Fishing

Chad loves to fish and has been dying to catch a fish in the river (stream, pond whatever you want to call it) behind our house. He found a spot that was loaded with carp and was determined to catch one. He brought this up to the house the other night and we had a little fun with it. I don't think he (or she) thought it was fun though.

Sam wasn't too fond of it, this is as close as he would get to it.

Not sure what Carly was thinking of in this picture.

It took some coaxing (and maybe a little bribery) to get her to do this!

Thanking our lucky stars!

I never thought I'd have to worry about wildfires living in southeast Texas. This fire started yesterday (labor day) afternoon. We had family over and some of them noticed a huge pillar of smoke, and it just kept getting bigger and darker. I have to say, I was pretty worried. I think the fire started only 3 miles away from us. Luckily (for us) the wind was blowing it away from us, but a lot of people have been affected by it and I am so sad! It could have easily been us that had to evacuate and I am so thankful that our house was protected. I know it sounds silly but even this little close call puts things in perspective. If I had less than 30 min. to evacuate what would I grab? How would I react? I hope I'm never faced with the reality of having to do something like that and I pray for those who were affected by this!

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Below are some recent pictures that Carly has drawn. She is quite the artist with quite the imagination.

This one is a picture of one of our cats "Smudge"

This is a drawing of Dolly our dog, complete with a cut that she had on her head.

This one is my personal favorite. This is Nanny our goat.

Kindergarten!

August 22, 2011

Carly went to kindergarten for the first time! She was so excited. She has been asking about school since she was....well.....at least since she turned 3. She has been so ready for so long that it was no problem. She woke up excited, got dressed, ate breakfast and we were off. She sang and talked the whole way to school. She could not contain the excitement she was feeling. We had gone to "Meet the teacher" night the previous week so she knew right where her seat was. She sat down and got right to work coloring her picture. She only mentioned once that she didn't want me to go but then quickly got engrossed in coloring her picture again and said nothing more.

When I picked her up that afternoon she was so happy! She had so much to tell me. I am so happy that she had a great first day. Today is her third day and she is still just as excited. She still has a hard time saying her teachers name. Mrs. Bon Jorno.

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One funny thing, at the end of the day I have to wait in a car rider line to pick her up. The first day was pretty packed so she had to wait for quite a while (30 min. to her, that is an eternity!) Yesterday, she was so worried because she said she "got so bored waiting for me" She kept talking about it, so I let her take a book in her backpack so she wouldn't get bored. I swear, this girl gets bored if she's not doing something for 3 minutes.
I still can't believe it. My days are pretty quiet. Sam actually entertains himself (where Carly did not) So, it's still sinking in on how much free time I have during the day.

Carly and Nanny

changes.....

Some changes are coming our way, well...one change really. This little girl is starting kindergarten on Monday! People keep asking me if I'm sad and my answer is no. Does that make me a bad mom? I don't feel like it does. Carly is SO ready for school. She was ready 6 months ago! At this point she gets so bored at home. I am constantly needing to entertain or find things to entertain her (which isn't always bad, but can be very overwhelming!) She has such a different personality than me that we also tend to clash very easily.
I think Kindergarten is just what we need at this point in time. Don't get me wrong, I am sad that my baby girl is growing up (way to fast!) I'm sure I will miss her, I know I will miss her. But, I am excited for her, she is going to love school! She has been walking around our house copying words she sees in her little notebook.

I still panic sometimes when I think that this is the beginning of a new stage in life. I worry about what she come home saying and the questions she might have. I'm not sure how many members of the church are in her school so I worry if we've prepared her enough to face the world. But, then I breath and realize it's just kindergarten. We had a nice rain storm pass through Sunday so we let the kids go at it! They were so excited to play in the rain and mud (the mud that used to be grass until our grass dies because of the lack of rain!)

