The First Day of School

Grace had her first day of K-4 last week and she was super excited to go!  The night before school started, we read The Kissing Hand and she willingly went to bed.

We celebrated the first day of school with a "Back to School" pancake breakfast.

Grace got herself dressed and was ready to go!

Of course, Carter wanted in on the action...LOVE this!!!

She is such a cutie!  My favorite girl in the whole wide world!!!

She said that she was a little nervous, but she happily walked in her classroom and hung up her backpack.

We are so excited that Grace is in Mrs. Jerkins' class.  It is going to be a great year!

Now, that she is in K-4, she gets to sit in a desk...BIG stuff happens in K-4!

There were no tears from her or me. Carter, on the other hand, did not like leaving his big sister and all of her stuff at school.  He cried a lot!  I'm super proud of my big girl and I'm praying for a happy year!

Our Texas Adventure...Visiting Family

We concluded our Texas Adventure by hanging out with some family.  We celebrated John's grandparent's anniversary with a luau.

Of course, I didn't get pictures of them.  But, I got a lot of my kids.

All the kids had such a fun time playing together in the backyard.  They were so busy.

I had to get a pic of Charlie's belly!  Look how full it is!  Hilarious!!!

Uncle Charles played baseball with the kids.

Love this!  Look how Carter has his hand out to catch the baseball.  He can hang with the big kids just fine!

Grace and Aunt Cindy

(You thought that was Grandma didn't you?  Nope, it's her twin sister.)

After the luau, we went to my brother's house.  We love hanging out with them.  Jenna and Grace had so much fun together!

These girls are blessed to have a daddy that will dance with them and treat them like princesses.

Sunday, we all got ready for church in the usual Sunday-Morning-Rush kinda way.  We didn't really even have time for me to take this pic.

We went to Sunday School with the youth so we could see my little brother in action.  He did a great job!

We had a short and sweet visit with the Taylor's and then we were homeward bound!!!

Our Texas Adventure in Dallas

The kids were so excited to stay in a hotel!  They could have cared less where we were.  The hotel was exciting enough!

We went to Ikea!  It was our first trip there and it was awesome!  (It was apparently super bright and my sunglasses were lost somewhere near the Alamo...tear!)

Carter loved Ikea too!  We made him a comfy bed inside the shopping cart.

Grace had fun playing, making friends, and dreaming of a pink bedroom!

This was a super cool place and we loaded up!!!

We accidentally found the American Girl store right by our hotel.  So, we HAD to go!

Grace wanted a pic by her favorite doll, Marie Grace.

She had such a hard time deciding on one thing to buy for her Bitty Baby, Hannah.

Carter found a Bitty puppy lovie!

Awesome store and it will be more awesome when she gets a little older!  She FINALLY decided on a backpack carrier for Hannah.

Our hotel had a pool which Grace and Carter loved!

We had a yummy lunch here!

Our next stop is Kilgore/Longview to visit with some of our family.

Our Texas Adventure in San Antonio

So, I kinda left you hanging in the middle of our Texas Adventure.  Sorry, but "School Jenn" is back and she is EXHAUSTED!  Hopefully, in the next few weeks, life will calm down again.

While in San Antonio, we visited the Alamo. 

I can really tell you nothing about it except there were these cannons everywhere that the kids played on. (Uncle Charles was worried Carter would fall off...cute!)

John loved it and wished the kids and I weren't with him so he could have stayed longer.

Sorry John, I'm not really a museum-kinda-girl especially when I'm trying to keep 2 kids quiet, happy, contained, and hands off stuff with a funky-wheel-cheapo-stroller.  We had fun in the gift shop.  Ha!

We did have an awesome time at the River Walk!  It was so pretty!

We had fun on the boat tour!

We saw this.  (I can't remember what it is, but I took a bunch of pictures of it.  Maybe, it was in Miss Congeniality or did it have something to do with a war?!?)

I know what this is!  It's one of Aunt Cindy's McDonalds!

After the boat tour, we walked around.

We got some ice cream and ate it right on the river.

Carter got a lot of attention from all the people walking by.  I mean, he is pretty cute!

This duck joined us for our ice cream treat!

We stopped by the Alamo again to see it lit up at night.

Before bedtime, Grace FaceTimed with Lily and she was so excited to tell her everything that we had been doing and to show her everything in our room.

Our next stop...Dallas!