Late summer catch-up

Life has gotten away from me again...so here's a catchup post from the last two months. There will be an interesting update post coming soon too!!

We got a chance to get in another cute photo shoot in early September. This one was my favorite!


Emilee played her first season of volleyball and did soooo well! It's terribly hard to catch great shots of this sport though, as things move very fast. But here's two (albeit a bit blurry) of Em serving and of her diving to her knees to hit the ball over the net.



All five of us got the chance to go to our awesome children's museum a couple of weekends ago. The favorite section for all was the space section. Em and Trev, and then Joshua and Carter, got to climb into this Apollo replica and perform a mock space mission. (The lady seated outside acts as Mission Control, and then who ever is inside communicates with MC via the headphones, mics and cameras...look on the monitors and you'll see Em, Trev, Carter and Joshua.) Emilee and Trevor were very serious and carried out everything that MC asked...and Carter was adorable as he actually talked back and forth the with lady!




We also got to explore our city zoo recently as Joshua's company picnic was there this year. This was a must-have picture...this turtle was HUGE!

And we took the opportunity to snap a family shot with all of us in our matching orange shirts.


It's terribly hard to get a camping trip in here in Oklahoma. The summer is horribly humid, so humid for most of it that you can't be outside from about 8am to 8pm. Then, on days it might be a tad less humid, it's VERY windy (like blow a tent over windy). OR it might be severe weather with rain and tornadoes...

BUT we managed to find a window of nice weather over Labor Day weekend and we jumped at the chance to pack up the tents and fishing poles and hang out in mother nature!

Fishing is the activity of choice while we are camping and we have a wonderful lake about 30 minutes from the house that we like to head to. As soon as we got to the campground, Joshua and the kids hit the shore and put some poor little worms on hooks. This is Carter patiently waiting for his little bell to ring that signals something is on his line...

And look at the reward for his patience!

Emilee hooked several over the weekend...

And Trevor reeled in his fair share as well!

Carter usually catches twice as many as anyone else out there...and this weekend he also brought in BIGGEST! It was hilarious to watch him reel in this HUGE fish on his little tiny two foot pole!!

Our awesome friends, Brad, Jamie and Braeden came out for part of a day and hung out with us!

One final picture around the campfire...

LC Switch Blacklight Show

Wanted to share Emilee's church youth group performance from tonight...the kids did AWESOME!! (If you watched America's Got Talent this season and loved Fighting Gravity, you might recognize it!)

THIRTEEN!!!!

OH MY! Today, we officially have a teenager in the house! Mommy began the day's celebration by getting up extra early and making "13" shaped pancakes. Also note in the picture that she's wearing a very heavy fleece jacket, and yes it is still 90+ degrees outside. Her birthday gift from us was a North Face jacket, and she's so smitten with it, we can hardly pry it off of her no matter how hot it is lol!

Happy Birthday to our bestest girl ever! We love you, Emilee!!!

Monkey Firsts

Sharin' our first day of school pictures...

Em up bright and early, ready for the bus to take her to 7th grade (which means she was "too cool" for mom to drive her as tradition has dictated on the first day haha)
Trevor, ready for all the fun and excitement of 5th grade, his last year of elementary school!

And Carter's "first" for the week was first time sleeping in a big boy bed! We said goodbye to his crib and moved him to the bottom bunk of Trevor's bed. We also *sniff-from-mom* said goodbye to afternoon naps since bedtime was becoming too much of a battle. So he's really, totally, officially a big boy now!!

Just for nostalgia fun...a pic of Carter 7 months old in his crib
and Carter today all snuggled into his bed for his first sleep as a big boy!

Monkey Teeth!!

So it's been a pretty eventful couple of weeks teeth-wise around here...

Trevor got top braces last week
Emilee got full braces today
And Carter had his very first visit to the dentist, complete with full cleaning with the "buzzy toothbrush."

Say cheese!

We got professional pictures done this week. I've really been wanting to get the kids in as they have some important outfits I wanted to preserve for posterity. We found Emilee this shirt that says "Total Girl 1997" a while back. We were so excited as she was born in '97 and she just loved the shirt. And Trevor and Carter finally got their first official matching outfit from their Grandma Cathy (it's so hard to find them matching things as they are in two differnt sizing zones)!

Here's our very grown up and beautiful girl...

And here's two crazy cute brothers...

And these shots were "just because." Target has had this motorcycle out in the foyer for weeks to entice parents to come in for a shoot. And thought it isn't my cup of tea exactly, Carter had been dying to get his picture on the motorcycle. So here's Rough Tough Biker Carter :-)

Summer is comin' to a close...

Since a "back to school" post is almost due (like TOMORROW!) I need to catch up with how we finished up summer vacation. These are not going to be in perfect order cuz I'm just gonna load 'em up quickly...

I don't exactly have an explanation for this one...except Carter was cracking us up with his method of looking through his viewmaster and I just had to share.
Carter has TOTALLY gotten into going to Lowe's Build and Grow workshops on Saturday. It's so cute to watch him use the little hammer and create a neat project.

The boys and I went to an indoor play land to let off some "it's too hot to play outside" steam. Carter loved the slide
and Trevor had a blast on the zipline!
So we had gotten our monthly coffee shipment and I'd opened the box and walked out of the living room and then heard "MOM!!!! LOOK AT MY TOWER OF COFFEE!!! TAKE MY PICTURE!!!" It's hilarious as he's been really annoyed when I pull out the camera lately and this pic is of his own prompting.
So my garden was a rough go this summer. We had ONE of about seven squash plants actually take off and fruit (and then unfortunately it met an accidental demise). And finally our pepper plants are starting to produce something. It's putting truth to the rumor that we'd heard that they love extreme hot and dry, as that's exactly what we've had for two straight weeks. My beans never really got anywhere, and my tomatoes are FINALLY starting to turn orange...
Emilee went to volleyball camp this summer and here's a pic of her working on her overhand shot. Stay tuned for more volleyball as her competitive school season starts next week.
Art stopped by for a visit as he drove through town with a load and took us out to lunch. It was great to see him!!

Carter and I enjoying a train ride at the local amusement park.
We were invited to a friend's birthday party at an ICE SKATING RINK. It doesn't seem like that big of a deal except it's been like 932 degrees outside for weeks (ok, mabye really only 105-110, but you catch I mean it's been HOT)...so it was AWESOME to go into a chilly ice skating rink and bundle up and have cool fun for an afternoon. It was also Carter's very first time on skates and he did great! They have these funny walker type thingies for toddlers and he loved hanging onto that while I zoomed him around the rink!
This is one of our family's favorite activities to do together...fishing! We are ZERO so far for the season, but we are having fun trying!!