The Texas Loop

Just a heads up, this post is overloaded with pictures!  My friend Traci told me that's all people care about anyhow, so here you go!  I have been out of town doing what my in-laws call the "Texas Loop".  They had kids living in Dallas, Lubbock and San Antonio so they would just drive the "loop" and see them all.  I did the mini-Texas-loop over Labor Day and had a great time!  Here are some stats from my trip with the boys:

- 14 days

- 1300 miles driven

- 3 birthday parties

- 1 new baby niece

- 5 blowouts (1 actual flat tire)

- 6 temper tantrums

- 2 pacifiers, although it seemed like one of them was missing at all times

- 2432 goldfish spilled in my car

We had a great time!  It was just me and the boys while in Dallas, then Mark met us in New Braunfels for Labor Day and our nephews birthdays.  I was so excited to get to Dallas to meet my new niece!  Maggie is adorable and loved spending three days with her.

Here is Ms. Maggie!  So tiny compared to my beast of a son.

Celebrating Birthday #1- Charlotte's Curious George 2nd Birthday

All the cousins on my side, love them all!  Ava, Char, Maggie, Beau, Caleb & Brooks with my parents.

My sis-in-law, Sally, Me and Caleb- who didn't want to look.

I thought it was funny that each of these kiddos are 10 pounds apart, so we documented it.  

7, 17, 27 and 37 pounds.  (Yes, my 4 month old weighs 17 pounds)!

One day I took Brooks to ride the train at Firewheel, they were closing right when we got there so we weren't able to ride it (and it was 12x more expensive then the train in Roswell so I would have probably been too cheap to buy tickets even if it was still open). Ha. 

This is what I get when I ask him to smile. 

But then he said he wanted to smile and have his picture taken by the play trains, and I got this adorable smile!  Such a cutie if you ask me.

One day we went over to the Ft. Worth Children's Museum with Jess, her girls and my madre.  

Brooks doing a little shopping, loading up on protein.

 My sis and our awesome babies. Although Caleb doesn't look too fond of Maggie in this pic.

 Um, Chunkers, I don't think this scale is accurate- you're a little more than 7 pounds. :-) 

This is as good as we get with group shots now.  I just aim for everyone to be IN the picture. 

I was able to spend time with my Dallas friends, meet my friend Melanie's new baby girl, and hang out with Chelle and her super cute kiddos. Boo for not taking any pictures.  I also took the boys to the Pep Rally at the new Allen Eagle stadium and see my teacher friends. This place is awesome- these high schoolers are lucky kids!  Here is the band- it's huge!

My boys, enjoying themselves.  Go Eagles!!! I miss this school!

Also, my friend Alison, who lives in Nebraska came to town so I was able to see her and her sweet baby girl! These two are 5 months apart.

We couldn't drive past Baylor without stopping.  Especially since Caleb had never been before- he was 4 months old, it was time.  First, we stopped by the best coffee joint ever- I was SOOO excited for my Frozen Milky Way but the machine was broken!  I was crushed!   

So I dried my tears and we moved onward- next stop was checking out the bear pit.  Brooks would not leave, we'd walk a few feet away then he'd turn around and run back to the bear.

 Caleb's first time on campus!  Little cutie- and future Baylor Bear!

 Too bad Brooks wouldn't look- here he is with his favorite football player- RGIII!!!

Brooks taking his bro on a little stroll around campus.

And here he is with his sign, slightly bigger than the last time we took this pic!

Birthday Party #2- Parker's Lego themed 7th Birthday

We finally got to see Mark!  We were all so glad to see him and be back together!

Lizzy did an awesome job planning these parties (one Saturday and one Sunday)!

 These two were eyeing the goodies, just waiting for no one to look.  It was so fun to watch Brooks follow Maren around all weekend.  They had a great time playing together.  

This guy LOVED the "happy cakes" (his version of birthday cakes and cup cakes).  

Birthday Party #3- Brady's Fisherman 4th Birthday! (This pic was from the Lego party though).

Brooksie and his Papa! 

These two gobbled up who knows how many gummy worms at Brady's party- yummy! 

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the rolls in this pic!  Caleb really is this smiley too, he smiles every time you talk to him.  Such a great little guy, love him to pieces! 

Thanks to my parents for letting us crash for over a week, and Lizzy and David for being such awesome hosts!  We had a great time and loved spending so much time with family. It was a long time to be gone with the boys but I enjoyed it all.  Even driving 8 hours each way with the boys went well.  We are so blessed to have such awesome families who we love to spend time with. I am so grateful that the boys have so many cousins that they can grow up with.  We are a lucky family!