With Carly starting school it will be just me and this little man at home. Life has a funny way of throwing you for a loop. I didn't think I'd be down to one child at home so quickly. I thought I'd have another baby by the time Carly started school, but....obviously there are different plans for us right now. In a way I'm excited. Sam and I can have the one on one time that Carly and I had before Sam. It will be weird for sure, but I'm looking forward to it! (let's just hope and pray that there is another child here by the time Sam starts school. I'm not prepared to have all my kids in school before I'm 30!)

I had to throw in another picture of Nanny. She found a new place to hang out, mostly because I think she likes to get away from Dolly (our dog). We also got another baby calf yesterday! Adorable!!

just more pictures of animals....and kids.....

So, we now have to baby calves. This is the older of the two. He's getting pretty spunky.

The other day Carly and Sam decided to take Nanny for a ride in their little car, it was pretty hilarious!

stuff

Carly's World part 3

We let Carly use our old camera. She loves it! She also learned how to delete pictures so I didn't have much to choose from. Chad had no idea she took this picture below.

We got a new pygmy goat. She is adorable. She was smaller than we thought, but she has been so fun. She is pretty much like a dog. She will follow you when you are outside and she'll cry for a bit when we go in the house. She has tried to get in the house a few times but sad for her, she will never be an indoor pet. We named her Nanny, but everyone keep calling her Nana.

This is our newest little animal. We were surprised to find out one of the cows was giving birth this morning. It's a little guy so he won't be staying at our farm for too long. We don't want any bulls around here. He sure is cute though!

Hawaii

Chad and I had a blast in Hawaii! We spent our days riding around the island of Oahu on our rented moped, eating and lounging in the sun. It was a dream for sure. I had mixed feeling about going and I thought for sure my anxiety over leaving my children would ruin the fun but once I got there I was able to relax and just enjoy! We saw so many things that it is hard to remember. There is a 5 hour time difference between Texas and Hawaii so our schedules were pretty mixed up. We were out the door by 6:00 a.m. every morning. We only had three full days there so we wanted to be able to see as much as we could.

This is called "China Man's hat" it was one of the views we saw while driving to the temple Tuesday morning.

The two pictures above were taken at the International Market place. Basically a big outdoor flea market with tons of touristy junk that I was convinced I had to have. I am such a sucker for things like this. It was located pretty close to Waikiki Beach (which was way too crowded for my liking)

These are all outdoor views from our hotel. (not our room though) They had dolphins that people could swim with which was pretty cool to watch everyday. The beach was my best friend, I didn't nearly spend as much time there as I wanted.

This wall of flowers was basically right off of the lobby of the hotel. It was so pretty. I wish I could have a wall of flowers in my house!

These were taken at Hanauma Bay and a scenic view just past Hanauma bay. We only snorkeled for about 20-30 minutes. The water was kind of chilly and I am not a huge fan of snorkeling. But we did see some pretty cool fish!

This was at a botanical garden we stopped at before Hanauma bay. There wasn't as many flowers as what I thought, but it was still pretty. The snail that is pictures was almost stepped on by Chad. I'm glad he didn't because it was huge and probably would've made a loud crunch!

The two collages were taken on the hike to Manoa Falls. It was really fun! We didn't really know what to expect but we read it was a simple hike and that is what we were looking for (we were on vacation, no strenuous hikes for us!) There were tons of cool trees and plants. The waterfall was pretty but not as big as I thought it would be.

These were all taken on our many adventures on the moped. We rented it for three days and had so much fun driving around at our own pace. We drove up to the north shore one morning. We planned to go to the temple and just sight see. We left at 6:00 in the morning, it was a little chilly but so gorgeous as the sun was rising. It was very convenient that I could snap pictures from the back of the moped.

Here we are at the temple. We were able to do some sealings.

This was at one of the restaurants at our hotel.

This is a view looking at the hotel. We stayed in the tall tower in the back.

This is looking opposite of where Chad was sitting.

Chad was being a goof.

This was our last day :( It was so much fun, I can't wait to go back. Maybe next time we'll take the kids :)

Billy and Phil