Awww that's cute!

Braeden came running into the living room tonight to give Maya one of her purses, and of course he had one for himself. He then asked me to open one of Maya's play make-up toys and he proceeds to put on eye shadow, blush and lipstick. Once he's done I tell him how handsome he is and Camden interrupts to tell us that if he's wearing make-up he's a girl and girls are pretty, not handsome. Well you be the judge, I think he's very handsome!

Every time I take a picture of the kids Braeden insists on looking at it on the camera immediately after I take it. When he saw this picture he said, "awww, that's cute!"

Way ahead of the game!

Well , for me, this is way ahead of the game. Let me explain. In case you missed it in my earlier posts, I'm just a little bit of a procrastinator. So I have a bit of a selfish reason for this post; I actually helped get something done early this weekend! I'm sure most of you remember the Valentine's Day boxes we used to make for school. Well Camden needed one for school by February 9th and believe it or not, we actually did it this weekend, a full week before it was asked for! I wouldn't believe it either if I didn't have the picture to prove it....

Ignore the silly face, he can't take a picture these days without being goofy!

Camden doing his nightly reading. I'm so proud of how well he's doing in Kindergarten.

Take me out to the ballgame...

OK so it was just practice, but Camden was so excited. I finally signed Camden up for baseball and he had his first practice last night. I'm not quite sure why I've been avoiding sports because Barron and I were both heavily involved in sports growing up. We've always wanted our kids to play sports or to be involved in some type of extracurricular activities. Camden is only 6, but it seems that boys in particular, begin sports at a very young age and some of the parents get so intense about it. That's it! That's the part I've been avoiding, the intensity of it all. The pressure on the kids to play one sport year round and to do nothing else. I played so many sports and had so much fun doing so that I'd like the same for my kids. It doesn't seem like that's an option nowadays as the coaches and parents push the kids so hard to excel at a particular sport. Who knows, maybe I'll become that parent, I do hate to lose! :-) Let's all keep our fingers crossed that Camden enjoys this season because he has really been looking forward to it.

You might be wondering what the team name is. Well a woman calls me at work the other day to tell me when practice is and what team Camden will be playing on, The Lugnuts. I immediately bust out laughing and I quickly realize she's not joking. Oops! When I got home later that night I tell Camden is first practice is in a couple nights and that his team name is The Lugnuts to which he belts out "nooooo! I want a different name." The next day I get all his gear out and ready the following conversation takes place:

Me - Do you remember your team name?

Camden - The Peanuts?

Me - (laughing) No. The Lugnuts. (still laughing)

Camden - Ohhhh. The Lovenuts.

Me - (bent over laughing at this point) No honey. It's The Lug-g-g-nuts.

Camden - Oh. The Lugnuts. I still don't like the name.

Ready for his very first baseball practice.

Maya took her pink glove and Braeden wore the batting helmet (even in the car ride to practice!)

The coach trying to get all of the kids to yell out the team name....

Coach - Our team name is The Lugnuts!! On the count of three I want everyone to yell it. Ready? 1 - 2 - 3

Coach's son - THE CHESTNUTS!

Braeden wants to play so badly. Don't think we'll get to hold him off until he's 6!

Monster Truck Jam

I took Camden out for some one on one time this past weekend to the Monster Truck Jam at Reliant Stadium. We had a blast!! It was SO loud (thank goodness for ear plugs) and a little scary for Cam at times, but he loved it. I had forgotten how different things can be with just one child. I wasn't constantly saying no or trying to hold 3 hands the entire time. The car ride there was a nice, peaceful conversation with no hair pulling or no whispering from one of the kids "I'm not touching you." I adore all of my children, but the one on one time can be so nice with them and this was a great time with Camden.

Little did I know when I bought the tickets that they were actually really good seats. We were in row K which I thought was about halfway up on the ground level, but we were really the second row because they block off rows A - I (my guess would be for potential flying parts??).

This was the scary part. They created this robot/Transformer thing that blew fire from the mouth and picked up a car and burned it in half...

