Larson Turns 10!

10 years ago one of the cutest little babies came into our lives.

Today he certainly still is cute but we also know he is the most compassionate, loving, independent, enthusiastic, and easy going kid.

We love to celebrate with Larson. 

Larson, what would you like to do for your birthday? Mom I know your busy so anything will be ok. Whatever you would like to do.  Really Larson???  Its ok to think of your self on this special day.

So a soccer cake was ordered and we had a special night of BINGO.

C'mon Larson, can we get a wup wup?!!!

(total inside joke)

Family birthday dinner.

Larson you make being a Mom the easiest and most rewarding job ever!

Happy Birthday Larson!

Madrigal Festival

First time performing at the Texas Madrigal Festival.

They did a good job for being new at this.  There are schools that have been doing this for a long time and they were in a different league.

VHS has gone the last 2 years to watch and of course Mr. Feris makes it a weekend all about food.

I really like going on this trip as a chaperon.

I got to see a couple more missions that I had not visited before.  I love that they are still active churches.  A wedding was going on in one of them.

My first time eating at Mi Tierras in San Antonio.

This is a must see if you are in San Antonio and no, its not right on the River Walk.

The choir did receive highest marks of a 1 Superior for their performance.  They also got a very small clinic with Z. Randall Stroope, who is one of the worlds most active and popular composers.  He composed a couple songs that they competed with for Texas state choir.  He was really incredible with them!

Jordan was so happy all weekend.  I loved seeing her really not have any pressure on her for a couple of days and hanging out with her friends.

Once Upon a Time

This is Logan, one of the 3 Little Pigs

Pretty sure that he chose the little pig as he didnt really know too many of the other fairy tale characters.

Told me he was the strong pig that built his house out of bricks.

Other than cutting letters out, he handled this poster all by himself.

This ends the week of Fairy Tales in Kindergarten.

Backyard Football

 A little birthday party fun with Bracken.

 They hired Carl, Steiner Ranch's favorite referee to get this game going.

I think Larson missed a pass here!

 These kids went straight from the party to basketball practice.

Thats the way I like them being brought back home after 4 hours of activity.

Dont Trip on Flat Surfaces

 Jackson got an early wrapped up present from the orthopedic surgeon.

Its a big heavy boot!

So with every injury in our house, I always take the ignore it and it will go away method.

Apparently, this happened while I was in the house and did not even know it.

He stopped suddenly to avoid running into Jordan.

Tom comes to me at church and says Jackson is carrying his shoe in his hand, says his foot really hurts.

Oh, yeah, it looks really swollen. (Big Toe BTW)

So I get an appt for him the next morning.

Dr. Tarrant says we need xray.  Go get xray. Wait another day for result.  Off to orthopedic.  Takes another day to get in.  Jackson has now walked on the side of his foot for 4 days.

Hey, I did better than when he was little and broke his leg.  It took 2 weeks before he got a cast on.

Boot only makes him look taller!

4 weeks

Marathon #10

2nd year with Jordan joining me at the start line.

Running #10 today and #10 happens to be the first time that I didn't completely do the training.

IT WAS JUST TOO COLD IN TEXAS!!!

(OK, maybe I'm just getting older too)

Regardless, I got this and off we go.

I am so happy that my girl that hated running so much has far passed her mama now.  I cant keep up with her.  Jordan had a much slower pace because of me but she was so sweet and ran the first half with me.

Last year I ran Jordan in to the half marathon finish but that was kind of hard for me to go back and finish mine so we spilt at 11.

Besides, she doesn't need me anymore.  I just slow her down.

I usually have guest runners that make appearances with me on the second half but this year I had none.

For some reason it just went by really fast.  I was really enjoying it and wondering if I can now skip all the training and just run on race days for fun.

(then Monday and Tuesday came and my body very quickly told me otherwise!)

2nd half for Jordan and with #10 being done, I think some people might be thinking I'm done.

Not sure what I'm thinking.

Tom has been there for 9 of these (Chris stepped in for one)

9 start lines, at least 36 spectator spots, corralling kids, giving Motrin, Gatorade, gel packs, running along, riding bikes along, cheering for me, and always at the finish.

He needs a big medal for biggest supporter!

WHAT???

Only 12 weeks of Kindergarten left.

How can that be?

This year was a blink of an eye for me.

I smother this kid with kisses.

Love 2014

A little sign of affection for 4 little Valentines.

He loved his breakfast.

Forget the normal pancakes.

We made heart eggs!

 These 3 are the early risers.  Jackson gets to sleep in another hour.

Boy, will his sleeping habits change next year with early morning seminary.

Wish he was in this picture!

 Patty cake with our crazy kitty.

Larson came up with a pin ball machine idea all by himself. ( I can not find any correlation with Valentines Day with this one)
He was determined to make this even when I was telling him to do something more simple.
He just looked at me and said, "Mom, thats just not who I am".
I told him to get working then.

I split my time between the boys class rooms.

Larson wanted to win a prize for his box and he did!

Even though I have been to 18 class Valentines Parties, I have to enjoy Logan's as I am sure I will miss these.

With a little help from mommy, Logan's Valentine box.

He is so sweet in his class room and I love watching him in action.

 I love all my babies and the big one too!

Last Days at Sea

Woke up to a nice sunny day and a cute surprise from the crew.

Every chair had a towel animal.  I had never seen this done before on a ship.

I always wanted to take a towel folding class and still haven't.

A very cool ropes course.

I think it was the first day that Jordan and Jackson were on this and it started to rain and heavy winds.  You are really high up above the deck and over the water.  They closed the course but they made Jackson and Jordan continue.  I guess it got a little nerve rattling but I was laughing to hear their stories after.  I think they both had a little adrenalin pumping.

Our Larson doesn't want to miss out on anything.  He joined in the Groove for St. Jude.  When he asked, we said you hate wearing t-shirts.  Of course he replied, "duh, its to help sick kids".  Ok, Larson donated money and now has a t shirt he will never wear.  Love this kid.  All for a good cause!

Where is Logan?  I'm not sure.  Go look by the ice cream machine.  Yep!  That's where we would find him.

Late night Latin party.  Look what kid attends.

Im not sure what makes our dinners so much more fun on the ship.

Every night in the dinning room was just perfect family time.

An amazing week!  We love to travel and see new places.  These are memories the kids will always talk about.

Good Morning Texas!

Got a wake up call at 7:30 am from the captain saying we were fogged out at sea.  Would keep us posted.  The fog didnt lift until 3:30 that afternoon.  It was pretty cool being on the ship and not being able to see off of the decks.  The fog was that thick.

So there were a few more ice cream cones consumed today.

The crew kept the activities going throughout the day.  There was this little thing called a fog horn that went off every 60 seconds for the entire day.  It was 3 very loud blast.  I would like to say that your ears got use to it but I don't think that they ever did.  I think the flinching from it scaring you when it would go off lessened as the day went on.  Kind of funny that we were trapped and the fog horn had to be a part of it.

So we got into port and docked but immigrations would not let us off.  We now did not get off of the ship until 9:30pm.  The crew liked to say we were getting another free day.  Uh, I think everyone would have gladly disembarked.  Going through customs was quite a task but eventually we made it back to our car and headed to Austin! 

(10 minutes down the road- Logan throws up all over Jordan in the back seat!!!)

This was going to be a long night.

LOGAN STAY AWAY FROM THE ICE CREAM CONES!