Weekend on the River

We just got back from a super fun weekend with our sweet friends.  This is the first getaway we have had all summer - with Seals practice and meets and then VBS last week, we have been busy almost EVERY day, so this little vacation was JUST what the doctor ordered.  We rented a house on the Guadalupe River near Kerrville.  We had such a great time.  We got there a little before dark on Thursday night so we walked down to see what the river was like.  It was so peaceful and beautiful!

I had brought a craft that we had used at VBS that week and the kids really got sucked into it.  You put these tiny beads on a from and then iron them to fuse them together and make little shapes.  It was quite the hit...

Even with Jeff. :)

We got up Friday morning (after sleeping in a little - it was vacation after all), and headed down to the river.  The kayaks were a huge hit.  The house had 4 of them and a canoe and we had a great time on the river.  

Hudson just wanted to swim - he is such a fish.

Then he decided to try out the canoe.

After seeing all the other kiddos, he wanted to try out a kayak.  I was a little anxious about it, but Brian said he thought he'd be fine and he was.  The water was very calm and Hudson is a great swimmer.  It took a little help to get him on it...

but once he was, he paddled around just fine.  It was so cute!

This was the best spot in the water. The water was just cold enough to counteract the super hot day... it was AWESOME.  

Stockton with one of his many fish he caught.

After a full day we came in, had hamburgers and chilled out a little.  Hudson and Stockton were best buddies. :)

Friday was my birthday and after we had a super fun and relaxing day on the river, Brian surprised me with a birthday cupcake and everyone sang happy birthday to me.  It was so sweet.  Here we are after our run watching the kids fish as the sun went down.  It was a great birthday.   I love this man like crazy - he is so good to me.

We got up Saturday and Reed tried his hand at fishing and caught one!

Aurora wanted to paddle down the river a little ways so Reed and I went with her.  It was BEAUTIFUL - like out of a magazine.

After a day on the river, we headed out to dinner at a fun Mexican restaurant.  Here are the big buddies again. :)

Kristie and I watching the kiddos get one last fishing excursion in after dinner.

Jeff gave Hudson rock skipping lessons and he actually had one skip!

We got up Sunday morning, packed up and headed home.  We stopped at this odd little park that had an Easter Island head and Stonehenge and of course had to stop to get some pictures.  Stockton totally cracks me up.

We decided to stop here on a whim...

It was a tough climb, but Hudson and Reed made it all the way to the top!  I was so proud of them!  It was an absolutely beautiful view.  It was hot and tiring, but worth the climb.

One of my fave pics from the trip....

We had a great weekend and are so blessed to have such wonderful friends!  

First week of July

Let me just say... The weather was AWESOME this week!!! We had beautiful warm, NOT hot days that were almost spring like.  I actually wore a light jacket to swim practice on Tuesday morning... Seriously!  Okay, moving on...

On Monday we went to the zoo with some friends.  It was a beautiful 89 degrees and breezy.  It was July at the zoo and I didn't even sweat... Unheard of, people!  We had a great time.  Some of my favorite pictures from the day...

On Tuesday we had a nice relaxing day at home.  Our activity for the day was to make some patriotic cookie flavored with jello.  They were alright- tasted mostly like a shortbread cookie, but the boys had fun making them.  We had a picnic lunch outside under the big tree out back and they both loved that.

On Wednesday, we had a full day.  After swim practice, we headed home to change clothes and go to Reed's doctor appointment.  At the zoo on Monday,  he had complained of his feet and ankles hurting.  He has flat feet (just like his daddy) and the week before Brian had suggested that I take him to the podiatrist just to check out his feet.  Brian was wearing orthotics in his shoes by the age of 3, so he has dealt with this pretty much all his life and I'm really glad that he encouraged me to take Reed.  We went to the new podiatrist, Dr. Cornwell, and she was awesome!  Turns out Reed needs to have orthotics too, so she took casts of his feet and they should be here in 3 weeks.  He is very excited!  After the doctor, we drove over to Weatherford to run a couple of errands and the boys wanted to eat at IHOP.  Then BACK to Granbury to see Despicable Me 2 (which I have been looking forward to since I heard they were making it... I LOVE Despicable Me!)  We loved it so much and will probably go see it again. :)
Thursday was the 4th, so we did our normal parade, swimming and fireworks.  The weather was great, so the parade was great!

