony for TIP. How exciting is that? She is so cute...she was asking how much it would be for Aaron and I to go out to eat sometime somewhere because she wanted to buy us dinner with her allowance so him and I could have a date night (taking the baby of course). I don't think she understands that date night means no kids. We have only left Bryson once, with my parents, while the two of us went out to dinner and a movie for our anniversary. I cried two minutes after we left him. I guess sometime we need to break down and find a sitter around here in case of emergencies.

Mr. Bryceeboo is up to his usual stuff. He can sit up now and stay steady if you sit him up. He almost can sit up on his own. He is scooting around everywhere still. Him and I play a tickle game and he anticipates my tickles based on what I say and he gears up to get ready, it is so much fun to play this with him. He just went in for shots on Monday and he weighs 18 lbs and is 27.5 inches long. Of course we all know he is going to be a tall boy. He is hilarious in that he wants to make sure his opinion is heard. Like when we go to put him in the car seat, he fusses and squirms for about 20 seconds just to let you know he doesn't like it and he does the same thing as soon as we put him down in the crib. Then he's good to go. He "fake coughs" too. Aaron says Cori did this as a baby to get attention and that is exactly what Bryson is doing. It is funny how they learn these things so young. He is loving the "I drop it and you pick it up" game and he also learned that if he gets his lunch on his hands that he can lean his hands over side of the highchair and the dogs will lick them. This sends him into giggles, it's ok, we keep lots of wipes on hand.

Howdy

Hey everyone! Life has been busier than ever here so we have not been writing much. I haven't even taken any pictures in couple of weeks if you can believe that. I have the batteries in the charger as we speak so I am getting geared up for a picture-full weekend. We spent last Saturday walking in the Race for the Cure in Waco. That was a great morning to spend together. It was a little hard getting up so early on a Saturday but Cori and I do this every year so we were really looking forward to it. This was Aaron and Bryson's first race. Bryson had a good ol' time looking at everyone and checking out the other babies.
As we walked the 5K, there were a bunch of bikers on the side of the road showing their support. They were all sitting there revving up their bikes the whole time. Well they happened to be under an overpass and their bikes were so loud when we walked by them and Bryson was terrified. I felt so bad for him, he was squirming and screaming so much I thought he might slide out of the stroller. But the guys realized Bryson was scared and quieted down and shortly afterward Bry fell asleep for the rest of the walk. We finished early and met our friends Mike and Kelley for lunch. There's nothing like some chips and salsa to give you back the calories you just walked off. There were some concerns because Waco received so much water the night before but it really turned out to be a beautiful day.