Ethan may be the next Justin Bieber

Just joking, but he sure is cute:

I just want to bottle him up and save him like this FOREVER! He is just too cute. Everything he does is photo worthy.

I can't believe summer is almost over. We went school shopping today for Alexa. It was just a mommy daughter date. It was fun.We don't get enough alone time like this together. She is turning into a teenager over night. I don't have pics, but there will be pics of the first day of school. So I can remember her first day of fifth grade outfit, smile, cute personality, hair do, and all that jazz.

I wanted to post about our library day last week, but didn't manage to find the time. So here it is, a week late. That's alright we have done this once a week pretty much the whole summer. I just wanted one of the days recorded here.

These pics are a bit blurry. Don't know what happened with that!

 Trying to play on the big kids computer games. He does this every time.

 concentrating on what book to pick

 Nope not that one! Ha! How about this one sister?

 Our weekly trip to the play place at the mall. Getting Ethan worn out for his nap ;)

 Which ended with this, of course:

 He was cracking me up the other day riding this little pink bike in the house with his hat turned back. Too funny! Every time I would tell him to look, so I could take a pic, he would take off the hat. Stinker!

 Kisses! He sent this picture to his daddy while he was at work. His daddy sent a similar one back and Ethan has been kssing his daddy on my phone all week. Awwwwww!

Bubbles!

I made some homemade bubbles last night that I got off my Pinterest board HERE. It was so much fun. Even Alexa enjoyed it. Can I say I am so happy that at 11 she still enjoys simple stuff like this?! Alexa and Ethan played with it for about an hour last night. I had so much fun watching them and laughing. I love my kids:

 Alexa's face on the one above makes me laugh!

 Almost hit with a bubble in the face. Such a patient sister.

 Now we are using our hands to make bubbles

 Now we are washing our feet with the bubbles.

Yep we are taking an outside bath in the front yard with the bubbles. That's how we roll :)

Summer days

Just playing a little catch up, so I can remember the summer of 2011. Where does the time go?! This summer is flying by and before you know it, Alexa will be in middle school next year! I am so not ready to have a middle schooler. Especially one as pretty as this:

She is 11 going on 16. I can remember like it was yesterday, just watching her sleep when she was Ethan's age and thinking how gorgeous she was (still is).  This summer we have baked a bunch of sweets together, gone to the library, to the mall, swam a bunch and just spent some good time together. I am cherishing it now as much as I can because there will come a day (too soon at that) when she won't want to hang with her mama any more. She has already started the whole sleep in until 10:30 bit, which I am sure will only get later as the teens roll around. She also likes to lock herself up in her room a lot lately. My little girl is growing up :(  We have four definites that we do together every week though: Go to the pool at least once (usually with friends), library day (which she groans about, only because she is forced to read at least one book a week), Go to the mall after the library (it's a way to make her excited about library day, even though we don't buy anything, it's fun to look around), and we usually bake up something special once a week too. It's the simple stuff that makes me smile. I love our weekly routine, but I am also going to love school days. I am a sucker for schedule and routine.

I can't believe Ethan is 28 months! He is one special little guy. He can already count to 6, he speaks in pretty good sentences, he knows about 5 different colors, and he is just super observant of everything we say and do. He still even uses some sign language, which I find amusing because he can say the word he is signing. Maybe it's just habit?! He only does it to about three different words; more, please, and no. It's crazy how they stop using the sign language slowly. He use to sign 30 different things, maybe more.I really loved doing signs with him. I will definitely be signing with my next baby too. I think it has been incredible for his language development. He is turning into such a daddy's boy lately (although still very much a mama's boy). Every morning he wakes up he says "daddy work?" "daddy work in truck?". So sweet! He loves his daddy.

Our new task is potty training. I mean I haven't really started it yet, but Ethan is showing signs of wanting to do it. The past two weeks he has been walking around the house like this:

 He has also been doing a lot of this:

 But still refuses to wear big boy underwear. He HATES them! One thing he does love is popsicles. I can't buy them anymore because he won't eat anything but popsicles if I have them. His grandma brought him this one.

 Yep I totally did a corny photo in the mirror, but hey this is about me too right?
This is my last month being 28. So it is almost officially my last year in my twenties. How do I feel about that? Awesome! Seriously, I am so blessed, how could I even care what my number is. Life is perfect :)

San Antonio Trip Summer 2011

This was seriously just a great little trip for our family. It felt close to home, yet it felt far away. It felt like a long trip, but it went by fast. Does this make sense? Probably not. Anyways, my point is, it was perfection. Every second of it was great.

Friday July 29th 2011

We started off late morning on Friday. Our first stop was Buc-ee's, which is like a Texas staple. If you are passing a Buc-ee's you must stop. It is a requirement, which apparently everyone knows because it will take you twenty minutes just to get out of the parking lot. Oh well! It was fun to get some special snacks and take some pics. Where is Alexa in these pics? Well she is preteen now, so pics aren't her thing anymore. Or maybe this is when she was filling up her slurpee cup with three different flavors!?

