Beck's room

I put Daddy's watercolor painting in Beck's room. 

Also a new mobile I made him--tiny pinecones wrapped in yellow and black yarn with wings made from some gold gossamer fabric scrap. 

And now time to play!

 

Around Here

Their first time to ride together in a shopping cart....Quick after-dinner trip to Sam's.  I have this giant fruit rack in my kitchen that I keep stocked with fruit and veggies for us to eat.  I buy so much produce that I also fill bowls on the sides, and 4-5 days later it's already empty....So we upped the ante and went to Sams for to buy in bulk.  :)

He loves 'na-na's and makes the sweetest mmmmm sound when he eats them.  AND a huge mess! 

Her first dip cone.  A favorite from Daddy's childhood.  This was on our camping trip.  We made a pitstop at a Dairy Queen for dinner one night.  Well, more for the ice cream.  We were just responsible and ate dinner BEFORE the ice cream.  :)

 

A little mud on the tires....

This is finally the last of our camping pictures. :)


On the last day we camped we took a drive to the Angelina National Forest to look for an abandoned sawmill Matt remembers hiking to as a kid.  We never found it (boo) but we did have a great time exploring some backroads--and not another soul in sight!  Matt parked several places and ran back along closed roads to see if he could locate the sawmill, while the kids and I played with sticks, poked ants and ate wild blackberries.  And got a bit muddy. 



County Road 34 is officially in the boondocks....

Then I spotted a field full of wildflowers and I wanted to gather some purple coneflower seeds, so we decided it would be a good lunch stop.  Matt's not usually such a fan of excess stops, but I lucked out since we'd been running all over tarnation looking for his sawmill he had to say yes to my stop.  :)  We had a picnic in the most beautiful spot ever!  Trees all around, wildflowers, butterflies......
 

 

Quinn picking something out of her toes.  She is like the princess and the pea--except for her it's the princess and the microscopic gravel in her shoe.

 

And we had to gather our seeds and our flowers!

 

 

And this is pretty typical every time they lay together......He wrestles her or she wrestles him!

 

 

 

 

And usually she loses some hair in the process.

Daddy's armful

I do the "pregame"--pack lunches, spare clothes, backpacks, wash diapers, set out clothes, set out breakfasts, etc., and Daddy gets the kids up, dressed and then the highlight of the morning--Carries them downstairs at the same time with *ta-da* his toothbrush in his mouth, which Beck attempts to remove.  It's really quite the show!  He puts them both in their spots for breakfast and makes our coffee, then I get myself ready and come down and take it from there while he leaves for work.  Some days our routine works more clock-worky than others....but usually we get out the door close to the time we need to. 

Hard at work at school.....

Working with a geoboard in her summer classroom.  She is already loving being there!  We are slowly getting back into the routine of full time work/school.

Long Austin Weekend

We spent our long weekend roadtrip-style....
Saturday morning we drove to Austin after a small mishap--with a packed car and kids ready to jump in, Matt realized it wouldn't start.  He jumped it and we made it to Austin....after a visit to both the Walmart auto and Autozone we got the new battery we needed and continued our fun weekend. 
We had a list of "places to eat" and "places to visit" some sweet friends made us (they used to live there) and we had fun checking as many off as we could!  We enjoyed sleeping in, seeing Austin, spending some time with good friends at Mighty Fine, eating, eating, eating, eating shaved ice, and just being together.  I asked Quinn what her favorite thing in Austin was and she said, "There's lots of nature here." 
There were some not-so-pleasant moments mixed in, of course.....throw up, screaming, dual-screaming, 4 trips to the bathroom in the course of 10 minutes, a blister, having to listen to how painful the blister was, shoes being removed prematurely, more screaming, getting peed on in a portapotty, snotty sneezes in the face, snot in the one water bottle we were all sharing....
But all in all it was the perfect weekend!  Spent mostly outside enjoying nature, and the times we weren't outside we were eating or sleeping!!  What could get better than that.  And of course I have lots of pictures to post.....More to come.

A Bit o' water play

After a round in the sandbox this afternoon we needed some waterplay to get everyone de-sand-ifed.  No complaints from Beck!  He loves some quality time with the hose!
 

 

 

 

 

Quinn's Last Day of School

Yesterday was Quinn's last day of preschool.  We had carefully prepared some jars of wildflowers for her teachers and the director.  We had a casuality in the parking lot and one jar blew over and broke.  No use crying over broken jars, though, and the director was so sweet and searched up a replacement for Quinn to use.  That saved the morning.  :)

Quinn's teacher this past year.  We've loved her!

 

Q and some of her friends.  Her poses are a little...interesting.

 

 

 

 

Her tshirt they all made.

 

Now she is coming to school with me for the summer and in the fall she'll attend a new preschool!

Just cute.