San Antonio or Bust

So I've realized I've never gone back and posted vacation pics. So we'll begin with day one:

Little Lion was ready to go . . . this is about an hour before we left! They both were great travelers for the most part!

We made a pit stop at the Collin Street Bakery to pick up some goodies! I especially enjoyed having them for breakfast throughout the week! YUMMY!

We finally made it! Pop and Little Pumpkin posing on the Riverwalk. We took a long walk around the Riverwalk and had a late dinner at Casa Rio.

Day one ~ check!

You're getting sleepy... very sleepy ....

Soooo Excited

I'm skipping the hundreds of pics from vacation to bring you the most recent update:

Little Lion Went to School!!!!

Can you see the excitement!?! He ran the entire way from the car to the school building! Which was quite a ways . . . everyone was dropped off today I think!

Leading the way to his classroom. He did so well, he remembered without any hesitation.

Now, I KNOW you can see the anticipation! He had just said "I am SO excited!"

Little Lion found himself right at home with a buddy from preschool. So good to at least have one familiar face. Although I know he would have had NO trouble . . . just like his grandfathers: never meets a stranger!

These were the only tears this morning! They came along with "I stay at bake's skool." She was consoled with the fact that she starts school in two weeks and a shopping excursion!

Yes, we went shopping!

Mark has already threatened to take away my credit cards when she goes to school in a few years! What?!?! There's nothing wrong with a day trip to Vegas! *wink*

A sweet reward for a GREAT DAY at Kindergarten! So proud of him. I asked him: "So, how was it?!?" His reply: "It was SO fun."

Praisin' Jesus for a awesome first day ~ may he never loose his enthusiasm!

Hungry Hippo, Swim Lessons, & Potty Training

Wow! August is midway just about and where have I been! Obviously I keep taking pics to blog ~ just not getting the second part done! SO, here I am today. . . we leave for vacation soon and I know I'll have a TON from that! So here is the first half of August in a nutshell:

I'm in the kitchen fixing dinner. I'm hearing Little Lion playing the Wii happily (his favorite pastime lately), and Little Pumpkin is playing with her flashlight. It's a hippo that has this ridiculous laugh. Next thing I hear is "Look Mommy". I come around the corner to this sight:

Yes, that is my daughter's favorite doll with it's head inside the hippo's mouth! Should I worry?!?

She was SO proud!

Little Lion did his second set of swim lessons with Ms. Carla!

I think we might just get that stroke down after all!

Little Pumpkin was less than photographic! She is refusing to put her strap up on her shoulder! Whose child is this anyway?

Okay, I take it all back! What a sweet pic!

Another good shot of the arm!

He does so much better with his back stroke! Look out Michael Phelps! *wink*

Little Lion with his swimming bud Luke!

Underwater pics ~ soon to come! We have to finish the roll first!

Next if you've been reading my infrequent postings, we've been working on the whole potty thing with Little Pumpkin. Along with this comes the "I do it" phase! So, we try to give her as much freedom as possible ~ AFV here we come!

She is doing great except for the pooping! So thanks to Chia Lu, we had a new approach.

On Sunday we went to the store and let her pick out a "big" toy. She picked a purple pony with the understanding that the purple pony stayed in the box until she went poop on the potty. Well, it worked!

While celebrating my mom's b-day she came running to me crying with one had over her mouth and the other over bottom! (it was hilarious) But she went in the potty!

This was definitely a hit! She played with that pony forever ~ not even a fuss at nap time!

Sidenote: Pony is back up on the freezer; hoping to come down again when she poops on the potty again ~ NOT in her panties! *grin*

Yes Little Pumpkin, God Does Love You!

This is from Pop's camera last night, sorry, I didn't have time or facilities to edit!

This is generally to the tune of "Jesus Loves Me"

Daddy Lion

A year is WAY too long!

On Saturday, we loaded up and headed out to the middle of no-where! *grin* Ms. Lesa was my mom's best friend from, well, birth probably! Her daughter and I are only months apart. And our boys are only months apart. So it was fun to head out to Ms. Lesa & Mr. Joe's land for a time to reconnect!

My mom and Ms. Lesa! I just loved this picture.

Yes, there was a pool involved! God was so good to hold the rain off for the kids to swim. They had an absolute blast!

Little Pumpkin ~ no fear! I was so impressed that she left the floaties on. She did a great job getting to where she wanted to go though! I wasn't planning on the weather actually letting us swim, so I didn't bother to pack a suit for myself or Daddy Lion! I think they had MORE fun without us!

Now, I know this is Mr. C.

And I think this is Mr. JC. Crystal, you can let me know ~ when they are wet and in the same suits I really don't know how you even tell them apart! *wink* Such fun boys. Can't wait for our next trip out!

Little Pumpkin was done with the pool before the boys. So Ms. Lesa let her decorate some cookies! I think she would have sat there and decorated all 4 dozen!!!

Okay I am for sure it's Mr. C, Mr. JC and Little Lion. I just have to have them both looking at me! *grin*

Little Pumpkin's favorite animal is the cow! SO we HAD to go check out Mr. Joe's cows! I'm so excited ~ we'll for sure be going back in October sometime to see the calves! Who knows, maybe this is one step closer to our own cattle ranch someday! *wink*

The boys finally made it to decorating cookies ~ it didn't last as long. Funny thing, they only wanted to decorate what they could eat, and we had to limit that!

