Procrastinating

This blogging stuff can really keep you busy. You know, becoming everyone's follower and finding cool ways on other peoples sites that I can change my own. I can spend hours doing this stuff and avoid doing the things I really need to be doing like laundry. How can I love clothes so much and hate laundry so much? It's my nemesis!

Here's a sweet picture of Emma and Chris. I love that she's such a Daddy's girl. Somehow it makes me feel really good for him (although I have to admit I do feel a little like "hey what am I chopped liver, I'm only the one you spend like 99% of your time with"). But, seriously it really is sweet.

The New School Year

Blake has been back in school for two weeks now and she's loving it again. This is her third year at the Children's Weekday Program (CWP) at our church. She goes to school two days a week just like last year. I've really been enjoying her enthusiasm when she's describing her day. She loves school and I love having a little one on one time with Emma (and a few moments during that time by myself when she's napping), so everyone wins when the school year begins. On a funny note: she calls her class the "4-year-old class" and for a while there this summer she was convinced her birthday was magically going to coincide with the first day of school. I was finally able to help her understand that she's actually in the 3-year-old class and she just happens to have a birthday that comes early in the school year (only three weeks to go before the big 4 birthday she's been looking forward to for so long now).

Here are some pics of her on the first day and little sister striking a pose in her apple dress in honor of the first day of school (Blake had some apples on her dress too and I seem to be getting more and more into the whole "twinning" thing or at least coordinating).

Summer Recap

Since I was such a terrible blogger this summer I decided to do one big post to recap our summer (sorry to overload with so much at once). I did already post a few of our activities over the past few months, but the photos below pretty much cover everything else. I also thought it was time to give my blog a new look for the new season (even though its not really fall yet I'm eager to start enjoying my favorite season). It still might change, but this is what I settled on for now. I'm going to try to get back to my goal of posting at least once a week now that the summer is over.

These pictures include a trip to the American Girl store and cafe with our friends Elizabeth, Caroline and new baby Ike. This is Blake and Caroline enjoying ice cream sundaes with one of the loaner dolls the restaurant gives the girls to eat with. The next photos are of a party at our friends Amy and Jon's house. Amy and I have known each other since junior high and the photos show Emma along with Amy's daughter and the daughters of two other friends from junior high and high school, Lyndsay and Erin. How funny is it that the four of us all have little girls so close in age!? The last one in this group is of Blake at her first day of ballet class this summer.































































The next photos are of Emma at Gymboree where she and I participated in a baby class once a week while Blake took an art class. Then you see Emma and Blake playing with their cousin Rylie at her house in Houston while we stayed there for a week with Rylie's parents Justin and Kathy. We had a great time! After Houston we went on to Galveston and these other pictures show the girls on the beach playing and in Emma's case taking a little nap on Mommy.























































































The girls had so much fun on their first trip to Build-a-bear for Barrett's 3rd birthday this summer. Blake made "Princess Panda" and had fun playing with friends while Emma watched patiently wondering when she's gonna get do all this big kid stuff. The other pictures here are of Blake with her cousin Robert and Great-Uncle Grady on a swan boat at Fair Park and Emma with Great-Aunt Tracy. The other picture is of Robert and Blake milking a fake cow at the Science Place museum in the children's area. By the way, what an awesome museum for kids! I can't wait to go back with Chris. I hadn't been in such a long time and they've changed a lot.



























































In these photos a dragon is trying to sneak into the castle of the beautiful Princess Blake and her loyal servants Daddy and Emma. The feared dragon Paris is pretty successful as you can see she has breeched the walls with her giant fire breathing head. I think next time Daddy and Blake are going to have to build a stronger fort. Blake loves to make the fort about keeping Paris out. The other photos are of the wonderful trip Chris and I took to Palm Springs, California in August. You may be wondering why the first couple of photos don't look like a desert with Palm trees. It's because those were taken in the super-cool town of Idylwild about an hour up in the mountains. The last photo is what we saw the rest of the time we were there. It was beautiful and so relaxing. It was AWESOME!!!




























































Blake did a lot of swimming this summer. By the end of the summer she is now swimming on her own without any floaties. She even swims with her face down in the water. We're really proud of her progress and she's so proud of herself. I guess those two sessions of swim lessons this summer really helped. Emma's big accomplishments of the summer were certainly growing, crawling, standing and learning something new every day. Here are some pictures of her standing, playing and just plain being cute.






























































If you made it through all of that, WOW, you must really love us so thank you! We had a great summer and I am glad to have finally had a chance to share it with everybody.