Cooper's 4th Birthday!

Cooper turned 4 last week.  We'll have his party in a week.

So for his birthday he woke up to this . . .

And we took a ride on the Herman Park Train!  Whoo Whoo...



 And they both just loved it!

We brought along one of Cooper's gifts to play with at the park, the Crane!

(my $3 yard sale find)

And we relished in just being 4!

And we fed the ducks some bread and shared our bread

with kids who didn't have any bread to feed the ducks



 And we all smiled all day,

because birthday's are so fun to celebrate,



and we LOVE this BIG GUY so much!



Cooper we love your wonderful thoughtful heart!

We love your positive attitude!

We love that you are so friendly and confident in being a friend!

We love how you make us smile when we are sad by pretending to fall on the ground!

We love that you are friends with Allie!

We love that you are learning to love and trust God!

We love to hear you pray, say your verses and sing!

We love you, just because there is no one else just like you!



What is life like in an apartment?

Yeah, good question!  Here are some things we find ourselves doing ...

 We go check on the progress of the new house being built almost everyday. 

We chat with our 'neighbors to be' and found out there are 8 kids under 6 living in our cul-de-sac. YEAH!!!!

 We constatly pinch ourselves and constantly praise God for moving us to Katy! We just love it here!

Swim at the pool! It's a great pool for kids and Cooper and Allie

have gotten so confident in swimming. We also bring a snack to the pool

so that we can lengthen our time (out of the apartment).

 Check the mail. Yeah it's kind of exciting and there's a trash can right next to

 mail slots so we can toss junk mail even before bringing it into the apartment.

How fun to use a key to open the mail slot?

 Getting the trash ready for valet trash day Sun-Thur. Just put your trashcan

outside your apartment and it's picked up within 2 hours! Nice huh!

 

 We also unfortuantely watch too many movies.

So many in fact that our vhs player broke and felt it a necessity to replace it immediatly.

We unfortuantely eat out too much, the frige is small,

the oven is weird, and it feels like we are camping when it comes to cooking.

 Excited that our neighbors above us have 3 kids, annoyed that our

neighbors above us have 3 kids. We get up early and probably

wake them, they go to bed after 10pm which keeps us awake.

 We have to get out (of the apartment) at least once if not twice a day. To go to parks, splash pads, and to go fish!

 Constantly trying to get the stains out of the carpet. Almost the entire

apartment is carpeted. What kind of stains? You don't want to know -

 I've got a 3yr old and a 2 yr old - use your imagination ...

Picking Pumpkins

 Picking Pumpkins is just so fun!

Getting these little turkeys to smile at me

is well just tricky these days!

 I told Cooper he could pick any pumpkin that he could easily carry.

They really are such a joy to see together!

 Fun in the hay!

 Tickling each other, a new game for them!

Happy Birthday LEE!

This is a tribute to my husband, Lee.

A few things about Lee that are so cool  . . . In my opinion!

1.  I love it that Lee gets excited about home fix-it projects and is eager to ask, "Ok, what is the proriety project for me when I get home?" 
First of all I love this because this reminds me of my dad.  He was always so handy and came up with the coolest projects, Lee and my dad often worked together in the garage.

2.  I love it that Lee is so passionate about football.  Ok at times it's annoying but I do just love to see him get really excited about a good play or predict what the coach is going to do and when the coach instructs the team to do just that, I am amazed.  It's also really cool that when his team is screwing up he doesn't get mad or shout or throw things.

3.  I love it that Lee thinks camping is the greatest getaway possible.  It's not on my top 5 list of things to do, but I do like it occassionally.  But the reason why I love that he loves it - is because he tells and retells of the times when his family went camping as a kid.  Lee loves to do all the "work" of camping; build and keep the fire going, pitch all the tents, get up early to make the coffee, set up the lanterns and get to know the neighboring campers.   I think a camp loving guy is very attractive.  Wow, I think I'm getting the itch to go camping!

4.  I love it that Lee details out my car and gets me gas whenever I'm low.  He doesn't pay anyone to detail the car, he does it himself.  It can be pretty scary with the two ravenous racoons in the backseat.

