Going to the Lake

All the girls had a great time tubing on the lake. Cameron, Taylor, and Emma all took turns riding with each other. They also all rode by themselves. Peyton and I rode together and she loved it!!

Cameron & Taylor

Emma

Peyton & I

Cameron & Emma

Taylor & Emma

We all really had a great time hanging out in the lake. Here are some of my favorite shots!


Emma, Taylor, Daddy, Cameron, Mommy, Peyton, Cici



Taylor


Cameron


Peyton


Cici, Peyton, and John

DW driving the boat!


My sweet Emma mem!


Mommy having fun!!!

TN Trip

At the beginning of July we loaded up our new minivan and headed to TN. It was so nice to have more space and to allow the girls to watch a movie while we could still listen to our music. We never thought we would be minivan owners, but now we love it! So first we went to visit Mimi & Papa and here are so pics from there beautiful garden.








More of our TN trip to come later!!

Random pics!

The girls decided to dress up like Mommy & Daddy one day & we thought it was hilarious.



This is a family pic from our 4th of July neighborhood get together.

Crazy Peyton!

This girl is a hoot!!!

She loves brushing her teeth!!!

Father's Day-I know I'm way behind

We love our daddy very much. We made him some tool sorters at Home Depot and stained them, then we put our hand print on the back. I took Dustin to a Fort Worth Cats. We enjoyed the night. The best part was as we were watching the baseball game a few people went by on their horses in the back ground. It was a very Texas experience.

Swimming is our LOVE!!!

Anyone who knows me knows that I love swimming! Well all 3 of my girlies do too. Cameron & Taylor are both back to swimming all over the pool. When summer started they fell back on their swimmies, but after a few consistent days at the pool they were ready to do it on their own again. I'm so proud!!! Peyton loves the water even more than the girls did at their age. She doesn't mind the water in her face. In fact she will put her face down in the water. I'm working at the waterpark around the corner from our house and we've been going there quite a bit. So I have lots of pool pics. I haven't really blogged in quite a while, so I'll have lots to post.

Bluebonnet pics

At the end of April we went to the Bluebonnets to take some family pics. Bluebonnets are a big deal here in TX. Every spring the start popping up, mostly of the side of major interstates. They're the state flower and a lot of people stop and take pics in the Bluebonnets. On our way to a birthday party we decided we would stop and take some pics. Unfortunately we didn't get a great family pic, but got some cute ones.





I'm pretty sure it's probably illegal to pick one, but the girls did so I thought we should get a cute pic of them holding one.

Peyton's One Year Pic

Well I know it's a little late, but hey she's still one. With the girls and Peyton I have done pics at 3, 6, 9 and 12 mon. Well she's more like 13 1/2 months. So I'm sticking with it's her 1 yr. pic. She's so stinkin adorable. I'm so glad she was happy during the session. The girls got into big trouble because right in the middle of her morning nap they decided to get into an argument right outside her door. Of course she woke up. I was so frustrated b/c of course I had planned the pics at the perfect time for us to eat and go when she normally wakes up. If the girls had obeyed what I asked them to do, which was one stay with me and get her hair brushed while the other brushed their teeth, no one would have gotten in trouble. Anyways all that was said to say Peyton was surprisingly happy. I was so proud of her!!!

Peyton's Walking!!!

Here's a video from my phone of Peyton walking. I need someone to tell me what program and cords I need to buy to put video's from my real video camera onto the computer. When we were borrowing a Mac Dustin knew how to do it, but we don't have that anymore. We need a new computer, new camera, & new video camera. But I'm trying to make do with what I have. Peyton started to take more steps this past Sat., which was May 23rd. She took like 14 steps then and since then she is now choosing to walk more than crawl. She's still very wobbly, but it is so cute!! I would love to say I'll make more videos with my phone, but it will charge me each time I email the video to myself. I don't use the internet on my phone. Well enjoy my little doodle bug walking!

Mother's Day Tea

At our school, Sonshine Academy, my girl's classes had a Mother's Day Tea. It was very sweet! They've been singing and practicing the songs a lot at home. There was one song to the tune of the oscar meyer bologna song. It was funny they spelled m-o-m-m-y. They came in and collected around all the tables and sang to us mommies. Taylor had to come over and sing with Cameron so they could both sit with me. I also got their Me books that the teachers have been making all year. I'm so proud of my girls. I also took a video on my camera, which doesn't have sound. I know that's no fun and I have no clue why it doesn't have sound, but it's still funny to watch them dance. We'll see if I can get it posted.

