Memorial Weekend Fun

May 2014

We celebrated a super-busy, but super-fun Memorial Day weekend.  The weekend began with a trip to downtown McKinney to watch "Bike the Bricks."  Annually, they shut down all of the streets in downtown McKinney and set up a bicycle racing course.  All of the restaurants and bars have their patios open with great views of the racers as they race by.  Last year, we had a great time just watching the racers, but this year, we had someone to cheer for. Our good friend Greg recently took up bike racing and he's gotten pretty good, pretty fast.  We all had a fun afternoon/evening cheering for all of the racers, but especially for "Uncle" Greg:

 

 Our view from the patio:

Our Saturday was filled with kids' birthday parties, starting off with a morning trip to Fort Worth for cousin Lincoln's 5th birthday party.  The party was at Van Grow, an art studio for kids (cute name, right?).   They had all kinds of fun crafts planned, starting off with decorating party hats with all sorts of fun stickers:

Each kid a cardboard letter (their first initial) to paint and decorate with buttons, sequins, pom poms and all sorts of fun stuff.  Lincoln worked hard on his letter L:

His cousins concentrated on their masterpieces as well:

And were very proud of the finished products:

From there, we moved on to making cool Batman and Robin pictures using pre-cut construction paper shapes:

We finished crafting with some time at the bead table where Papa and Daddy helped make some awesome bracelets:

We even got a decent family picture!

After all of the crafts, it was time for snacks, cake and presents.  Happy 5th Birthday Lincoln!!

From there, we got some yummy burgers for lunch at Kincaids with Nana, Papa and the McCarthys and headed back to Frisco for another birthday party - we celebrated for the entire day!

You might think that we'd be tired after our exciting Friday and Saturday, but we still had one fun outing planned for our long Memorial Day weekend.  We headed to the zoo in Fort Worth to check out the animals.  Jack wanted to see the cheetah first:

While Livi was most excited to see the giraffes:

As you can see, we spent a lot of time climbing on fences to get a better look at all of the cool animals:

We stopped for a few minutes at the concession stand for some Icees

And a photo op at the turtle outside of the concession building:

The coolest part of this visit was the temporary insect exhibit.  When you entered the park, along with your map, you got a list of all of the giant insects that could be found around the zoo, to check off as you found them.  Jack, being a boy after his mom's heart, was super excited about checking everything off the list as we went.  We took a picture of each bug as we found them:

This one actually spit water on you as you walked by:

This boy was very excited after checking the final bug off his list!

Phew!  It makes me tired just to write about everything we packed into this weekend, but we had so much fun!

Take Me Out to the Ballgame!

May 2014

For the past few years, our daycare has planned a night at Dr. Pepper Ballpark to watch our local minor league baseball team, the Frisco Roughriders. Tickets are discounted, include all-you-can eat hot dogs, nachos and soft drinks, and everyone from Kids 'R Kids sits together in the same section.  After playing tee ball himself this season, Jack understood a little about baseball and was excited to bring along his glove in hopes of catching a stray fly ball.  Of course, the late afternoon sun would be in our faces, so they both wore their cool shades:

We saw several of Jack's friends from school and really enjoyed the night.  I'm not normally a big hot dog fan, but for some reason, that night, I ate way more of them than I'd like to admit.  All you can eat, right?!  I mostly just have a bunch of goofy pictures and phone selfies from our night at the ballpark, but I think they are really cute.

Yummy nachos...

Selfies with my cuties...

And this one was too cute not to include...

We even managed to get a picture with Dad...

We only seem to make it to one Roughriders game a season, but every time we go, we agree we should go more often.  Such a fun night!

Summer Randomness...

Summer 2014

I looked back on the photos we took in the summer and there were a few activities and events of which we took a lot of photos and that definitely needed their own, separate blog entry.  Scattered throughout those pictures, as usual, were everyday pictures - fun times spent with friends and family that I don't want to forget or overlook as my kids get bigger.  They aren't always the best, most professional photos, but they make me smile....

First, we celebrated Mother's Day.  Our celebration was low-key, as most of our celebrations tend to be.  I got a lovely Sunday morning to sleep in and eat a delicious breakfast.  On Friday before Mother's Day, Kids 'R Kids had "Muffins for Moms" before school.  They had the lunchroom decorated in lovely Tiffany blue and flowers and some yummy muffins and juice.  Here we are enjoying our breakfast:

Livi had several muffins, and glasses of juice - and apparently was searching her glass for more!

I love my guy and his crooked smile!

Each of them made me a beautiful card at school.  Livi's had this sweet poem and her handprints:

Jack's teacher took his picture holding a bouquet of flowers in front of an "I Love You Mom" sign.

On the inside of the card, he traced his hands, colored them, and added why he loves me, in his own words.  Apparently, I give good hugs!

As I mentioned, this is a post of randomness.  Little Miss Livi has a fashion sense that is all her own.  She watched a whole episode of Bubble Guppies on our bed with in a pink party hat and one of Jack's crocs.  I couldn't resist capturing the cuteness!

Gigi came to visit for a few days.  I got to have a nice sushi lunch with her.  We also had a fun dinner with the kids on the night she arrived at Pizzeria Testa - a wonderful, authentic pizza place in Frisco square.  I wasn't sure how kid-friendly it would be, but we had a great meal.  Gigi was in grand-kid heaven:

And the kids were in heaven eating the Nutella pizza for dessert:

I love this one of Jack with his Gigi - I think she enjoyed the dessert, too!

Poppy stayed overnight with us on the way to bring one of Hattie and Buck's puppies to its forever home.  He got lots of cuddles, too!

Father's Day happened, too.  They celebrated at school with "Donuts for Dads," but since I was not in attendance, they just enjoyed donuts rather than posing for pictures. :) Jack and Olivia also made Daddy some amazing artwork.  This time, Livi used her hands, rather than her feet and blue instead of pink:



 And Jack used his handprints to make this fancy bow tie:

One evening, I decided to pull out Grandma's famous chocolate chip cookie recipe.  As you can see, the kids couldn't wait for them to come out of the oven:

They enjoyed warm cookies after their bath - they couldn't even wait long enough to get dried off and put on their PJs:

Of course, it wouldn't be summer in Texas without pool time.  I'll have a separate post all about swim lessons later, but we also got in plenty of practice at the neighborhood pool.

Jack was tall enough to touch in the shallow end for the first time, and spent most of his time swimming back and forth from corner to corner of a 10-foot-square area.  We brought his water gun once, but he didn't do much swimming when the water gun was present:

Livi took swimming lessons for the first time and really enjoyed the water.  Most of the time, we put her in her floaties and just let her kick around:



We only have one photo to mark a really big occasion.  On June 12th, Tommy and I celebrated our 10th anniversary!  While it is hard to believe that it has been 10 years already, it is even harder to imagine my life without my husband.  We support each other, complement each other and are truly best friends.  I don't stop to appreciate it nearly enough, but I really am a lucky gal!

We were headed to Oklahoma to celebrate my cousin Courtney's wedding the day after our anniversary (more on that later, too), so we were lucky to have Grandma and Grandpa in town to babysit.  We went out for a delicious dinner at Neighborhood Services, but our big celebration wouldn't happen for a few months.  More to come, I promise!!

When we don't have a soccer game, most weekend mornings are spent just hanging around the house and playing.  One morning, Daddy and Jack had fun with the Ninja Turtles:

And another morning, they used our seldom used Costco foam blocks to build an elaborate building - Jack was so proud - I love watching my two guys play together!

Stay tuned for more summer adventures!