Such concentration! I have been informed that I have warped my kids though. Neither one of them wanted to touch the cookie while they worked on it. (Didn't want to get their hands messy.) Hey, my laundry is easy! *smile*

Had to leave you all with this one! Little Pumpkin can mesmerize ~ how in the world did she talk two grown men into blowing bubbles for her?!? It was a great little trip and I'm still in shock that I don't have a single picture of the reason I went! Crystal's precious little baby girl Miss. C! I held her as much as I could ~ even put her to sleep once. We will NOT let another year go by before we get together again! Thanks so much for the fun memories. . . look forward to making more together!

Happy Birhtday to POP!

Yesterday was Pop's bday and no bday can go by without a celebration! Little Pumpkin loved saying happy birthday to POP! Just imagine it in a very loud 2 year little girl voice! *grin*

We found the perfect card for Pop! The inside said "This is your brain on cake."

No one take your eyes off the cake! I think they were a little excited about cake!

Now look at me, but still Little Lion was not about to take his eyes of that cake. I think he was measuring the strawberries to decide which one he wanted! *wink*

We had a great time celebrating! Thanks for sharing your special day with us Pop!

Potty Time

No, I didn't mean party! We (and by we I mean Little Pumpkin) has finally shown some consistent interest in the potty! PRAISIN' JESUS! I think I see a light at the end of the diaper boxes.

Now I don't want to jinx myself, but she seems to respond well to excessive praise! (Don't we all.) Anyway, she just looked too cute today on the big girl potty to not snap a pic.

Here's hoping our last box of diapers has been purchased and if I'm lucky my last box of pull-ups too! *fingers crossed*

Credit where credit is due!

We are walking out the door for waterbabies! But needed to set things straight! I've had so many sweet comments on the great pic of Little Pumpkin. Thank you ~ BUT my sweet friend Mer not only took the great pic; she also did ALL the photo editing! (Yes, I got her hooked on Photoshop!)

On a quick note also: I have to give a great big shout out to Mer again for watching Little Pumpkin and to Jaime for keeping Little Lion while Daddy Lion and I slipped out of town for a relaxing celebration of 12 years! WOW! That doesn't seem possible.

What a great weekend thanks to everyone who made it happen!

Sweet Pic

Wow, we are on the go! This week Little Pumpkin has been in waterbabies (a mommy and me swim class). She rocks! I think even our teacher was a little taken aback with her advancements. She is doing a perfect sit dive and going to the bottom of the shallow for the ring! Can you tell I'm one proud Mommy Lion? *wink*

During class today Little Lion hung out with Alligator and her fam.

It helps so much not to have the distraction for Kate of where Blake is and what he is doing! Because she wants to be right there doing it too! *grin*

After lessons, we all hung out at the little pool and had lunch. My sweet friend Mer snapped this great shot of Little Pumpkin:

Shout out to Lolly!

Okay so I didn't post about these fun pics from last weekend b/c I didn't have them! But now I do! If you know Lolly, you know she loves her nails! And she is passing that along to the next generation in Little Pumpkin.

Every time we are over there, Little Pumpkin heads right for the drawers (yes that is plural) of nail polish and is picking her color. So, I expected nothing less than fancy nails when we picked them up last Saturday. Yeah, red with bows, well except for the last two that she decided needed to be flowers. (Those are my moms with the red, white and blue!)

Lolly was taking pictures and told Little Pumpkin to wink for her. (She can do it so well; Little Lion still blinks both eyes!) Anyway, she got this adorable shot of her:

And like every other time, Little Pumpkin replied immediately with "me see" and found the picture to be faulty since she wasn't winking and demanded a retake!

Such the photo critic! Thanks again Lolly and Pop. The kids love being there!

Extended Weekend Activities

Friday was the last day of swim lessons. (This session anyway.) Little Lion is doing so well.

Aren't those some great kicks!

Daddy Lion was off work, so he was able to join us! One proud Daddy he was. Of course Little Pumpkin was there to cheer on brother. She has done so well at being patient with the lessons ~ really has blown me away considering the first day was a nightmare!

He jumped off the diving board and did his backstroke ALL the way to the shallow end! What a trooper ~ not sure I could do that!

Afterwards, we hit the firework stand! Love the fourth of July in TX! We tried out our day parachutes right away!

The were a hit. The kids are so compliant for posing ~ just not smiling! *wink*

Friday evening Lolly and Pop watched the kids overnight so we were able to have much needed and long time coming date night! Of course the kids were thrilled:

The awesome hot wheels track complete with a curve!

The curve made the cars come right back to them! LAZY Americans! *wink*

They even set it back up for us on Saturday to show us the action; I must admit it was really fun!

Short story behind this pic! Pop has those large magnets that the kids love to play with. There are come that are spheres; some that our oblong in shape; and some that are little cylinders. Little Lion put the 2 spheres on top of the 2 cylinders and called it a ice cream cone. "Me too" is Little Pumpkins motto! She walked around with those magnets forever pretending to lick her ice cream cone! Seriously, it's the simple things in life!!!

Our traditional IHOP breakfast on the fourth and a night of fireworks, potluck and only a small fire! We had a great fourth ~ somehow I managed to not get a family pic or even a picture of fireworks! Oh well, we were having too much fun making memories! Hope you did too!