Preparing to sing!

Singing "Deep and Wide"

My big girls!

Their singing "God's Not Dead"

Quick funny story

So this is the bass thingy for our ridiculously old stereo system. It doesn't really work well. The other day I caught Peyton trying to put an Easter egg in it and stopped her. I then moved it and heard rattling. Well I knew at this point she had been successful at another time. So with a challenge laid out ahead of me I started to try to retrieve the rattle I heard. Well here's the loot that I found inside that small hole.


The other funny thing is I'm pretty sure that Peyton didn't do the yellow and green balls because they belong to the ball popper that until this past weekend has been in storage for 2 and a half years. When we moved into this house I put it in storage because we were down to 2 balls out of 5. So I guess the girls discovered this hole a long time ago and I never realized. Funny huh!!!

Oh and the best news is that yesterday, 4-21 Peyton started saying Mama. Oh she melted my heart when I walked in to get her out of bed in the morning and she was saying Nananana and I said oh that's so close say Mama. So sure enough she did. Then for the rest of the day she said it several more times. It's so exciting!!!!

Birthday Pics

I'm One!!!!

Trying to eat the cupcake like a doggie!

Cupcake party

Cupcake Pops from Bakerella

Here are a few birthday party pics. I'll post more when I get them from a friend. So far these were my best shots. Also just so I've written it down somewhere. On 4-16 Peyton took 3 steps and on 4-21 she said bye, bye. She says da da all the time, but I don't know which one qualifies as a 1st word.

Happy Birthday Peyton!!!

My sweet baby girl is one today and I can't believe it. She has been such a blessing in our lives. I love being a mommy!!! I always knew I wanted to have a baby, but didn't get to really enjoy every baby moment with the girls. It was more of a matter of surviving day to day. With Peyton on the other hand I have thoroughly enjoyed each moment of her "babyness." She has a sweet smile and her laugh is hilarious. The girls love to get her laughing. She is for the most part a happy baby. The girl loves to eat to, I mean I have no clue where she could have gotten that from!!! We've made it a whole year nursing and I am so proud of both of us. There were definitely times when I thought for sure we were done, and nope. Peyton I am so excited to see how God uses you in life. We all love you very much!!!!

Your first pic!!!
You're saying, "I'm hereeee"

First pic with Mommy & Daddy on your birthday.


So precious!!!


One Year Old
This is from Easter Sunday.
We couldn't get a smile, but come on isn't she adorable.

I'll post some pics from her birthday party soon.

Posting

I'm not really sure what to post just thought I needed to post. So here I am. I'm so excited about what God is doing right now at our church The Exchange. We've have seen so many people come to Christ and many more come back to church after not being involved in a long time. It is wonderful to see people coming to a real relationship with Christ and others becoming real with the things they are struggling with. It has been shocking but eye opening to have people open up with their real struggles. Our pastor Joel Engle has made it a huge priority for our church to have real relationships. It has been crazy to see the prayer requests that people are telling the church to pray for. People aren't scared to say their struggling with lust, anger, or hate. Marriages are being healed because the couples are really talking. People aren't coming to church to just play church. I love so much about being apart of a new church. It's funny because probably 6 or 7 years ago I would have been the first person to say why are people starting all these new churches. There are plenty of churches already existing. But what I've learned over time is that YES there are tons of churches, but those churches aren't reaching everybody who needs to find JESUS. Who really cares how many churches there are as long as more people are coming to know Christ. I think as we prepare for Easter we need to remember that it's all about Christ!!!! It's not about the Easter dress, the silly bunny, which church you go to, or how much money you giving. It's all about Jesus and telling others about HIM! Having a REAL relationship with Christ is life-changing. You realize that your things are not your things. They are just a tool God uses to use you to tell others about Christ. Please take the time this week to read about what Christ has done for you and invite someone who doesn't have a REAL relationship with Christ to church this Sunday. I can assure you every church will have an amazing message.

It's kind of funny how a post can just come from out of nowhere. I took a couple of pics of the girls yesterday that I'll try to post soon. Also 2 weeks and sweet Peyton will be 1. Isn't it crazy how fast a year can pass by?