Hard to tell, but he's got his hand on his chin trying to be "cool" in this pic...

The Holidays.... Part 3

I promise, this is the final holiday post! Maya and Braeden had their holiday program at Mother's Day Out and it was quite entertaining! The teachers took the kids on stage in groups, starting with the oldest 4 year olds. Each group of kids (attempted) to sing a song and while it was very sweet, it was more humorous than anything. By the time the teachers got the 2 year olds on stage, there were more kids crying and yelling for their mommy that most parents were laughing instead of listening to the singing! Maya's class dressed as donkeys and Braeden's class dressed as camels. The little boy next to Maya kept messing with her and she was really good about it until the very end when she gave him a stern look and said something to him that made him finally stop! Braeden kept yelling from the stage "Hi Camden! Hi Mommy!" and he looked at the little boy next to him like he was crazy when he started crying for his mommy. It was a great show and the kids seemed to have fun (well most of them).

Maya in her outfit. I missed Braeden up close...

We had a wonderful Christmas. Lots of toys and lots of playing....

They really do love their sister...

Am I the only one that sees Punky Breswster in this pic?

Braeden had a little too much fun with Maya's new doll house... which he is still playing with these days!! ;-)

The Holidays... Part 2

Here we come North Pole!! I am not quite sure where I heard about this train ride, but I think it may have been my mom. Regardless, there is an old train station in east Texas that runs special events year round and one of the events is "The Polar Express" train ride. The ride was about an hour long and ran between the Palestine and Rusk train stations. After boarding the train, they passed out hot chocolate and rice krispy treats for everyone to enjoy. We listened and read read along to the book, The Polar Express, and sang and danced to Christmas carols. The kids wore their pajamas and took blankets to snuggle up in. The joy of watching my kid's faces when the train arrived at the “North Pole” was just priceless. Santa then boarded the train and greeted each and every child and gave them their own bell. This might be one of my favorite ventures I've been on with the kids and they enjoyed every minute of the experience. There are too many pics to put here so check out the slide show for more.

Ready to go.....

Waiting for the train....

Enjoying the rice krispy treats and hot chocolate....

Dancing and singing along with the Christmas Carols....

Santa handing out the bells...
So much fun...

The Holidays.... Part 1

I can't believe it's been almost two months since my last post! The sad part is that the two months have been jammed packed with fun and my posts would have been pretty easy. OK well I'll try to catch everyone up quickly so I can get back on track with more regular posts.

Camden had his school Thanksgiving Feast...

His picture of what he's thankful for.... his family!!

We had a great Thanksgiving!! Lots of family in town and we had a great few days playing games and eating a ton of food.

Playing with cousins enjoying the nice weather....
Everyone played the Wii.... even my Grandpa!!

Story time for all the kiddos...

Sports Sunday!

Today was Sports Sunday at church. Everyone that wanted to, was supposed to wear their favorite team's jersey to the service. I must say, it was a little awkward to wear jeans to church. Camden even called me out when we were leaving the house this morning "Mommy, why are YOU wearing jeans to church? I don't think the adults are supposed to wear jeans!" Seriously, my own child just yelled this in our driveway. Oh well, at least I was comfortable because I was scheduled to help in the 4 year old class; which really just means wrangling the kids and making sure they're not pulling each other's hair or pushing each other. This is the same class that a little boy thought it was funny to dance while "flipping everyone the bird" last time I was in there! He knew what he was doing too, because when I shockingly asked "Kevin, what are you doing?" He quickly put his hands behind his back and acted like he wasn't doing anything but dancing to the music.

It was a great day and the kids all got a football from the church which immediately was banned out of the house and a backyard toy as soon as we got home!

All Houston fans...

Braeden never looks at the camera... (I had to "trick" him into this shot)

As we're about to leave this conversation takes place:

Camden - Maya, let me see your eyes. Mommy, what color are Maya's eyes? Are they weasel?

Me - Weasel? Do you mean hazel?

Camden - Oh yeah, hazel.

