Playing School

The kids started with 34 students today, but ended with 33. Unfortunately brown bear had his clip moved to horrible and had to go home. While Austin was reading, white bear was put on the "not so good" level but thankfully his behavior changed and he was able to stay.

They did add one more student to the class.

Maybe you can see it better here.

Luckily he was a pretty happy student.

One month old

Here is Cole at one month - such a happy baby!

He is doing wonderfully if I do say so myself. He is pretty much anti-nap during the day like his brother and sisters, although sometimes he will take a 2 hour nap in the afternoon. I remember the other kids as newborns sleeping a lot more than he does! I think he is finally starting to get some meat on his bones too. He loves (and prefers) to be held. He typically wakes up during the night once - somewhere between 1:30 and 4:00 depending on his last feeding, then he has a hard time going back to bed so he sleeps on top of me on the upstairs couch and sometimes I can go back to sleep. Yeah, probably not a good routine to get into but it works for now.

Cole got his first cold this week. The kids did gymnastics last week and I'm pretty sure that's where Abby got her cold from. No matter how hard I tried to keep them apart, he ended up getting it. It really stinks because I don't take them very many places to avoid all the germs and he still ended up getting sick! The poor little guy was miserable, but I think he's finally starting to feel better. He really doesn't like getting his nose suctioned out! Although James finds it rewarding in a bizarre sort of way. Ah, the little things in life...

Here they are both feeling better.


So we haven't been up to anything too terribly exciting. Just tons of swimming. Even in the rain. The kids thought it was so fun to let the rain hit them. You would have thought it was raining chocolate.

We had several bell peppers come in. This one went into chicken enchiladas.

Abby decided to glue stick a bunch of tooth drawings downstairs one day while we were upstairs. And when I say a bunch - I mean like 12. And when I say glue stick - I mean REAL GLUE on the walls. Good thing she's cute. :)

I will say Abby gets more into things than any other kiddo in our house - she tied this toy to her leg and we couldn't get it off. She dragged it along with her for quite awhile. Not a happy camper, ha!

James, Austin, and I participated in the national spelling bee. We each had our own sheet so we couldn't cheat off each other's work. We didn't get one word right, but were pretty close on a few. Yes, I am aware we are dorks.

See how exciting we are these days?

I signed us up for Netflix before Cole was born and it has been awesome. Pretty much James and I watch Dexter (so good!) on the Netflix DVDs every night before Cole's last feeding, and then I watch something during the middle of the nights. You can even watch some of the shows and movies on the Wii - very cool. It saves me from watching the horrid infomercials - there are some really strange things out there being sold.

I am totally stoked to be going back to my first spinning class tomorrow! The last time I went to the gym was on May 1st so it's about time! The kids and I have been looking forward to that all week. We are also celebrating father's day! Actually James informed me it is Father's Day weekend, so I guess we'll be celebrating him all weekend long :)

Saturday smiles

Happy boy on a Saturday afternoon... he enjoyed watching the World Cup with the family today. Although the U.S. goal was a little weak in his opinion.

Beauty and the Beast

Abby's first attempt at a sleepover with Cole. It lasted about 5 minutes.

Sunday Pictures

I finally got around to changing my blog design! James helped me with the banner on top - obviously. There's no way me and my non-creative self did that one.

Speaking of creative - look at what Austin's 1st grade teacher made for Cole. She made him several bibs and burp clothes (and even a onesie) with his name and either Longhorn or TTU stuff on them. Super cute!! I wish I could do things like this. And plus she's an Aggie, so that must have been pure torture putting these together :)

It is officially summer at our house. Austin's school ended last week much to his dismay. He wanted to stay in school all summer. I don't blame him - the 2 days last week we all spent together wasn't very exciting. I think the highlight was going through the McDonald's drive-thru. We did go swimming and Grammy came over for one day. It takes forever to feed Cole and by the time we leave the house it's almost time to feed him again. I also had a minor setback in my recovery - my incision got infected. Yuck. I got some antibiotics and am starting to feel better. This week we have a few more things planned - like the library and parent's day out at gymnastics. I'm definitely looking forward to the "here and there" days James plans to take off this summer!

We took the kids out to take pictures this morning. Here are a few of them.

This one cracks me up. Can you tell James is hiding behind the kids holding Cole up? Very sneaky.

Gotta love Abby and her faces.

Abby's baby pictures... by Abby

Baby Abby. Why the frown?

Baby Emily

Baby mom

Baby dad

Baby Austin... the only one in our family that takes on a human form.

Baby Kim... very interesting choice with the belly button.

Baby Saffron

and finally... baby Cole. Yikes! HA!

Memorial Day Fun

We took our first family outing with Cole to the park. Unfortunately it was already 85 degrees by 9:30 so we didn't stay longer than 30 minutes.


Still no neck muscles. Mr. Floppy in his carseat.

Here's Austin in the huge soccer field. James and Austin played for a little while. Unfortunately, they had to play with Emily's pink and silver ball. The boys made it work.

This park had a butterfly garden, except there were no butterflies to be found. Only bees.

The kids swam all weekend, and even got to swim in the dark. They loved the different colored lights... green, pink, blue, red... James had visions of entertaining people when he ordered those fancy lights. Well, his dream has come true... :)


The girls about to pick our first ripe tomatoes! We got to them before the birds, and trust me - the mockingbirds have been eyeing them. Can Abby's hair get any higher?? Can you say Pebbles Flintstone?

Here's Emily with the first tomato. And if you look hard, there's a duck whispering in her ear. "Gimme that tomato."

You have no idea how many plans I have for these 2 tomatoes. Good thing we have a bunch more coming! That pepper by the tomatoes in our first chocolate pepper, except it's supposed to the size of a bell pepper and brown. We picked it way too early. Oops!

The first plan is having BLTs.... which require homemade dill onion bread - James' mom's recipe. So good! Unfortunately we forgot the salt. You have no idea how important salt is - oh well. It still tastes okay.

Popsicles taste better when sharing. They had a blast in the pool this weekend. Their dad is pretty sore though! I can't get in the pool until my incision is completely healed - bummer!

Austin and Cole falling asleep together again. These are the only times I have seen Austin nap in the last several years.