 The boys came away with a lot of stuff (frisbees, cups, candy) and I caught a random t-shirt!  If you know me at all, you know I love a free t-shirt. Totally made my day. :)  We went swimming at Gammy and DadDad's and at one point Reed was swimming with Hudson back and forth across the pool helping him with his strokes.  It was so sweet.

After we watched the fireworks, the boys showered and asked to sleep in Hudson's room together.  We could overhear Reed reading his book to Hudson before they feel asleep.
On Friday I gave the kids an hour of free video game time.  It was a (much needed) nice day of hanging out around the house.  Only 7 weeks until school starts... boo. :)

Summer is just moving along...

We've been BUSY!!  Not to mention our Seals practices 4 mornings a week and swim meets every weekend, here's a quick look at our activities over the past 3 weeks. I don't have pictures of everything, but I'll throw some in here and there.  Week 2 started with lunch at the Cheesecake Factory (Reed said he doesn't like cheesecake, so I knew I had to take him there.  Turns out their Oreo cheesecake made him a believer!)

Then on to bowling at Alley Cats across the street.  We had a blast!

Tues. - We made some rainbow cookies (recipe here).  They didn't turn out like the picture on the link, but were still cute and very yummy.
Wed. -  We went to the museum with Mimi, Cara, Lilly and Abi.  We explored the museum, laid on a bed on nails (seriously), watched an IMAX movie about dolphins and stopped for a Blizzard on the way home.
Thurs. - Swimming
Fri. -   We had a swim meet that evening, so we stopped for milkshakes on the way home.

Week 3 began with the making of galaxy play dough (homemade black play dough filled with blue glitter).  The boys really enjoyed this and played with it for about an hour and a half.

Tues. - Brian was gone on an overnight fishing trip, so we had cereal for dinner.  The boys LOVE to do this, but Brian hates it so it worked out well this day. :)
Wed. - We saw the Smurfs movie at our theater's summer movie camp.  I thought it would be a super cheap activity... $0.50 admission.  Well, we spent $24 at the concession stand and then I was eating a Milk Dud and pulled my crown off my tooth and THEN accidentally threw it away and am having to pay for a new one.  Most. Expensive. Movie. EVER.
Thurs. - Swimming!

Fri. - Outdoor Movie Night.  We set up the projector and watched Madagascar 3 on the wall of Brian's shop.  It was HUGE - like our own personal drive in.  It was awesome and we are SO going to do it again.

Week 4 began with a trip to our city beach.  The boys LOVED it.  Lots of sand to dig in, throw around and fight with.  I'm sure we'll be going back.

Tues. - We saw Monsters University.  We only spent much less at the concession stand and I did NOT eat Milk Duds.  All teeth are intact... Success! 

Wed. - More Swimming

Thurs. - The boys spent the night at Mimi's.  Brian and I had a date night.  Everyone was happy. :)

Fri. - Dinner with friends of ours

I can't believe June is almost gone... we have already plowed through 4 weeks of summer! We are having so much fun and I am so blessed to be able to stay home with my boys and spend this time with them each day.  I feel almost guilty that I get to go play with my guys while Brian gets up and goes to work, but I know that's why he works so hard.  He is such a great husband and father and I am thankful for him.  Here's to 8 more weeks of FUN!

Swim Meet

Today was our first swim meet of the season.  We had to drive to Trophy Club and I knew that meant getting up early, so I had the car packed and ready to go last night just for good measure.  I checked the website for Reed's warm up time and and after looking at the map, decided we needed to leave between 5:15 an 5:30.  That seemed obscenely early to me, but instead of double checking, we went to bed, got up and headed out.  The short of it is that we got to the pool AN HOUR EARLY.  I am not kidding.  I felt like such a goober because if I would have thought about it logically, the out of town people always have warm-up right before the meet so they don't have to leave so early.  My family was not pleased.  On the up side, we got to see this beautiful sunrise on the drive up...

So what do you do when you get to a swim meet an hour early?  You play games on the iPad. :)

Both my nieces are swimming with the Seals, so we all congregate under our canopy each Saturday.  It's like a fun little party. :)

 Hudson relaxing with Dad (the way he's sitting totally cracks me up).

Hudson didn't swim in this meet because I want him to easily make it down the length of the pool (please see this post about his tryout if you aren't sure what I mean).  Hopefully after a few weeks of practice, he will be able to do a race.   Here is Reed on the block ready for his first race...