5.  I love it that Lee holds my hand at church when he is particularly moved by a song or a point in the sermon.

6.  I love that Lee suggests for me to have date nights with the girls!

7.  I love it that Lee gets really excited about getting an occasional vanilla milkshake.  I mean like really excited, like little boy excited!

8.  I love it that Lee never complains no matter how bad my cooking may be.  I usaully say, "This isn't very good! Sorry, I thought this receipe would be better.  Isn't this terrible?"  Then he'll say, "It's not that bad, just a little bland". 

9.  I love it when Allie snuggles up to Lee and Lee can get right on her level and enjoy the moment just as much as she does.

10.  I love it that Cooper wants to be just like Lee and would rather hang out with Dad digging a hole or just about anything else than doing something really fun with me.

11.  I think it's funny when Lee says, "ok what do you want me to wear tonight?" (when we're going somewhere he's not sure of) and I love it that Lee saves the sexy jeans for special dates with me!

12.  I love it that Lee tries to fix things that he thinks he can fix and calls to hire an expert when a project is out of his league!

13.  I love that Lee is frugal and gets excited about a bargin but is not a cheap-skate!

14.  I love that Lee feels like we should sell the children some days too!

15.  I love that Lee is the social one, sometimes it's a lot of work for me to be friendly.  He's always comfortable in a room of strangers and always finds someone to talk to.

16.  I love that Lee enjoys a good beer and can relax!

17.  I love that Lee has always entertained my wild idea's (for a few moments anyway).

18.  I love it that Lee truly puts my happiness above his own  (yeah, quite amazing and humbling-I'm still working on this one)!

19.  I love it that Lee can usaully figure mosst mathmatically errors, and the computer screw-ups and logical logistics that are not logical to me and then he explains them to me without making me feel like a goof.

20. I love it that Lee loves his job and would rather work hard than hardly work.

There are so many more I could write but I thought I should stop at 20.

Progress on Our New Home

    We went by the house and they have made some progress. The tile has been put down but it is covered up due to the grout being wet. The next phase will be counter tops, lights, outlets, fixtures, and A/C unit. We are still on schedule for Aug 30 to close. Cooper says "When will the grass grow Mama?"

The front of the house from the street

Michelle's kitchen, lots of room

View of the living room from kitchen, I liked the window view from the sink so Lee can watch football and do dishes. No more excuses!!

Living room to the dining room, very open and it has a good flow to it

Side view from corner of street, the house is also on a cul-de-sac, and our street has 9 kids on it already not including Cooper and Allie!

This is back of the house where the fence will be put in. We really like the back porch.

We both find ourselves just in awe of how God truly has blessed us in our new adventure in Texas. He has amazed us during the nine years we lived in Louisiana. He has already opened many doors for us here in Texas. When we made the decision to move here, and we left it up to God to make it happen,  HE DID!!

Best Conversation of the Day!

So here's the conversation of the day between my 3yr. old and I.

I took the kids to chick-fil-A and somewhat dropped them off to play in the kids play area,

while I quickly orded and got the food (yep I was by myself).

When I had gotten to our table Cooper came running out of the play area

and said, "Mama I was worried about you when I didn't see you at our table!"

"oh Cooper, I needed to get the food, but I should have told you where I was going.

I'm sorry about that.  Next time I'll tell you so you don't worry."

"That's ok Mama, I forgive you.  Everyone makes mistakes!"

I just thought that was so cute and it melted my heart . . .

Summer Fun in Katy!

We've been having such a fun time exploring our new community!

This is the Beach Club, we rode the paddle boats too!

We try to catch fish, we see them but can't quite catch them yet!

Cooper is trying to learn to cast the rod, frustating for him but when he

does it correctly he has the biggest smile.  Our Motto:  "Try Try and Try again"

We play at many new parks!

We dance at the concert in the park!

We hang out with Dad ...

And do lots of sweaty hugging!

We check out the progess of our house (almost everyday there's something new to see)!

Little Mr. Construction (Cooper) is fascinated.

We run down the grassy hills because Tx. actually has some hills!

We tease and tickle each other constantly!

Still amazed by the promise of a rainbow!

Allie said, "LOOK rainbow!" and pointed over and over again!

Now that August is upon us we try to soak up the sun because fall will get here much too fast!