The Pit

Sadie can eat more in a day than a teenage boy! She is constantly eating! This is what I do about 22 times a day...


"Sadie, what are you doing?"....


"Sadie, get out of the pantry!!"...

"Mama, I NEED a snack!!"...

She's spotted something she likes...

Bringing me her find...

"Mama, can you open this for me?"...

Now, if I don't open it she will either 1) throw a monumental fit complete with screaming and tears or 2) sneak it into another room and shake and attack it until it opens up and spills its contents on the floor.

The other day I even thought I would outsmart and out maneuver her and put a chair in front of the pantry door. Nope, a few minutes later I hear her sliding the chair across the floor to open the door.

My Budding Photographer

Elijah's new favorite thing to do is take pictures with my camera. I let him take about 30 before I make him stop and after weeding thru them there are usually a couple good ones.


A few weeks ago we stopped by my friend Keri's house for lunch and to actually see each other outside of work. While we talked and the babies played Elijah started snapping pictures...

This is PJ...


And this is Jeffrey. He wasn't sure what to think about Sadie and Elijah and all the noise they were making...

This is Keri. Sorry Keri, but you made the face so I feel obligated to share it...

in Keri's defense, Elijah did ask her to make a silly face.

Don't you just want to nibble on those cheeks!...

Some of his more artistic shots...

Camp Bandina 2010

This year the kids and I went to camp with Beau again. This year was much better for a few reasons...
1. I wasn't nursing a 3 month old
2. I wasn't the only nurse
3. We have lived here longer than a week so I actually know people now (who I can pawn my kids off on!


One day it poured and poured and poured. There was so much rain and I didn't realize til 3 days later the windows in my car were down. nice. Anyway, the kids were a little bored after being stuck in the nurse's cabin for a few hours and Sadie took it upon herself to entertain...

Elijah got to go swimming in the river almost every day thanks to the other nurse, Deanna (who got to go swimming since I had the afternoon shift) and our friend David, the lifeguard. It was so nice of them and Elijah loves to swim now. Go figure.

He thinks he's so funny!

This is David and Elijah. Of course Elijah wanted to take a silly face picture...

This is what we drove around all week (and that is Deanna driving). Everyone else had little golf carts. Beau and I have decided we have got to get us one of these mules...so much fun!!

One of the great girls who helped me take care of Sadie, Madeley...

This camp has a banquet night on Friday. This year was The 80's. It was so much fun and since I love dressing up in costumes we had a great time!

My little 80's chick rockin' the side ponytail!!....

Complete with over-sized shirt, tied on the side, tights, and leg warmers....

Sorry the pics aren't very good, she wouldn't stand still. She just kept running towards me...

Elijah was preppy. He had his collar flipped up, a cardigan, too-short khaki shorts (they are actually Sadies's size 18 months!) and of course socks with his sandals...

Dancing to some Tiffany and other great 80's music...

My girl and I...

This guy was hilarious...

Beau was dressed like a New Kid on the Block...aren't we cute!!

We had a great time, but I'm so happy to be home. When we were heading home on Saturday I was thinking how it is my favorite day of the year! The last day of summer (activity wise, not weather wise)!! I know there are so many people who love summertime, but I don't. I like the school year for so many more reasons...

1. I love having a consistent routine. I like mixing things up some, but I really like knowing what every day and every week holds.

2. I like having Beau home. He's got some day and weekend trips planned, but that's nothing like having him gone all week.

3. I loathe the hot weather.

More later...

Summer Fun Winding Down

Last week we had another Kid Club event. I thought it was the last one, but noticed in the announcements Sunday we have another one next week. I should know that, I'm the one that planned it! Ha! Anyway, we went to Peter Piper Pizza. They had Christmas in July. We had pizza, games, a craft and ice cream. The kids had a blast.

Sadie enjoying some ice cream. She's getting really good at feeding herself...



When I took it away from her...

Sadie entertained herself while Elijah and I worked on our craft...

I thought there were tokens included in our price so I didn't buy Elijah any when we got there. By the time I realized we weren't getting any I was going to buy some but he didn't even need any. He "played" the same game the whole time and loved it!...

I know my mom is going to get onto me, but I wouldn't buy Sadie tokens to ride the train, but hey, she didn't know it was supposed to move. She had a great time just sitting on it. I know, I'm so cheap!...

But she didn't care!

So much so that when I made her get off...

The next day was our last library day. It was the zoo day. The zoo keepers brought a few little animals, mostly things you find in your backyard, but Elijah didn't care. They could have just shown pictures of animals and he would have loved it...