He moved up in age groups this year, so now he's on the younger end of his group.  I was afraid that he wouldn't place as high and he would start to get discouraged.  After his first race, he was very discouraged.  He touched the wall, looked around and saw he was last in his heat and started to shake his head.  When we got the results, he saw that he had placed 7th our of 13 and seemed to have a better attitude about it.   His next race was the backstroke and he placed 6th. His last race was his favorite - the 25 freestyle.  He placed 5th and beat his best time from last year by 7 seconds!  He was very pleased! We got in the car to head home and Hudson went to sleep in about 20 minutes.

It took Reed a little longer, but he finally gave in too.

I guess that's what happens when you drag your kids out of bed unnecessarily before the sun is even up. Shocking. :)

First Week of Summer

MONDAY

Monday was a good start to our summer.  We had a FULL and fun day.  It started with swim practice at 8:00.  Hudson had to try out so they could gauge where he is in his abilities.   Doesn't he look cute in his little swim cap?  :)

To be able to practice with the Seals in the city pool, he has to be able to swim the length of the pool without touching the bottom or sides.

He had a rough time with that.  He's a good swimmer, but swimming from one end to the other (25 yards) is a long way for a 5 year old.  The first time he only made it about a third of the way.  On his second try, he made it a little over half way.  The lady that was doing his tryout asked me to go get Reed and have him swim along beside Hudson.  That (along with me telling him that if he didn't make it to the end, he couldn't swim with Reed) did it.  Slowly but surely he made it down to the end.  Needless to say, he won't be entered in any swim meets anytime soon. :)  After practice, we went home, changed into normal swimsuits and they went swimming at Gammy's for a couple of hours (thanks to DadDad for these fun pictures).

Jake was swimming around in his life jacket like a maniac and it tired him out quite a bit. :)

We went in to town to get lunch, groceries and run some errands and the boys used some of their money to buy a couple of toys.  I spent a little of the afternoon putting together this Lego guy.  (This is about 3:00 and Hudson still hadn't made it out of his swim practice suit).

This summer we are using the ticket system for video games again.  During the school year our rule is no games during the week and limited on the weekends (depending on our schedule).  Last summer, very early into the summer (about 2 days), I started getting questions about video games.  So I came up with the ticket system.  I had a big roll of the carnival tickets left over from their carnival birthday party a couple of years back.  For each hour that they spend outside, they get one ticket.  One ticket is redeemable for 15 minutes of video games time.  There are two rules - (1) they CANNOT ask to play video games.  Brian and I will let them know when they can and (2) they must have tickets to play.  They are also able to trade in their tickets for money, but they never have - they love those silly little DS's too much.  Anyway, here are their ticket jars:

They've already gotten 3 tickets today - one for the hour at swim practice and 2 for the couple of hours  swimming at Gammy's.   

TUESDAY

Before Reed got out of school, we started going to get sno-cones on Tuesdays, so we decided to keep up the tradition...

Reed has been congested for about a week and a half and I thought it was allergies (and still think it was in the beginning).  I ended up taking him to the doctor because it just wasn't going away... turns out he has a sinus infection.  I felt really awesome that I'd let it go on for DAYS without realizing it.  Ugh.  Anyway, our activity on the calendar was to watch a movie.  Long story short, I got my wires crossed as to where the movie was, so after we went to the doctor, we ended up going to Netflix and renting a movie (and going by Sonic for a drink.  Obviously.).  The boys really enjoyed having the downtime and watching a movie at home.  It was nice to rest after a long weekend and a very busy day yesterday.  We ate dinner and Hudson didn't touch his food.  That's not necessarily unusual - if he doesn't like the looks of something, he doesn't want it.  He fell asleep on the couch and when Brian picked him up to carry him to bed, he said "It's bedtime? Yay!" It made me laugh until I started to tuck him in and felt his skin - he was burning up with a 102 fever.  I got him to take some tylenol and he fell asleep.  He spent the night throwing up and with a fever (he couldn't keep the medicine or any fluids down). 

WEDNESDAY

I got up with him at 6:45 with more vomit and fever.  I tired to keep him cool with a cool rag on his head and that was just enough to keep him semi comfortable.  I took Reed to Seals practice and then we had an appointment to get my hail damage looked at on my car.  After a quick stop to get some Gatorade and Sprite, we headed home so Brian could go to work.  My poor little guy...