Her eyes are still pretty green if you ask me, but I guess they could change...

So you may be wondering what I wore on Sports Sunday to church. Well since I'm so last minute about things and not really wanting to spend money on a jersey for myself, I just assume I'll figure it out on Sunday morning. Well, when I first heard about wearing a jersey I thought, I'm pretty sure I have a Sam Cassell Rocket's jersey somewhere in my closet (yes, I'm well aware it's from the mid 90's, but I didn't care!). Sunday morning gets here and I search through my closet and find nothing, I have no idea where this jersey has disappeared to. Next best option you might ask? Well believe it or not, I have a University of Texas volleyball t-shirt from when I went to camp there back in high school and it still fits!! So I sported a t-shirt that is, let's see, probably 15 years old. Shockingly enough there are no stains or holes in this shirt! Camden called me out on this shirt as well, but not until later in the day. He asked me "Mommy, is that a day time shirt?" I have worn this shirt to sleep in a time or two. What can I say? It worked for Sports Sunday!! :)

Kindergarten Homework

OK, let me start by saying I love Camden's teacher. She does a ton of activities with the kids and he has learned so much in the short time he's been in school. He's excited about going to school daily and excited about learning more and more. I really couldn't have asked for a better Kindergarten class. So now time for my venting....

Not that I mind this kind of thing because when it was all said and done, the kids and I had a blast doing this project. Of course, here’s the but… :)

I waited until Sunday (I know, why did I wait until the last minute) to thoroughly read Camden’s paperwork in his school folder, which told me that he had been chosen as “star of the week” for the coming week. YAY I thought, but then I see all this extra work that has to be done to prepare HIS week in school! First, he has to answer some questions about himself (i.e. favorite color, favorite food, etc). No big deal, except the 6 or 7 questions (with the one word answers) takes Camden a good 30+ minutes to write out! Then there is the “guessing jar” that has to be filled with objects for the class to guess how many items are in it. This could be fun, but since mommy waited until Sunday night to do this and stores are closing soon, what to fill this jar with??? OK, crayons are perfect! This is something all three kids can do together while I’m reading the next assignment. So I get the kids box-o-crayons out and tell them to hand crayons to Camden and he’s in charge of counting them and putting them in the jar. I look over a couple minutes later and realize that most of the crayons are broken, bitten or the paper is torn off! Crap… so I decide, only the non broken ones can go in the jar (I don’t care at this point if there is a small bite mark or the paper is missing)! Whew… 41 crayons later and we’re done with that project!

Then I see the biggest project of all – to create a poster with pics about Camden. I try to be sly about this and get out of it by asking Camden if the kids are bringing really big posters or will this work (I show him a 8 ½ X 11 sheet of construction paper thinking this will do). He tells me no way, the other kids are bringing HUGE posters. Great, I don’t have any posters! AND I haven’t printed pics. Who prints pics now with the digital cameras? Oh yeah, and the printer cartridge is out in the printer, so I can’t even print pics! Thank goodness for my parents. I call them asking if my dad can bring the pics I'm about to email him in the morning when he comes over (thinking that will be enough time to create this poster). He decides (wisely) that he’ll print them all and bring them by that night AND he’ll stop and get a poster board!! LOVE my parents! Over an hour of working, we completed the poster. Of course I had to do all the cutting and gluing, but then Camden “decorated” the finished product.

But then we weren't even done people! We then had to go on a hunt for his favorite book (which Braeden had hidden upstairs under his bed) and a small toy to take to school the following morning. Who knew there was this much involved in Kindergarten!!!

Calling All Superheroes!

The kids transformed into Superheroes this Halloween. Camden was Wolverine, Maya was Wonder Woman and Braeden was Batman. We opted for the church festival this year instead of the door to door trick or treating. There were tons of games and activities for the kids and we all had a blast!

Ready to go...

A stop by the cousins house first...

Wolverine is out before we even get to the church!!

After dinner watching Wolverine play a video game racing cars (not sure how he is able to drive with those claws)...Look out Braeden...
Time to fly home...