My "Pinspired" Quiet Book

I love Pinterest- I remember the day I stumbled upon it over a year ago while I was still teaching.  I immediately showed it to my students and shouted "It's the dream website!"  As a computer teacher, I was always saying I wish there was a way to save pictures without having to copy and paste them to a word document.  THIS IS THE DREAM!  Now as a stay at home mom, it's even more of a dream because it gives me tons of ideas of things to do whilst at home.  I have a friend who just wrote a hilarious post on her take of Pinterest, but my take is that it gives me a gillion ideas for me to be a more productive mom- especially since I moved from a ginormous metroplex to a tiny town where I have lots of extra time (and no chick-fil-a to meet friends at 3 times a week).

I've done lots of random things- from the endless lists of activities for toddlers, some home decor stuff and a number of failed recipes but my biggest project from Pinterest was a Quiet Book for my son.  I spend about 2 weeks worth of naps to complete it but he seems to like it- especially the buckle and the finger puppets.  I used this blog for most of my ideas because her pages were really clean and simple.  I also added a few things specific to what Brooks likes (sports).  Since it consumed about 20 hours of my life I "felt" like I needed to show it off.

Here is the cover- shout out to myself for making SIX button holes with my sewing machine!  I mustered up all my sewing skills from 6th grade home economics, read part of the manual and managed to figure it out.  

This page has velcro paint splotches which he can move around and take off (and eventually will be lost somewhere in our house or car).

 This page is obviously to help little guy start to learn his numbers and counting.  He just looks at it and shouts "Ball, Ball, Star" over and over while trying to rip them off the page.

 A little shape practice, again attached with velcro and the hope that they don't all get lost.

 A velcro puzzle- he doesn't care for his page.  It's one of my least favorite also; however, I was proud of myself for cutting the shapes out so they fit almost perfectly together.

 He is super into buckles, I should have done 4 buckles.  I would have had I known he would hook the buckle then drag the book to me so I can unhook it and he can buckle it again.  Side note- He buckles ALL of Caleb's stuff- bouncer, high chair, swing, carseat- whenever I go to put Caleb in anything I have to unhook them first.  It may be worth my time to spend an afternoon teaching him how to unhook them.

 The farm with 3 finger puppet animals.  Hands down, favorite page. Brooks says they are "broken" when he can't get them on his fingers.

 Color matching with snaps.  These snaps need to get broken in a bit, they are tough to take off and snap back on.

 Number matching- the numbers are attached to the string (so they wouldn't get lost).  I think he will like this page more later but right now he tries to pull the balls off and just tells me what they are "boot-ball", "rocker-ball", "bat-ball", and "basketball".

 This is a far off, but easy to make so I stuck it in there.

 I thought this page was cute, snaps to change the seasons (leaves and flowers are stuffed in the grass).

If I were to ever make one of these books again, I think it would turn out much nicer since there was definitely a learning curve with both the cover and a few of the pages.  It was fun to make because I like crafty stuff like this.  Again- Thanks to the lady at Pink Lemonade for templates and directions!   

Caleb James

My friend, Niff, made these adorable announcements for Caleb, I love how they turned out!  Hopefully you've gotten yours in the mail already.

She also made Brooks' last year.  She just whips them up- very talented!  

Good Ol' County Fair!

This past week was the county fair, I believe it was the first one I've ever attended. Good times! We went one morning with our cousins to see the animals (which I didn't take any pictures of), then again the other night for the rides.  It was lots of fun!  For future reference, just buy the "unlimited rides" armband- even for the 19 month olds.  Brooks and Jenna would have been in heaven if we just parked them on the train for two hours.

Before we went on the rides, we had to fill up on fair food!  Brooks trying the turkey leg, he didn't care too much for it- which meant more for me!

Brooks' first amusement park ride- the Ferris Wheel!

Brooks rode the train 3 times with his cousin, Jenna.  He LOVED driving- his seatbelt was so tight that he could hardly reach the wheel.  He and Jenna sang their "All Aboard the Choo Choo Train" song and would wave as they rode by- little cuties!

Then we hit up the giant slides.

All the Fitzwater girls!  

Everyone liked it so much that we all went again. It was just like the colored slides my family would go to in Estes Park every summer when we lived in Colorado.

My sweet little guy (finally getting out of the stroller).

This is how we roll these days, this stroller is a lifesaver!  Thanks Chelle!