Our Happily Ever After: September 2013

Monday, September 30, 2013

Girl Time

Before we headed to New York for the summer we got some fun cousin girl time in at the roller skating rink! I haven't been roller skating in many years and to say it was challenging trying to keep these two on their feet would be a major understatement! But they still had fun!

There were many falls and some tears but they were pretty happy to be with mom, Savannah, Kylie, Jamie, no little kids, and slushies of course!

You girls are super special to me and I love you so much! I hope you always want to hang out with me!

Friday, September 27, 2013

June with Hannah!

June started with lots of swimming. Colt finished swim lessons and does great swimming with the big girls now. Ellie liked her lessons and now kicks around the pool with her floatie on and will jump in sometimes. She really loves to jump right on the sunbench on her belly and scoot herself across it pretending that she is swimming while saying "kick, kick, kick" the whole time.

Eric sold his favorite truck, F-150 Lightning, and was sad to see it go.

So precious :)

The kids made a club upstairs in the corner. I don't know what they do up there but they include Colt and they all seem happy about it so it works out well. Their junk collection has tripled in the club since I took this picture! Eric is a member of their club but I was never invited in, figures!

After the lake house trip Hannah came back with us to spend two weeks with us. We did a few things but I am getting bad about pictures so this is all we have!

We went to the library to read to dogs, the older kids all got a turn and Colt and Ellie drove me nuts while we waited for them!

We went to the jump place and did lots of swimming. The girls went to a vacation Bible school for one week but Hannah stayed home with Colt and Ellie and I. The girls all played barbies a lot we had some friends over for swimming. They learned about the "would you rather" game and laughed a lot with that one.

Sweet and funny Ellie....

Overly cautious Ellie! Cracks me up sometimes!

And of course we did fireworks! Eric and Colt have been waiting and waiting for fireworks! Colt has been saving his money and they all loved being part of picking which ones to get.

Ready for the show! I don't even know how much Eric spent on fireworks but we did three night fireworks and all the kids had turns to pick which ones they wanted on their turn and Eric let them come with him to light theirs each time. What a great dad they have! They sure loved it and it was quite entertaining to listen to Ellie yell for them to hurry and get back to their seat.

Colt finally finished his sticker chart! Way to keep going buddy, I know it was hard to get (and keep) all those stickers! So off to Chuck E. Cheese we went!

This is after Chuck E. Cheese, everyone was happy except Rae because she was petrified of the Chuck E. Cheese mascot that comes out and visits the kids. Poor girl, he came out right as we were leaving and she had a very hard time with it. She says she doesn't want to go to Disneyland because of all the characters with costumes!

One day when Rae went to VBS the rest of us went to a little tour of a firehouse. Livy was so intrigued by every tool and little compartment. She just loved it!

Colt's dragon fly friend. He insisted it was sitting on his finger but the poor guy was almost bent in half and just waiting out the rest of his time!

We love having Hannah here and are so excited to go see her in New York soon! These kids sure are lucky to have the best aunt there is!

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Psillos Lake House Trip

The week after school got out we headed up to Austin to meet up with most of the Psillos'! Charlie and Michelle coudn't make it and we missed those happy faces! Lots of pictures and another awesome vacation with lots of hanging out, laughing, eating, fishing, swimming, and playing!

It is so fun to see all these kids together! We had many comments that Ezra, Zeke, and Colt were flashbacks of Grandpa, Richie, and Josh!

My kids all wanted to hold baby Ezra and now they want a baby too!

We got to celebrate Cora's first birthday there together and she was awesome with the cake! Big mess but loved exploring it. She's a trooper too, sick and up all night before her birthday.

Dad and Hannah getting in some jet ski fun

The lake is still way down from drought but it was still awesome, just tiring walking up and down!

This time we brought a babysitter with us that worked out great. Whitney was a great Ellie protector so we knew she was safe the whole time!

Tube time for the girls! Han and Livy loved it, Rae gave it a shot but it is still not her cup of tea.

Hannah, Rachel and Erin

Baby Ez. He is just adorable.

Of course there were crafts! Painting Cora's birthday sign.

Big cousin in charge here!

Hannah mad at me for something!

Getting so old! Beautiful pic Han!

Pop and one of his buddies

Cheese! Waiting for the pinata!

Daddy daughter ride!

She just cracks me up with this cake, she is so serious!! Such a cutie!

Catfish club! Each time the fished they called themselves the catfish club, Livy even made them a flag. She was fishing one time on the boat and left her pole for a minute to go on the dock. She saw it get a bite and she dove from the dock onto the boat to grab her pole before it went down! She's comitted to that catfish club!

They ended up using roasted corn for bait and it worked pretty well!

Zeke's a water lover if I ever saw one! He is so cute following his dad around and always loving the water. He was the funniest always calling Richie "my daddy" instead of just "daddy", it is so adorable!