Camping

Well we had a fun time camping for our Spring Break. The plan was to stay 3 days and 2 nights, but it didn't quite work out that way. We got there Wed. and a little while after we got there we were able to go out on one of the pontoon boats to go fishing. The girls were so excited. They picked out their own poles and amazingly neither of them picked Dora. Wow, I was shocked! Instead Taylor got a Barbie pole and Cameron got a princess pole. They had practiced casting the whole day before and had each twisted their line up a couple of times. So they had started to get the hang of casting. I was excited to take them fishing until I remembered that they have to actually cast with a hook on the line. Wach time they reached back to cast I was ducking for cover. Ohhh... and while we were getting ready to get onto the boat Cameron tripped over a rope on the dock. She busted her lip and was bleeding all over the place. No fear I have a pad in my purse. It was sad because she was crying a lot a I was holding a pad up to her face. Kinda funny!! So the whole time we were on the boat she was a little sad b/c it was still hurting. She busted it pretty bad. She kind of looked a little like Angelina Jolie! We didn't catch any fish and I remembered that fishing is kind of boring.

Our neighbors let us borrow their pop up trailer and the girls loved it. We went to a lake that our friends Lauren, Brian, & Brayden moved to a while back ago. Brian works at the boy scout camp there on the lake. So we weren't at an actual campground. We didn't have bathrooms, water and only one normal outlet. The girls loved it!! They liked their bed in the pop-up. When we went back to the pop-up to get ready for the night we were driving the dirt path back to where the pop-up was and we came up on a TX longhorn getting a drink of water in the middle of the path in a mud puddle. It was quite funny, Lauren said his name is Big Tex and that he's friendly. We plugged in some lights insidethe trailer so we would be able to see that night after dinner. We ate dinner at our friends house and even got to play on their Wii a little bit. The girls love to play on Wii's. Weee would love to have a Wiii, they're so fun.


On Day 2 the girls and I went canoeing with Lauren and Brayden. It was so fun!!! We rowed out in a cove over to a rocky beach. The kiddos loved throwing the rocks and looking for shells. Lauren rowed all over the place and I reminded her that my little muscles couldn't do all that rowing. We got to see & hear all kinds of animals. We are so thankful that we were able to go on a camping trip for Spring break.

The boy scout camp allows someone to use their land for some free range cows, which explains big Tex. Here's another cow friend that we saw after canoeing.

In case your wondering why we didn't stay both nights it's because Peyton wasn't feeling great and didn't sleep at all the first night. She cried and I was up with her most of the night. We were both sleepy and needed a good nights sleep the next night.

Super late ~Halloween Pics!!!

This is mostly for the grandparents because I do realize how unbelievably late it is in being posted. I waited forever to get this film developed because you know it's the old timey 35mm film. So here are my cuties on Halloween being princesses. I fully planned on doing their hair up and making them into adorable princesses, but instead I woke up extremely sick. Since I stayed in bed all day I didn't get to enjoy Halloween like I usually do.

Besides that the big girls were a little sick this week. Taylor had yet another asthma attack. She's doing better now and we didn't end up at the ER. Yea!! We've been super busy with church. Peyton is almost 11 months old. This past week she has started to show more interest in walking. She'll pull up on a push toy and walk it around. She's also decided this week to start showing a little bit of her attitude. She's throwing some fits and gets extremely frustrated if you don't immediately give her more food when she grunts. I've tried to teach her sign language and she seems to get even angrier. If I sign more to her she gets so mad at me, like she's just saying stop all the procrastinating and give me more food.

So remember to keep voting for my girlies on Nick Jr.

Super Fan Voting

Vote Again!!!

Follow the link in the next post and keep voting. Help me out and tell as many people as you can. A couple of the other kiddos already have like 200 votes. I know my girlies are cuter and bigger fans, so keep voting. I need everyone's help.

http://www.nickjr.com/home/super-fan-contest.jhtml

Superfan Contest

Voting has finally started for the superfan contest on Nick Jr. I entered the girls for this contest in October. Of course as most of you know they are crazy Dora fans. They love her very much. Well the picked them as winners of the Dora contest and now the voting has started for one overall winner of all the characters. I am very competitive and would love to have the prize of having a Dora themed birthday. I also just thought it would be fun for all of y'all to see my girlies on Nick Jr.'s website. So we would love it if you go here and vote for them. Here's the picture to look for.

Nick Jr. Superfan Voting