Showing the kids a ferret...

Funny story: At one point the Zookeeper tells all the children to be really quiet. She then instructs some people to shut the doors and guard them. Then she says, "If the animal gets loose don't scream, just tuck into a ball and don't try to touch it." At this point all the moms are looking around with worried looks on their faces. I saw a flash of me in the future yelling "A dingo ate my baby!!" Ha! It was just a parrot and they said it sometimes flies off. Nice.


Reading some books at the library after the show...

"Mom, I think I'll take this one"...

Kadesh 2010

Last week Beau took a group of kids to Camp Kadesh in Abilene. The kids and I tagged along so we could see family, friends and not have to go a week without seeing Beau! It was a long week, but we had a great time.

Sunday we left town after church and drove to Stephenville for Cale's 2nd birthday party. After getting our party on we got back in the car and drove to Abilene.

Monday we hung out all day, then met some family for dinner. Beau didn't get to come, but I was able to go to my all time favorite restaurant...Abuelos! Mmmmm...

JoCarol gave Elijah all the change she had in her purse for him to throw into the fountain and she taught him to make a wish...

The funniest thing of the night was what Elijah called JoCarol. I guess when we talk about that family we say "Mark and JoCarol". As in, "we're going to Abilene to see Mark and Jocarol" or "We're going to dinner with Mark and JoCarol". Well, Mark was there, but Elijah kept calling JoCarol "MarkandJoCarol" like that was her name! It was really funny.

After dinner we went back to Mark and JoCarol's house. They live on a really pretty golf course and we took a long walk all around the grounds. We were even able to see some wildlife at the pond...

Tired from our long walk...

Sadie LOVED Josh. I mostly think it was because she loves her dad so much and just knows he's handsome so she was drawn to another handsome, dark haired man. She just hugged and hugged him...


Tuesday we met some friends, Meg and Zack and their 3 sons at Mary's Palateria for some Mexican Ice Cream. It is another Abilene favorite of ours!

Wednesday JoCarol took us to the Country Club for swimming and lunch. Now that Elijah has a life jacket he is all about swimming and Sadie LOVES the water so they had a blast. I wasn't able to get many pictures because Sadie would just take off and jump in the water if I let go of her. No fear...

Wednesday night the kids and I also got to go to mine and Beau's old church. It was fun to see some of our old friends and let them meet our babies.

Thursday we met Lindsey and Jackson at the children's museum for some playtime and then continued our playtime at Burger King for lunch...

Riding in the ambulance...

Putting on a show on stage...





This sound wall was so neat. Every different piece of wood made a sound when you touched it. I think I had as much fun on it as the kids...

Thursday afternoon we walked about a block from our dorm at ACU to "Grandpa" and "Mimi's" house. They are the grandparents of a girl in our youth group and "Grandpa" collects trains. Our friend Traci, their daughter told us we HAD to go see the "town". Elijah loved it!

His face after seeing the trains!...

Elijah even got to push some buttons and control some of the trains...

We laugh that Sadie can sense a "Mimi" from a mile away. She doesn't care at all that they are complete strangers. She will walk up to them and crawl in their lap or put her arms up for them to pick her up. I'm talking about random strangers in restaurants, the grocery store, a parking lot...And thats exactly what she did when we walked in the door. She walked right up to Mimi and got in her lap...

"Come on Mimi, lets go find some toys"...

Posing with Haley, one of the youth group girls that they love....

After I showed them the face Elijah made in the picture...

Friday morning we went over to my friend Candice's house to play with her daughter and let us moms catch up (Candice was one of my bridesmaids). We attempted to get a picture of the kids and we weren't very successful.

Elijah age 3, Ryleigh age 2 and Sadie age 1...

The girls...Sadie was hungry and so over picture time (hence the snarl)...

One of Elijah's new favorite things is to take pictures with my camera. He asked if he could take a picture of Candice and I. I think he did a pretty good job!...

Then we went to another of my Abilene favorites, Alley Cats, for lunch...

My sassy, lovable, sensitive, precious, bossy, little angel...(don't look directly into those big brown eyes, they'll melt your heart!)...

We left camp on Friday night and went back to Stephenville for the night. The kids swam and played Saturday morning and then we drove back home and arrived just after Beau and the kids got back. It was a busy week!!

We were SO tired when we got home!! But, it was so much fun to see so many of the people we love and we're already talking about our next trip to Abilene!