Ethan Loved Buc-ee! He knew exactly who he was because he already owns a Buc-ee's shirt. Super excited this little guy was!

Back in the car to our destination: Hotel Contessa on the Riverwalk, San Antonio, TX. This hotel was gorgeous and our room was perfect! It had a living room and a seperate bedroom, which made Alexa feel like she had her own room. The room itself had some pretty cool design elements and the view was awesome.

My girl is gorgeous!

After we checked out the room, we headed outside for a nice stroll along the Riverwalk. This was fun and stressful at the same time. We left Ethan's stroller in the car, which we later got out for a second stroll on the Riverwalk. Back to the first outing though, Ethan had a ball chasing the ducks and just running around. What two year old doesn't love to be free. It really is beautiful. I love all the little shops and restuarants. Without kids I could probably spend hours strolling.

Ethen kept saying "come mere duck, come mere"

the duck of course wanted nothing to do with him.

"bye, bye duck"


We then headed back to the hotel to get our suits on and swim in the roof top pool. It was very cool! Both Alexa and Ethan loved it:

My little jumper. Ethan loves jumping

in the pool. Mommy gets some

lounge time!

After a nice swim, we went back to the room and got dressed. We walked the river, with stroller this time, and found a place to eat. You can't beat some coconut shrimp, steamed veggies and a beautiful river side view. Oh yeah and Ethan fell asleep. Which made dinner that much more peaceful. We were in for the night after that. Great first day of vacay.

Saturday July 30th 2011

My husband and I woke up early and did some cardio in the hotel gym. Who could resist running on a treadmill with a view like this

A little word of advice, if you are going to Seaworld after you exercise, you could probably skip the exercise.

We then ate at the hotels breakfast buffet. It was a really nice buffet and my husband says it was one of his favorite parts of the trip. Haha! Really though, it was pretty darn good.

Next stop: Seaworld San Antonio. What an adventure that was. We have been planning this trip for about a month now, so Ethan has been totally obsessed with dolphins. He has been talking about dolphins all month long. So of course the first thing we did was feed the dolphins. We bought some dolphin food and headed to dolphin cove. The kids both loved it! Ethan was beside himself! We bought him a stuffed dolphin after this and he is still carrying that thing around.

Off to the shark tanks, where Ethan kept saying "Nemo! Nemo!"

Next stop: rides! Ethan and I waited while Layne and Alexa rode the log run. Fun! I thought this was them, but it wasn't. It was hard to see.

 Of course we had to get splashed by the ride too!

We caught the Elmo show part way through and took some character pics. Ethan adored this part. I can't believe how much he loved the characters. I would have thought he'd be afraid. No sir! He loved them all!

We played in the Elmo's adventure land for a bit. After we went and watched the Azul show with the beluga whales and dolphins. The divers where amazing. We then walked towards more rides. Ethan fell asleep, so Alexa and I where able to ride a rollercoaster together. Then Layne went on a couple by himself. Alexa was scared of the roller coasters for some reason. So not like her. I wish I could of taken a pic of her face on the one we went on. It was priceless! She said she was trying to smile for the camera the roller coaster takes, but she was scared at the same time. the result was hilarious. just picture her with a fake smile, her eyes popping, and her face being pulled back by the force of the coaster. Funny!!

After some rides we headed to the water park. We stayed there for about an hour and we were all spent. We spent almost 8 hours at Seaworld and we still didn't see and do everything. It was an awesome time. Of course we couldn't leave the park without saying goodbye to the dolphins.

We then headed to New Braunfels to Layne's cousins house. They have a gorgeous house in the country on a couple acres of land. The deer come in their front yard and Ethan loved running over there. They ran every time, but came back five minutes later. He spent quite a bit doing this over and over. He would sneak up on them, so he thought, but they ran everytime. He helped feed the deer and even got to ride on a four wheeler with his daddy. He was super apprehensive about this. It actually took him an hour before he agreed to get on, but once he did. He didn't want to get off. Alexa didn't want anything to do with it at all. I guess she isn't my little dare devil anymore. I guess that's what happens when you get older.

We stayed up until about midnight just hanging out with my husband's cousin and his wife. It was really nice. They are awesome people to hang with. Both of them have really upbeat happy personalities.

Sunday July 31st 2011

We all slept in. It was nice. We were all tired from our long day at Seaworld. We had planned to go to a water park on Sunday, but we decided to keep it low key and just hang out a bit more. We had a great breakfast, made by our hostess. When I asked for the recipe she said "spicy sausage, eggs, and tortillas" Who knew! It really was super good. I will be making this soon.

After a lazy morning we all headed to Gruene to check out the little town and swim in the Guadelope river. It was a perfect end to our little family trip.

Goodbye San Anotnio. We had a great time and made some amazing family memories together.