Happy Birthday, Kylie!

Kylie Today is our niece's 2nd birthday. Happy Birthday, Kylie!!

It seems like just yesterday that we were flying down from Iowa to meet her for the first time.

Saturday was her birthday party. At a park. With 102 temps. It was brutally hot, but my little red-faced kiddos all had fun in spite of the heat.

Kylie & her mama, Stacey

Taking a break to eat!

Jace with Ed's cousin, Audra's little girl, Natalie - she wanted to sit by Jace to eat and was so cute with him!

Hot & sweaty birthday girl

Happy Birthday, sweet girl! We love you!

Fun Days

Yesterday, the kids and I had the opportunity to go visit my Great Uncle George (my grandfather's brother). My kids' Great-Great Uncle! Pretty cool. My mom's cousin, Jan, is a singer with the Dallas Symphony Chorus. She came to Houston put on a performance at her dad's assisted living community. The kids loved it ... even Jake, who, of all my kids, is the least interested in music. She was THAT good!

Jadyn, Jake & Jordan with their Great-Great Uncle

We had a fun time. In the midst of diapers, dishes, laundry and all the rest, its easy to forget what joy kids bring to people just by being present. Wanna make someone's day? Walk into a nursing home or assisted living center with your kids. Sure felt good to bring a smile to so many faces!

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Today, we played outside for a while, despite the oppressing heat. Brutal summer so far, I tell ya. Even for Houston. Anyway, as I've said before, the only way to survive outside right now is in water. I'm not brave enough to take all my (non-swimmer) children to the pool alone, so we did the next best thing. We played in the sprinkler and with the water table today.

If you're a 7-year-old boy with {more energy than a sprinkler can provide fun for} a crazy sprinkler like this, of course you pretend you're a secret spy and the water is laser beams. Cracked me up. Especially when he tried to get the girls in on it, too. Funny, they didn't have the same level of interest in that little game.

We all had a great time. Jace loves the water as much as Jordan did at his age. So fun!!

Another fan

Seems as though we have a new Hannah Montana fan in the house!

Judging Others

I recently started reading the blog, LIKE A WARM CUP OF COFFEE.

Read the posts on judgement HERE and HERE. Good. Biblical. Convicting.

For those of us that are highly passionate about certain topics, sometimes its easy to blur the line between passion and judgement.

How His Brain Works

I just had such an interesting conversation with Jakey. Very typical him ...

He was telling me about where he'd put a bunch of things on his bed. He knows his right from his left very well. But, as he was describing things he was saying left while holding up his right hand and vice versa. I let it go a few times, but then corrected him. He gave me a puzzled look and then explained, "But, mom, my bed faces this way..." Oh, Duh.

My problem was that we were standing in the kithcen and he was telling me the directions based on where we were in the house ... not as if we were standing, looking at his bed!!! Oh, my goodness.

And I'm supposed to be teaching him??

A Day in Pictures

Our new toy ...

A favorite Saturday morning activity - pancakes by Daddy!

Tissue paper flowers in Jadyn's new room

Jace walking behind a push toy - getting a little closer to walking.

He may be our earliest yet. :-)

Jadyn playing dress up - the costume is on backwards! :-)

Some of my favorite pictures of my kids are around this age, playing dress up.

Celebrating Dads

I'm not sure how this evolved, but we always do gifts for special occassions first thing in the morning ... generally in our bed. Father's Day qualifies - the kids and I gave Ed a new watch, a fishing T-shirt and cap and some butterfingers.

Jace was on the bed, too, but was not interested in being still long enough to make it into a picture.

Then, we went to the 8:30 service at church, just because we were all ready (how often does THAT happen in a house with 4 kids? Not very, I assure you!)


For lunch, Ed's sister, Stacey & her family as well as Ed's dad and stepmom came over. We had yummy food and a fun time. We were able to celebrate three dads at once. Kylie's dad, Eddie's dad and my kids' dad.

Ken's eyes are closed. Stacey has a better one on her blog. Ed & Ken are hard to photograph. Especially together.

Fun times.

I meant to take a picture of Ed with his dad and Jake. Its like 3 generations of look-alikes. Next time!

Happy Father's Day

**I don't know why blogger isn't cooperating with me on this post ... I wanted to post a few other pictures, but I'm already a day late and a dollar short ...

My kids are the luckiest. And so am I.

Ed is the best father! The best daddy. And there is a difference. We all have fathers, but not all of us are lucky enough to have a daddy. I praise God that my kids do.

One day to honor him for all he is and does ... one little blog post ... just doesn't even come close.

Words cannot express how much I love him, how thankful I am for the dad that he is. For the privilege of being his wife. For the honor of walking this journey of parenthood together.

Thank you, babe, for being so intentional about being a dad. For taking it seriously - even while acting silly. We love you and are so thankful for you. Happy Father's Day.

Children's Museum

Thursday, we took the kids to the Children's Museum in Houston. It was AWESOME! We had such a great time. There are so many cool things to do there. I highly recommend it. The kids and the grown ups had a blast! I'm looking forward to taking the kids more often, since we bought a membership. This will totally keep us from missing the Science Center in Des Moines so much.

I took a gazillion pictures ... here's just a few of the favorites

stopping for a smile...but hurry, mom!

"working" as EMTs ... check out Ed in the background

Jadyn "working" as a vet - this was her favorite!

Jordan "checking out" at the "grocery store" - this was her favorite!

Jake on the pulley seat

Jakey on the climb-y thing - this was his favorite!

closer view

Jake & Jordan getting sprayed by the "Flow Works" bowl - this was MY favorite!! Nothing like a nice cool shower in the Houston heat. I love Jordan's face in this picture.

Jace had a blast playing in the "Tot Spot"

"Yay! Finally something for me!"

His favorite was the mirror!

Moving More Furniture

Remember my new school room? Well, a few days later, we decided to separate the girls into their own rooms. Our house has 5 bedrooms, so we have the luxury of letting each of the kids have their own room. And, the girls just weren't sleeping well (or enough) even after sharing a room for 8 months.

Jordan got her full size bed back and we split up the bunkbeds for Jake & Jadyn. Jadyn's room is in serious need of some decorating. I bought a Martha Stewart tissue paper kit a while back (on clearance at WalMart) that will look adorable!

Remember the BEAST of a computer desk that needed to be moved from the school-room-turned-playroom (now Jadyn's room)? Well, I lured my little brothers over with steak. They earned it, for sure!

I was giving Jace a bath while the boys were moving this thing, so Erin's girlfriend Beth took pictures for me. Here's a few extras I was pleasantly surprised to find on my camera! My kids LOVE Beth and so do I. She's beautiful - inside and out.