Our activity for the day was the Naked Egg.  On Tuesday we put eggs in vinegar and let then soak since knew it would be a few hours for the shell to soak off.  You can't tell in the picture, but the were soft to the touch (the one of the bottom was soaked in blue food coloring because, well, why not?)

I didn't want to leave Hudson to go outside and mess with the eggs, so we spent the day watching TV and doing a whole lot of nothing.  I took a nap since I hadn't slept well.  Hudson stopped throwing up about noon, but was so weak he was shaking when he tried to sit up or hold his cup.  Poor Reed was bored out of his mind so I let him have a little free video game time and then Brian came home and took him out to dinner which he really enjoyed.  I decided since Hudson's fever was still so bad, that he needed to sleep in my bed with me.

THURSDAY

Hudson sleeping with me = NO sleep for momma.  He was very restless, cried out and talked in his sleep a LOT.  I re-wet the rag on his head quite a bit to keep him cool and it would settle him down pretty quickly.  I took Reed to Seals and Brian stayed with Hudson again.  Our activity was to go to Main Event, but that was scrapped because of Hudson.  So we got the Naked eggs and played with them.  

We had 3 of them and Reed broke 2 and said he wanted to save the 3rd one for Hudson. :)  Hudson started to eat later in the day, so that's when I knew he was getting better.

FRIDAY

Hudson woke up feeling MUCH better on Friday morning - he was full of energy and ready to go.  Our activity was to make sundaes, so after dinner, we went crazy with ice cream, Magic Shell ( I LOVE that stuff), whipped cream and M&M's.

Hudson being sick threw a major wrench in our plans, but we still had a decent week.  I'm looking forward to a normal week of fun activities and healthy boys!

Johnson Weekend

We went away this weekend with my family. We have been going with my parents for the Memorial Day weekend since Reed was about a year old. This last weekend my parents rented a house in Tool, TX (never heard of it until a few days ago) on Cedar Creek lake. We had a good time.  The kids took out the paddle boat... 

 

... And no one fell off. I was surprised especially since Hudson kept standing up over and over again. 

I woke up to see my cute pies snuggled together Saturday morning...

We were close to Canton, so Brian, Cara and I went. We ended up with some fun things. 

The rest of the time we hung out around the house, ate and played games. On the way out of town, we stopped at a place where they had go-karts, video games, laser tag, etc. We had a blast! All of us (except Pepaw) got on the bumper cars and I laughed so hard- we all had so much fun. The kids tried out the climbing wall...

The go-karts were fun too. :)

We had a fun weekend. Everybody was beat Sunday night and I think we all slept pretty hard. :)

Summer Advent Calendar

Yep, I might be crazy... I'm doing a summer advent calendar.  The boys enjoy the Christmas calendar so much, I decided that we needed one for summer too. :)  If I'm not careful, our summer tends to be VERY unstructured and although that's not necessarily a bad thing, I want to live it up in summer and that means I needed a plan.  Since the boys will both be swimming with the Seals this summer, they will have practice 4 days a week from 8-9:30.  I will need to get them up by 7:30 at the latest, so I thought it would also be a good incentive for them to get up in the mornings knowing they have a fun surprise planned that day!
I found a calendar on Pinterest I wanted to copy.  They had activities just on Monday through Friday which I really liked - we like to keep Sundays free and most Saturdays we will have swim meets.  Not every day will be something big, but I tried to follow a theme for each day of the week (one day we will be swimming,  one day will be a project or craft, one day will be an outing to somewhere like the zoo, etc.).  I bought a magnetic dry erase calendar and used my Cricut to cut out shapes to fit in the squares.  I wrote our activity on the calendar and then put the special magnet (a pompom hot-glued to a magnet) that shape over the square.

Easy peasy.  I'm really looking forward to a super fun summer with my boys!

5th and 9th Birthday Party

On Saturday we celebrated the boys birthdays with a joint swimming party.  We had the BEST time!  Lots of friends and family came (we had almost 50 people there!) and we had a great day.  Here are some pictures from the party...

 Since there was only one party for both boys, I decided to go big with the cake.   

And I'm glad I did - there were only a few slices of the bottom layer left!

Reed told me that it was the best party ever and Hudson said it was "Perfecto!"  :)  We had a great day - I love my little family!